In this episode we spoke with Nick about his career, how Nick lost his leg in a brutal Green on Blue attack, beating the odds and returning to the Special Forces Unit, Mental Toughness, advice for other injured operators and more!
👉🏻 Nick is an active duty member of The United States Army Special Forces. Commonly known as Green Berets, the Special Forces perform critical missions including direct action, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, and unconventional warfare. In 2013, on Nick's second combat rotation to Afghanistan, he and his Detachment fell victim to an insider attack ultimately resulting in the loss of his leg. Following a year of surgeries and initial recovery including the use of a prosthetic at Walter Reed National Medical Military Center, he returned to his unit. Refusing a military medical retirement, Nick set his sights on returning to operational status. In 2015, at the conclusion of a challenging, comprehensive assessment designed to evaluate Nick's abilities to operate, he returned to his Detachment and was subsequently deployed once again to Afghanistan conducting full spectrum combat operations. Nick is considered the first Green Beret to return to combat as an above the knee amputee.
THINGS WE DISCUSSED:
00:00 Talk4 EP 091 intro by Louis Skupien
00:45 Who's is Nick "Machine" Lavery?
01:21 How did Nick Lavery get into the military?
04:40 The story of Nick Lavery losing his leg in combat.
08:36 How did Nick survive?
12:08 Getting back to the Green Berets after the amputation.
17:06 How Nick Lavery got his nickname "Machine"
29:50 Mental Toughness, resilience and advice for all listeners.
33:30 Thoughts for future spec ops amputees who want to do what Nick did.
36:00 Shameless plug
38:05 Green Beret slang
40:26 Motivational speech!
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TRANSCRIPT:
hey what's up guys and welcome to episode 93 of talk 4 the quickfire podcast where we asked four great questions to unique and interesting people behind the mic today is your host Louis scopion that's me and let me introduce our Beyond just incredible for today Nick Lavery he's going to be answering our questions today Nick welcome aboard the talk for podcast man please just say hi to the find people listening and just give us a quick rundown of who you are and what you do and then we're going to shoot some Wicked questions your way brother right on Lou I appreciate the time man uh yeah you know my name is Nick Lavery I'm on active duty Green Beret United States Army Special Forces I'm also founder CEO of precision components which is a training and consulting company uh and most importantly proud father to two young boys uh and extremely lucky husband to my amazing wife and uh yeah man just excited to spend some time and uh and talk about some things with you awesome now I'm so so glad to have you here you know I mean you can only say that you are just you know the epitome of an inspiration I can't wait to dig into to your story and share this with my Avid listeners so question one um I'd just like to go into the backstory so we see you where you are today doing this incredible stuff i' just like to hear how it all started so tell me about your back story then when did you join the military what motivated you to join and walk me through your career path to becoming a Green Beret please yeah so kind of the condensed version Louie is I began looking at the military as an option when I was in high school and the only thing that prevented that from happening really was I started getting a recruited to play football in college so so that's the route that I went I was a horrible academic I did the bad minimum I really disliked school but I was decent at Athletics and I really I really did well in football enough to to get looked at and recruited so I went to school for that and then my sophomore year of college I just turned 19 years old was 911 and that really is is the reason why I decided to enter the military I struggled to stay in school at that point I was ready to drop out and enlist into the military because I knew what we were about to get into and I was really angry about what happened ultimately decided to listen to some friends and some mentors and some family I stayed in school I finished playing ball I grinded out my degree and it's now 2006 and we're surging in both Iraq and Afghanistan so not only is the game still being played but we as a nation are doubling and even tripling down across multiple conflicts so it was at that point that I said okay now I'm going to I'm going to throw my hat in the ring and and get into this game you know I knew I wanted to go into Special Operations I felt like with my athletic background that's where I could be best utilized and really more than that I wanted to make as much of an impact as a single person could make this was not intended to be a career for me or or a profession or a lifestyle this was I was going to come in get to the tip of the spear kick some ass get some justice and then get out and figure out what I want wanted to do it the rest of my life that was kind of the game plan ultimately decided to go the route of the army Special Forces and after you know a little over two years of training was when I became a Green Beret began going to work as a team guy and it was really on my first trip into Afghanistan that is where things changed for me and really it's where I fell in love with this business and it became more than a job or a lily pad to jump off of to whatever the next thing would be it became deeply part of who I am and at that point is really where it became a lifestyle absolutely well hell of a backstory dude um so you know we we look at what we see today and we see so much inspiration in what you do but obviously that comes from a place of adversity and in my experience we're like I mentioned at the beginning 93 episodes in now and from what I've heard from the people who listen to the show and also from just a personal standpoint the it's the conversations where people whove come up from adversity and just kicked its butt like those are the conversations that just fire me up every day to keep going keep keep keep smashing it basically I think that's been the same for the listeners so um obviously like I mentioned some of these stories have really had the biggest impact on people and I would just love to hear your one so I was wondering if you could please uh recount to us the story of what happened in 2013 when you were injured and just the initial hours after that
attack yeah so on my third trip into Afghanistan which began in the fall of 2012 and extended into March of 2013 I would be wounded in combat on three separate occasions first time took some grenade trapped onto the back of my shoulder okay fine not a big deal about six weeks later I took an AK-47 round of the face obviously sounds a lot worse than it was in comparison to what was going on around me at the times of those injuries a scratch you know Flesh Wounds a lot of my guys were were seriously wounded uh so it really wasn't anything that couldn't be addressed relatively quickly and I was right back to work and then comes March of 2013 we had been there five and a half months we were set to go home in a couple weeks and my team and I fell victim to what we referred to as a green on Blue which is kind of a fancy way of saying an inside attack meaning that a guy that we had been working with in this case who was a member of the Afghan National Police Force immediately prior to us going out onto an operation climbed up on the back of a Ford Ranger pickup truck and began unloading a belt-fed machine gun into me and my friends from about 25 or so feet away this would be considered the largest Insider attack that we know of there were 12 Americans as casualties three of which would be killed and another 10 or so Afghan casualties killed or wounded so a mass Cal scenario and this was the initial ation of a complex Ambush so this was very much pre-coordinated pre-planned this guy would initiate and then what we didn't realize at the time was there were about 25 or 30 enemy Fighters that had our camp almost entirely surrounded and they all began lobbing rockets and machine gun you know into our compound so it became quite a quite a rough day at the office most of the damage to me was done to my right leg I took estimated anywhere from four to six rounds to my right leg that just absolutely decimated it it chewed it to shreds shattered my my FEMA into like 30 or so pieces it severed my for more lottery I really should have died that day Louie there actually there really isn't a medical explanation as to how I was able to survive I ultimately I treated myself uh initially with a series of tourniquets and with what is known as an internal pressure dressing which is as bad or as difficult to do as it sounds uh I got extremely lucky I had amazing training from my Medics that taught me what to do and I really just did what they had told me to do and I got extremely lucky and some would argue a miracle uh for me to be able to stay alive I was on the battlefield over an hour and a half eventually I was medevaced out you know and then fast forward just a little bit you I'd end up at Walter Reed I'd spend a year there and then that's kind of where the the progress and the real work kind of began oh my god dude that is just insane uh um wow I mean what what I can say from what I've experienced on the podcast as well with other people who've had experiences like not obviously not like that but things that were terrible that happened to them was that it's ringing a little bit true now that some of these people do often quite hear that they will never walk again or they're never going to have this again or they're never going to be able to do this again and I I know a few of these people who just completely just took a dump on their front yard with that statement so you say there that there was no medical explanation for why you're still alive I'd love to know why do you think that you're still alive what what what is your take on on that then no medical side to it just what what do you think got you through that and and and kept you going yeah I mean it it took me a while it's a great question it took me a while to kind of wrestle with it you know I was told from the onset that I should be dead and like I heard that so often that I kind of just became numb to it like okay cool you know obviously I got a little lucky it wasn't you know for years later in the power of the internet and social media the world's gotten really small and you can kind of connect to anybody nowadays relatively easily and I began making connections with other people that were there at the time years later and these include trauma surgeons and Medics and anesthesiologists like the actual people that were treating me at different phases of this entire process so I started getting more granular scientific mathematical detailed information about what they experienced and what they witnessed and once I stop putting all these pieces together and I'm I'm a scientific individual I'm extremely analytical there's got to be like 1 plus one is going to equal two I just got to figure out the equation getting some of this information down to the detail meaning what my plate count was in my body what my respiration was these these numbers that these doctors have they go against what we know to be biological and medical science they they violate a lot of these principles and I would be talking to these doctors saying well doc how can you explain how I survived and I got the almost the same exact answer verbatim from many of them and it's Nick man listen there is no scientific explanation as to how you're alive there there isn't one and I know you want one but one doesn't exist this this breaks a lot of our protocols that we teach in med school today in fact this is a case study that is being studied through Med schools across the country as an anomaly and so to answer your question I began turn to Faith which is something that I've grown a stronger relationship with over time um because as analytical as I am and as science-based as I am there is no solution to that so I simply choose to believe that there was some sort of intervention from a higher power and why which is part of your question I choose to believe that I remained on this planet as a living human because there's something that I still need to do there there's a reason for it and I owe it to a whole lot of people and or the universe higher power God use the term that you choose I owe it to a lot of people and or entities to live that truth forward and spend every day attempting to repay that debt wow I mean that is just so powerful and it's it's evidently clear as well that that wasn't just a strike one thing it wasn't like you just you're alive and that was it you defied odds not just once but twice because you got back into the Special Operations unit so um talk to me about this and so you're being faced with the option of a medical discharge you refuse it can you tell me what your thought process is there or was there why you didn't change what you were doing and what it took for you to get back to operating at the highest level I mean it's just it it baffles me it really does Yeah man so my decision to return back to doing what I do that was made for me when I was in the Intensive Care Unit at Walter Reed still in critical condition and going through multiple surgeries a week I decided then what I was going to do I'm going back to doing what I do I had no clue as to how but my mind was made then it was actually one of the easier decisions I've ever really had to make because at that point in my life and in my career I truly believed as I do today that I was put on this Earth to to do something I was I was put in this planet to be a warrior and to dedicate myself to a society and I just know that that's a huge part of who I am and I just simply couldn't imagine nor would I accept anything other than that so that was quite simple for me to make that decision and then like with most challenging choices that we make you get a glimpse of what that's really going to look like in our three-dimensional reality it's easy to say you know I'm going to play football on Sundays as a teenager and then you start to get a taste of just how H that's going to be and it's at that point that most will you know will offramp and and find a find a reason or find something else to do because it's just it's incredibly difficult and it defies the odds of that type of success and I met those exact same roadblocks and hurdles throughout my journey you know no one around me including people who I love and respect thought that what I had set my sites on was possible in fact most didn't even think it was practical you know it had never been done before for so like anything that's never been done before it's typically met with a lot of questions and a whole lot of doubt and a lot of concern and all these things you know so I had to get really comfortable in kind of this isolated mentality where I could respect a a different opinion of what I believe to be possible I could respect it and I could appreciate it in fact I could learn from it but that didn't mean that I that I agreed with you and that was okay we could have opposing perspectives I'm I'm that confident in what I'm doing is the right thing to do and it's a righteous Mission worth pursuing so I had to get real comfortable in kind of this isolated mentality even though I was surrounded by amazing people who I relied on daily to help me and support me and enable me and all these things so once I got back to my unit after a year at the hospital uh I say I turned down a medical retirement which is true but it was really more of a an administrative street fight that I found myself in because the Army really did try to have me forced out as a medical retiree and I just had to refuse that and you know I had to take a lot of risk and burn a couple relationship Bridges and circumvent some chain of command and just keep knocking down doors to to get the answer that I knew I needed which eventually I did that took eight months and during that time I was working as an instructor once the process was complete and I was allowed to stay on active duty then I made it known to my leadership that I wanted to go back to the team and I had been voicing this now for you know a year and a half since the since the time that I was wounded and now it was like kind of getting real for some people like some of my leaders and superiors were like okay Nick's like actually G to take a run at this you know but I give them a lot of credit uh and God bless them because they actually did give me the opportunity to demonstrate my ability to return back to that kind of a profession and man they threw the kitchen sink at me I mean my chain of command my leadership they evaluated me on everything that you could imagine probably some things that you you can't even imagine it ended up being about 12 weeks of different assessments and tests usually I take anywhere from two to 4 week and just rapid fire boom boom boom boom until and I got done with my last one and at the conclusion of that I was given the green light you know I returned back to the same team I was on when I was wounded and it was about six s weeks later we were back in Afghanistan conducting full spectrum combat operations I mean that that is just ridiculous I mean I mean to me listening to that it just sounds insane so bit bit of trivia then um so looking at you I'm over here and let's just put it this way I go to the gym probably like five six seven times a week or something I've trained in sports since I was about four and I I feel I feel quite big and I'm looking at you right now and your shoulders are barely fitting in the frame your voice is deep man and this back story you have is insane now I just want to know what what part of all of this spectrum of just toughness and stuff gave you the nickname the machine and where where did that where did that stick into place it's a I'm glad you asked man because it's actually there's a lot more to the story that I'd like to add um and the short answer to the question is when I first started deploying again as as an utee first started in Afghanistan in 2015 was my first Tri Tri as a one-legged guy it didn't take long before a lot of the villagers and the pot in of force we were working with and a lot of the locals began to refer to me as Palawan Masina which is Dar for the machine fighter and that's just how they interpreted me that's just what they called me and it got to a point where it spread so vast that we would roll into a village that we had never been in before you know get out of the trucks start doing our thing and like kids would start running up to us and they would would be screaming palana Machina palana Machina like they like so word had traveled that there was this big robot like looking dude like bombing around the country and so then my teammates of course started like giv me [ __ ] about it and like oh it's the machine like no one actually called me that outside of the locals in Afghanistan but it was kind of funny the next year 2016 my team and I were deployed to Eastern Africa and the same exact thing happened so we're an entirely different continent and within just a few weeks the locals began referring to me as maen which is just their version of the word cyborg so it's like two different countries two different continents same thing and now it kind of stuck and still none of my teammates or friends have ever referred to me as that ever it's really never been a nickname for me other than when I'd been in these operational environments but that's kind of the Genesis of it but what it's turned into I mean the machine now is its own brand and it's it's part of my company and my team and I and we refer to ourselves as team machine because when you think about what a machine is a machine is a series of components it's a whole bunch of pieces that get put together and when they're put together correctly and they have that kind of synergy and connectiveness about them that's what creates the machine the machine is not a single entity it's a whole bunch of entities brought together so when you describe that you're describing a team so the brand machine is synonymous with team and not only that but it represents me as quote the machine while I am a single human even though you and I are having this conversation right now Louis 101 there are hundreds of people sitting right here alongside me that you just can't see that I would not be here talking to you had not it not been for them so even as I was depicted as this singular entity known as quote the machine there were countless people that iot relied on that got me to that place and continued to push me forward so while the machine idea and kind of joke and nickname began as me as a person you know downrange doing my job it's morphed into what I believe to be the true power and that is the power of a team so true so so so true and I think there's a there's a definitely a beauty to that statement as well because you look at you and you're you're this image of the brand in a sense but then you take obviously what goes on behind the scenes like You' just described and it's so true like the team makes the thing the dream in a sense doesn't it it's so important to have a team of people who feel you feel all of those things and that you need to do to become this person and and maintain this person so you're you're right and that's that is truly uh exactly the same I imagine In a Special Operations units too but like you said you've got this brand now something interesting I'd I'd like to touch on here as well is you're still active duty you're still in the Special Operations unit so how how do you navigate doing all this public Outreach stuff whil still doing that because my interpretation is that when people are in the Special Operations unit it's very kind of uh tight kept secret in a sense obviously and most of the people I've spoken to before are ex kind of Navy Seals and exmilitary people so um H how do you navigate that with the chain of command and and doing all the stuff that you do yeah it's a good question so you know about a year ago actually a little over a year now was where I made a transition off of the teams and into the position that I have now so now I sit at the company level leadership position as a company operations warrant officer so you have the detachments and then above that you have the company level and so that's where I currently sit now and my company that I'm part of we oversee the Advanced Training uh within my unit so I not only left the team Life as a team guy but I also left operations and now I'm in a leadership position within the training sphere so that Catalyst that became a really a catalyst for me and my entrepreneurial team to accelerate a little bit with some of these other things that we do because it opened up that bandwidth life on the teams is crazy it's it's non-stop it's around the clock it's odd hours sometimes you don't even go into work till 5 p.m. because you're going to be out till 6:00 a.m. you know so it's crazy the last coming up on you know 14 16 months me making that professional move to this position I'm in now really opened up a considerable opportunity for me to invest more time and energy you know outside of my work in uniform so it it's difficult because I got to manage my calendar very deliberately but I can do a lot of my Army work from just about anywhere and while 2020 was a complete and total pain in the ass for everybody you we all learned that you can be effective remotely it doesn't entirely replace being in the same place with people like proximity does have value but we learned that you can be productive and you don't have to be glued to a specific spot at a specific time always so we all kind of learn through that and that's you know the technology and the processes that a lot of us still leverage today I'm no different so it is difficult um I travel a lot for work as well as for my own work so it's just it's a balance and it's just deliberate calendar management and time priorization is really how it's guys really quick announcement here we'll get you straight back to the podcast in just a second but once to let you know that I have made a very special t-shirt design for this episode specifically based around the quiet professional as stated by Nick Lavery towards the end of the podcast absolutely fantastic quotes and I've made a really great design for this this the t-shirts are insane quality and they're available on my website so guys if you got something special from this episode fantastic bit of advice some motivation or great bright idea or you just want to support the show then please do grab one of these t-shirts or maybe a hoodie or something as well like I said Link in BIO and you should be able to see it on the screen right now guys thank you and let's get you back over to the awesome podcast cheers absolutely well I think that must be the case for pretty much any any Walk of Life really too um but so just something else that interests me as well is obviously in the teams you've got a family feel 100% from the conversations I've had before people have this family feel and it is truly a Brotherhood as well um when you were getting back into the team do you feel like there was any kind of hesitation and doubt towards you making this decision and or was that team just steadfast in their support and belief um you know how how did that feel going back in there for the first time to you it it's a it's an awesome question you know when I first began pursuing getting back to the teams which started when I was in the hospital it was it was about me getting back to doing what I felt I needed to do me getting back to doing what I love and I was laser focused on this completely obsessed Allin burn the boats no plan B just all the chips onto the table and I leveraged that drive for for months and it really wasn't until I got back to my unit I was Grant did the approval to stay on active duty and I began going through this evaluation process that I popped up in the middle of the night in like this cold sweat and I felt like I was dying like my heart was pounding and I I literally thought I was on the verge of death and I realized in that moment that I was trying to go back to a team and I really hadn't thought about that until that point and I'm I'm I'm making progress right I got all this momentum I'm extremely confident I'm like there is nothing that these people can throw at me that I won't be able to do I'm going to make this happen and then I'm smashed to in the face like a truck drove into me with oh my gosh I'm going back to a team of guys who I have an enormous amount of love and respect for like do they even want me back I hadn't even asked them and I'm seeing these guys you know just about every day at work we're in the gym together we're training I felt horrible about myself Louie I felt terrible like just the biggest piece of [ __ ] that I had not even thought about them so I went into work the next day and I bombed into their team room because I've been working as an instructor they're working as as Team guys I walk into the team room and I'm like guys I need five minutes we sat down and I said dude first off I I'm incredibly sorry that it's taken me this long to have this conversation with you guys I hadn't even thought of it but have you guys talked about this have you guys discussed this CU I'm making progress over here like I don't know if this is actually going to happen but I continue to make wins and I'm progressing and have you guys considered what it is that I am trying to do here and you know they were like listen bro we've talked about this dozens of times and the answer is we don't know if this is going to work but what we do know is we want to be the ones to decide if this will work or not so if you're able to make it back here we will be the first to tell you to your face candidly blunt no [ __ ] hey man we gave it a shot and and this isn't going to work and I knew that about them there really is no room for anything other than blunt force honesty because there's a there's a standard that will be maintained no matter what and there's there's no exceptions to that which I know and I respect so what it what that allowed me to do was remain Target fixated on the things that I needed to do and my reasons for wanting to do it and it really accelerated that because now I was in en visioning you know my teammate's son rather than me having this glorifying moment getting back into Afghanistan with my arms over my head when I was going into that third training session of the day and I was exhausted and beat up and all the excuses are all sounding extremely convincing I was thinking about my teammates and their families and it just brought a whole another surge of energy for me to take advantage of and I I could place my trust in them to be objective and to be logical because it was such an emotional thing for me and emotion and logic often times cadi dict each other it's really difficult to be logical when you're highly emotional and this was very emotional to me this was very personal so I was able to place my trust in my friends and my teammates that they would maintain that objective look and I knew they would so once I did make it back there you know we of course have this little short celebration it was incredibly short because we had a whole lot of work to do we're about to go game on in like six seven weeks Soh we had that moment I was now at the bottom of a whole new Mountain that I had to start to climb but I was able to do that with a high degree of confidence because I knew that my friends and teammates would hold me accountable they would tell me the truth and all I needed to do was Focus everything on my discipline my sacrifice my work ethic my productivity and and just keep going who yeah who are man that's some crazy stuff right there but absolutely true I'm I'm I'm just I'm in awe it's fantastic to see I think the last thing that I really want to ask you now is that you're someone who's gone through obviously the most extreme of every anything you can go through really in life so um but I think that some of the mentality practices you've used in your recovery are very applicable to people listening who have their own issues too in life yeah life throws curveballs all the time man uh when you're faced with something that feels impossible to beat is getting you down or causes you a stress or or problems even what would be the best tactical approach to handle that and what should your mental and emotional approach be also just for people listening who might be going through their own kind of stuff dude so many so many things come to mind you know me and my team we teach entire curriculums on this you and I could talk for hours on this exact thing the the first thing that came to mind man when you just asked me that is a statement that I use and that is the size of the struggle is commensurate with the size of the goal which means that they're equal so while we would maybe prefer to have this massive goal this massive ambition and there to be this very small tiny struggle along the way that just doesn't exist so if you choose to adopt that truth then what that means is when you are feeling the struggle that is an indic that you are on a path worthwhile that you are on a path of righteousness and that's an opportunity to recognize it for one and then lean into that discomfort because right there the game's being played and what it's a very short game to play you have maybe five 10 seconds to play it and choose your move most this is just average this is just math most people when they feel that will find a reason I.E an excuse to offramp and of course we're going to be enabled by a whole lot of very convincing justifications as to why it's in our best interest to avoid this and perhaps never come back to it again and it's going to sound very convincing and all that's done on purpose by a means to protect our emotional Wellness what the unusual people will do what the unorthodox people will do is lean into it and say no now right now is the game the game is being played and I'm G to lean into this struggle because on the back side of that is growth now no one's bat in a thousand I don't care how motivated you are or how captivating of a caption you put underneath an Instagram post no one's batting a thousand and I'm not suggesting you need to I certainly do not I I miss and fail consistently but the recognition that in those moments of struggle and adversity you are now clocking in and you got about five 10 seconds to decide what you want to do most offramp Now's the Time to lean in and if you do that with enough consistency you start to see the value of the struggle and the discomfort and then I'll tell you and this is a great problem to have is when you begin stalking discomfort because you're that obsessed with growth and progress and you recognize that most of it exists on the backside of pain and fear and doubt and struggle so you begin seeking it out and that's a I say it's a good problem to have but it can be a problem because it's very easy to get Reckless and start operating without any strategy or without any tactics and that can very easily lead to damage or regression or stagnation because you're you're you're going too aggressive without any sort of operationalized approach to what you're doing so there is a line but you know I think when you find that line you're truly living at the edge of your capability and the way that I Define that line is the line between determination and Madness and there's a very thin razor Majin that exists between Obsession and Reckless but when you find it even though it's a moving line when you find it that's when you're truly living at the edge of your capacity wow I mean that's just been delivered perfectly Nick um I think the only last thing I'd like to ask you really here today is just you're the first person in history to to to have done what you've done if there obviously I have quite a few veterans who' come on the podcast and quite a few veteran listeners if there was someone who had something very similar happen to them like what happened to you what kind of what would your advice be in terms of making this happen a second time for example and how would you begin to approach that yeah a couple things come to mind first is is you know nothing's going to happen fast enough you know that going in nothing's going to happen fast enough so there's going to be a degree of frustration that sets in I think that that step one is identifying what the mission is what is it that you're moving towards what what's the what's the goal what's the end game because if you don't know where you're going any road will get you there so even if you make some sort of progress you could easily be making progress towards something that you really don't want uh so you know have that really hard honest difficult at times conversation with yourself you say what do you want to do who do you want to become and then listen and and engage in that internal dialogue and be honest with yourself there there's zero upside in lying to yourself tell yourself the truth what do you really want to do who do you really want to be and plant a flag in the ground as a distant t as a as a a Guiding Light as an asmith to begin moving towards and then just break that down into a series of objectives to get you from point A to point B and often times that's going to be met with a lot of Doubt both internally and externally you're likely going to have to get really comfortable in isolation both physically and metaphorically this is what it takes but I think it begins with figuring out what the mission is that mission may change but at least you have something in front of you whether you can see it or not even if it's just conceptual you have something to begin working towards and now you've got some intent and you can begin to deliver and create a strategy and some tactics and some short-term milestones in route to that intent yeah y That's Perfect Mate um I I couldn't I couldn't put another word into that I think that's absolutely perfect advice and obviously I I know you're here right now on the podcast and stuff but you're also doing loads of public speaking stuff and you've got some great stuff happening on the social media front so um obviously four questions that's done for today but before we wrap it up Shameless plug away Nick um plug us into website books everything you Instagram and stuff you know send my people where uh where we can find more of the
machine yeah so the title of my book is objective secure uh which I'll tell you right now if you're looking for an autobiography look somewhere else listen to some podcasts objective secure is not an autobiography in fact that's the most productive negative feedback I receive is hey man I really want like the story of you and it's like yeah that's not what this is there there's a bunch of little short vignettes and experiences that are in there really just to give some context but objective secure the subtitle is the battle tested guide to goal achievement and that's what it is it really it answers the how did you do what you did question and it's a process and methodology and philosophy and Tool RS that as you said Lou are applicable to anybody regardless of your Walk of Life this is not designed specifically for military personnel in fact it's I find myself using those techniques now perhaps more so as an entrepreneur and as a father and a husband than I am as a Green Beret that's the book but and the and the the One-Stop shop to get kind of all the things and the socials as our website which is team machine.com machine is mchn it's got links to the socials it's got links to the book it's got the merch it's got It's got a way to get a hold of me directly which is something that I do handle personally it's got business inquiries all this stuff man so anyone interested that that's where you go fantastic stuff Nick um very last thing I want to ask as well for a little bit of trivia before we uh before we wrap this up today is um so on some of my past guest episodes I've asked if there's any kind of a slang term or expression or something that we take away and and kind of NAB from from the person person or their their military unit and um from before I've had a Top Gun graduate fighter pilot and he's he's given me fights on and I've I've used that a hell of a lot uh Dev grew Eddie peny uh and Seal Team Six he gave me own the room and um and those are two things I've lived by I'm just wondering is there any green beret kind of slang term expression or something that is kind of unique to you guys that that I can take away from here and uh and put into my daily work ethic the quiet professionals is kind of one of our pyms and I want to be very clear that there's a difference between quiet and Silent there's a difference between quiet and Silent this is something that I've had to kind of struggle with now the last few years as I've kind of gotten more exposed and more vulnerable and put myself out there into the public space am I violating this this ethos and it's something I'll likely continue to struggle with but there is a difference uh but the quiet professional at the end of the day really means that you are and you are a person of action and you stand by what you say and uh you mean what you say and you do what you say and your actions speak louder than your words perfect I'm gonna take it man thank you so much for that and yeah Nick honestly dude thank you so much for joining me today for the talk for podcast I can only say it's just been an absolute pleasure and an honor to have you on and um and I'm inspired I I truly am dude I appreciate it Louis thanks for the time Man episode 90 what three I think you just said3 indeed 93 congrats I know that's a grind uh I can't say for sure if you've had a talent for this but you certainly have developed a skill and I know that this you make this look easier than it is man so I give you a lot of credit starting at zero moving into one now you're in 93 I'm a fan so you know if there anything that I got from this is just that I I'm now a fan listening to your work brother so I wish you the best of luck I'll be listening keep grinding away oh man that means literally the ABS abolute world to me and uh yeah the whole thing about the talent thing I'm not I'm not not sure about that uh sometimes I might go back to to episode one just for a for a a walk through memory lane and I'll find uh some pretty horrific stutters and and things back there which just made me go oh my God I and I thought I nailed this back then but I I tell you what it's um if if I want to say my own little motivational thing as well something that I've been kind of hopping on about a little bit recently is that going back to my early episodes I looked back at the very first time that I made a piece of artwork for one of these episodes and it was one of the promotional uh pictures in fact I'm going to stick it up on the screen right now for you guys but looking back at that and then looking at the Quality difference from then to what I'm doing now I can only say that I was no graphic designer I was no podcaster when I started but I started and I just kept making episodes and I kept designing and creating and every single time I did it it just got a little bit better I listened to the feedback and I just kept trying to be a little bit better every day and fill that little 1% quota which just got me just better over this long period of time and now when you look at episode one versus 93 it just blows me away how how how far it's come and I think that's just a true Testament even to to someone like Nick here you can see it there's no way that what he did was anything quick or easy but if you do something for it every damn day and you just fight towards that that goal poost that's in the future it's just there's no way you can't improve any thoughts on that Nick before we sign off well sir man no I'm not even going to try to top that bro that was very well said and I agree 100 per. thanks Nick well I tell you what um podcast are not design and improvements are not all I can say is that guys you make this happen this has been episode 93 and we're heading towards 100 and uh I don't know if it's going to happen yet but I'm going to reach out and see if it can but I'm hoping to have um for my 100th episode my very first guest back on again for a for a walk through memory lane and Improvement thing maybe Nick even knows him Pat McNamara uh tmac maybe Pat oh yeah Pat great dude that would be awesome man and now I'm actually gonna go back and listen to episode one because Pat's Pat's my boy good stuff man well maybe start with like around the 50 Mark before it you know when it no no no I'm going straight to one bro I'm going straight to one I'm going to walk back I'm going to walk forward in time I love it so much oh guys well look honestly thank you so much for for tuning in today it's been an absolute pleasure and if you're new to the channel I'm sure there's a few new people here just do me the favor leave a subscribe leave a like leave a comment I love to hear what you think about this show and uh and our incredible guest and obviously so many profound and insane people with great stories in the past two if I could recommend anyone I'd say Kegan call sign Smurf Gil fighter pilot Ed at the speed of sound before his figh jet hit the water one of the most insane stories of survival and resilience I've ever heard and um I I think that these other stories that Inspire the most so guys like I said subscribe go and have a look at some of the other episodes and all I can say is thank you for joining me today fights on and see you next time good
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