I’m a 46-Old Veteran. If you’re in your 30’s or 40’s watch this.

What do you do with the rest of your life once the mission you built your identity around is over?

In this episode of No Hype, Just Standards, I sit down with retired United States Marine Corps Major Lee Stucky. Across a decorated 22-year military career spanning three combat deployments, a Purple Heart, and a Navy Commendation Medal with a V for valor, Lee operated at the absolute peak of tactical execution. But his hardest, darkest battle didn’t happen in a combat zone, it happened right back home in the empty space of retirement.

Lee opens up with raw candor about the split-second intervention that saved his life in 2009 while holding a Glock to his mouth, the grueling realities of traumatic brain injuries and severe sleep deprivation, and how he wore a high-achieving facade while silently crumbling underneath. He shares how he leveraged the discipline of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to anchor his physical recovery, and outlines his structural “4-Legged Stool” framework to balance physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual metrics. You’ll also learn about the life-saving mission behind his nonprofit, A Hero, which brings veterans and first responders together to trade isolating traumas for collaborative, solution-driven communities.

Transcript

Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly formatted. Each timestamp links to that moment in the video.

0:00 I wanted to and as I’m pulling the trigger on my Glock in 2009, my mom called me at that split second. If she’d waited a second, a millisecond, I would have been Every man I know is fighting something. Some of you are fighting a boardroom. Some of you are fighting for your marriage. Some of you are fighting yourself. My guest today has fought in every theater a man can fight in and he is here because he’s still fighting, just for the different ground. Those seasons of my life, I probably wasn’t going to make it. Welcome to No Height, Just Standards. I’m Zach Armstrong. Today, I’m sitting down with one of my brothers. Lee Stuckey is a retired United States Marine Major. 22 years of service, three combat deployments, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with the V, the device for valor. He is the founder and CEO of A Hero, a nonprofit that gives veterans and first responders what they need most when they come home. Which is purpose. He runs Hometown Heroes Services, a veteran and first

1:01 Responder staffed cleaning company and he has built the Lee Stuckey legacy to teach leadership and resilience at a higher standard. Lee is one of my oldest friends. Lee and I were cadets together at Marion Military Institute. Before the Corps, before the cockpit, before combat, we were just two young guys in the barracks in an Alabama small town. Both of us would enlist in the Marine Corps shortly after Marion. Lee went on to serve 22 years and three combat deployments. I went on to serve in the Marine Corps and fly in the Navy, but we both came up on the same ground and we both came out on the other side asking the same question a lot of you are asking right now. What do I do with the rest of my life now that the mission I’ve built is over? Lee has some answers. They were not free. He paid for every one of them. If I’d given up at that moment, I would have been dead 16 years ago. If I help you, if you’re going through the issue, and I help you get through it, my return on investment is seeing your kids have

2:01 Their father. If you have not subscribed, do it now. Hit follow. If this episode moves you, share it with the man who needs to hear it. Let’s get into it. Hey Lee, thank you so much for joining me. Um it’s been great to hang out with you today. Uh an old friend of mine. So, let’s talk about Let’s get back to the beginning. Um you and I were disc cadets together at Marion Military Institute uh back in 1997, I believe. 96. 96. So, 30 years. Yeah. What do you remember about the version of yourself, the kid in the barracks in Alabama? I knew that I was lost. And I knew that I had to do something different, but at the same point I had no direction, and I was simply in survival mode and trying to find the fun stuff to do for the day. Mhm. And really not malicious, but mischievous. And I’m pretty sure the two of us were the most mischievous people at the entire school. Yeah, you can put some quotations some

3:02 Heavy quotations on that one. definitely uh a challenge for the leadership. But there was definitely no way I was going to continue that lifestyle all the way through and be successful. I mean, I was on my way to eventually probably a penitentiary for something. You know, then you fast forward to when I fought professional mixed martial arts in my 20s and 30s, and I did really well. Yeah. I did really well because I dedicated all of my time, and I did the extra sets. I did the extra reps. I knew that this was an opportunity to be my best self in every single mixed martial arts fight. And so, thinking back to when we were playing football, you were the quarterback for our team. Yeah. And I loved being an outside linebacker. I was actually your center for a little while. really close. We were really close. You were the quarterback, I was the center. We were buds. But I remember just thinking, man, if I would have dedicated and done just one more set and just did a little more homework or read another book instead of all of that other chaotic stuff I was doing, I definitely would have gotten a lot

4:02 Farther. I mean, I’ve done well and Sure. But I mean, it’s like any walk in life, right? Unless we take those hard steps and learn those hard lessons, really hard to like You learn from failure, so I learned a lot. Cuz I had a lot I had a lot of failure and I had a lot of uh A lot of them, yeah. That’s the way I feel it. Like cuz I’ve said it so many times on this podcast like I don’t think you can be I mean, there’s I’m sure there’s a couple of people out there, but for me, man, like it it took failure and to have those things happen in life to like have I think we talked about this morning. I don’t think I would ever have the empathy I have for people in my life if I didn’t have those kind of failures in my life. It wouldn’t shape me to be a better person. And I feel like you feel the same. You have to spend time with the wrong people a little bit to realize who the right people are. And I spent most of my life with the wrong people. There you go. And so now doing the inventory and we’ll talk about that, too, but just doing a a deliberate inventory of who am I spending my time with? Is that who I want to be? Right. Yeah, and that’s great. And so let’s talk about the service though. 22 years of active, you know, 22 years of you know, continuous service, three

5:02 Combat deployments, you know, without taking us through the whole time I’m What did those years take from you and what did they give you? Well, they took a lot of time from my family. Obviously, it took a lot of time away from, you know, my parents getting older and me not being there. Um took a lot of time from relationships. I didn’t have any relationships and the ones I did that were back home when I was deployed were fractured at best. And I I I always wanted to make sure that my Marines and sailors were taken care of and so I didn’t have healthy relationships myself. You know, fortunately, that led to me marrying my first wife and my only wife and the woman of my dreams at 42, 43 years old. So so never got married and and waited until after the military to get married, but You should have married yourself. I did. I did. Yeah, so you know, just going through a lot of relationships and I made the majority of the mistakes in those relationships, but not having a full commitment to that. I was fully committed to the Marine Corps, the mission, and

6:03 Deployments. Now, what I learned from that is what my non-negotiables are. Now, what my non-negotiables are with leadership, what my non-negotiables are with relationships, and what I demand and expect out of relationships with friends, relationships with my spouse, and the way forward. Sure. And then Myself, too. Yeah, of course. And let’s talk about that that cost. Like, you know, you you, you know, obviously have the V for Valor. You know, when you look at those ribbons and you wear them and you will be tomorrow, you know, when you actually like give it just a little bit of thought, what does it make you feel like to know what it might have what it cost you to wear that? There there are so many situations and things that I can think back on that looking back, if you take me back to 2003, which what let’s call it episode 20 or season 23 in my Netflix series of my life, I didn’t think I was going to make it at times in season 23. And in season 27, I was 27 in Camp

7:03 Fallujah and actually received a Purple Heart in season 27. Yeah. Season 28, season 29, I was deployed. In those seasons of my life and in my own Netflix reflection time, I probably wasn’t going to make it. And then going through those times when I became an alcoholic, we’ll call that season 39 and 40, I don’t think I was going to make it. So, I can look back on those times with those ribbons and the things that are connected to those ribbons and those metals that we received in combat, they attributed to a lot of chaos. They attributed to a lot of memories that were not great, a lot of nightmares, a lot of sleepless nights, but ultimately they built up the man I am today. And now I see all of those traumas as resiliency because it is who defines me today. It’s what defines me today and the person I am. Yeah, we we you and I had like a long conversation about that this morning and you know, another thing we talked about and I want to talk ask you now is

8:03 There’s always this a day that that uniform comes off and it’s it it’s a different meaning, different feeling for a lot of different people. There’s, you know, resentment, there’s there’s anger, there’s there’s grief, there’s all kind of stuff. What was that like for you? It it was at first the what now? You know, I spent over half my over half my life in the Marine Corps. When I retired, yeah, I retired I retired at 41. I’d been in it over half my life and you know, when I was walking in rooms, occasionally people would stand up because I had a certain position and then that just didn’t happen. You know, I was leave back in Alabama and you forget that you were always that person. You started as that person Yeah. and then you just have positions throughout your life to build up who you are and define who you are at that age of getting out of the military and it’s simply a chapter in your life that should build up something that this greater in chapter three and four and in the latter part of your life, but it shouldn’t define you. I think about the high school football player that’s in their 40s or 50s that probably still wears their

9:04 Letter jacket. Their most defining moment their most defining moment was at 18 their senior year and they talk about their football career in high school. That’s just a sad way to live and I don’t want to I don’t want to live that way and I don’t want me to completely reflect on that as my last accomplishment. Yeah. I want that to be the foundation of what’s left in my life and the beginning to a new healthy life. right? You got to look at it that way because you know, then often times when guys get out that’s when the hardest fight starts for a lot of them. Why is that? Well, life slows down. You don’t have anybody building your schedule. You don’t have meetings that you have to go to. You know, we’re very structured in the military. And instead of taking that structure and putting it into your civilian life when you retire or get out of the military, we just say, “Well, we want free. We’re finally free.” Well, freedom’s not great and it’s great to have a plan and it’s great to have a schedule. And so, I definitely encourage everybody to keep a schedule and keep a plan

10:04 And not just wake up and say, “Well, let’s just see what happens.” Cuz if you don’t plan at all, you’re never going to get anywhere. And so, really that’s why I say it’s it’s really so important in the foundation to take what we learn in the military, whether it’s 4 years, 8 years, or 20 years, or further, and take that and implement it into your company and implement it into your day-to-day life and and living healthy physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Most importantly, spiritually and grounded in something some faith bigger than you. Right? And so, for you and for a lot of guys, what do you think is showing up in that empty space? The empty space is when alcohol takes over and you don’t have anybody to report to. And unless you have a solid wife who’s going to keep you accountable, if you don’t have that, you can drink whenever you want to. You have a slow space where you can think about stuff and think about all these traumas and let them consume your life instead of being something that made you who you are. And so, not having an accountable partner and

11:04 Not being accountable to anybody is really a dangerous zone in my opinion. And it’s it’s important to build a culture and a group of people around you because that will keep you accountable. Cuz like you said, you you know, you’ve been in combat tours, you you’ve seen, you know, brothers die, you’ve seen combat, all that. But you I’ve heard you talk about and say, “But those weren’t the hardest times. Some of the darkest seasons were outside of that and having to relive it or be there.” What what what’s going on there? Like what what’s happening in in those towns? Well, just remembering the stuff and then you make it worse by adding a depressant which is alcohol. Sure. Or And so you’re already or drugs or whatever you’re doing and you know, going through like if you’re going through a possible breakup or I had a veteran in the past in the last month that was about to go through a divorce and was on the verge of getting a divorce. Mhm. And he started drinking a lot and his wife was going to leave him because she didn’t feel like she had a husband anymore. And so he came to me and was

12:04 Telling me this and he’s saying, “Man, I’m I’m really struggling. My wife’s leaving me. She’s telling me that I’m not present anymore.” And I’m watching this guy drink his face off every day. And I asked him, “How are you proving her wrong?” Like right now, your coping mechanism for your wife that’s saying you’re not present is drinking every day. And so you’re drinking every day, you’re telling me you’re suicidal and you don’t want to live anymore. Why would your wife Why is that telling her to stay with you? is showing? What Why do you think so many guys like have to go there in that empty space after something like that? Just trying to cope and trying to fill it with something unhealthy. And the thing is is like life is still going to happen. Absolutely. 100%. And like there’s going to be problems like, you know, I know you yourself recently experienced the loss of a child. Like and so having gone through this I’d never I’d never gone through that. I’d gone through pretty much every trauma and that hit me Exactly. truck. So how like what kind of memories does that bring back up? How did How did it takes you

13:04 Back to a space, right? What How do you get back through that? Like how do you go, “All right, I’m going to come back up.” And not just for yourself but that other person that’s dealing with it, too. It’s not waiting on that moment to build your team around you. It’s having a healthy team around you and having a healthy group that’s accountable. And really, I can’t control those type of situations. I couldn’t control losing a baby. I can’t control people coming at me sideways. I can’t control a lot of the stuff that happens in my day-to-day stuff. But I can control the people I’m around. I can control my response, and I can control what I do with everything that comes at me. And so really, if you look at it, you’re going to spend the majority of your life in a valley. You’re not going to spend but a small amount in the peaks. And you’re not going to have but a few big successes, and it’s not you. You’re not doing that. It’s the team around you. Sure. And so as I’m in that valley, I’m going to pick a really solid team to fight those trials and tribulations with me. Where I can look to the left and the

14:05 Right, and I can ask the people around me, my small group, how do I get through this financial situation? How do I get through this relationship situation? How do I get through this addiction issue? How do I get through these things, and I know they’re going to pour into me. They’re not going to judge Cuz me, whether you’re military or not, you know, everybody faces stuff. Everybody has stuff. Everybody has their own like mountain to climb like you were talking about. Everybody has their own valley, and we just fight them differently. And you know, one thing that, you know, I feel like a lot, and you and I actually talked about this today, too, is like high achievers or people who are doing well, they do a good job of masking it. Oh, yeah. Exceptional way of masking it. Sometimes that’s even dangerous, man, cuz you’re like, I am still doing okay. I was the best or worst at it at the What were you hiding, right? What was underneath the surface for you when you were in those those valleys and I was I wasn’t sleeping. So I mean, I got blown up and got a bad brain injury. I didn’t realize how bad it affected me, and I just didn’t sleep for about 2 and 1/2 years. And I would sleep, and it was

15:05 Alcohol-induced. Usually, I would drink just to just to sleep, and I didn’t realize that that was worse, and I wasn’t getting REM sleep. And I spent 2 and 1/2 years not sleeping. And when I finally got to that point of taking my own life and finally pulling the trigger, I was tired of being tired. I was just tired of being tired. I was tired of putting on this facade. I was tired of being the Marine officer, the first guy to work, the last guy to leave, making everybody laugh. At work, you I mean, I was just making everybody happy. I was fighting I was fighting professional mixed martial arts. I was a professional athlete. And everyone thought everything was great with me. First class PFT, like perfect 300 physical fitness score, everything, and I wanted to die. And I finally went to pull that trigger, and as I’m pulling the trigger on my Glock in 2009, my mom, who calls me every one or two weeks randomly, called me at the split second when I’m

16:06 Pulling the trigger with my pistol in my mouth, and I was taking my life, and called me at that split second, and if I would have if she’d have waited a second, a millisecond, I would have been dead. And I saw my phone light up, and it said, “Mom.” And I broke down crying, and answered, and obviously she was worried, and came out and and saw me, but I mean, that I mean, that’s God. I I I It’s God. It’s God. It’s God’s work, right? There’s no such thing as coincidence. Yeah. And and God gives us lifelines, too. And for you, that was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Oh, absolutely. you know, you’ve said that that like that wasn’t just your lifeline, but it like helped save your life literally. Like, and I feel like a lot of people need that We talked about this last night in depth. Sometimes we just need a domino to fall. I’ve left like get us going. Like, for you, it was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I’ve left being with friends, drinking at parties, and I’ve been really sad, depressed, had anxiety, didn’t want to be around anymore. I’ve gone to group functions where we had alcohol, and I came home, and I was

17:07 Depressed, and I was by myself, and had a failed relationship, and didn’t want to be around anymore. I’ve never left a mixed martial arts training session or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practice at 9:00 p.m. after rolling for 2 or 3 hours with anxiety, depression, or wanting to take my life. That’s never happened in almost 30 years of doing Jiu-Jitsu. And so that that tells me that if you do that kind of stuff instead of going to a bar and drinking your face off when you’re depressed and already having issues with a relationship or financial stuff, you’re going to be successful if you focus on something and you’re around a healthy tribe. And and well and so, you know, you I’ve heard you say before like too like the that discipline of it helped the lead to the discipline of the mind and spirit. Absolutely. And for you, how do those two well, three inter-intertwine? Re- Realizing of the body helped the discipline of the mind and spirit. Just realizing that, you know, everything that I’ve done, there’s no such thing as coincidence.

18:08 Like all the people in my life, Carlos Machado, who’s one of the number one Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in the entire world, is a great friend of mine now. I didn’t meet him by accident. No. God put him in my life. I met him through the Marine Corps. I was fighting professional and friends with his brother-in-law, Stephen Thompson, the Wonderboy. And so I met that family. They immediately embraced me. So all of these networks I met was definitely spiritual. And through that connection, I kept realizing there’s a commonality to all of this. Yeah. I don’t know anyone in 16 years of running a suicide prevention nonprofit that has ever wanted to commit suicide that was healthy physically, financially, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually. They’re grounded on something bigger than themselves. So why is that physical stuff like so important for anybody who whether they’re from a combat tour or whether they’re just a guy struggling with their family at home or they’re masking the fact that, you know, they’re working 80 hours a week just to get by. Like what

19:08 Why is physical attributes so so essential? And we can put it from the frame from a guy who served combat tours and deals with men who have seen the worst of the worst. Setting achievable goals. Still the first thing for them? Setting achievable goals. The first thing I do every single morning is devotion. And the first thing I do, I don’t touch my cell phone. And I’ve said this a lot, I never touch my cell phone in the first couple hours. You know there’s going to be something that’s going to upset you, so don’t even touch it. Leave it in your office, leave it out of your room. Wake up doing a devotion for the first 30 minutes or an hour, whatever your time depends, get up early. If you’re not Christian, have reflection time, have journaling time, and be by yourself with something bigger than yourself. And then after that, doing some kind kind of physical workout. And doing something to exert and have a goal to work towards. You don’t have to be fighting professional mixed martial arts. No. But do something to get the body moving Yes. to get healthier, because right now all this food and all these unhealthy ways we’re living, we we’re taking we’re shaving years off the back of our life.

20:09 We’re going to get to a point when we’re in our 70s and 80s and God willing our 90s to where we’re going to want one more week with our grandchildren. So let’s start now taking inventory of how you can start getting it back now. And it’s like like you said, it it doesn’t have to be jujitsu. It could be running. It can be lifting weights. It can do anything, but it’s that commonality the commonality of a goal, that commonality of like the first domino. I know I keep I always repeat the first domino because it just makes sense. When it falls It’s important. it’s going to tap into another one. And then they all start coincidentally falling. My analogy is a stool. So if you have a stool with four legs and you have physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual. One leg falls off and breaks, you’re going to start wobbling a little bit. Once that second leg, and it’s usually the second leg where the veterans or first responders or friends are suicidal, they’re losing that second part, they’re starting to have some real big issues. And that stool will fall over. And so, if you can focus on getting 1% better in all those things,

21:11 And if you can focus and get around a group that helps you get better in those four things and has a goal, you’re going to get better every single day. And really taking an inventory, and it starts with an honest inventory on paper, and writing down where are you currently physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually. And those are all great steps. And for you, if you could talk to the guy who was in those states of yourself, what are some of the things that you would say to that version of you? I have been in so so deep in the abyss of everything. I never thought I was going to get out of it, and I’ve dealt with everything with all of those four facets. And looking back, I came out stronger every single time. If I’d given up at that moment, I would have been dead 16 years ago, and I wouldn’t have had 16 years of life. I wouldn’t have met my wife 6

22:12 Years ago. I wouldn’t be married to the best person on the absolute earth. I wouldn’t have the companies. I wouldn’t have the relationships. I wouldn’t have anything if I would have given up at each point in that. And when I went through the worst pain in my life of losing the best relationship and the only relationship that I ever thought I wanted, looking back, it was the most unhealthy, worst relationship I ever had. But I was fixated on that one thing. And I that’s what I wanted. Well, for me spiritually, that’s not what God wanted for me. He knew it. He let me He let me entertain it a little bit, but that’s not what he had for me. He had something greater. I just had to have the patience to see that wasn’t the right decision, and he had something greater. And I I got through all of those situations, and it came out so much better. You had your hero’s journey. Yeah, you had to have a journey to become the hero, which has led you to start something and I segwayed that on purpose to go you started a company

23:12 Called A Hero. Yep. Can you just give a brief description of what that is? Yeah, so America’s Heroes enjoying recreation outdoors is a veterans and first responder nonprofit for suicide prevention and really the focus is getting our brothers and sisters together that may be struggling physically, financially, emotionally and spiritually. We go fishing, we go hunting, we have a record label called A Hero Records, where that’s the emotional part. We actually write music and if you’ve got a story of trauma you share the story not with a doctor or a clinician, you share the story with a country music singer-songwriter and you just tell your story and they write your story and you heal through your own trauma and you have a song when you leave and so we have all these different programs cycling, golf and everything else just to bring us together and give you the resources to help you with all four of those facets. So we come in from all over the country, we have different various programs, we have stuff in Texas, stuff in Nashville or in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Our main

24:14 Headquarters is in Tuskegee, Alabama. The General Livingston Lodge, which is named after Auburn’s only Medal of Honor recipient, General Livingston. And all we do for a four-day period, which is no alcohol, no substances, you come in together and we give you a healthy schedule and healthy routine for four days. What do you think the biggest commonality of all those people are that are coming? They’re lost in in one of those four legs and they have uh what’s perceived, you know, as a deficiency and a gap and we just show them how the gap can be fixed. And I’ve had people who literally were trying suicide by cop. A suicide by suicide by one. couple I know a couple of you. And I had a suicide by cop attempt and when he finally we stopped it from happening and 7 days later after he got out of the hospital and got evaluated after we stopped it from happening it was literally about to get shot and killed. We brought him to the farm and he was a good friend of mine he sat down with me and he was crying and upset and

25:14 Embarrassed. And I said, “What drove you to make that decision?” He had three things and he gave me all three of them. And I started making phone calls when he was with me and we fixed him in less than 45 minutes. We resolved all three of the decisions that were getting him to have a police officer take his life and we fixed it all. times we like we make these things so I saw a thing yesterday it’s a little off topic but a guy was um talking to himself and he had his rope tied around him and his car was going to take it take him off with the rope it was going to take half his body but he’s tied and he was buried in cement too. And he’s trying to kill himself out of the cement instead of just cutting the rope. That’s all his first problem. We often surround ourselves in things like we we can’t fix everything at once. You can’t. We we never focus just on one by one, right? Why is that so important for people to just let’s just forget this world wind and just focus on this. Yeah, what what’s your you know, if I had a white board I could show you the black dot and that black dot that one

26:15 Dot on this big white board is your issue whatever it is, you know, financial issue, relationship issue, whatever and you’re just staring at it and it’s just consumed your every day. Instead of being solution driven or asking people around you’re focused on that dot. And it will beat you a lot. If you back up there’s like a hundred dots around you with people that will help you right now and solutions to get you through that financial or relationship issue. We just don’t stop to take 5 or 10 minutes and ask people to help us. No. And I was the same way. I didn’t want to bother anybody and I didn’t want to tell people I had problems cuz I wanted to get promoted. I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, and I didn’t want anybody to think I was a [ __ ] And so, if you think about it, there’s no return on investment if I take my life for my friends and family. No. But, if I help you, if you’re going through the issue, and I help you get through it, my return on investment is seeing your kids have their father. Always. My return on investment is seeing you get through it. If If I have to bury

27:16 You, you stop 50 to 100 people from their day to come and and bury you, and it and put you in the ground. There’s no return on investment, and until the last person in your family passes away, you’ve devastated them to some percentage. No, and that’s why I think, you know, you and I spoke about it this morning, you know, you you’ve said your the spiritual pillar is the best one, the strongest one, and the one that you need to start working on. Yeah. The first the first is usually like we talked about earlier, the first the strongest one, the strongest pillar. Why Why is that? Uh it you have to you have to realize, even if you’re not Christian, and if you have no faith, most people agree there’s good and evil. And just having a foundation, I hope people don’t want to be evil. Having a foundation in good, and something greater than yourself, Yeah. and starting with that, and realizing that things don’t just happen, but building faith in something bigger than yourself, and having that foundation to just be a good person. We

28:16 Lack a lot of good people in this world. And so, start with that, start with being a good human, and then start with getting in better physical shape with some type of physical routine, and some type of structured thing you can do to make yourself healthier, and then everything else will start working out. Your emotional status will get better, your financial stuff will get better, cuz you have a plan. But, if you don’t start grounded in some type of faith bigger than yourself, you will be lost for the rest of your life. It’s always to find yourself if you don’t like have meaning. It is. It You know, everybody’s definition of God can be different in their own spiritual way, but like you said, unless you believe in something, it’s hard to have have belief in yourself, because it’s just why? Well, I’ll tell you something that I do every night. I have businesses and farms and stuff everywhere, and so I have a lot of anxiety at times. I really don’t have a lot of anxiety. I have a lot of activities. A lot of activities. But something I started doing a year ago that I promise you will work if you’re

29:16 Listening and you do this. If you lay your head on the pillow at night, and instead of worrying about all that stuff, if you just have a regular conversation with your creator. And if you thank him with gratitude, and you’re thankful for the things that you accomplished. You’re thankful for the issues you got through. If you had problems that day, thank you for giving me the perseverance to get through those problems. And you’re thankful. You’re not asking for stuff, like I wish you’d give me a Mercedes tomorrow. Being thankful and showing gratitude, and I repeat that every night, and I do it in my head, and I go through all the things I’m thankful for for that day, and then I wake up the next morning. I literally fall asleep talking to him every single night, and I do that, and I don’t think of it. Your brain cannot do both. You cannot worry and freak out about company stuff or relationship or finance, and talk to him. It’s impossible. It doesn’t work. So I do that every night, and then I wake up the next morning.

30:16 And if I don’t wake up, the last person I talked to was him, Yeah. which I’m good with. And you know, it’s something that you said, and we also talked about this earlier today. Um we talked a lot of a lot of this stuff, just um catching up. Um leadership, you said, you know, it’s not a title. It’s something that you inherently live with, and it’s a part of your standard. You know, what is something that you define leadership as, or something you you take from that. It’s something you will never perfect. And if you think you’re the perfect leader, you’re delusional and you need to keep going. Yeah. But it it’s really the most important thing to me in the world is taking care of my people. I don’t have employees. I have people that work with me that I’m blessed to work beside, work with, and mentor, and they mentor me a lot. And just spending time loving on them to get the job done. But, you know, once we start abusing our title or using our title to demean people and take advantage of situations, that’s when you’ve lost it and you’re a manager not

31:16 A leader. And there’s a big difference between a manager and a leader. 100% And I think I told you like my kind of definition was um I’ve always lived by that that, you know, mantra of I work for them, they don’t work for me. Mhm. You know, I I’ve since heard it, you know, defined as servant leadership. You know, I learned that in the Marine Corps young. Like that was just how I was taught. I had some good leaders. Actually, Staff Sergeant Sutton Oh, man. Staff Sergeant Sutton from Marine Military Institute kind of installed that in us. Um what does it mean to you to be that servant leader? Because what you do now there’s no better type of servant leadership. But those all you do now is give back. Mhm. Wait. How how do you look at that as the carrying meaning for you to be that servant leader going forward? My personal inventory, we talked about that this morning in the gym. My personal inventory to make sure I stay on track to do that and do it the right way is to to take a look at all the stuff I have. Whether you have farms or planes or

32:16 Whatever the fun stuff you have is and you take all that stuff away from yourself and you have none of it. It’s just you. Would people still want to come have coffee with you for an hour? Yeah, we do. And talk to you, but really that’s it. If you strip all the fun things away from you and all the toys and all the fun places and destinations that someone can go with you and they just want to spend time with you because of your character, your ethics, and your morals, then you’re doing good. If they don’t and they’re only hanging out with you for all those things, you still have time. Let’s work on that character, those ethics, and those morals. Yeah. And so, you deal with this a lot. So, you know, the the guy who’s out there now, whether he’s a first responder military or just a regular guy who’s going through all these kind of, you know, personal struggles, whether they’re go coming back from a combat tour or whether they’re just a dad who doesn’t know how to talk to his kids or cuz he’s at work too much or, you know, any of

33:16 These things, what would you tell them to do to get going? That first domino, what’s good for them to do? To to really sit down and put an inventory on paper. And I’ll just keep going over that because if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you need to go. And really laying out, like taking honest inventory of yourself, like where am I right now? Like what am I eating throughout the day? What’s my workout routine? Am I watching 4 hours of Netflix at night, but I’m saying I don’t have time to work out? Yeah. You know, and I really what are those things you can look at in your day It’s easy. and talk to your wife, too. There’s a really There’s a preacher that’s called There’s a dead leader running on YouTube. And please look it up. It’s called dead leader running and it’s a preacher out of, I think, Hawaii. And so, there’s an 8-minute and 31-second clip. And it’s a phenomenal thing about out what fills and drains your tank. Yeah. And he does a great job describing it, so please look it up. And he talks about knowing what fills and drains your tank and what fills and drains your spouse’s

34:17 And family’s tank. Yeah. Because you can keep each other accountable. And as humans, we’re we’re too used to, “Well, I’m really busy. I’m not going to do anything that fills my tank. I’m going going more work.” That’s when you have to fill your tank with stuff you love doing. And so really just taking that inventory, where am I currently? Am I watching 6 hours of Netflix? Am I doing this? Am I eating unhealthy? And if you start replacing those things with healthy things, who am I hanging out with? Is it a parasitic relationship? Who can I replace that person with to live a healthier life? Where am I going right now that’s not good? Especially for the veterans and first responders. Am I going to a bar when I can instead go to the gym for an hour? I promise those outcomes are two different places. Yeah, that inventory. But really taking that inventory of saying, “Who should I never be around again for the rest of my life? Yeah. Where should I never go for the rest of my life? Who should I be around more for

35:17 The rest of my life? And where should I go more for the” And they’re very simple. It takes like 5 seconds to think about those things. And we all laugh, but you’re like, “Well, I got to be there.” No, you don’t. Where You don’t have to be there. You don’t have to do that stuff. Or that is that Bob Newhart conversation. Stop it. Just stop it. Yeah. Hey, you got a eating problem? Stop it. You got a drug problem? Stop it. You got an alcohol problem? Just stop it. Um all right. Appreciate all this. What I like to do is do a little rapid fire at the end just for a little fun. So the idea here is like I don’t want you to put a lot of thought process to most of this. I want you to just like first thing that comes to mind, say it. All right. All right. First off, why is Alabama so much better than Auburn year after year? Less teeth, less weight. All right. On the mat, what’s one move that never fails you? What’s what? What’s one move that never fails you on the mat? Oh, guillotine. Guillotine. Yeah. Best leader you ever served under? Ooh. Man, that’s a tough one. Mhm.

36:17 Uh thoughts? Bill Bill Stauffer. Okay. One book every man over 40 should read. Uh man, I don’t know. Buy back your time to start with. So what? Okay. Yeah. All right. Hardest thing about being a Marine nobody warns you about. Yeah, I don’t know. I loved all of it. I’m trying to think. Probably the moving. Moving? Yeah. Hardest thing about leaving the Marines nobody tells you about. Moving away. The brotherhood. The brotherhood for sure. 100% the brotherhood. 100% that. That was that’s always hard. That was the hardest. People understanding your acronyms. Yeah. The one piece of gear from 22 years in the Corps you still use every day. My woobie. Yeah. Hunting or fishing? Hunting all day. All right. Whitetail out control my brain. That’s why I could never live here. Yeah. I love this place, but there’s no whitetail. There is. They’re very tiny. Yeah. They’re just They’re in PB. They’re They’re just every kind of whitetail.

37:17 Um what are the four pillars What is your four pillars weak spot right now? What is one of your four pillars weak spots right now? Physical, financial, emotional, or spiritual? Um physical. Okay. I could get better. All right. Here’s a big one. You have a guy tonight and he’s thinking of quitting on himself. Mhm. On his family, on his life. What is the first thing you say to him? There’s always tomorrow. Yeah. There’s always tomorrow. Don’t do it. Wait till tomorrow. Yeah. See what happens then. See how you build it. Yep. Okay. All right. One word that describes the version of you that will show up in three years from now. One word? One word. That’ll show up in three years. Yeah. The version of you that’ll be here in three years. Resilient. Love it. All right, Lee. Well, thank you for coming on the show today. Uh it’s been great having you and um looking forward to visit with you later, man. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you. All right. Lee, I can’t thank you enough for coming on. And I look forward to spending time with you later. And for showing up, telling the truth,

38:18 And for trusting me and this audience with some of the hardest part of your story, that’s never easy. And I love you, brother. Here is what I want every man listening to take from this conversation. Lee Stucky has been in fights most of you will probably never see. Combat fights, grief fights, the fights with his body, the fight to stay alive when everything inside him said quit. But he’s still here. He’s still building. And he’s still serving. And he’s still showing up. Not just for himself, but those around him. And this isn’t because he’s some special man. It’s because he chose every day to work on his body, the mind, and his spirit. He chose the mat. He chose a standard. And he chose the next chapter. If you are the man silently drowning behind a life that looks fine on paper, this episode was for you. To support Lee’s work, go to leestuckylegacy.com and aherousa.org. Book him to speak.

39:19 Support the mission. Share this episode with a man who needs to hear it. This is no hype, just standards. We’ll see you next episode.