Pod Insights The Daily Stoic Premium (🔓) Kyle Carpenter on Courage, Survival, and What Comes After About this episode The Medal of Honor is the highest military award in the United States, given for extraordinary courage in the face of danger. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Kyle Carpenter, the youngest living recipient, to talk about what that kind of courage really looks like and what comes after it. Kyle received the Medal of Honor after throwing himself on a live grenade to save a fellow Marine in Afghanistan. It was a split second decision that changed his life. But as he explains, that moment was only the beginning. Kyle Carpenter is a medically retired United States Marine who received the United States' highest military honor, the Medal of Honor in 2010. 📚Grab a signed copy of Kyle’s memoir, You Are Worth It, at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/👉 Follow Kyle on Instagram @ChiksDigScars 🎥 VIDEO EPISODES| Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Ryan Holiday? Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.
0:14 Ryan Holiday? Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Okay, so I gave a talk in Austin, I guess this was back in September, maybe October, and I'd had a kind of a crazy day in Austin, and I'd come straight from the podcast studio, and I told this story.
0:34 Ryan Holiday? We know physical courage, I think, when we see it, right? Physical courage is Kyle Carpenter, who I interviewed today, the Medal of Honor, he was on a rooftop in Afghanistan. A grenade comes in, and in a split second, he throws himself on top of it. He absorbs the majority of the blacks, he saves the life of his buddy, and quite admittedly, he loses his own with the Medal of Honor for this. But it's that flash, that moment, when you do the incredible thing. He and I talked about someone that I'm writing about in my next book. It's a man named Tom Hudner. Tom Hudner is flying in Korea in the early days of the Korean War.
1:18 Ryan Holiday? He's a wingman to a guy named Jesse Brown. He's the first black naval pilot. And Brown takes a bit of flak. It goes down to the snowy field near the Chosin Reservoir. And in an instant, Hudner, circling above, sees that his friend isn't leaving the plane. The canopy is up, but he's still in the plane, and he's waving. And without a thought, he crashes his own plane next to it in the hope of pulling him from wreckage. It's unsuccessful. Brown is hopelessly stuck, and his last words to Hudner are, "Tell my wife Daisy I love her."
2:03 Ryan Holiday? And when Hudner returns to his ship that he has to rescue by a helicopter, he's not only beating himself up for not having successfully rescued him, but believes he's going to be court martial. The policy was you leave it down to pilot, because they couldn't afford to lose two pilots for everyone to crash. It's these moments of incredible selflessness when one puts their own interests behind someone else's interests. That's, that's obviously like transcendent physical courage.
2:41 Ryan Holiday? Obviously, I couldn't interview Tom Hudner. She's no longer with us. As I said, I had interviewed Kyle Carpenter that day. And I was fascinated by this decision that Kyle had made in a split second, a decision most of us can't imagine. And then I was even more interested in the journey that came after. So this is me talking to Kyle. You can follow him on Instagram @chicksdigscars. That's chick, just with a K, C-H-I-K-S, dig scars. And you can grab signed copies of his memoir, You Are Worth It, at The Painted Porch.
3:33 Ryan Holiday? Do you know the story of Tom Hudner? Do you know who that is? He won the Medal of Honor in Korea?
3:36 Speaker 02 I just spent the past two days with him. Or not, not him, his son, his son.
3:40 Ryan Holiday? No way.
3:41 Speaker 02 Tom Hud- yeah, absolutely.
3:42 Ryan Holiday? Really?
3:42 Speaker 02 Yeah. He is a exceptional individual, just like, you know, his father and um-
3:48 Ryan Holiday? Was his son in the service too? Or what's his, what does his son do?
3:51 Speaker 02 No, he was not. Um, but uh, yeah, two very successful sons. And um, now he helps with Medal of Honor related endeavors and just helping us in our mission. But yeah.
4:04 Ryan Holiday? Really? I just read this book about him and I saw that the picture was taken by Tom Hudner Jr. And I was like, oh, so I didn't know this son existed. But I'm fascinated by the story. It's, it's in the book that I'm doing now.
4:15 Speaker 02 How crazy.
4:16 Ryan Holiday? Yeah. So for people don't know, he, he's a pilot in Korea.
4:21 Speaker 02 Correct.
4:21 Ryan Holiday? And he's a wingman to Jesse Brown, who's the first black pilot in the Navy. And Brown takes a, a shot to his oil tank, has to crash in this field in the Chosin reservoir. And then as they're circling, he sees that he, he doesn't get out of the plane because you couldn't eject, they're too low. And this is a crazy thing. So right, right before they took off, the skipper of the ship goes, if anyone goes down, he's like, I'll court martial anyone who tries to rescue them. Because he's like, we can't afford to lose two planes and two pilots.
4:58 Speaker 02 Right.
4:58 Ryan Holiday? Right. He's like, wait for a helicopter. We will send a helicopter. I don't want anyone trying to rescue anyone. And then Hudner sees his friend go down and immediately disregards the orders and crashes his plane in this snowy field in the Chosin reservoir and attempts to rescue Brown from the plane who's like hopelessly stuck in there. And Brown's last words are, you know, tell my wife I love her. I wanted to ask you about it because I'm fascinated with this story, like that decision to do the craziest thing that a person could do.
5:39 Ryan Holiday? You're one of the handful of people who might have some insight into that thought process.
5:46 Speaker 02 What a small world and how, how unbelievable that this is a first topic.
5:51 Ryan Holiday? I have so many questions about this now.
5:53 Speaker 02 And I just spent two days with him. But, you know, obviously it was a split second decision out of love for his friend and fellow service member. But as I've examined, just, you know, for me personally, my, my journey in those five seconds on the roof. And I feel like, just like a championship on the football field or getting an A on a test. Very few things can be executed in the moment that they are without planning or thought or preparation before.
6:33 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
6:34 Speaker 02 And so I feel like although the entire world only examines those five seconds on the roof.
6:42 Speaker 02 You know, I feel that, you know, one, I was just as a recipient and all of my fellow recipients will say, we just happened to be in that moment, in that time and place, and we had the opportunity to step up the way we did.
6:58 Ryan Holiday? Right.
6:59 Speaker 02 I think that's the beautiful thing about the human spirit is that anyone can step up in a time of need, no matter how, how small or how large of an act. But those moments on the roof were a culmination of the love and support throughout my life that I received from my parents. It was a culmination from, and I think a lot of people think, oh, Marine Corps, combat oriented, you know, hardcore, whatever you think of when you think of Marines, good or bad. Everyone thinks it's all about training.
7:33 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
7:34 Speaker 02 And every day we're just throwing grenades around the place, fake grenades, and hey, who's going to jump on it? And
7:39 Ryan Holiday? Like, like fumble recovery drills on a football team. You're practicing this thing over and over again. Was there ever a moment where that was a thing you had to consider doing?
7:52 Speaker 02 We do training with grenades, and I think it's just a byproduct of being in uniform and training with grenades that, that you think about things like that. And just in general, going into combat, am I going to be able to step up the way that I need to? Am I going to, you know, step up instead of back down when the bullets start flying? But it was never a tangible moment of training.
8:19 Ryan Holiday? I guess that's what I'm curious about. Is it a conscious decision or is it something more like the training and the moment and the stories and the tradition?
8:30 Speaker 02 So many people think it's training, but an amazing aspect of the Marine Corps, especially through boot camp, is through the difficult moments of training, when you're worn down, when you've been out training and you're tired and you're hungry and you've been exposed to the elements for days on end. Your drill instructors, it's a very intentional part of boot camp that in between those moments, they'll sit you down and they teach you about the history of the Marine Corps. Right. Those that came before you, those stories of unfathomable courage. Yeah. I mean, I remember sitting there in boot camp during the crucible, our, our big final event before we received our eagle globe and anchor.
9:11 Speaker 02 And I believe I speak for all of us, when sitting there, I just thought, I mean, who could, who could do something like this? How can someone, and now I understand more, not from my action, but just from, from being a Marine and having that time in service, but just unfathomable acts of courage, those, those that, from all branches, Marine Corps aside, just those that at 17, 18 years old in World War II, when they knew that the chances of, of making it onto the beach, making
9:49 Speaker 02 it to the beach even, and then past the beach and, and surviving what lay ahead were such, such a miniscule chance. Right. And when those doors open, they charge for it anyway. Right. And now I think a lot of people, just in conversations I've had, or just, you know, the love and support that I'm, I'm so humbled to be given, sometimes it seems like, oh, Kyle, the first guy in history that jumped on a grenade. But you look back at every conflict and there are those that, you know, Grenadier not, not only went above and beyond, but gave that last full measure of devotion for each other
10:32 Speaker 02 or for a purpose greater than themselves or, or any individual. And so that's why I say I was, just happened to be on that roof and in those moments. Right. But again, it was a culmination of so many different things in my life, from my family, coaches on the athletic fields growing up. And, and I think ultimately, I'm just so thankful that I reacted the way I did. Now granted, I wish I could have taken every bit of that grenade, but at least I can live my life and not always wonder.
11:15 Speaker 02 Why I didn't, or if I could have.
11:18 Ryan Holiday? Why do you mean you wish you took every bit of it?
11:20 Speaker 02 Because the Marine that I was with, my best friend, he was injured as well. So I wish I could have taken every bit of that blast, but you know, I still, I feel like gave my best effort. And so now I can live my life, not wondering, but just being proud that I was able to step up as the Marine and the friend that I needed to be in that moment. But also going back to, you know, those moments in boot camp to have tried my best to uphold the legacy and the path that the Marines that came before me laid with unfathomable amounts of courage and sacrifice.
12:02 Ryan Holiday? I feel like the tradition is a huge part of it because, you know, your average person doesn't feel like they're maybe capable of doing that. And I think a big part of the training is not like, hey, how many pull ups can you do? And how far can you run and how much can you lift? Although that's obviously all part of it. But it's in the process of putting you through that and accepting you into the tradition that you feel like suddenly you're capable of, or that you're an heir to this thing, even though you're not actually related. You're all part of this lineage that goes back and includes every single one of those people.
12:36 Speaker 02 Perfectly said, yes.
12:37 Ryan Holiday? In that moment, are you like, are you thinking, hey, this is my job? Are you thinking this is my friend? What, do you think anything at all? Like in the book, it makes it sound like you kind of just, a thing happened and then you woke up after and you're like, where's my face? Basically, uh, so I'm just curious how much thinking is going on.
12:58 Speaker 02 Well, I should have thought I'm about to kick this thing right, right back off the roof. But strangely.
13:07 Speaker 02 And I appreciate you having my book and reading it.
13:09 Ryan Holiday? Oh, it's incredible.
13:10 Speaker 02 Strangely, I don't remember any of the moments leading up to the blast. Now unofficially, which, you know, the Medal of Honor that was awarded to me, although it's, it never is and never will be an individual award or recognition. But that came from over two years and almost 300 pages of investigation.
13:35 Ryan Holiday? It's not a thing they give lightly based on one person's opinion.
13:40 Speaker 02 Correct. You need multiple opinions. You need forensic blast evidence. And so, you know, they talked to me in the very beginning and I really had nothing helpful to contribute. But even if I did, I think it's important to note that if you are injured in whatever incident they are investigating, you can't be an eyewitness. Cause if you have any sort of head trauma, obviously your facts might not be that accurate.
14:07 Ryan Holiday? Right.
14:07 Speaker 02 Safe to say I had some head trauma.
14:11 Speaker 02 But I don't, you know, unofficially, I would say the only thing that I remember before wasn't really anything cognitive.
14:19 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
14:20 Speaker 02 It was just, you know, knowing how you and your body feels. I remember almost as if I was an empty shell. I, I don't have any visual recollection. I just, I felt like I was on my knees and my body was falling forward. And then I felt like I got hit in the face really hard. But my actual kind of somewhat coherent thoughts followed the blast. And I remember being extremely confused. And my vision was as if I was looking at a TV with no connection, just white and gray static. My ears are ringing extremely loud, just as they are this very moment that we're doing this podcast.
15:04 Ryan Holiday? Oh, they just, they just remain ringing always?
15:06 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah. Which is, uh, you know, can be daunting at times, but you just gotta remain focused. And, you know, every day is driving on for the mission. But after I felt like I got hit really hard in the face, that was followed by extreme confusion and disorientation. So much so that, that I was trying to just. To get a grasp of where I was and what happened. And I've been in Afghanistan for over four months now. And so my first thought was, okay, I'm pretty sure I was in Afghanistan. The last thing I can remember, I was on a roof. But what could have injured me this bad on a roof?
15:50 Speaker 02 And then I thought, maybe I got off of the roof, went on a foot patrol. Because the vast majority of our injuries over there, at least for my unit at the time, was stepping on IEDs. Right. Cause we were so far out in rural territory, behind enemy lines. We had to get helicoptered in and we had no vehicles. So everyone thinks military nowadays, we always have vehicles to roll around in. But very few roads to where we were. And the roads that were there were more pedestrian walkways, paths for livestock. So you don't have to go through the fields and damage crops. And they wouldn't support heavily armored vehicles.
16:32 Speaker 02 And before we got there, they had tried that. And the banks of the river would collapse and Marines were drowning from being trapped in these armored vehicles. So we only had feet everywhere we went. And, um, you know, traditional Marine style. Part of the tradition also. Right, yeah, exactly. And so I thought, maybe I went on a patrol, stepped on an IED and just the roof is the last thing I can remember. And that thought process was interrupted by,
17:06 Speaker 02 of course, what I thought was my buddies messing with me. Because Marines and service members are experts at messing with each other. It's kind of like our secondary job. Sure. And I thought, man, you know, whatever's happened, I can't believe in this banged up state that I'm in, that my buddies are pouring warm water all over me. And that fragmented piece allowed the other ones to kind of fall into place. And I realized like, oh man, whatever's happened, my buddies aren't messing with me and that's not warm water. I'm profusely bleeding out. And so at that moment, you know, while getting just, I would say tired, but that would, that would be an understatement. It's probably the life leaving your body.
17:49 Speaker 02 Just, just drained, draining to and from your core. Right. Just hard to describe, but. At that moment, when I realized that I knew that was it, I thought about my family, how devastated my mom was gonna be when that government car pulled into the driveway, or those two Marines in uniform knocked on the front door to tell my family I would not be coming home alive. And lastly, I said a quick prayer for forgiveness for anything I had done wrong in my life. And I faded from consciousness in the world for what I thought was the last time. So you thought you were dying?
18:31 Speaker 02 Certain, without a doubt that that was it. And, you know, I couldn't feel my face except for, to get a little graphic here, I remember when I first woke up, I was trying to, I was trying to feel my mouth or my jaw with my tongue, but nothing was there. And so, but these final moments, you know, I was kind of, because I couldn't feel my face, I really didn't have that deep of sense of what was going on. But I remember kind of crying a little bit in my head, not because it wasn't, why am I here? You know, why did
19:13 Speaker 02 I even do this? Why am I in this position? It was more just, you know, I just turned 21 over there on my birthday, crawling through a field, getting shot at, thinking, man, I hope one day I can get my first cold legal beer, you know? Yeah, legal. Yeah. But I just turned 21 and it was more just- The heaviness of the moment? The heaviness of the moment and maybe in some sort of subtle way, just knowing that, you know, this is it. And I, and I guess I don't get to experience the rest of my life. Sure. Now, in hindsight, I still wouldn't change anything because I truly felt in my
19:54 Speaker 02 heart and I knew and I saw every day that we were there just helping a fellow struggling human being. But, you know, with that said, the world faded away. I thought that was it. And to my very unexpected and pleasant surprise, I woke up about five weeks later. And instead of a hot dusty rooftop, it was a strange hospital room with Christmas stockings hanging on the wall beside my bed and about three or four inches of snow outside on my window pane. And uh, but, but that moment of waking up, my first thought was completely opposite of the last one that I had. And I thought, no way I cannot believe I survived that.
20:42 Speaker 02 And but that moment, you know, although I had three years left of recovery, 40 to 50 plus surgeries, that moment really began this journey of self-discovery, purpose and perspective that I've been on. It's crazy to say, but you know, about 15 years now.
21:13 Ryan Holiday? What's crazy to me is like, you know, you read the Medal of Honor citations, whether it's for Hutner or for you or for anyone, there's like the split second decision, right? To go on a grenade, to crash the plane, to do the thing. And that's what we call courage, right? Like that moment. But I mean, you're talking about like your ears are still ringing from the event 15 years later. Like that's a day to day thing that you have to deal with. I think about he crashes the plane. Then he, he basically wakes up and he's like, holy shit, I survived the landing. It might not work, right? And he, you know, so he kind of wakes up. And then, then he's like, well, shit, now I'm down here, right? And now that's actually the hard part.
21:55 Speaker 02 Surrounded by 100 plus thousand.
21:57 Ryan Holiday? Totally. Yeah. He's, he's just a sprint across this field. All he has is a service revolver. Even, even if he had just crashed in Alaska, it would have been bad. Like he's exposed to the elements. Like he could have frozen to death. And so now, and now the hard part, like now the actually courageous, difficult thing comes now, like the.
22:20 Ryan Holiday? What's he gonna do? And he, obviously, he's not thought through, well, then I crash and then the helicopter pilot will come. Like, he's not thinking about the, I think, why it's courage is that it's this leap into the dark. You don't know how it's gonna work out, or that it's gonna work out. In your case, you're going on the grid. You don't know whether it's gonna, you're gonna get there in time or not. You don't know whether you're gonna survive or not. And then you're certainly not able to go like, and then three years in the hospital, and then learning to do this again, and feeling this again. So, we almost overemphasize which is the most impressive part of the experience. Like, what's the real ordeal? Is it the raising your hand? Is it, you know,
23:02 Ryan Holiday? that part? Or is it all the stuff that comes after this? We don't think of courage as like, endurance, but it's that, too.
23:11 Speaker 02 That was, uh, that was very well said, Ryan, and I could not agree more. And I appreciate you recognizing that because, you know, I'm most proud of what I've done after the blast. And whether that's the battle through recovery, or, you know, all the way to the marathons, or just continuing to push myself into that unknown, which I'm not bragging on myself for my story, but, um...
23:40 Ryan Holiday? There's this line from Seneca that I think about. He says, "Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." You know, just the, the keep-
23:47 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
23:47 Ryan Holiday? The keeping going. Like, again, we think of the courage as these sort of punctuated moments in the heat of battle, or the firefighter that runs into a burning building, or whatever. And that's obviously one part of it. But then the other part is the waking up the next day, and the day after, and the day after, when you're dealing with the consequences of those couple of seconds that you did the thing.
24:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. And, um, when I experience those final moments, and to wake up to this unexpected bonus round that I'm living now, of course, there are difficult days. There are long, you know, dark, scary, and painful nights through the hospital. And even out of the hospital, life is hard. It's a hard-earned journey. Um, but to have experienced those final moments-
24:44 Speaker 02 And to wake up, I can't help but to not try to make the most of it.
24:49 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
24:50 Speaker 02 And I think that's where I was, I was wanting to get at, but.
24:55 Ryan Holiday? I talked to one of the Vietnam POWs and he was saying, you know, any morning you wake up and the locks on the inside of the door, that's a good day.
25:05 Speaker 02 Wow.
25:05 Ryan Holiday? You know, because they spent seven years with the lock on the wrong side of the door, right? They can't get out. And I think that's, you appreciate that, it makes sense, but I do wonder like how, how transferable and sustainable is that perspective, right? Like, so you have this moment of courage, you do this thing, like, one thing you could take from that is like, anything that's not getting blown up by a grenade is better than this, right? Or anything is better than not getting blown up by a grenade, but I imagine you're still like, what the fuck is this traffic? Like, how, how quickly does just the regular frustrations of life kick in? Or do you find you're able to maintain that perspective?
25:46 Speaker 02 No, that, that's a great point. And yeah, of course, you know, little things in life that shouldn't, you know, still kind of get to you sometimes. But I think for anyone, grenade aside, I think it's extremely,
26:04 Speaker 02 you know, important to always work on and be able to refocus on that perspective.
26:12 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
26:12 Speaker 02 The things that, that really matter.
26:15 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
26:16 Speaker 02 And, you know, just from the, the narcissism side of things to
26:23 Speaker 02 understand what's in your control and out of your control.
26:28 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
26:28 Speaker 02 That's been extremely helpful for me because throughout my recovery, you know, I went from being in the best shape of my life, carrying a machine gun in Afghanistan, you know, 18 minute, three miles and just always having a plan.
26:43 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
26:44 Speaker 02 As a Marine, whether that is what today holds or what this specific patrol holds. You know, we knew what routes we were taking. We knew our, our points that, that we needed to hit and what village we were going to and what the mission was.
27:02 Speaker 02 But when I woke up,
27:06 Speaker 02 it was complete opposite.
27:07 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
27:08 Speaker 02 You know, at first I didn't know if I could make it to that next breath. And I remember just laying there on my side and, you know, the be all the beeping machines are so annoying. It's a it gets kind of, you know, starts to wear on you almost. And, you know, in the beginning, when my pain spiked or I was having difficulty with whatever it was, the machines will start going off and then you gotta get yourself back under control and you gotta calm your heart rate. And so at first I didn't know if I could make it to that next breath or not, which a machine was helping me at first. But when I got off that, didn't know if the 40 or 50 surgeries, every single one,
27:51 Speaker 02 you know, going into it, you do the pre op, you're there at 4am, you do the pre op, you do the surgery. Some of them were nerve transplants or transfers, at which take two to four months to make that connection regenerate. So you have to stay persistent and you have to keep working at it. Even though nothing is happening, you have to just hope and trust that your hard work and your focus and dedication will eventually allow that nerve to reconnect. But, you know, then it was I didn't know if the next surgery would take. And another aspect is when something catastrophic happens or you face extreme adversity, you know, a tough lesson is that the world keeps spinning.
28:33 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
28:34 Speaker 02 Understandably so, obviously, you know.
28:36 Ryan Holiday? People care a lot after it happens and then they go back to their lives.
28:40 Speaker 02 Yep, which, uh, which, you know, I understand it's the way it is. But all of my friends who didn't go into the military were living their best life in college. And all of my buddies who thankfully did not get injured were still in Afghanistan together, operating. But my life was a complete, you know, unknown, I guess.
29:01 Ryan Holiday? Yeah. And 21, 22 year olds are not great at patience and being told what to do. You know, and you're just like, on top of all that, you're just like, yeah, you want to go back to your life and you can't.
29:14 Speaker 02 Yep. And so I guess as time went on, you know, I had to, I had to grapple with that.
29:21 Ryan Holiday? Yeah.
29:22 Speaker 02 And, you know, although I realized that you don't have to have a perfect plan. You just have to, you know, be, be willing to say, you know, my, I guess mantra kind of became just,
29:37 Speaker 02 you know, keep working hard.
29:40 Speaker 02 Try to be a good person, do the best you can and help, help others around you. And it's got to, to lead you somewhere good. It's got to lead you to that light at the end of the tunnel.
29:52 Ryan Holiday? I think that's right because like I, I wrote this book, The Obstacle is Away, and I think people, it's been, it's meant something to people. And I think, you know, generally the idea is true that there's an opportunity in everything. But it, it can feel very flippant to someone who, you know, just found out they have cancer or somebody who just got blown up by a grenade. Like you actually have this beautiful note in the acknowledgements that really hit me, which I think is, is very well said. You said, uh, "The lessons of life, silver linings and perspective that I share in this book did not come easily or quickly. At times silver linings only become apparent because I was forced to search through the darkness. And perspectives only became clear after years of deep thought and personal growth.
30:35 Ryan Holiday? These lessons originated from pain and suffering, but sometimes the most difficult struggles teach us the most beautiful lessons." Like I imagine in, in many ways, the, the recovery in the hospital was the most challenging part personally, emotionally, physically, because it not just goes on and on, but you have time to think about it and feel sorry for yourself and be angry and hope and despair. You're like now all of a sudden the, the real emotions and the struggle and the having to figure out what this means and what you're going to do about it. That's like your problem in a way that it's not in five seconds on a roof in Afghanistan.
31:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. The, the mental side of it, emotional side of it, but also how am I gonna do buttons now, which is maybe I went from the Taliban being my enemy to buttons being my biggest enemy now, but uh, so the, the physical side of it as well. Uh, but you know, like so many things in life, there is two sides to that story. There was the daunting, the unknown, the, the difficult side of it. But there was the side that although it's, it's kinda heavy to be told, hey, you have three more years left here for us to kinda put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But that also gave me time to think about all of that. Right.
32:03 Speaker 02 To think about that perspective, uh, which if I had to summarize my journey in one word, it would be that because Perspective. Correct. Because I could look at, you know, it's always foundationally, it's, well, I'm here. Yeah. When I, I thought that I wasn't going to be. You shouldn't be. Correct. Yeah. But then it gets to, and some of this came from those I recovered with. Yeah. Quadruple amputees, triple amputees with their newborns sitting on what's left of their legs. You know, zooming off to therapy every day with a smile on their face. And so, you know, it gave
32:43 Speaker 02 me the time to think, hey, my arms might be super banged up, but I still have them. Yeah. Most of my body might be shredded to pieces, but I still have two good legs that can get me up and inch me forward. And it's, it's not about the limbs. I, I think just what I'm, what I'm saying is it's about the mindset and looking at what you have compared to what you don't have. Right. And I think that comparison, it can do, do wonders for you and take you amazing places, or that comparison can become the thief of joy. Yeah.
33:24 Speaker 02 And it can turn you into a perpetually pessimistic person. And also, you know, I saw in the hospital, and before I say this, I, I want to note that I think struggle, adversity, and most things in life should never be compared. Yeah. You know, my, my buddy Andy Stumpf said, you know, I've done more than some and less than others. Yeah. And that, that really stuck with me. But with that said, and again, not comparing, but I saw that there were those in the hospital with me because 2010 was a very violent year in Afghanistan. Most of the hospital rooms, I think, except for mine, because I was one of the ones in
34:08 Speaker 02 the worst shape. I needed a one-to-one. I needed kind of some other stuff going on in my room, a lot of machines. But every single room had two beds and two patients in it. And there was even a time where the least injured were out in the hallways. And so a lot of casualties were there and, and a lot of wounded warriors recovering. But I saw that there were some that had, and all struggle is, is relative, but there were some that had much more minor injuries. But they just never left the hospital. Right.
34:47 Speaker 02 And I saw that their mindset and not their injuries were holding them back. Yeah. And so although of course I had terrible days and painful days and days where, you know, I wondered if I was going to be able to keep pushing forward. Although I kind of in a way, I didn't feel like I had a choice because there were so many people pouring their love and their hearts and everything they had into getting me better. But, you know, in life, you can learn from people, good and bad. You can take good and bad examples and lessons from people and seeing that just, I guess,
35:28 Speaker 02 kind of planted a seed that, hey, one thing I have, you know, I might not have functioning limbs. I might've lost my eye. Most of my teeth are blown out. But one thing I have is my mindset. Yeah. Is my attitude and is my.
35:49 Speaker 02 Care for myself and wanting to get better for myself and for those around me. And I'm thankful through all the medication and injuries that I kind of had that insight because it never left me.
36:05 Ryan Holiday? And do you know who Epictetus was, the Stoic philosopher?
36:09 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
36:09 Ryan Holiday? So, you know, Epictetus is tortured by his, he's a slave. So he's, but he has this cruel master who tortures him. He breaks his leg at one point. And so he has this, he's crippled the rest of his life, which is the, I guess, the term they would use then. So, so he's, he's coming at this, not from like some tenured academic perch, but like a dude who really suffered and went through stuff. And his thing was that we, every situation has two handles. You know, we get to decide what we're going to try to pick it up by. And yeah, you can, you can grab the handle that says, hey, I'm alive. This is good. Or you can grab the handle of like, why am I alive? This is horrible. And that handle is kind of everything.
36:52 Ryan Holiday? The lens through which we decide to interpret the events or the position we're in is kind of the first step. Cause if you get that one wrong, all the other steps are really hard. I feel like if you're like, I was singled out. This is horrible. This is insurmountable. You know, you can tell yourself a story that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Now just telling yourself it's wonderful and I'm never going to suffer again and it's all going to gray. And that's, that's the thing that those Vietnam prisoners talked about. Like the story you're telling yourself is I'm going to be home by Christmas. This is going to be over really soon. That's also a bad handle because, because life doesn't really care that that's what you think.
37:37 Ryan Holiday? But if you, if you, so it's, it's the key is sort of picking something that's both hopeful, but also got a kind of a grit and a determination to it. That's like, as you said, like, I just know I'm not quitting because as long as these people are helping me, I'm not going to give up. That's, that's not like, oh, you know, if you get in a car accident and the doctors say you're never going to walk again, just because you go, I'm going to walk again. Sometimes that works, but not always. That's not magically going to give you your legs back.
38:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, there needs to be accepting of reality in there as well. But I think there's tremendous.
38:19 Speaker 02 Power, and I would say that's even an understatement, to embracing the struggle.
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