Mar 27, 2023
Today’s guest is Nick 'Machine' Lavery! 
Chief Warrant Officer Two (CW2) Nick Lavery was born and raised in Massachusetts, and is an active-duty member of The United States Army Special Forces. Commonly known as the Green Berets, the Special Forces perform critical missions including direct action, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, and unconventional warfare.
In 2013, while deployed 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 Special Forces operator to return to combat as an above-the-knee amputee.
Nick is currently serving as a Special Forces Warrant Officer and is widely recognized as an experienced subject matter expert in special operations, intelligence fusion, mission planning and complex problem solving across all operational continuums. He is also the first amputee in military history to complete the Special Forces Warrant Officer Technical and Tactical Certification course, the Special Operations Combatives Program Instructor course, and the Special Forces Combat Diver Qualification course.
Nick’s awards include the Silver Star, three Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, Bronze Star with “V” for valor, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, two Meritorious Service Medals, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, two Army Commendation Medals, Army Achievement Medal, the OSS Society Peter Ortiz Award, the Bruce Price Leadership Award, and the Special Operations Command Excalibur Award.
Nick is a warrior, leader, speaker, author and most importantly a husband and father of two young boys.
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Here are some key points that I would advise you to concentrate on
- Nick is a great example of someone who proves that your injury or disability does not define you or stop you from doing what you want to in life.
- Nick set missions in his service, parameters to follow and goals for what he needs to achieve in his missions, this lets him keep focused ... yet so few men have a mission in their own life. You need a mission to focus on, keep you motivated and able to measure your progress. How do you know where you are going if you don't have a end goal? When things get hard, how can you push yourself if you don't have a larger goal to achieve to overcome the temporary pain and discomfort challenging you?
- Operators like Nick are required to analyse problems and solve them in real time with minimum support. This is a skill that can be learnt. You will have problems like this in your work, personal life, hobby etc. By working on analyzing problems and trying to solve these in real time, and analyzing what went right and wrong after, lets you become someone who can become great at solving problems in real time.
- Find a system that works for you and build on it slowly. Stop trying to find the perfect system, instead find out what works best for you and grow and develop it as you progress. Eg going to the gym and doing any program is better than sitting on the couch thinking about doing it. Progressive overload - building the demands on yourself over time - is a concept you can use in your life as much as you would in the gym. Small incremental changes are what you need.
- We should look out and protect those that we care for. Nick stepped in front of bullets to protect someone, so you can protect a friend having a rough time, or a kid at school being bullied. Actions like these, help change the world for the better.
- Risks are what help us grow. However, we need to judge the risks we take, which will help us grow and which will damage us - by considering the risks, and looking at what happens from taking these risks, lets you learn about good and bad risks - you start to learn the types to go for and those to avoid, and this helps your risk assessment mechanism help you choose the risks you take faster and safer in real time.
- You need a mix of hard and soft skills to succeed in life. Hard skills can be things like breaking down doors, use of weapons etc. Soft skills can be building rapport with others, problem solving in real time etc. Too many people only know how to do a job, but cannot network, communicate and grow trust from others etc, and reliance on hard skills only can stop you truly growing to a level that you are capable of. There are training courses online that you can do for free etc, many jobs offer courses in team management, conflict resolution etc that you can do to build up your soft skills. Whether you are in the jungle, battlefield or office, these skills will help you level up!
- "No plan survives first contact" it is OK to have a plan but if you stick to it regardless, and not able to adapt, revise and change in real time to suit the needs of your people, resources, goals etc, you will not succeed. Use your skills to plan, assess, monitor and mange how you are going to do something and then readjust, revise and change as you need in real time as feedback is given. You need "a certain level of adaptability and flexibility built within us."
- In dangerous or high pressure situations, you fall back to the highest level of your training, you do not rise to the level that the situation requires. Therefore you need your training to be as technical and wide covering as possible, so when you go to that level, you can perform at your true best.
- Talent vs skill is an interesting concept - some people are born with the talent to do things but if you have an open growth mentality you can learn the skills that let you achieve your goals in life.
- "Failure is our greatest learning tool ... it is within the failure that the wisdom is located". Look at mistakes as a learning experience, nothing more. You only fail when you give up. Look at what went right and what went wrong, look at how to stop the bad things happening again, adopt the good thing into your training, approach to life etc, and grow as a person etc from the mistake.
- Do not let one small error lead to "a series of horrible decisions", instead note you made a mistake, stop detach for a minute, restart and get back to your life following your rules, and learn from what caused the mistake and grow as a person. One mistake is a learning experience, don't let one small mistake spiral into a bad day of poor decisions.
- It is OK to fail, to doubt yourself, to slip back etc. Nick struggled to return to training and service again. But he focused on his why and purpose in life, and looked towards his bigger goal in life, rather than the temporary pain and discomfort. He learn from it, got back and tried again, and you can do that too. You only really fail when you give up completely.
- Family and friends will try and keep you safe, they don't want you to get hurt, and sometimes that wish can try and keep you playing small and not going for your dream. This is why a big goal is needed, something that you truly want, so you can listen to what they say, recover the best way possible, return better but on your own terms and not live the life of someone else.
- To live a life with avoiding failure "you put a ceiling on what you can actually learn" and achieve in life.
- "What is your current status" is the most important you can ask yourself as a leader in any role, and as a leader in your life. Without knowing what you want and what challenges you are facing, you have no way to get to the next step. Without knowing what you want to achieve, what you want and how capable you are right now, you will go no where. Dedicate yourself to having an internal dialogue and being honest, and it will give you you a "full understanding and grasp of your current operational environment which is critical in moving from point A to point B".