You’ve built your whole identity around what you accomplish, and it worked, until the day it didn’t. In this episode, host Shelly Rood sits down with a fellow Veteran – a retired Navy SEAL – who says the strongest people he’s ever known are the first ones to ask for help, and who’s still working out what it costs when you didn’t.
Andy Stumpf has spent seventeen years as a Navy SEAL, six of those on SEAL Team Six. In February 2005, an insurgent shot him at close range on a deployment in Iraq; doctors weren’t sure he’d walk the same again. He came back and later set two world records skydiving from 36,500 feet to raise $750,000 for the Navy SEAL Foundation. His book, “Drownproof: Eight Life Lessons to Keep Your Head Above Water,” is a New York Times bestseller with a foreword from Jocko Willink.
In this conversation, Andy talks candidly about why asking for help gets treated as weakness in high-performance cultures when it’s actually the opposite, why money is a tool to say no rather than a way to acquire things, and what his own career cost his marriage and his kids the first time around. We also get into a live, unresolved question: what happens when the label you’ve earned starts doing more work for your identity than you want it to.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER
✓ Why the most capable people ask for help first, not last ✓ Reframing money as a tool to say no, not a way to acquire things ✓ The real cost of chasing danger and delaying what matters most ✓ Being more than the label you’ve earned, even one you’re proud of
Andy Stumpf
U.S. Navy SEAL (Ret.) - NYT Bestselling Author
Andy Stumpf is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who served for 17 years, including six years with the elite SEAL Team Six. After being critically wounded by an insurgent during a deployment to Iraq in 2005, he made a remarkable recovery and went on to set two world records for high-altitude skydiving, raising more than $750,000 for the Navy SEAL Foundation. Today, Andy is a New York Times bestselling author and host of the Cleared Hot podcast, and a sought-after speaker who shares candid insights on leadership, resilience, identity, and navigating life’s toughest challenges both in and out of uniform.
Shelly Rood
Host - Hardcore & At Ease
Shelly C. Rood served across 16 years as a U.S. Army Reserves Intelligence Officer — Captain, Company Commander, and S2 — leading covert briefings overseas and overseeing security programs for nearly 4,000 soldiers. A Distinguished Military Graduate of Western Michigan University and a third-generation Detroit business owner, she brought that same standard of leadership into the private sector. She is the founder of a training and leadership development company, Mission Ambition, LLC, creator of the Others Over Self® leadership mindset, and the architect of Be At Ease, Woman Veteran™, a peer support program serving military women since 2019. She is host of Hardcore and At Ease, and author of Mission Wildflower 🌻. Today she leads a team of veterans who continue to serve beyond the uniform.
