The Don't Panic Project - Former Navy SEAL Team Six Member, Andy Stumpf

hello welcome to another edition of the don't panic project we provide conversations to help empower inspire and educate people suffering from stress anxiety and depression today's guest is former US Navy SEAL Andy stump Andy enlisted in the Navy while still a junior in high school entering military service in 1996 after completing bootcamp he began and completed the most grueling training program and the US military basic underwater demolition SEAL known as buds nearly 90% of all candidates are unsuccessful completing the six-month program in 2002 he screamed for and joined the most elite counterterrorism unit in the military SEAL Team six this unit is tasked with conducting the nation's most critical missions while on a combat deployment and Iraqi insurgents shot Andy at close range with an ak-47 doctors told him it would be years if ever before he recovered the use of his leg and returned to full active duty in 2006 Andy returned to the Naval Special Warfare Center as the leading petty officer for second phase buds training in 2008 he became the first be six selection commissioned through the limited duty officer program in the history of Naval Special Warfare throughout his 17-year career and he executed hundreds of combat up operations throughout the world in support of the Global War on Terror he was medically retired in June of 2013 his awards and decorations include five Bronze Stars for with valor the Purple Heart the joint service commendation medal the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with valor three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medals two combat action ribbons and the president Presidential Unit Citation although no longer wearing a uniform and he continues to fight for the seal community and their families in 2015 he set two World Records after jumping from 36 thousand five hundred feet and flying over 18 miles in a wingsuit in an effort to raise 1 million dollars for the Navy SEAL foundation so what a mouthful welcome Andy it's really really an honor to have you here I just want to start out by saying you know a heartfelt thanks for your service in the military and everything you've done for this country you know I really I can't even imagine some of the things you've seen so thank you for that and thank you for being here yeah thank you for for the invite and I'd say the vast majority of my service was definitely my pleasure not all of it but damn near awesome so let's kind of start from a little bit at the beginning here you knew at a very early age that you wanted to be a seal how'd you know this you know was there a particular event that formed this desire yeah I guess that question pretty often I think it's anomalous or atypical for people to hear of somebody that young kind of having a designer what road they wanted to go down in their life when I got into the team's it was a very common narrative so I was surrounded by people who felt exactly the same way I can't think of the exact event or what necessarily put me on that path I know I heard about seals for my father who served in Vietnam he wasn't a seal that he served alongside Vietnam he was a gunner on a patrol boat and obviously seals in Vietnam work usually starting their mission from the water going on land and coming back to the water so he was handling that aspect of it and I think I look back on it now I know I obviously didn't have the vocabulary or the maturity to describe it when I was 11 and I still don't know if I have the maturity my vocabulary is slightly better but it's I think it had something to do with the challenge I was aware of the statistical odds of me making it through as a matter of fact most of time you hear about that program that's what they lead with how many people don't make it so I think that's something to do with that something to do with the odds being stacked against me maybe it was the exclusive nature that it sounded like I mean are in all of those things there's like a pot of stew combine all of those things and it just it grabbed me from a conversation with my dad worked with him in the summer tiniest construction couple years in Mason we were driving back from a job I remember distinctly a conversation and I remember distinctly from that moment forward I just had this insatiable desire to learn more about the job which was very difficult at the time because the internet was not what the Internet is now I actually had to go to the building it had bricks on the outside had books on the inside physically my children is called the library not the smartphone and there was much there are some books on Vietnam and I went into it was largely unknown because the access to information it's just not what was so it was it was an interesting journey I prepared myself as much as possible and then but from that age of 11 I mean I don't head long into that was what I was going to do and never never deviated from that Wow so just focused right right right from the get-go so yes I think a lot of people are really curious what that training is like you know training that only 10% of the people succeed at so can you give us a little bit of a flavor of what it's like to go through the buds training I describe what I tell people it was great because I was able to go back as an instructor so I've seen both sides of the coin as a student it's very chaotic as an instructor you're making it very chaotic by design I'm sure it's the same thing in any of the first responder communities when you first get through the we're going to an Academy of some kind of new requirement doing this and then once you get some experience into your belt you can look back and go oh that's why we do those things we're trying to test for this or inoculate against that but I just tell people when they ask me about buds that anybody can make it through one day of buds and that's a true statement just like anybody can take a piece of sandpaper and you can swipe it across your knuckles now can you swipe it across your knuckles every day for 180 days that's the difference it's it's a grind both physically and mentally you obviously have to have a certain level of physiological capacity but they test you and they screen you for that to getting to the program so everybody who steps to the door day one from like contractile potential from a stamina potential they have all of those things that they need the building blocks and where people fail most often oh there are failures because people can't meet the timed run under the time swims but those are small most of the failures are people quitting it and that is a failure of with what you have between your ears and that's something that you can't tell by looking at people and it that's what the training program is designed to do it's designed to find what you're not good at it's designed to push you to the limit of what you're capable of tolerating and that might be physically from being a manner of being exhausted or hungry during hell week where they keep you up for a week straight or it could be mentally where we throw you into a swimming pool on an open string and breathing apparatus and I as an instructor get to restrict when you breathe and the whole goal of that is to push you as close to panic as you can possibly get to see if you can follow procedure or if you're gonna allow the panic to take over and freak out so there's something there for everybody it's extremely physical but it's extremely mental and it's just it's just a grind it's not any one day that stands out it's the day after day after day for six months that separates the wheat from the chaff in that particular program so is there any specific mental training that they provide or do they just kind of throw you into the cooler and provide mental training you're there to select for for an occupation the training certainly you know any of the skill sets that we test on there is sample training leading up to that but I'm looking for people who have a baseline level of mental capacity mental toughness resiliency and then we build upon that after we get through the first third of the training program is really about trying to get people to quit it I would say the next two thirds beyond a certain fourth point still extremely difficult the standards are extremely high we're still looking to push people to quit if they're uncertain who they are or why they're there but it becomes more about training the individual and then we can start talking about you know tactics or for developing the resilience or you know and then slowly inoculated to stress all of those things that you used to in that community in that career but first we have to separate the people that don't belong all right so I definitely want to talk about that type of mental training in minutes but begs the question did you ever think of quitting were you close to quitting if you made a lot very common question I did not i well I didn't want it to be there most guys will tell you exactly the same thing it the guys would make it through are the ones who are gonna make it through it doesn't matter you just realize at some point my gardener bins called my life I don't think they can make me any colder so whatever bring it I'm really hungry but I'm still going bring it I'm really tired but I don't think it'd make me any more tight you just get to a point where but nothing that they're gonna do is gonna make you quit so you just embrace the suck banging on an inch at a time so I mean it's just like you're just numb almost to the physical pain it's just you've reached your breaking point knee pain hurts right so you're not numb to the pain you just you come to the realization that the governor for what you're capable of doing it's not your body it's your mind gotcha so moving on past now the training and now you've made it into being a what's the technical term so you're you're a seal but you were both graduate so buds graduate this is another one you know if you graduate buds you are not a seal that is the emphasis on the acronym buds needs to be on the B it's basic and after that you got about another 18 months to two years of training to actually learn how to do your job because again buds is a selection course it's not a training course and so you get your buds gradual but really and then you get to a SEAL team well then the way I went through is I went to a SEAL team and I went through another like I said 18-month training pipeline took a very robust verbal and practical test but all of the skill sets required and then fine I received my tribe which is a penny where in your chest it doesn't use a seal they change your NEC or enable and listen and classification and computer system you'll show up as a 53:26 which is the designator for a seal now they have it right after buds each team used to run that additional training now they have a training command for both East and West Coast teams you graduate buzz you go to that training command at the end of that pipeline everybody's issue their Trident and then you go to your respective team so it creates a level playing field and a level template so everybody's playing off the same playbook both East and West Coast gotcha so alright after you've moved on you mentioned that they do start to incorporate some some mental trainings so obviously some mental training for you know high-stress situations or so can you explain what some of that training is like I don't know I wouldn't describe it as when we sit down in the classroom and say alright guys today we're gonna focus on the mental aspect like I said the training in buds the selection portion of buzz is extremely difficult and I would say the biggest reinforcement were the best tool that we use is threshold training and then sometimes training to failure you have to be careful with this especially when we get new guys at a SEAL team it's hard to overwhelm somebody who's brand new and I'm sure in your occupation if you get somebody straight out of an academy it would take you about two minutes to get somebody completely overwhelmed with too much information they don't know how to prioritize that information and there and fail because they don't have enough experience but on the so that's an experienced old figure on that mental side of the house if your training is always more difficult and it's the goal of the training is to be more it should exceed the demands of what you're gonna expect to encounter in real life not on day one you have to gradually and incrementally get people to that point so you know crawl walk run is a philosophy that be using the teams and we start off with say we're out of the desert we're teaching a team most the time we're walking around on the ground if you get shot at on the ground you're gonna have to shoot in the Newbery you're gonna have to work as a team so we'll start off with just two people and we start off very slow like let's just work on shooting mechanics once the shooting mechanics are there we'll have them work or walk and just a linear fashion and we'll shoot at them from only one director will simulate shooting them would be awesome they let us shoot at them but they don't so we sit elated we simulate shooting at them and they do very very very basic fire and maneuver what one person will shoot and they're looking at each other and they're moving very slow they're communicating the other one will move and then we increase that speed over time pushing that threshold of what they're able to what they're able to deal with then maybe we'll hit you with the nonlinear amplifier you getting shot at in two directions and we'll give you four people instead of two and we'll expect you to move faster and the problem is going to become more and more and more difficult as your skill level increases because I don't want to get to the point where it's easy if I get to the point where it's easy I know all the answers to the test I'm no longer progressing and what I have found is that at that point your enemy has the advantage when you are now you know complacency will kill you and just about everything that I've ever seen from walking across the street to drive in your car probably to be the fire fighter a lot of horsemen officer first responder the second you think you got it and that you've arrived you need to start looking for because your enemy is about to eat your much for you and that's the goal is to never allow your people to get to that point always hit them with new challenges needs physical maybe it's a mental challenge I mean we'll do stuff while we're doing clearance of rooms and you go in and then there's a live tissue medical problem right there that's you know on a pig or a goat that has the anatomy and physiology that matches a human being so you go from being in a tactical mindset to having a holster and retain your weapon to diving into a medical scenario and if you did that day one guaranteed failure give them a teeth failure especially on a new person so that's the way that we work our way up to that we'll do medical training we'll do a House Clearance training we'll do a bunch of house runs we'll do a bunch of medical training a ministry show up in an environment where you don't expect and that's how you push the needle you keep innovating and evolving your training so your people just can't can't become comfortable and if you do that and your people are used to that challenge the mental toughness and fortitude that comes with that also develops along with their physical skill set makes makes perfect sense so you've been in hundreds of high-stress combat situations you know situations I could not even comprehend see now that's not so when you are preparing for those situations what does the team do again I'm going back to the the mental part of this again because I'm trying to give our viewers you know tools for handling high-stress situations and helping them through stress so yeah you know you just got some mission whatever it is top-secret stuff that you guys do don't believe the movies none of this top secret it's actually jab people all right so whatever whatever it is some obviously very dangerous situation what do you do the second you get that call and you're kind of on your way in for lack of a better term you know what what's the mental prep start what do you start to do mentally well realistically unless it's a hostage rescue scenario and even in a hostage rescue scenario the first thing you're gonna do is you're going to plan you know I hate the movies about seals because they set a you know unless blue bug bloods in Chicago fire are going to be considered documentaries rather than people from those backgrounds they're like no no no that's not real well guess what everything you've ever seen on TV about the steel in every movie or she doesn't really hear it so they were just sitting around and they'll be run out to a spinning helicopter on average 24 to 72 hours to plan so 1/2 a three-day planning cycle so like I was telling you about all of our shooting stuff whether it's medical or clearing buildings or you're out in the desert we call those things SOPs or standard operating procedures and the framework for the SEAL Teams I would say in my opinion is the doctor if I want to go remember how to pack a parachute I have a binder that I can go and I can look if I want to figure out the shooting standards are I can go and I can look I want to figure out how the best way to load a helicopter I can pull a three-ring binder and I can go and I can look and all of those things those standards and procedures they're trained to and everybody is expected to know them so when we get tasked with doing something I don't need to figure out how to clear a building because I already know how to clear a building now I need to figure out how we're going to get to that building and then we can move on to the next phase of the operation so the first thing you do is you sit down plan everything military operation has five phases and we plan each and every one of those phases primary secondary tertiary and we generally will present to higher authority three different options with getting mission done so we not only have three different ways to get from where we are to where our target but three different ways to also prosecute the target on the ground and that's just I mean that portion of the planning is maybe that takes you a couple hours the rest of the stuff that we plan on we spend almost all of our time thinking about the contingencies and the only reason we can do that is because we have SOPs I really get a mission tasking I don't have to sit there and say all right how are we gonna clear this building we don't need to do that because we know how to do that so if freezes tough to say what's the worst thing that could happen what if this door that we think is here is actually on the other side of the building what if the high ground that we have to choose to reach over there isn't as high as we think it is when we get to ground level let's look at some other books so we contingency plan as much as possible on every single phase then once that plan is complete and you have to remember that no plan will ever be complete no the plan would be perfect so let me go let me go hit the ground running and out of the hundreds of combat operations I've been on precisely zero the con is planned and that's because the real world doesn't give a rip about your plan and then the enemy always has a vote so we do all of this planning and focus on the contingencies and then we go out the door expecting the plan to change we deviate and audible as necessary but again it's all based on those standard procedures and those templates that we can work from if you don't have those you can't really call an audible because everything you're doing is inaudible in and of itself so we just go out I mean I don't expect a plan to be the way that it is so when I come around a corner and I'm expecting to see a door there that we're planning to make entry on and it's not there okay it's not an emotional event I just go through the branch chain hey if door is here do this if door is not there do that I just continue along the branch chain and if I come to a place where that branch chain doesn't have the answer to that question I make a decision based off of the general plan that we have in place and making sure we get to the proper ends today and then I get back inside of the plant as soon as humanly possible it makes makes complete sense yeah hey so can you tell us a little bit about when you were shot at close range what was the situation what happened there it's extremely painful we were I was in Iraq in 2005 and we were I don't remember exactly what we were doing I think we were after a cell of people that was there to target one of the government officials and they were gonna kidnap some family members I could be wrong on that that might have happened the night before but I believe that's what we were out there doing and up until the moment that the guy started shooting me was the same as every other night that we had had on that deployment and you know I equated to go to Vegas I've seen people and some pretty good heaters on a crap table but eventually if you give them an off time they're gonna roll with 7:00 and I think that is true of the military overseas operational environment as well you can go you can be on a great roll and it's actually really dangerous I think to be on that great roll because you have to remember that you know being enthusiastic is just as dangerous as being frustrated or angry in my opinion no the emotional impact I see emotions as having only negative consequences when it comes especially to decision-making in leadership there really is no upside because if you get really excited and you get really enthusiastic because things have been going your way for too long it's really easy to lose your objectivity and there's gonna be some danger lurking around the corner so it wasn't a spectacular target there was nothing spectacular that was driving us there and I just I you know somebody got the jump means literally lifted his gun up above his head and started shooting full auto and as a k-clique meet me with the first round out and that was that that was the end of my night Wow I mean I have seen in some other videos of you you talking about that so am I correct you you had to lay under an armored vehicle for a while until you were able to be rescued I wish it was an armored vehicle I was you know I don't know where I got that yeah put into an armored vehicle there was eight people that were injured that night some substantially more so than myself so they have flown to the Green Zone Hospital in Iraq in helicopters I got put in the back of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle which was a very bumpy ride which did not feel awesome but it when I first got shot I ended up sliding underneath a car I got pinned underneath the car and essentially a driveway and above a man came and told me around the corner and then after that I got drugged out of the courtyard put it into that so how long were you laying under the car before your buddy was able to come and get it about four or five years surrounded exactly meal time proper five seconds oh really thorough he was right around the corner but you know there was a lot of shootin going on at the time and he exposed himself to drag me around the corner in you know that's just it's kinda what you do for each other so I wasn't there that one I was off target I mean they still finished prosecuting the target after her I was out of the game I would say we were there for another 40 minutes before I got loaded into the Bradley and then I don't remember how long the drive was to the greens or the maybe maybe another 40 minutes all right let me ask you so what's going through your mind at that point I mean did you think of potential of dying while you're on that ride or you know what's my initial thought the round hit me high up on my hip basically came in directly from the side and it feel felt like immediately my leg went numb like the you smash hits your funny bone just multiply that by like a thousand fold down my entire leg and because well the Train we've had the medical training you know intimately familiar with and aware that you can basically put all of your blood boiling into your thigh like you can bleed out into your thigh I also know there's a lot of veins and arteries and bones that can shatter in your pelvis in and your getting your high legs so my initial thought was that it shattered my leg pelvis and then I was gonna probably be dead in about five minutes oh I'm gonna believe it it's my leg jeez Wow so let me ask you this this is a bit of a strange question and okay I like it I don't want people you know I hope people don't take it the wrong way [Music] did you ever have any compassion for the enemy at any time you know and you know listen I get it it's not not going to happen when it's you versus them and people are trying to kill you and I would not expect anybody to have compassion for the enemy at that time but is there ever a time when when you had compassion for the enemy you know just yeah so that's a really good question and I I mean I try to be as open and honest about my experiences and myself as a human in those environments and what I'll say is taking a human life is very easy showing compassion is very difficult but you end up showing quite a bit of compassion because at least for me speaking and again I can only speak for myself and my experience is for everybody listening my opinions and experiences on the military out there my I speak only for myself and you might get a different answer from somebody else but for myself I I want to maintain my morality and I'm the one who has to live with myself in my skin and see myself in the mirror every day and when you're really junior you know for lack even though it's instead it's a terrible thing but killing somebody in the military specifically in the SEAL Teams is kind of a benchmark it's a line on the same it's a student one and I'm sure that it exists in many other communities inside of the military and when you're young in your career your goal is to race across that line as fast as humanly possible a lot of people they never get the chance to and I think it actually bothers them and then hindsight looking back it absolutely should because there were decades of seals that never got the chance to see combat and they were just as good if not better seals than the people who have seen a lot of combat it's not a measuring stick even though it is and I think it always will be to some degree now you get across that line you start get a little bit more experience and you'll end up giving people more time to display their true intent overseas we have to meet one of two criteria one of them is hostile intent we are in hostile act hostile act is very easy somebody shooting at you hostile intent to be somebody's carrying ammunition or somebody has a gun who's not actually shooting you but they're maneuvering line you can meet those two thresholds or one of those two thresholds in addition so you always have the inherent right to self-defense that's in the arteries or the rules of engagement you you can justify your behavior and your actions based on black and white but that doesn't just define to you as a human being and some people don't have a problem with that and others maybe they have a problem with that the more experience you have at least for myself I would accept slightly more risk and by that I would describe that as being compassionate towards the individuals that we were engaging with they're directly shooting at me that's that's a black and white decision but if it was anything other than that I would give them another second or another half of a second to display to me their their true intent and and that is compassionate because the easiest thing to do would be to take a life right and that's not always the right thing to do it's it's easy to do from a physical perspective it's hard to do for moral perspective especially it adds up you know that Alice has become hounds over time it's something that you need to deal with either shortly thereafter at some point in time in your life but compassion is essential in that environment and I actually any people won't understand this but I respect the people that we were fighting against I don't agree with them I don't want them to continue their life but I respect the fact that they're willing to fight for it and you know it's I don't like to turn we're but one soldier sees another one and I think there's always going to be that mutual respect there whether they're wearing the same uniform or a different one right I mean know so listen going back to what you're saying that giving somebody that one extra second could mean the difference between you living to see another day or we're dying right there between a family tree continuing or being chopped down yeah no doubt no doubt so you know I think it's an amazing show of strength to have a little bit of compassion and and maybe give somebody that extra second to show what their true intentions are and also I think I'm even asking just you know understanding somewhat maybe where these people are coming from and again I don't agree with their yeah ideology I have friends that I lost you know a few miles from here in the World Trade Center I understand that there a lot of these people would love to just kill as many of us as possible but there's just also this understanding that some of these people I think the level of compassion I'm talking about is that you know some of these people that's all they've ever known from the second they were born this is what they've been preached about and it's like they've never had a chance so you know on one level they've never had the chance to think in a different way and they've just had this ideology shoved down their throat you know it seems their first breath and I don't know sometimes I just you know just feel like there's a little option there it's a very calm problem that has no solutions absolutely and again all the respect in the world for you know our military out there and I'm not saying that anybody should should give anybody the opportunity to to act on how they believe and end up getting shot and killed rather and wanna through the yeah it's better to have that conversation to come to an agreement or a disagreement then blindly go and be an autonomous robot in my opinion yeah you know what that's I love the way you put that that makes a lot of sense hey so let me ask you this I mean have you ever been out again I'm trying to get into the stress and the mental aspect of the things that you've been through so have you have you ever had the moment when you're on in the battlefield word you really were almost like you know what I can't take this anymore after this I'm gonna be done you know or have you ever witnessed have you ever had a team member go through a mental breakdown in the middle of an operation never had a teammate have a mental breakdown in the middle of an operation I would say most of the stress breakdowns display themself in activities outside of work whether that be bottle of Jack Daniels we were financial your response you know fill in the blank of any stress in your ability to deal with it I describe it as and I when I talk about post-traumatic stress again okay we're talking about stress of a different kind I would say that each and every human being you have a jerk up and everybody has a different volume but there's also a hole in the bottom of your cup and you can you can fill the cup and you can drain out of the cup and I also think through training experience you can increase the volume and increase the size of a pole so you can allow yourself to tolerate more but not everybody's the same and when you fill it up and it starts spilling over that's where the problem really arise and that's where the stress starts creeping in outside of the work environment is where I found it to be the most for myself definitely had some pretty serious emotional events but you know the most impactful thing for me in those moments was the cool calm collected mists of the people around me you know maybe my cup was getting to the top but in seeing my boss or the person that I was working for respond in a very cool calm collected manner it allowed me maybe momentarily to open that hole in the bottom and drain a little bit out too you know hey let's take a look physically and metaphorically just taking me here for a second take a breath let it drain and then continue on you know what I did was it was very stressful and there were certainly moments if anybody tells you there they were never afraid or they were fearless they go to the categoric you and being called a liar and I never those things that never made me want to not do the job I never was like this is it like this is the last mission and I'm gonna quit after this it was just again because of the training and how hard we train we try to replicate that level with stress and training it just absolutely was gotcha you know I am a practitioner and teacher of mindfulness meditation is there I have seen articles and and stories about mindfulness training for seals have you ever gone through any of that I have not you know it'll be five years in June who knows what they're implementing I know that they're constantly evolving and innovating and they're bringing in specialists of every kind I know it's part of the baseline training right now but I was out of the amount of that community long enough that I'm a little bit out of touch with what they're doing for absolutely current temporary right so how has the transition been to civilian life for you sometimes it's good sometimes it's bad you know I miss I do miss the job I would say I think about the job for sure every day I think I probably missed the guys more than the job itself fortunately you know for me I when I look back in the stuff that I did I'm shuffling be myself at the hilarious things that happen both in training and and overseas but there's also you know the the mentality that you develop from working in those environments it helps in the civilian world I mean if you had to have me choose between two types of people somebody who came from my background or somebody who came from that background I don't mean anything negative on the academic world because I have them one was no experience for the West so I graduated high school barely but from what I can see and from what I'm seeing from both sides talking about it and I saw it a little bit when I was a buzz instructor you know so you have a choice between somebody with my background and that's at the training and that type of mental attitudes for it's approaching problems and stress versus somebody who was raised being told that they're special that they're unique and that they're know the world owes them fill in the blank or that are entitled to fill in the blank maybe those people when they first started off had the same potential the potential of what they could do with their life but they're on to divergent paths they're no longer parallel but I'm gonna go with the person who has been taught and comfortable with actually seeking stress and discomfort as opposed to avoiding stress and discomfort because they think that the world should be bubble wrapped and have rounded corners and if you think about it I mean that's really the only way you can grow as a person that means to step outside of a comfort zone if you stay in that bubble you're never gonna grow all those artificial I mean you know the environment that you're in I guess you could make artificial and to respect that bubble but if you leave your front door or that controlled environment or are you working in the industry that has contacts throughout the world nobody else cares about your bubble they're actually going to look at it as a as a point where they can manipulate at you and there it's going to be a disadvantage for you and then advantage to them and where that's being lost and why people don't understand that I don't know but I have no interest in engaging in that particular pursuit yeah I agree with you you know it's going back to how we actually opened up the conversation and about your training and embracing the suck yeah that's that's how you grow and you have to be aware that alright maybe this does suck but I need to do it and you know that's the only way I'm gonna grow I love being in environments that are challenging I mean I do but I think I think once you understand like for me I learned a lot about myself when I'm pushing really hard physically or mentally we're in combination I like having a heart rate I like being challenged I like being at the limit of what I'm able to do it more importantly I like knowing where my limit is so that I can work for it pushing that Lina even further and I just don't see that as being the norm maybe it is I don't know I mean I live in a town now of 22,000 people and I don't talk to 20 1999 of them so maybe I'm surrounded by people with the same mentality but I have a sneaking suspicion hey so just to talk a little bit more about some of the things you're doing now in your civilian life yeah let's talk about you use chatter yeah next next chapter so you know you you're raising money for seals and sea leaves and you recently had the distance record for flight in a wingsuit and I that's 2015 weird a little bit past recent but yes it did happen a couple couple of years ago so yeah I mean I encourage anybody who watches this to go and go on YouTube and check out the video of Andy doing that it's amazing so can you just set the stage for us a little bit on that jump because the conditions are so extreme yeah just want people to understand and and maybe talk about how you even prepare for for sharing some kind of it if you just go watch that YouTube video it'll probably make it seem like it was more dramatic and a little bit more of a unique event than it probably was I've been shopping since 1999 it was part of the job and there was something that I found and I loved it and I've been headfirst into it ever since so it's not like I just strap the wingsuit on that day and jumped out of an airplane there was a lot of things that went into making that possible that didn't make the video but it was difficult to get out of a job for me again where I felt like I had some impact and you know one day you wear a uniform and the next day that uniform sitting in the closet and you're watching the news and instead of having a job where you could impact the news you're now in a position where you just can watch it and when I got out the you know in 2008 the ground that we had sweat and bled for particularly in Iraq in that time period it was eroding like the tide Missoula was falling Fallujah was flowing back and there was I mean the sweat equity and blood equity that was put into trying to create an environment where people who live in that country can survive and not only survive but thrive it was going away and I just I gotta sit there watching the news I got to the point where I was too super bummed out I didn't watch the news anymore because of what I rather would do would be shoulder to shoulder with the guys trying to go over there and make an impact but that portion of my life is gone and a buddy of mine actually it wasn't my idea to do the jump and to do the fundraising was a buddy of mine had the idea and it just kind of clicked for me that you know I can't do it myself which is what I would prefer to do if I was given the choice but even just seeing the impact in my own family and then seeing aside the impact on the other families when somebody is either hurt or they don't come back and maybe steel foundation is the organization that I am fundraising for to see the impact that it had on those families and the support that it has I know from a perspective of being the service member you do worry about your family you do think about your family and knowing that organizations like that exist to help them in case something were to happen I'm not going to say it it takes that thought out of your mind but it puts you at ease so I realized that that's the next most important or the next most impactful thing that I can do and I don't again headlong into doing that I was already skydiving at the time and I was already flying the wingsuit and it's night at the time so I just looked at the things that I did and tried to pick something that was achievable work towards those went out there to Davis California where we did the record attempt of the training trained for a week and by the time I got into the airplane you know the wingsuit was not new to the oxygen system wasn't new the only difference was we were going substantially higher than we had gone in our training jumps but in theory he was really really the same thing so I guess that the video can make it look like it's well do any of those designed to make it look more dramatic exciting but you know that's that's what I knew how to do so that's what I did so let me ask you something know right where you jumped out it actually looked like you were rolling a little bit then I was like wow yes yeah that was a textbook exit on how not to do it but now you're playing going that high it was the absolute limit of a service ceiling it was actually well beyond the published limit for that type of aircraft where they had modified engine all sorts of stuff so the pilot you know when you're practicing at lower altitudes because we're wearing the wingsuit wood which has a lot of fabric the pilot why she pulled back the engine a little bit so there's not much wind coming by the door it just makes it easier for the person jumping to get out of the airplane and there's less risk that you'll fly up into the tail well he couldn't do that at that altitude and looking back the only thing that would change about the week leading up to it is I would just have him simulate those faster air speeds because I basically jumped out and my suit is very large in for the first few seconds the suit was flying me instead of me flying suit we had a little conversation we sorted out that matter who is in charge and then we continued pretty amazing and I might add it was minus 50 degrees is that is that correct 50 was a little bit wind chill 20 miles an hour when Jill unbelievable unbelievable so Andy I know we're kind of given close to our time limit here so you know how can people make donations to the Navy SEAL foundation that you talked about well before 1 I mean they don't have to make it through my GoFundMe page by any stretch if you want to first off go check out the organization there's 40,000 service based organizations maybe come from an army background or an airforce whatever maybe what both say is if you have the ability and capability to donate to a service based organization that supports either veterans work the family is awesome go do so skip a cup of coffee at Starbucks which is about 18 bucks these days and don't even have to have good cause if you're interested in the seal foundation go to the Navy SEAL foundation org and in any charity what I would just recommend is do your research on the charity and figure out exactly how much of your donation is gonna go towards where they say--it's go look at the pass through rate steel foundation is one of the highest rated charities I think it's like 96 cents of every dollar goes towards exactly what they say it's going to go to when you research some other some other charities you're gonna realize that that's a startling percentage it's a very very good percentage definitely you can donate directly through them or you go on to Facebook and put in I think it's man on a mission and my name and it'll pop up and there's a link on that page that will take you to the beautification awesome hey any other interesting projects coming up for you though you can look for you know I'm just kind of I'm just kind of grinding away a little bit I split my year between doing skydiving and BASE jumping stuff I do a good amount of public speaking so I travel quite a bit to do that and then some consultation with brands in the tactical world is based on my background so it's in a pot yes started my podcast so I'm generally not lacking for things to keep me busy and I'm just kind of riding away with those awesome well again a really heartfelt thanks for everything you've done for you know our country and I want to thank you for your time today and thanks to the listeners for tuning in to another edition of the don't panic project you know through these conversations we're aiming to help provide tools and awareness to those suffering from stress anxiety and depression and you can see more great conversations at WWE don't panic project calm and you can contact me at Jim Posner at the mindful advantage calm I work with smartphone thinking people corporation schools and athletes to help them harness the power of mindfulness to manage stress and achieve peak performance so we'll see you next time thanks again and you'd really appreciate your time yeah thanks for happening

Channel: Jim Posner

Views: 7,038

Rating: 4.9436622 out of 5

Keywords: Jim Posner, Andy Stumpf, The Don't Panic Project, Stress, anxiety, Mindfulness, Meditation, The Mindful Advantage, depression, SEAL, US Navy SEAL, US Navy, Navy, SEALS, BUDS, Purple Heart, Bronze Star

Id: tE2pqz9aQOM

Length: 46min 39sec (2799 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2018