Hey, this is Jason overcome Redmond. Thanks for tuning into the Jr. Overcome show. If you love this show we would love for you to do us a huge favor. Go to iTunes subscribe leave a five star review. Leave a comment and share with your friends. Everybody wants to be on top of the problem. Nowadays is people want to get dropped off at the top of the hill. I'm just that I overcome mindset that makes all the difference. Either way. We're taught is you're going to call your to scratch gonna bite. You're going to dig you're going to do whatever it takes to. Get to the top of that mountain that unequivocally is how I have managed to keep myself moving forward and finding success to seals One mission the Jr. Overcome show and welcome back to the chair overcome show. This is episode 13. We are rocking and rolling along and I got to tell you man though a little bit Ray. What's up, brother? You and I are we both are dragging a little bit because we have been on the go and burn. But dude, we've been burning at both ends. We've been burning the candle in the middle shits on fire all the rest. You look like you you look like I feel you look like shit right now. So rare a flu the red-eye back from viva Las Vegas Shot Show succeed and I flew back. I was up about 3:00 a.m. To I was at the airport at five to fly back from Dallas for some things I going on there. So we are in go time mode and a tell me about shot. How is shot Shamir had a bunch of people taxpaying like dude, where are you? And I couldn't make SHOT show this year, but I definitely will be out there next year and force but Ray you had some good times. I saw that you saw that you got under the grasp of a legendary MMA expert world-renowned. Who did you meet I met the goat. I met Royce Gracie. I've actually met him a few times. We had some fun. You know, he's out. He's a big shooter. I don't know. If a lot of people know that they're not so I introduced him to one of the Optics companies that Answer me. What company is i that's right on Optics right on top too good stuff good stuff. And I hooked him up with some individuals and got him some some guns that go boom. Boom and we had some fun. I was signing autographs true story. I'm going to tell the guests this we're not going to be the guest is yet and he's gonna mystery. It's a mystery mystery man. The mystery man. I was signing some autographs. Mr. Gracey come by. And yes, I still call. Mr. Gracey 52 years old. He's an animal and I signed one of my things and it's Ed Royce. I taught you everything you know about bjbj love cash and he read it because all I taught you how to shoot and he if you guys go to my Instagram page, you'll see it he gave me a choke out and then when he read what I wrote he was like, oh really? So he locked it in a little harder and start to put your face was definitely a little red when you tapped out. It was great. You know, it's good. But on a serious note I hung out with him. I was hanging out with a Dakota Meyer hanging out with real-world tactical The Who's Who of the industry Bill Goldberg one of the nicest people I've met he's with Lamb, they did the new show. They're doing the new show with a fortune fire forged steel the knife show. They're great guys. You name it man. We were hanging out. We were working all day networking and I was burning it pretty late at night catching up with Shawn ran a few other guys that we want the buds. Well nice, man, and it's funny because time just before I knew it it was Wednesday. It was time to go home and I realized when I got two hours of sleep, so I'm not pissed off today. I'm just tired but great times Shot Show is heh? Epic if it's literally reunions of just the Brotherhood and here I am now a 5-hour Energy drink. And yes, even though I'm a fitness Guru I actually had tacos and a soda to try to stay awake today. So shame on me will work it off in the Jocko soda and a 5-hour Energy drink them from a mess. Hey, but it's all about getting back on course and that is what this show is about. It is about leadership. It is about overcoming, you know, at the end of the day. Nobody is perfect. Even Ray cash care as much as he wants to tell you. He's perfect. He's shut your mouth. Not sure he's really Actually speaking and sometimes sometimes even read cash care has to get back on track. So that's what life's about it's about driving forward. It is about leading always and recognizing that sometimes when you get a bit a little bit off course, there's nothing wrong with that. You just pull your compass back out and you go. Hey, man, what am I goals? Where am I going? And that is what this show is about We are continuing on this idea this culture of success in 2019. We are interviewing amazing people with amazing. Amazing Story hours stories who are out there making a difference. So so yeah, I want to jump into that today and Ray today as we always have the word of the day. What is the word of the day today? The word of the day sir is trust. I say again trust so the definition of trust and again ladies and gentlemen, we always talk about I'm taking this right off the Webster's Dictionary and then obviously our special guest tells you how the word resonates with him or her and what it means to them but You have confidence in something or to believe in someone interesting truss amazing word when it comes to leadership and team. So I'm going to kick it over to our new guest but first I want to introduce this individual in the legendary Jr. Overcomes shall fashion this individual. I got to tell you the very first time I met this individual and how he introduced himself so many years ago. I was on the battlefields and Iraq and I was shot by an enemy sniper and killed. This was the way he introduced himself and you listen to that and you're like wait a minute man. You're standing on stage talking to us, but it is such a powerful statement and the journey that he went through from crushing through this moment to an incredibly low point in his life struggling with so many of the demons that are out there and then driving forward and finding success and helping to heal people through so many of the things he's doing is absolutely mind-blowing. He is a friend of mine. He is a leader out there. Making a difference and other people he is a number one best-selling author and we're going to be getting into all of that. He is delivered hundreds of talks. He's been featured on CNN Fox News the Oprah Winfrey Network Network. He has done a tedx talk. He is out there getting his degree right now and he is making a difference. He has worked for some major companies you want this guy to come out and speak for your company. He speaks on emotional resiliency. He speaks on a emotional leadership. He is speaks on the asymmetric mind which is his company as the CEO and leader delivering amazing training and Consulting to companies across the country he is well, he is a West Point grad will let that slide. You know, I know I mean he's been kicking our ass. Once again. I'm going to reiterate we're letting that happen by this guy is incredible and everything. He speaks on I'm going back to the foundation of our word. Day, it's built upon trust. So ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to introduce the author of the beauty of a darker sole CEO and founder of asymmetric mind LLC the legendary reborn twice dead. Major Josh moths. Yeah very welcome to General overcome show. So we're gonna kick things off Fast and Furious man. Trust is the word of the day. You have nailed it. You have said trust is the foundation of everything. I teach Josh what does trust me into you? And let's kick off our first discussion, you know, it's such a such a powerful word write a single word that we hear all the time. Right? But what what really happens when we trust someone right is we're becoming vulnerable with that person. Right and we're surrendering that vulnerability of ourselves with the expectation that the person Putting our trust in is going to honor that respect that right. And the the point here is that any leader at any Echelon in any context is is charged with that responsibility, right? So it's much more than word here. It's a concept that's infused with in every dimension of leadership within every organization now and and something that any leader should cherish if If their subordinates are willing to trust them a lot of people, I don't think think about that a lot of people don't think and it's just inherent and Leadership and its inherent and teams, you know, Ray and I go all the way back to the very beginning going through buds together and it literally it was that trust that enabled us to know that that guy next to me. He was he had his he was carrying the weight. His head was under that boat. He was helping he was encouraging it was the trust that we knew that no matter how bad things got the guy to the right and left for me was still going to be there and that Throughout our military careers Josh. I know you felt it and I can't think of any higher levels of trust than the incident that you incurred on the battlefield when your team literally brought you back and and to the combat support hospital and then the trust in the team that tried to save your life. I want to go back and I want you to tell that story because it is such a powerful story and it really is a story of trust because those individuals they went past. First they went past key points that really they were beyond the normal benchmarks of trying to save somebody for all intents and purposes. They should have stopped because according to Medical knowledge. They would have said hey this guy's dead. There's no way he's going to come back and be okay and literally whatever reason they the trust they had and you the trust they had in their skills. They said we're going to keep going so hey man, take us back to that day 2006 Iraq the day that forever changed. Stirred life. Yeah, so that was a is actually April of 2007, you know, just a couple months before you were hit J. You know, enemy sniper engaged us killed my senior non-commissioned officer staff sergeant Marlon Harper and then ricocheted into my upper right thigh and severed of my femoral artery. So the the very brief version of this is Essentially, I have full recollection of this entire experience and until the point that I took my last breath and and flatlined about 30 minutes later. This was occurring in North Eastern Baghdad. Very close to sadr City at the time of the surge. Right kind of arguably the most, you know, the peak of combat operations in Iraq at least right? Yeah, and you know that day obviously our mission was grounded in counterinsurgency operations. Right where the commission essentially what was decisive in that environment was gaining trust with the local population in this chaotic environment. And you know that day we had just come off a humanitarian Patrol where we were delivering school supplies and closings to a bunch of kids in the local community and we got diverted from that Patrol to another part of the sector. And essentially we were we were learning it into a very complex Ambush very well executed Ambush using sniper fire and mortar rounds. And and that's that's basically what set the context for that day. We were myself and staff sergeant Harper out on the ground interviewing an Iraqi gentleman and and because of that were essentially fixed into place which is what the sniper used to exploit Us in that attack and insert what some people I don't know if they're familiar. Your they haven't been overseas but obviously femoral artery is a very dangerous animal if you get hit and statistics say individual can bleed out as quick as 20 seconds all the way to 2 minutes. So what I want to put in perspective is most people don't recover from something like this people have but a lot of things that have to be on your side to make this happen. I mean, you know, depending on the elevated heart rate how much the Bloods the heart's pumping. I mean, I actually lost a friend overseas who got hit so I can I can relate to this. He got hit in the leg and instead of you know, trying to take care of himself. What did he do? He stayed in the fight with his brothers about two minutes and five seconds later. He's no longer with us. So I just want people to understand the severity of you know, when they hear an injury femoral artery and this is a bullet and with all due respect that actually went through someone else and still did this type of damage. So you need to understand the caliber of which you know this in the, you know, the bullet size and trajectory and speed and just sheer power. What these these rounds can do to individuals, you know, I mean, so I don't want to interrupt you but I just want people to have a clear understanding of what the hell is going on with what you're saying. Yeah, I think that's an important point to draw out right this this was to our knowledge. At least this was the first time we saw a caliber this large used on dismounted troops. It was basically an anti-aircraft weapon that was converted into sniper rifle. So the it had that hit me first. I wouldn't even have a leg but to suggest that it went through Marlin first fused to his armor plate and then a chunk of metal about the size of my fist blew out my femoral artery basically down to the bone another another piece ripped off and actually Hit The Interpreter which is a minor minor injury, but you know, you can imagine in that moment. You know what strength I can really resonate with what you said about your friend too because that's that's really the spirit of the American servicemember right? Amen. Amen. Yeah, you know solutely it's and I kind of experienced that myself. This wasn't an intentional response. It was Instinct you'll but you know, my first reaction was to drag Marlon out of the way and started to perform a tan him basically until I passed out. Which is when my medic arrived. Wow, close to the two minute Mark, you know, and it's and Josh was that did you realize the severity of your injury at that time? Did you I mean, I'm sure you were like I got hit in the leg, but obviously, you know, it's a mess when we get hit we're just I mean we have no idea so you were just like I got hit but I gotta save Marlon now the body the body is amazing in these moments. You know it we Candace survival mode and you know, we've all heard of the fight flight freeze responses, right and and when our autonomic nervous system kicks in and our bodies just take over and that's really what happened. I had no idea that I was shot. I just knew that something felt a little wrong my sensory perceptions changed it sings sings fluctuated between slow motion time fast motion time auditory Distortion again, all this happening over the Man of about thirty seconds and you're sitting here and you know, you're really down playing it but I just think that Warrior mindset kicks in you know, and you know, there's hunters and gatherers and brother you're a hunter and I mean that there's two types of people in the world and when you see a brother down, I mean a lot of us can relate obviously I haven't been injured like that in battle, but you know, everything comes before you and that's not get emotional and it's rare that you see me get emotional, but I can I understand what you're going through because of what happened to my friend and obviously Jason. Continue, but people need to understand. I mean, these are life ending injuries and this shows and I'm sorry, I mean, it's all due respect sir. This SOB is still trying to pull his brother, you know to safety putting His own life at risk even more so which you know lights are going out. It's just a matter of when you blacked out, but I just wanted people understand in my eyes. This is anaerobic feet. And I know people like you and Jason go. No, it's not this is just every day at the office. But I mean ladies and gentlemen, you know, you got half your leg missing you've got, you know, you get femoral artery. You got two minutes to pretty much live and that's being kind and the first thing that you do is you're pulling your body off the X getting off the X. I love it and I just To give you so mad respect to you sir means a lot coming from you brother. Thank you. Well, it's interesting and I think is what's hard to conceptualize here is right when an injury like this takes happen. It happens and our bodies essentially going to automatic mode and take over emotionally. I look back on that and I'm grateful that I responded the way that I did. Now the question is what led to that, you know, and and this is this is what I think is even Even more important is that when we reach adverse moments like this and obviously this is an extreme example, but it applies across the board, right? It is attributed to the dedication the discipline the pursuit of of who we are in these professions, right and everything that leads up to that moment. The mind is predictive, right? The brain is predictive and and in those extreme moments it's going to do what it's been trained to do, right? And we find especially when we're on the verge of death. What is most important emerges right and everything else away. So I think that's a again, you know something that I say on the on the psychological trauma said something that I say is frequently is that you know psychological trauma. It's not about getting shot right? It's about the threat of getting shot. You know, it's not about it's not about being in a firefight. It's about the threat of being in a firefight, you know, it's this constant state of ambiguity intention that military personnel and First Responders live with it that they have to learn how to harness in order to thrive in these environments. That's what counts you know, and and when the time comes for something like this to happen, right we all of the training the dedication the discipline hopefully kicks in And a situation like this is revealed. Right and Josh and there's no doubt. It. Did your team jumped in you know, and unfortunately, they're really tough decisions that have to be made in battle decisions it sometimes carry lifelong emotional and mental scars. One of those decisions is they realize that your team leader wasn't was dead. There was no way that they could bring him back and that's a triage moment that Medics and leaders have to decide your unconscious. I think at this point you might have still had a faint pulse. And they basically loaded and took you directly to the combat support hospital at what point when they brought you in at that point where you already flatlined or did you flatline on the table? And then I know walk us through the sequence of what happened because it really is a testament to that team that worked on you because I guarantee in a normal environment. They probably would have stopped because you were past all benchmarks that said we should keep trying to save this. Guy, yeah, so let me take you through some remember when speaking of trust here. I don't know that there's a more powerful way to demonstrate it than this. You know, when I drug Marlin out of the way kind of dropped and I ripped off his gear right and then see this huge hole right? There is a order right just and a few seconds later my 19 year old medic arrived, right? And I think in that moment, even though not knowing that I was severely injured right but but something about me since the safety they came That medic and it kind of for whatever reason I collapsed to the ground due to blood loss at that point. So it's almost like a significations that I trusted that medic, you know, but but maybe even more important is as my team was dragging me into the nearest vehicle to evacuate me, you know, and we're in crisis mode, right? And I remember in that moment when I Collapse to the ground, I wasn't completely unconscious yet, but I went into what I can only He describes the state of subconsciousness for the next few minutes. And as I was in that Arie, very distinctly remember feeling like I was falling into a deeper and deeper sleep. Just relaxing, right? It was actually very peaceful and I kind of heard my team dragging me, you know, I could hear my body scraping along the desert floor and I just kept falling into a deeper and deeper sleep and I remember thinking in that moment. That there's nothing more that I can do that that my team has this it's in their hands, right? And then I think one of the most important things happened in that moment, and and one of my team members noticed I was about to go unconscious and yelled at me at the top of his lungs like come on Sir. Stay awake. And in that moment despite the condition I was in right I could hear the emotional pain in his voice, you know, all the other Grunts and groans of the team members came back into my conscious awareness and I realized in that moment that I was still the leader of that team right that I didn't I didn't have the right to just check out and fall asleep. Right I had to do / I could love it. You can relate to that I speak to that I can't relate to That but I mean the minute you said that I literally got chills because of Jason because he's told me some similar things. That's it's so amazing how your stories even though? They're so different. They're so alike where you can lie. I mean really it is your attitude and your mindset and just by you know, somehow figured out how to hang on, you know, it gives other strength right because that and on the battlefield those are such critical components. Hope is one of the most powerful forces that exist and to know that there is hope that A teammate is still trying to hang on and give everything. They got it'll drive other people to do amazing things and Josh. I really think it was hoped that drove that emergency room crew that combat support hospital because I just want people to understand this story. I 5 I am blown away by this story because this story easily could have turn once or twice they started working on you when they got into the operating room and and incorrect, please correct me if I'm wrong. I think they got you in there and you had flatlined at that point like Really you were dead and they started working on you and there were there is a time clock that doctors and professionals look at and and Josh I know my times maybe off you can speak to this but like five minutes is that first Waypoint and you know, if you're if you've been dead for five minutes at that point, we're like the flow to the brain is just you know, it's not happening now, we're venturing into brain damage state. So typically after 5 minutes they stopped working. The next Waypoint is 10 minutes. Like almost nobody ever comes back and is able to mentally think and not have brain damage. If they've gone past 10 minutes without blood flow and oxygen to the brain. And then that last Waypoint would you say it's 15 minutes? It's like a virtual impossibility like million to one odds that anyone would come back and be able to do anything you hit all three of those waypoints and they kept working on you they believed in you they trusted in their team they were I'm going to let you go. Am I telling this story correctly? Yeah, you got it, you know by the time I got to the Aid Station fortunately we were in you know the middle of Baghdad pretty close to a to that medical facility, right? So if this happened in Afghanistan, I'd probably be dead just because we would have been far more remote but no J. Honestly the I was very fortunate to be conscious when I got to that aid station because cuz that is the moment where I really learned what it meant to be a member of a team, you know, there's kind of a thing in military culture where folks in the combat arms professions right infantrymen Special Operations, whatever it may be Kind of have this chip on their shoulder right and sort of it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What are you talking about here? What a special operations being seen as arrogant see how great my hair looks I have a mirror at all times with me, sir. Jesus - how dare you yeah, there's a chip, right, but it's on healthy competition, right? But because there's kind of this sort of attitude that people in the combat arms know what combat is all about. Everybody else is in support of them, right and The thing is that day. I saw a medical team execute the most well-rehearsed battle drill. I have ever seen in my life. They were calm cool collected the entire time. They were well led by the Brigade surgeon. Everybody had a specific job in task watching them was like watching a choreographed dance, right and and it gave me an enormous sense of comfort even though I was only a few minutes from Death at that point. You know, obviously despite their very best efforts. I did go on to flatline on the table, right and and Jay just as you captured, you know, most most most surgeons will call it on a place you can fly lines after about five or six minutes because the the capacity for severe brain damage to set in is like exponentially higher at that point and something something inspired this team to keep going for 15 minutes and people need to understand Josh. You had no heartbeat during that time. It wasn't like they brought you back and they kept working your damn early for almost 15 minutes. You were totally flat line dead. Yep clinically dead. So it's not obviously like I remember everything up until you know, that that transition Point what it was like to die. I'm gonna skip that for a moment and and go to the point about two days later when I woke up in the green zone and this this is the point where where details of what that medical team really did to save my life were revealed to me and and more details have emerged over the last 10-15 years, but a lot of strange things happened that day, you know, number one the defibrillator paddles that they use the Shock Me Back To Life literally arrived at the base that very morning, you know, they had plastic to use them on right so because we were in a very robust Greater mentary Care Facility with very basic life-saving equipment more importantly is because it was such a rudimentary facility. They were focusing on me honor. They were working on me on a cot. Right and and there was a mechanical failure of the cot. So they were unable to lower it to the proper height to get the leverage needed to do CPR and it just so happened that the one person who could reach happen to be a former football linemen name private first class. S Tipton who weighed about 260 pounds of a six foot six damn, right and it was Tipton and Tipton alone who did CPR on a live victim for 15 minutes straight and for any of you who ever anyone's ever been exposed to doing live CPR, right? It's exhausting. Yeah. Now, you know, most people smoked after two or three minutes and tempting kept going for 15 the medical team pulls off this Ergo they get this faint pulse back after 15 minutes. They grab the cot. They start racing me out to the Black Hawk, which is running hot on the landing Zone getting ready to evacuate me to the green zone for more advanced surgery. But as they were rushing me out there they were greeted by my scalpel tune. And this is the experience that still gives me chills to this day that Scout platoon who is now being led by a young staff sergeant who had just lost both of their senior leaders, right? Stop that medical team right before they got to the Black cop and said, he's our Lieutenant. We're putting them on that bird. Nice. Damn. It was a good day. It wasn't your day. I mean it wasn't your day to die now man. Honestly, this was this whole experience. It was like one of those positive experiences. It was the most positive experience of my life is paradoxical is that may sound just because of these kinds of stories that emerge from right like the power of the human Spirit man. These guys took this took this stretch of they loaded me on the Blackhawk and with that they took control back. That was stolen from them from an enemy sniper. Just a few minutes prior. Wow, right the surgeon in the green zone executed a perfect vascular surgery the first time out the gate they administered over close to 30 units of blood to save my life. Your body only holds about six or seven. So I really I kept bleeding it out. They weren't you literally are new person got a little change. Here's the point right? Here's the point every single step. That medical evacuation process from the 19 year old medic on the ground to the nurse back at Walter. Reed was absolutely Flawless and I'm only alive today. Thanks to a mosaic of well LED teams a mosaic of leaders all of who chose to do. One more thing in the face of extreme adversity re Mosaic is a group of individuals working together. It's like a team salute you sir? Yes, sir. So before we change Focus, I got to ask you a crazy question and I want to know what you think. Think and again, I'm not trying to step over any boundaries and I don't think I'll ever be able to ask any other person on Earth this question. So what was it like to die? And and and when I say that I know I kind of when I get emotional I mean so far I've literally got goosebumps and I've actually had tears coming out of my eyes. This is a very powerful episode that we're doing it's amazing. And do you remember I mean, do you remember anything? I mean because You just told me and I want listeners understand this I was dead for 15 minutes. And this is the most positive thing that's ever happened to me. I mean are you insane? And I mean, I understand what you're saying buy it, but holy shit. So do you remember anything when the lights were going out? And I mean I'm saying this is respectful as I can. Do you remember anything? What was the last thoughts in your head? I mean, you know because people don't get this chance to I've never I don't know I'm probably never gonna be able to ask anybody this question again. Yeah. You know number one. I didn't have what I would call a traditional out-of-body experience. Right? There was no white light. There we go. Floating above my body, right? I don't remember the you didn't see Ray and see me with a breakout of your horse. I didn't see way with a shirt right? There you go, sir to all our listeners. We're sorry Ray is not as great as he thinks he is trying to lighten the mood because it is a very powerful thing, but I'm serious. Go ahead sir. I apologize. This is probably the most pivotal question that I've ever wanted. It took me 10 years to kind of get to this answer, you know and what I did experience and I'm talking about this precise transition point from life to death right as I was taking the last breath and consciously knew I was taking the last breath like a breath before that my very last and final thought was of my family threw up this silent thought that silent prayer, please take care of them. That was it, right which is interesting because in that Jay, I think you and I were talking around this around a campfire couple months ago and Arizona, but it again if we come back to kind of trust right? It's like imagine imagine the vulnerability of being a minute from Death right knowing you're about to die and and having no other choice but to but to Simply ask something much greater than ourselves to take care of our family, right and I was there too, but what I will say right is that that actually so this is what I mean by what is most important to us emerges in those moments. Like Jay. I know you had a similar experience with your family Tim Brown had a similar experience as a 911 Towers were collapsing. So I think that's important to remind ourselves of is this this love of family right this love of the Brotherhood camaraderie, but that being said with the with the last breath the only way I can describe that is a Feeling. Why of absolute and complete surrender to something much greater than ourselves and it was it was through that surrender. They came this overwhelming sense of peace. And this is the Paradox here. It wasn't like it wasn't like just all the bad things disappeared. Right? It was all the good things right all the good all the bad all the positive all the negative all of it gone and it was as if the spirit becomes part of everything and nothing. At the same time, right? So this is what I mean by the moment of my death was the most peaceful experience in my life. The challenge was I didn't know how to process that back then right? And this is really where the true journey of undergoing adverse experiences begins, right transformation and growth does not occur because of what happened to us. It occurs because of our response afterwards, right the journey afterwards to transform to understand our past into grow from it and Josh man, we could talk so much about just the incident and It happened in that operating room. I mean we could spend hours and obviously we try and keep the show around one hour. So what I want to I want to jump to that Journey because what you did is just absolutely amazing. But it also I think contributed to a little bit of what I call a life Ambush. So you like like me survive this real world enemy Ambush, and and and you you literally left out of it. I mean you you survived they sent you home they fixed you and Your sole Focus was to get back to your guys and get overseas and you made it back before the end of that deployment, but then you hit a wall. So I want to hear about that. You know, you were just moving you were you were trying to focus so hard on moving forward. You hadn't quite processed what happened and all the sudden it was the mental and emotional demons that reached up and tried to choke you out. You know, man addiction comes in many forms. You know when we hear the word Addiction we think drugs and alcohol, right but there's there's many different ways that we tend to innocently gravitate towards running away from our past. Even if we're doing it inadvertently, which is most often the case, you know, the thing about psychological trauma and adversity is that it's we've made a lot of Headway over the last, you know decade or so, but it's still highly stigmatized. It's highly over simplified. It's very much misunderstood. Stood and what I mean by that is when most of us think of psychological trauma or something like post-traumatic stress, we tend to think of it in terms of what are called hyperarousal symptoms meaning being anxiety nightmares night sweats being jumpy at loud noises, you know having to sit with your back to the wall against the restaurant right like this is what most people's perception of trauma is right the challenges especially inside the military first responder. Sessions these populations have been shown to display a much higher degree of resilience in the face of what we call traumatically life-threatening situations, right fear-based situation such as a gunshot or a firefight more resilience versus people outside of this populations. What's much more difficult to handle and gaining grasp of is the to other sources of trauma, right, which is called traumatic loss deal. The grief process of losing knows that we love and that we serve with and the second is moral injury, which is a stigmatized term in and of itself despite its accuracy. You know now when I say the term moral injury, some of us may jump to the conclusion of thinking that I'm talking about committing an egregious War crime and certainly that qualifies but that is at the far end of the spectrum. What I am talking about instead here is sources of guilt shame powerlessness. Betrayal that we all experience throughout especially in the modern operating environment. So the question is like what was it that was driving me as I was laying in a hospital bed to go back right? I was pulling Staples out of my leg with a Leatherman Multi-Tool. I was pulling documents out of my medical records. I mean there was nothing that was gonna stop me from getting back to my team. I can relate to that don't want to get back to the boys. Yeah. Yep, and that's that's like it's Not unique to me at all. Right as you were saying earlier. It's the question that I had to come to understand is originally I believe that I was trying to do that just to get back to my team right just to continue to serve partially to prove to myself that I could get back on the horse and still do my job as an infantry officer, right? Yeah. The thing that really emerged over time is that there was another side to that coin, right? And that was I Is being driven by guilt by shame. All right, and what I mean guilt is extremely complex again many different forms. For example, it's not like when I was on that medical evacuation flight back to the United States. It's not like every minute was a minute closer to home. It was a minute farther away from my team. And you know, when I was in the hospital despite how bad this injury was it was all muscular, right? I basically made a full recovery. And and I was one of the only people in that entire Hospital expected to make a full recovery. So one of the images that I will always remember and and honestly have no desire to forget it is I remember walking around a corner at Walter Reed hospital and I see this beautiful young girl in her early 20s pushing around her new double amputee fiance in a wheelchair and and it's an image that just riveted me. So like part of the not that I was experiencing here wasn't just because Marlon died and I lived right? It wasn't just a desire to get back to my team. It was a guilt surrounding my ability to heal when others couldn't right and that's that's kind of want to just the intricate things that the more that we learn about ourselves. Right the more that we have the strength the courage to dive in word and process our past the more things like that become revealed and and I know you guys are appreciate this. I refer to guilt and shame as being the Insurgency of the Mind Right. It starts like a form of cancer, you know at the beginning it's in stage 1 but it starts to subvert us and control our behaviors in ways that we might not be aware of. So right now I think man we have so many listeners right now there that are riveted, but I think it's really important to make this relatable to all of them because man You people go through all kinds of incidents. They've had all kind of everything from emotional trauma to verbal trauma to sexual trauma. And I know that's something you know you who we have talked a lot about this and this guilt that people carry to try and overcome these these often times physical mental and emotional wounds is it can devastate people and you are doing so much now to open their eyes with this and to help people through this through your incredible journey. So much show of what you told in your book The Beauty of a darker Soul. Can you help people understand? They're out there right now that are struggling that are what I call sitting on the X after some major event how that is relatable what you were talking about the Insurgency of the Mind. First of all, let's remember that that trauma and adversity doesn't discriminate right? It comes in many shapes and forms and it impacts all of us from every Walk of Life. So even though the nature of our experiences may be very different the emotions that manifest from them can be very similar. Right? So what I'm saying here is is that adversity is also very relative based on our current worldview and our experiences to me getting shot. Honestly like this is there's no bravado in this statement. It honestly was not it wasn't a big deal right as many people assumed it would because it looked like such as obvious event on the surface, but it was all the things that surrounded it the things that you and I experience in everyday life. Right? I'd much a much greater challenge navigating relationship barriers financial distress living with an incurable disease, right Crohn's disease being an entrepreneur and starting a business right? Here's the deal adversity. One of the Staples of adversity is that it's known for trapping us in our past. We we relive experiences today as if we were going through the adverse experience of the past. part of the thing that causes that barrier is is whether it's conscious or subconscious is is fear our bodies naturally drop back our minds they drop back into this protective state so that we can encounter adversity like that again and not be surprised by the challenge is when we want to innovate if we want to drive organizational change your driver teams to change we have to learn to disrupt asymmetrically disrupt the way that we think about our past and and this this is kind of the bottom line here is theoretically Lee right creativity is the inverse of psychological trauma. It's the inverse of adversity right and and the real strength comes from being able to to learn how to lean into ambiguity and embrace adversity rather than remain trapped in our past. And this is I mean, this is dead on the concept. I talked about with the life Ambush and get off the X. I mean so many people dwell they sit there. Overwhelm they dwell on their past they look at what they've lost and they're there they almost find comfort in the discomfort. They get it comfortable sitting in this guilt and this pain and it's really it's frightening to look at the future because they don't know where to go. It's almost like they get comfortable sitting there but you have to you will never move past it and and Josh I think that's exactly what you're talking about with finding that creativity to drive forward off the excess off this incident, right? Don so, you know, I got a question. What is Josh doing now? You know we talked about and make sure I say this right sir, asymmetric mind your company, you know, let's talk about some of the awesome things you're doing, you know you're and I obviously I know what you're doing, but you know, you're chasing a degree that is something that you have to talk about and it's amazing and me and Jason are kind of still trying to figure that out what you're doing with your degree. It's awesome and and talk about your speaking. I mean you're talking all these amazing companies and you got this great message. I mean tell the listeners. going on with Josh now, you know right on the it's difficult to train leadership on PowerPoint slides and we kind of hear so much about words like like trust and and yet what we really need is ways for people to understand how to build trust, you know, in order to feel it and one of the one of the parallels that I've made is actually help organizations understand how to build trust through the the lens of asymmetric Warfare specifically counterinsurgency, right and that may sound crazy. But the truth is today that in in in an Insurgency counterinsurgency environment success on that Battlefield isn't necessarily one through overwhelming Firepower and tactical superiority. It's one through trusted relationships with the local population. So the essence of this is that if we can build trust with with members of a local population in one of the Chaotic environments in the world what are the factors that go into that that can apply to the corporate sector right? And and there's an incredible parallel between kind of the theoretical orientation of asymmetric Warfare and what companies are doing with their Employee Engagement strategies that can help enhance organizational inertia and really start to drive that creative change needed to to innovate and overcome adversity Josh to better illustrate this to everyone out there because I know that for a lot of people and you know military were we're so guilty of using all these different terms and acronyms that people are like what so asymmetric Warfare counterinsurgency all these things which are foundational doctrines that really were brought about that helped us win. The war you are really affected some incredible change on the battlefield because of the way you did this so much so that you build trust with the local Iraq. He's that you got There and you made a difference you did things that some military units just weren't willing to do to really get out there and interact you're an incredibly smart guy you you were learning Arabic and you were using it you were getting out and what did the local start to call you as you built this trust because this is exactly an illustration of making a difference. This is asymmetric Warfare understanding that we cannot win, you know with a bat often times. It is our ability to convince someone that this way Way is better violence. Always the last resort man. If you can bring people together with compromise and a team, it will go so much further than trying to just beat them over the head kill them. Whatever. It is often times the Ripple effects of that. So tell me about this because it really does illustrate this idea of what we were trying to accomplish there and what asymmetric Warfare is yeah, you know, I know we're diving into a really complex topic here, right and I get that But yeah after about after about eight months or so like not not too long before I got shot. I learned that the Iraqis had a nickname for me called Hassan AA be odd, which which means the White Horse and in in the Middle East the horse is a symbol of Hope, right? And so it was a I was very surprised to learn that the question is, how do you how do you do that? Right God it is a story in this day and age where there's so much division. Yeah where I mean God look at our government right now. We're not willing to compromise where as you got out there and and you did it. So well that the individuals that saw us as Invaders called you the White Horse this symbol of hope. So I think this is a really important point for people that are trying to drive change and trying to lead teams especially teams that sometimes don't aren't Scene III. Well, you know, it may be helpful like Let's talk about what an Insurgency is. First of all, right. It's an Insurgency is a subversive illegal attempt to undermine or overthrow an existing government, right and and the challenge of in it for an Insurgency. Right? Is that in the beginning they are they are lacking resources right there lacking Manpower there under man is David versus Goliath, right? So if an Insurgency was Trying to overthrow an existing government. They have to start in secret right and in the beginning there are only survive through their secrecy the challenge for the military coming in right is that if the insurgents blend in with the local population if there's no way of distinguishing them then we have no way of distinguishing between friend and foe, right? So so the challenge is how do we in order to overcome overcome our enemy we have to be able to identify it. And in order to be able to identify it we have to get the intelligence necessary to find them and the only way that that intelligence comes through is by building trusted relationships with the local people. Now that may sound simple on the surface. But let's remember that insurgents. Don't play by the rules. They exploit they rape they torture they kill they kidnap. They will do anything necessary to stop the population from working with us right with the counter Insurgent Force. So in many cases, even if the local members of the population wanted to trust us which many of them did they couldn't write but because the moment we leave their town the insurgents would come in and start to exploit them, you know kidnap and torture and coerce them into not working with us. So we're dealing with you know, especially in that environment. We're dealing with these intense barriers to even beginning to build trust, right? So I mean overcoming that really begins with understanding the power of the human Spirit right human connection language acquisition, right learning Arabic. That was the most powerful weapon that I carried in the Middle East developing cultural competence. All of this is directly applicable to corporate settings right Josh. How do you do that? I mean, how do you make that relatable right now? Now to our listeners that are out there. How do you translate that? Because I know that there's so many people right now. They're like wow. So, how would I do that within my company right now? We're trying to do x y z. You know, how do I build these? Sure? I mean, it's an intricate process. It is a journey that occurs over time, right? This is something that unfolds over time. The point here is that in order what goes into establishing a trusted relationship, right? That is its it begins with a shared Mission and purpose write a clear understanding of why we're doing what we're doing. Agreed upon goals and tasks it focuses on the importance of expressing empathy right truly understanding the concerns of your local people within your organization finding out what's important to them and why and also expressing the humility humility to know that that it takes an entire ecosystem of people to make an organization Thrive, right? So those ingredients right all This comes down to building trust doing that in the face of a constantly changing Dynamic right which in today's world. Everything is becoming increasingly complex increasingly specialized. So the challenge is how do we how do we blend all of the efforts of all these individuals together and leave them towards a common goal great story. I'm just glad you explained what White Horse means because the definition I have white horse is something completely different. It's a street term trying to lighten it up. You know, I was thinking you were like some Cocaine or heroin drug pain over there. What I want to talk about is your degree in your degree is the degree of Consciousness? What and the hell? Yes a that, right? Okay, because it's a big word Consciousness. That's three or four syllables for the E man. I'm really I'm really proud of you. You said it so well go to hell I'm strictly speaking later. I love how you built it how you broke built it out and I watched as you notice how it went from the drug to drug king of all that actually that but you touched on each syllable with your fingers. You said it I had a counted out my question is one and I cannot probably relate to it. Why did you choose that degree, which I've never heard of before I had to look it up and to obviously I'm guessing it had to do with do we call it a near-death experience or we call it a 15 minutes death experience. I don't know. I don't know what the prayers no near-death about. I don't know what to call that stuff. So can you kind of elaborate on that sir? Yeah, so there's about 20 different ways. I could start to answer that question. So Consciousness one it. It does it makes sense for the dead guy to study Consciousness. Right? What originally maybe gravitate towards this is over the years doing more and more speaking. I get these really profound questions from people about wanting to understand the nature of life. Right? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be alive? What's the larger purpose in this whole thing? Obviously these these like impossible questions that we have and I felt like a responsibility not only to Them but to myself to think about this in a more structured manner that they can hopefully start to tease out some some deeper truths about the deeper questions. We're asking ourselves about you know, some of the most important questions surrounding life. So there's you know, when we talk about transformation as a whole there's there's there's like something in the air today collectively as a society that getting this hunch that People want more right? They there's this yearning to understand more about life as a whole approaching the topic of Consciousness philosophy cosmology mathematical cosmology. There's just some tremendous parallels that give us the capacity to think about the meaning of life in a much deeper way. That's probably the broadest way that I can answer that question. And you know what? I appreciate it where can people find you. Yeah best place is just hit me up at asymmetric mind. I'm on an asymmetric mind they could find you. They can find your book right beauty of a darker Soul. If anybody's out there and they've gone through any kind of physical mental emotional trauma. This is a great book Josh carries you through his journey rock-bottom climbing back out and really coming to understand what it is to be human and you know really to find your fullest new potential and I think that's critical everybody's looking for that. So Josh you crushed it Josh you're helping veterans. You're going out soon to speak at the end. National veterans Wellness event right on Yep. They're hosting a big event out there. That's one of the nonprofit's that I support. They just do great work out there and helping people transform. So hosting a big event here in a couple weeks out and Angel Fire New Mexico up in the mountain. Well, I definitely need to get a signed copy of your book. Every individual that comes on here that has a book. That's kind of a that's the plug. You can't do the show unless I get a signed copy from you. So I definitely got to get one. I'm definitely looking forward to this. This has been an amazing show. I mean geez You know, I've met a lot of incredible people Josh you and I have become friends. We've had some deep conversations. You are a incredibly intellectual deep thinker, which is really amazing and you were you were helping a lot of big companies. I mean you work for Tesla for a while. So now you're doing you're trying to reconnect with them, you're looking at companies in Silicon Valley and you're talking to them about these idea this asymmetric Warfare of the mind and how we can overcome it. And I think that's just incredible. You know your story 15 minutes Dad and come back and to be as deep a thinkers. You are I'm thinking that maybe we unlock some parts of the brain me when I got shot. I had two brain cells and when I came close it left me with about one and a half. So you you actually got better which is absolutely incredible. So we want to wrap up the show with the question. We like to ask every single person on this journey, that's cold. Of success Ray would you do the honors with our last question for mr. Joshua sir? Yes, sir. If you could give people three pieces of advice for Success, what would they be go? One thing that drives me is having a constant desire to pursue wisdom. It's almost not right to say acquire wisdom. All right, because it's arrogant if we do that right, it's counterintuitive, but the pursuit of wisdom. Is it everything so I'm constantly seeking To to learn more to push myself to new limits if I'm banking on my past experiences today that I'm irrelevant. So I'm constantly seeking to kind of disrupt myself and stay fresh not to mention that that also expands our worldview and and could potentially make our skill sets applicable elsewhere the other one, which I probably won't hit on as much because your audience should be very familiar with this but it is obviously establishing a daily practice J your expertise here both of you far more than mine, but adversity is For giving us the feeling that we are out of control of life in virtually any circumstance. There's always some things that we do have some degree of control over but that that starts here right that starts with us individually and leading ourselves first, you know through the pillars of self-leadership and then I guess finally the thing that has honestly emerged for me now as being more important than ever is seeking to really solidify your purpose and What you're doing, especially as an entrepreneur, I you know, when I when I left the private sector made the decision to start this company. It has been the most difficult two years of my life for a multitude of different reasons, and I'm literally I'm comparing this with a near-death experience right? I'm comparing this with all the other stuff going through the process of being an entrepreneur was the most difficult thing that I've ever done the biggest reason for that it took me a A lot longer than I thought it would to be able to really pin down a Clear Vision. Right a clear purpose that is tolerable to the private sector so short of having that purpose. There is this unanticipated sense of invalidation that came with it, you know, not a single day went by that. I didn't want to hide in a corner and cry that I didn't want to tap out that you know, but to find that strength to keep going is what's most crucial right? I believe you guys on the Civil side call this Segmenting right but it's like I'm reminded by a quote of Lieutenant General Howe more who is featured in the movie. We Were Soldiers played by Mel gives right and I had the real pleasure of seeing the real General more speak when I was a Cadet at West Point not long after 9/11 happened and one thing General more said that day that has always stuck with me is that regardless of the situation that were in regardless of the level of adversity that works? Rinsing there's always one more thing we can do to influence any situation in our favor. And after that there's one more thing we can do right and after we do enough one more things the opportunity starts to open up to achieve the original objective. I don't speak on anything that I don't personally practice myself, but that is a piece of advice that I've had to fall back on myself many many times over the last couple years to keep moving forward. Oh, yeah nice, man, and that's what it's all about getting off the axe. In forward understanding who we are what our purpose is. I love it Josh. So we're going to wrap things up with what we do which is our two-minute motivation. Our word of the day is what to rust rust. So Josh way we do this is each one of us takes one minute and we shotgun our thoughts on trust and a highly motivating fashion to fire up our listeners on how to implement this in their lives who's going first you want you want me to you want me to kick it off. You got it. Oh do you want to do? You look tired man, when you get what you gotta say, so I can backwards hat on backwards over there trust trust is the foundation of everything related in leadership. We must have trust with those we lead we must have trust in our teams and from trust comes communication our ability to tell others what we are doing how we're going to do it where we're going to go and when it's going to happen and it is trust in our people that we know they're going to execute it because it is what they do it is what teams are built on every single member of your team is a lie. Leader and as the leader of the team, we trust them to be leaders to leave the different components of what they're doing trust is the foundation that enables anybody anyone from small organizations to individuals to the largest organizations that are out there to be successful. So if you are listening to this trust in yourself begin to believe in yourself, and that will filter to others your trust will grow and you will find success. I'll go second. He kind of hit he copies a lot of what I'm thinking he has that Ability to do that. I read your notes ladies and gentlemen trust is the foundation where everything starts from not only do you have to trust in individuals because you have to you have to build trust you have to earn trust you have to grow trust with people. But you also have to do it within yourself. You have to believe in yourself. You have to trust yourself in order to trust others. You can't go through life, you know, just believing in one thing and not and nothing else you have to develop bonds brotherhood's friendships at all. All stems from that one word and that's trust you have to build that foundation with individuals because you never know doesn't matter where you are in life. Everybody has daily firefights. Everybody has daily battlefields. You have to know that the people that you're putting in that inner circle the people that saved your life when you were flat line for 15 minutes, you have to know that when the shit hits the fan when there's chaos, there's turmoil that the people that you have built these relationships with will have your back Sir. We're Leave it to what I would say probably the original OG goat of trust. Yeah, right on that was awesome. Right you look whether we're navigating through adversity in the present moment, whether we're transforming an organization to become better or whether we're trying to resolve our past trust is the single most independent variable single most important variable that's associated with a positive process of transformation. And that's the bottom line. Boom. I love it man. That was awesome. Oh, did I just steal your virtue? You know steal your coach you ever steal my boom. That's my I've got that trademark. No, sir. Oh, I've got to pay a royalty Frenchman their Chi. Yeah, that's there's something there. It's going to happen for that guy had this has been another episode of the Jr. Overcome Show episode 13 with major Josh monts out there asymmetric mines LLC author of beauty of a darker Soul. If you want to find out more about Josh go to asymmetric mind.com booking for speaking or any of his I'm leadership workshops. He is an amazing individual living proof that you can come back from some amazing traumatic events. So I want you guys if you believe in this show if you love this show go to the Jr. Overcome show website Jr. Becomes show.com and you can support us make a donation. You can support this show because hey man, it takes dollars to do this. We got the amazing producer Ryan and we are cranking these show that shows out. I want you to also go to ITunes go to iTunes. I want you to subscribe to the show and I want you to leave a five-star review. If you love this show and it's motivating and inspiring you if you were living for Ray cash care Jason overcome Redmond to fire you up and motivate you towards leadership and overcoming tell us about it. It makes a difference every review we get helps this show and then lastly go to Twitter Jr. Overcome show @jr overcome show on Twitter. Tell us your thoughts. Tell us what's your favorite show tell us what you like tell us people that you think this individual Amazing for you to interview or Jay. I wish you would ask this show to Josh, whatever it is. We want to hear your thoughts. I'm watching it. I want to see what's going on raised watching it. So once again, this has been the Jr. Overcomes show. I am Jason overcome Redmond, and I am Ray cash care, and we are out boom. Thanks for listening to the Jr. Overcome show tune in next time and please remember to subscribe on iTunes and SoundCloud please visit Jr. Are overcome show.com? Hey, this is Ray cash care. Thanks for listening to Jay overcome show. If you love the show, ladies and gentlemen, we would love for you to do us a huge favor. Go to iTunes subscribe leave a 5-star message. Leave a comment and share with your friends. Boom.
 Jason "Overcome" Redman and Ray "Cash" Care interview retired US Army Major Josh Mantz. Josh is the author of "The Beauty of a Darker Soul"  and founder of Asymmetric Mind Consulting. Josh has an absolutely incredible story of being KILLED by an enemy sniper in battle in Iraq in 2007. Miraculously, after 15 minutes with no pulse, an incredible medical team did the unthinkable and brought Josh back to life. Despite this incredible miracle, Josh spiraled down with survivors' guilt and depression before hitting rock bottom. He began a spiritual journey to understand the mind and how we as humans process physical, mental and emotional trauma which is captured in his book. Additionally Josh is now focused on helping others through his company Asymmetric Mind where he talks to medical professionals and companies on how to deal with and overcome trauma. We dive into the Word of the Day - Trust - and how this word drives Josh to make a difference. Fasten your seat belt and tune in to learn how the "White Horse" (Josh's nickname given to him by the local Iraqi's) was brought back from the dead! Find Josh Mantz on IG at @flatline07 and Twitter at @joshmantz - Find him online at www.asymmetricmind.com - Time to get your Conquer & Overcome on! 