047 - Sara Wilkinson - Gold Star wife of Navy SEAL Chad Wilkinson, inspiration for Chad1000x
Release Date: 08/11/2021
059 - Michael Easter - Best-Selling Author of The Comfort Crisis & Scarcity Brain
Glorious Professionals
recently visited HQ for a book signing and party. Before the big ruck, Jason and Emily talked with Michael about the search for happiness and his new book, . Michael is an author and journalist who wrote and . Writing books takes him around the world to wild places to learn about physical and mental health and how we can live better. He lives on the edge of the desert in Las Vegas and rucks often with his wife and two dogs. Links: Learn more about
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058 - Pete Blaber - Author & Former Delta Force Commander
Glorious Professionals
Jason and Rich discuss risk and leadership with , former Delta Force Commander and author of the books and . Pete Blaber commanded at every level of one of the most elite counter-terrorist organizations in the world during most of recent history’s most significant military and political events (Panama, Colombia, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq). In 2006 he retired from the military and transitioned from leading elite combat teams around the globe, to leading elite corporate teams for one of the world's largest and most innovative Biotechnology Companies. Links: Learn more...
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057 - William Ostan - Wounded Warrior Advocate & Founder of Arc of Justice
Glorious Professionals
For this Memorial Day episode of Glorious Professionals, Jason & Emily are joined by Will Ostan to discuss his work as a wounded warrior advocate, the problem with the term “disabled veteran,” and how you can get involved to help better the current veteran benefits system. William J. Ostan is a medically retired U.S. Army Major and combat veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the Founder and President of Arc of Justice, a nonprofit organization that advocates for wounded warriors still on active duty. Will is currently spearheading the Wounded Warrior Bill of Rights...
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056 - The GORUCK Games with Cadre DS & Mocha Mike
Glorious Professionals
Jason and Emily are joined by Cadre DS and Mocha Mike to discuss the first-annual GORUCK Games that took place at the recent Sandlot JAX Fitness Festival. The GORUCK Games are a competition of grit worth $50K in prize money. Special Forces training tests athletes across a broad array of activities to ensure well-rounded strength, agility, and endurance. GORUCK harkens back to those roots in a 2-Day competition of grit that features an obstacle course, rucking, weighted challenges, running, sprinting, jumping, rowing and sandbag work. Links:
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055 - Sandlot JAX Fitness Festival
Glorious Professionals
Jason and Emily are joined by Cadre DS and Mocha Mike to discuss the first-annual GORUCK Games that took place at the recent Sandlot JAX Fitness Festival. The GORUCK Games are a competition of grit worth $50K in prize money. Special Forces training tests athletes across a broad array of activities to ensure well-rounded strength, agility, and endurance. GORUCK harkens back to those roots in a 2-Day competition of grit that features an obstacle course, rucking, weighted challenges, running, sprinting, jumping, rowing and sandbag work. Links:
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054 - Dr. Mike Roussell, PhD - Nutritionist and Author
Glorious Professionals
“My advice is to always find a way to take a good step forward.” To kick off 2022, Dr. Mike Roussell joins Jason for Episode 054 focusing on nutrition. Dr. Mike consults on health, nutrition, and performance for a range of clientele from professional athletes, to celebrities, to Fortune 500 executives. “With a passion for nutrition rooted in sport,” he is a speaker, podcaster and author who breaks down complicated nutrition ideas and principles to easily digestible, immediately actionable steps. While he is a “diet agnostic” Dr Mike lays out early his six pillars of...
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053 - GORUCK Cadre Dan Plants on 10 years of Challenges
Glorious Professionals
“The lessons you learn at GORUCK events, they’re applicable to everything in life.”
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052 - Sara Wilkinson and CHAD 1000x - Founder of the Step Up Project and Gold Star wife of Navy SEAL Chad Wilkinson
Glorious Professionals
“Everyone wants someone to care about them right? And that is what we are trying to do.”
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051 - Malaika Underwood - USA National Team Baseball Player and Senior VP of Licensing at OneTeam Partners
Glorious Professionals
Malaika Underwood joins Jason and Emily for a very friendly Episode 051 to talk about her athletic career and the future she hopes to see in youth and professional sports. Born and raised in San Diego, playing freely with neighborhood kids, Malaika says baseball -- not softball -- found her and became a lifelong love. The conversation covers a lot of ground in sports from large personalities to the history of softball, and throughout there is a love of the game and appreciation for the power of team sport.
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050 - Jaala Shaw - Teacher, Trainer, and Humanitarian, English Language Fellow in Afghanistan
Glorious Professionals
Episode 050 is a conversation Jason and Emily had with Jaala Shaw about Afghanistan, recorded on Friday August 20th. Jaala lived outside the green zone as a State Department Fellow and Specialist teaching at Kabul Education University and working with teachers and students in the public school system in Kabul from 2010-2012. Her role was to develop relationships with an understanding of history and culture and she has maintained strong ties to the region.
info_outline“I don’t think anyone can live this life and not be affected.”
Sara Wilkinson, gold star wife of Navy SEAL Chad Wilkinson, joins Emily and Jason in Jacksonville for Episode 047 in hard, honest conversation about growing up in a military family, her and Chad’s love story, the life of deployments as a military spouse, being a mom to Kinsley and Hudson, and Chad’s death by suicide in 2018 and the birth of Chad 1000x.
SCPO Chad Wilkinson was born into the Navy. Both his uncle and father were SEALs (before his dad became a Marine One helicopter pilot) and Sara says it was what Chad was born to do. As a fellow military kid he, with his two brothers and sister, grew up on bases and he ultimately graduated from Camp Lejeune HS. After a year at UCF, Chad enlisted in the Navy and successfully completed BUD/S. After three deployments with SEAL Team Eight, Chad left service for almost three years. He re-entered and (as Sara recounts) rejoined and was selected to join SEAL Team Six out of VA Beach. Among many deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq and various places in Africa, Chad served for 21 years and was the recipient of the Silver Star. Chad was on active duty in Virginia Beach when he died by suicide on October 29, 2018.
Sara met Chad on her first day of 9th grade on a base in Quantico, VA. It was the 14th of 15 K-12 schools she would attend as “a military kid born and bred,” daughter of a Marine. Chad’s signature “hey” started a surprise Homecoming invitation her sophomore year and a long, somewhat tumultuous courtship. Separations, breakups, and life changes punctuated their teenage and early adult years, culminating in a proposal and elopement right before Chad’s second deployment. Throughout, Sara says, “I wanted to be where he was.” Two great kids, a separation and reenlistment in the Navy, cross country moves, climbing mountains and finding community in CrossFit followed.
Sara talks about the unique personality required to survive and thrive to be married to the guys who do this work: fearlessness, independence, resilience. And the terrible toll that it can take on tier one operators as well as “their first responders.” She talks through the “what ifs” and all the looking back she has done to see if there were signs of Chad’s unseen injuries which ultimately led to his death. “There’s so many questions you’re never going to get answers to.”
Finally, as one who knows what it feels like to have her person gone, Sara talks about her call to suicide-prevention advocacy, community with other widows, and the search for the multiple answers for others as well as finding some healing for herself. She, with Jason and Emily, share the story of the birth of Chad 1000x and The StepUp Project and how the ripple effects of Chad’s life and death continue to move outward.
This is a long conversation so some timestamps to help navigate it:
0:00 - Introduction and excerpts from Sara’s speech at the National Navy SEAL Museum on Memorial Day
0:05 - Sara’s young life and meeting Chad
0:15 - College years and BUDs
0:25 - Proposal, elopement, and living in the “team house” in VA Beach, living as a military spouse
0:34 - Move to Raleigh and decision to “get back in,” move to CA… and back to VA Beach
0:44 - Finding CrossFit and life back in VA Beach with SEAL Team 6 deployments
0:50 - Early signs, symptoms, leading up to 2008
1:20 - Chad’s last days and death
1:35 - The aftermath, what has helped Sara
1:40 - The birth of Chad 1000x and going forward
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