I'm a huge fan of the podcast and I'd like your advice when I was younger I
joined the National Guard in an attempt to do something with my life
and get out of depression I lost my discipline and goals after basic
training and continued in depression and disorganization I had the opportunity to
go to fight to flight school but instead tested positive on a drug test and I was
given a general discharge I of course take full responsibility and feel like
an idiot how would you recommend moving past this failure what would you have
done if your seal career ended with a mistake well if my seal career had ended
with a mistake I would have figured out what my next mission was going to be
that's that's what I would have done I mean I would have said okay I like that
job I failed at it what can I learn from that and what can I do next
differently to make sure I don't make that mistake again I'm gonna learn from
the past but I'm not gonna dwell on it mmm there's no point in dwelling on it
the only point in dwelling on just to learn from it so that's what I would do
here and then I would take what I learned from my experiences of where I
failed and I would also take the positive things that I learned because
you even that even that failure is a positive even that failures are positive
cuz you realize you realize the value of the opportunity that you had and you
blew it and you're like okay I'm never to let that happen to get a lesson
learned I'm actually stoked I get to learn that lesson because it's gonna be
more opportunities that come up in life and you got to make sure that you don't
disregard those opportunities when they come up and so I would have taken those
lessons learned take that take that failure and turn it into something
positive and made good things happen when I figure out what my new mission a
new career was gonna be pretty straightforward
mmm you can you can do so much good and you know that's going back to this story
that I told about Jeff in the beginning of this podcast one of the wording some
of the wording that I struggled with in the kids story
and again it's on it's the work a podcast one of the things that I
struggled with in telling the story was I ended up saying Jeff had gone too far
and he couldn't correct himself yeah he had gone too far and he couldn't come
back and that's a real hard thing to tell a person and it's a real hard thing
to tell a kid and the reason why I left it that way the reason why I kept it
like listen you can make mistakes that you can't come back from especially as a
kid you can make mistakes that you can't come back from they're pretty rare right
there's not too many mistakes that are so Grievous that you can't recover from
them like this guy hey man he made a mistake failed a drug test given a
general discharge that sucks mmm guess what he can do all kinds of good
in the world he can make up for that ten volt he can start a business make money
he can create a family he can raise great kids and there's so many things
that he can make sure his kids understand that and know that and learn
from it and he can make sure some other neighborhood kids and high school kids
and grade school kids he can make such an impact on the world by learning from
that mistake so it's very it's a harsh thing to say like hey there's some
things you can't now what this guy can't recover from and this is what this is
the fact that you have to face and this is why I told it this way in the kid
story he didn't understand when he made that mistake
he didn't understand that there's some mistakes you cannot recover from he
can't be a pilot now hmm it's not going to happen
zero chance of him being a military pilot that's the way it works so if I
would have had the opportunity to tell him when he was 13 years old hey listen
bro I get it you're gonna step outside the box sometimes but there's some
mistakes that you can make that you'll never be able to recover from so think
about what you're doing before you do them you need to think about what you're
doing before you do them and if I were to have the opportunity to tell him that
when he was 13 years old he might have had a better decision-making process
when he got older that's why I left it that way for the
kids so that they recognize that there are some things that you do as a person
as a kid that you cannot recover from you cannot recover from them now that
being said when you take this and you put it in perspective as an adult C n as
an adult you have much broader world to be a part of and just because he's not
gonna be a pilot a military pilot by the way just because he's not gonna be a
military pilot there's all kinds of other opportunities out there and you
can explain that to an adult but it's hard to explain that to a kid so what
other opportunities I mean even if especially like oh you want to be a
pilot cool you can become a civilian pilot and you can you know you can fly
you can make things happen that way but what we're not gonna do and what I
would not do is dwell on the past and dwell on what thought made the big
missed opportunity is because guess what that's an that's a missed opportunity
that there's all kinds of people in the world would love for that to be their
biggest mistake that they've made that's their that's it
they would love there's someone sitting in prison right now that's like man I
wish all I did was get it fail a drug test and I couldn't learn my lesson
instead I'm sitting here in prison or I got injured mmm really bad cuz I did
something that I shouldn't have done or I made a bad decision or I got someone
that I'd care about hurt or injured because I took him in a car when I was
drunk like those are the kind of mistake this mistake
sure it's a bummer guess what there are infinitely infinitely worse mistakes
that he could have made infinitely worse hmm so you're all right then you're okay
learn from it don't dwell on it move on and go go do something really positive
in the world