When life threw John Register a curveball that would make most people give up, he turned it into a stepping stone for something greater. Sit back and be inspired by the incredible journey of this combat veteran and Paralympic silver medalist, as he shares with us the indomitable spirit that drove him to redefine the possible after a life-altering injury. John's insights on shifting focus from limitations to possibilities, underscored by his reflections on the Constitution's role in his life as a black American, offer a piercing look at resilience and the human spirit.
Our conversation with John is one for the books, tracing his path from aspiring to join the Army's World Class Athlete Program to facing the stark realities of military service in Operation Desert Shield. As a 31 Charlie, John's knack for boosting soldier morale even in the bleakest moments, coupled with the cultural exchanges that broadened his worldview, is a story of adaptability and growth. Learn how a mindset shift post-injury led John from helplessness to optimism, allowing him to embrace a "new normal" and later stand tall on the Paralympic stage.
Finally, we explore the power of community and mastermind groups in propelling us forward, highlighting John’s efforts in creating support programs for fellow veterans and the significance of planning for life's transitions. His platform, "JR's 90 Days Friends," and the impact of leading through storytelling are all part of the tools he offers to others striving for success. Engage with us in this episode to discover how John Register's story is not just about overcoming adversity but about thriving through change and personal evolution.
Connect with John:
Website
Book
Instagram
Contact Thad - VictoriousVeteranProject@Gmail.com
Thanks for listening!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John Register (00:00):
All my Olympic dreams are over.
All those things were crushingon me and I was thinking deeply
about them.
I had a general, four stargeneral, uh, Gordon Sullivan,
chief of staff at the army atthe time.
Uh, he was one of my firstcalls that came in because it
was a pretty high profile injury, asked me what I wanted to do
(00:20):
and I had.
I told him, sir, I have no idea.
I just you know.
I'm trying to understand what'sgoing on, but I'll tell you
what.
I'll call you back.
You know, some, tell this fourstar, this corporal, tell this
four star, I'll let me get youon my calendar and I'll call you
back.
That's what the state I was in,you know, I was just I.
So I and I, I wanted to do that, but my wife, she, she said you
know, we're going to getthrough this time together, it's
(00:42):
just our new normal.
When she spoke those words, she, she made me understand, with
just those words, that lifereally hadn't changed that much
Still have my family, Still hadmy faculty, still have my degree
from the University of Arkansas.
I still had dreams, goals,aspirations.
(01:02):
The only thing that wasdifferent was I was now missing
a leg, and so at that moment Ibegan thinking about how that
could I advance, how could Iamplify the life I now have.
Do I think about the 99% ofthings that I cannot do, or do I
think about the 1% of things Ican't do and the 99% of things I
(01:26):
still can do?
My name is Thad David.
Thad David (01:30):
I'm a former Marine recon scout sniper with two
deployments to Iraq.
As a civilian, I've nowfacilitated hundreds of personal
and professional developmenttrainings across the country and
it struck me recently that thesame things that help civilians
will also help veterans succeedin their new roles as well.
Join me as we define civiliansuccess principles to an
important role in successprinciples to inspire veteran
(01:52):
victories.
Welcome to another episode.
I'm here today with a very,very special guest.
He is a four time all American,two time with the Olympic
trials, two time two sportParalympian and a silver
medalist, as well as a combatveteran, john Register.
How are you doing, john?
John Register (02:14):
Thad, I'm doing wonderful.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
I can't wait to hear thequestions and get into this
conversation for your gueststhat you have listening in.
Thad David (02:22):
Man, I'm so excited to have you on.
You've got just so many thingsthat you've done and that you
continue to do and I'm excitedto jump in, so thank you.
One thing I always love to askpeople right away is just
knowing that you are a veteranand this is a show to help out
and empower veterans.
So, real quick, what got you tojoin the military?
John Register (02:40):
That's a great question.
You know I was.
I had just finished up theUniversity of Arkansas, I just
graduated with a degree incommunications, I had a baby on
the way with my wife Alice soonto be wife Alice and I had no
job and so I was like, what do Ido?
And I still want to run trackand field.
So I wound up finding that theUnited States Army has a world
(03:04):
class athlete program.
This world class athleteprogram allows a soldier athlete
to train a couple of yearsprior to the next Olympic Games
If you are bonafide or validatedby your national governing body
.
As pork and because I went tothe Olympic trials, I figured my
national governing body ortrack and USA track and field
would validate for me, whichthey did.
(03:26):
So I went into the army to arun track and field and be to
have my kid delivered for free.
So that was my, that's my wayto get in.
Thad David (03:37):
I love how we were all so similar in the kind of
what.
Why we joined is some form of.
I needed to link, and so thiswas the.
This was it.
That's that's incredible.
So you joined in, and what didyou end up doing in the army?
John Register (03:49):
Well, I want to kind of just caveat, because I
think what happens is there's atime that that we find where
what our service actually meansfor each one of us individually.
And that time for me wascrossing parade field.
I was listening to a guy and Ididn't know if I wanted to say
in or not.
And as I walked across theparade field for Jackson, South
Carolina, I began to have this,this nostalgia of all the people
(04:16):
, all the soldiers, men andwomen, who had walked this
parade field before me toprotect the freedoms of the
United States of America.
And I I got it.
That's when it hit me, it sunkinto me.
But I also went a littlefurther than that right, Because
when someone will always ask orsay thank you for your service,
and so I, I take this as alearning point, and you'll
(04:39):
you'll hear this all throughoutour present, our conversation
today, Because I think it'simportant for us to remember
what the services that we werefighting for, or, you know,
because that's fighting is abyproduct of why we all signed
up, we all raised our hand toprotect and defend the United
States Constitution against allenemies, foreign and domestic,
(05:02):
and that we would bear truefaith and allegiance to the same
Right.
And so when people come andthank us for our service, that's
the oath that we took.
So then I asked the nextquestion when's the last time
you read our United StatesConstitution?
What is the preamble say?
Why does it start off?
We, the people of the UnitedStates, what are the seven
(05:25):
articles of this, of the, theConstitution?
Why is article number five themost important article, the most
important article that waswritten?
And then, when we come into theamendments of the Constitution,
why is that important for me?
I identify as a black Americanbecause when the Constitution
was written, I was only threefifths of a human being.
(05:46):
So for me to sign up, walkacross the parade field a part
of this history that I wasn'teven three fifths of a person I
have the 13th, the 14th and the15th amendments.
That begins my journey, and sothat is, I think, what we have
(06:07):
to understand that the folksthat put that Constitution
together knew, tried to protect,ensured that we could not
dismantle it very easily.
This democracy that we'retrying to make work, because we
didn't want a dictatorship.
King George over us, like othercountries, had Right.
(06:28):
So we put them into thelegislative branch, we put it
into the executive branch and weput it into the judicial branch
to ensure there was adistributed power of government,
and we've gotten away fromunderstanding what that actually
means and why it was done insuch fashion.
So I think that's the otheranswer of my deepening and
(06:53):
understanding.
You know what my serviceactually means.
Thad David (06:59):
You can just your passion that exudes out.
Once you started talking aboutit, you can tell this is
something you do often you talkto people about.
Often you say you asked themwhen was it the last time?
And you said you feel likewe've gotten away from it.
What do you think?
We've got to wait for a minuteand what does that look like?
John Register (07:16):
I think we're trying to use it as it was not
intended.
So we want to pick out a littlepiece here and pick out a
little piece here to driveagendas and try to separate or
try to make one part of thegovernment more powerful than
another part.
So when I was building we'llget into this you know, the
(07:36):
Paralympic Military SportProgram I got a unique vantage
point to have been through fourpresidencies and been to the
White House four times and haveseen how our power structure
changes from hand to hand, everypresident writing a note for
(07:56):
the next president.
Well, it's the last one, but itwas an honoring thing that
comes.
That started with GeorgeWashington that said you know,
I'm not going to stay.
That is incredible to me whenyou look back in history of
everybody the Mussolini's outthere, the Hitler's that are out
(08:18):
there, everybody that wanted tobe a dictator and what we have
done is we've split based uponwhat we think that document
actually means and no one hasread it.
Thad David (08:31):
I love that you do that my mother-in-law actually
carries around.
She carries around little minidocuments and she actually hands
them out to people.
I was like, when was the lasttime that you read this?
You should check it out whenwas the last time.
John Register (08:48):
I mean, it's easy Download it.
It's not a very longdocumentary but I think it's
important right when we starttalking about.
You know it's for veterans andyou know this show is directed
at veterans.
It's important not to get tothe sound bites that one group
or another group can make,because we're into these short
(09:09):
sound bites now and really dothe.
It's our own personal work thatwe must do to understand why do
we exist differently than therest of the world, than most of
the rest of the world?
Thad David (09:21):
I love that and, as all things that comes back to
the work that we're putting inor that we have to put in,
should we take it on.
John Register (09:30):
Yeah, so I'm off my soapbox now let's go get it.
No, I was fascinated.
Thad David (09:34):
That's what I love about these conversations I
never know which way it's goingto go and what a powerful
starting point I mean at itscore.
That's why we all signed up andwhat we all signed up to
protect.
So it's fascinating.
So you mentioned also one thingas I think back to introducing
you, and then you joined up,obviously to be an athlete, to
(09:55):
have a baby for free, and youare a combat veteran, and so
what was that that?
I'm very fascinated to get intoeverything you've done as
Olympic trials, for justeverything you've done there.
But what was that like joiningin?
Because I would imagine there'sa story in there that you
joined up to be an athlete andsomehow ended up in a combat
(10:15):
role overseas.
John Register (10:17):
Yeah, because we all do the needs of the army or
whatever sprints of service.
And even though you're signedup for one thing, there was no
guarantee.
Let me be very clear Right nowyou can actually sign up for the
Army's World Class AthleteProgram.
It's something that we can helpto continue to work on.
But when I was going throughand the other athletes that were
with me, there was no guaranteethat you were actually going to
(10:37):
get placed in this program.
So I, fortunately, after basictraining and advanced individual
training, ait I had three daysand I wound up getting selected
for all Army track and fieldcamp and I went out there was
great and from there wasselected for the Army's World
Class Athlete Program.
(10:57):
At this time I loved themilitary.
I said this is the best thingin sliced bread baby, and I
wanted to be a lifer.
I'd already told my wife I wantto be a lifer.
So I took the officer selectionbattery test scored off the
charts, it was great.
So I kept that in my backpocket.
Let me do my track and fieldstuff and after I get out I'll
go to OCS down in Fort Benningschool for girls and boys and I
(11:22):
will be a military officer andI'll do another 20 years, get
out, work for a contractor foranother 20 years.
I got my whole life a set Right.
That was my vision.
Then I get to my firstleadership course, which is
called some different now, butit's called primary leadership
development course, pldc, andI'm two weeks in trying to make
(11:42):
my rank and I get.
They do a drill and the drill,the instructors do a drill.
The drill is on what you mustdo if you get deployed.
You know how do you make surethat you get your dental records
done.
You have to get all the stuffwe have to do to prepare and
preparing your families.
So after we finished thatexercise we come back into the
(12:04):
room and I'm held outside theroom and I just my instructor
says to me you know, foreverybody else that's going back
in the room.
That was an exercise for you.
This is real.
You've just been assigned toFort Seloch, oklahoma, six to 27
field artillery and you areheaded to operation does a
shield.
(12:25):
I was like what Excuse me?
And I was kind of numb at thatpoint.
When I left and went back tothe barracks my buddy was with
me.
We were talking about it.
I said.
He said you know, when you getback you're gonna be able to do
this.
And I said, yeah, if I comeback.
And when I said if, thatgravity of I might not come back
(12:51):
washed over me like no one.
It was like a wet big wave thatjust pushes you under right.
It's not letting you up.
That's what that press was like.
And I saw my wife.
She was coming to meet me forlunch and I just even couldn't
get out and just started balland started crying.
I mean, I couldn't believe thiswas happening and what snapped
(13:12):
me out of it was I was on theplane right over to Fort Sill
and it was actually.
I believe I heard a voice justspeak.
Believe it was a voice.
God, holy Spirit.
What I wanna say to say this isjust an answer to your prayer,
the prayer I had about seeing myfruit.
I wanna say, hey, I wanna seemy fruit, you know, and three
(13:37):
times God had told me no, don'tworry about it.
You got it and this was ananswer to that.
So going over, there was thiswhole big answer and I wound up
having this amazing time thatwas very unique.
So I got myself a Katabi.
Katabi is Arabic for book.
(13:58):
The I at the end makespossessive means my book, katabi
.
So I'm trying to learn a littlebit Arabic.
I'm getting placed on guard dutywith the Saudi Arabian National
Guard saying compound, and I'mpracticing my Arabic.
Lo and behold, this car pullsup.
I don't know who it is.
So I got my, you know, got myhand on my sidearm and as this
gentleman gets out of the car,everybody snaps to attention.
(14:19):
And it's one of the Saudiprinces.
So I hosted my weapon, so Iprobably don't want to do cause
international incident.
And as he's going down, I jumpin line.
So I practice on him and hecan't believe it because as he's
, you know, kind of shakinghands with every Saudi National
Guard person that's there andthanking them, he gets to me
(14:42):
that's at the end of the line.
You know, one of these thingsthat I've been doing is at the
end of the line.
You know, one of these thingsdoesn't look like the other.
So I say to him Salam alaikum.
He's like what?
Wa alaikum salam?
You know, he's like what I saidqueez, and he said kevelach.
He's like, oh my gosh, queez,queez, queez.
And then it's.
I had like about seven things Icould say and I it all fell
(15:06):
right in line and he couldn'tbelieve that what he had heard
about Americans coming to thisforeign country of Saudi Arabia,
their country, and he heardabout all these kind of things
that you know, whatever we talkabout, the, the, the abrasive
American, or whatever you saw,it was totally different than
(15:27):
what he had seen.
And so we had this conversationfor about probably about six or
seven minutes afterward ofasking me all these different
questions from faith backgroundto you know, he said are you
Muslim?
I said no, I'm Christian.
He said so.
We just had this beautifulexchange and I realized in that
moment that I, even in amilitary uniform, I'm an
(15:51):
ambassador for the United States, even when I was talking to him
, understanding that if I comein demanding things, I'm
probably not going to catch alot of positivity back.
If I come in trying tounderstand who you are first,
(16:13):
I'm going to have a conversationthat opens up.
So when he leaves, I can do nowrong with everybody on the
Saudi Arabian National Guard.
They're inviting me to dinner,to tea, to down into the city,
they're taking me everywhere andthese.
I think we just became greatfriends all because getting a
(16:34):
little book and trying to learnsomeone else's language or
culture or customs and notthinking that my custom or
learning was the center thingfor the rest of the entire world
.
Everybody has to revolve aroundme and I think that's great
(16:54):
lesson for all of us.
Kind of even going back to thefirst form, make one of the US
Constitution is what is the?
What do we do?
How do we show up?
How do we ensure that we're notthe we don't think that we're
the centerpiece, only being anation 400 years old or a little
bit more, right, I mean, thinkabout how old that nation is.
(17:17):
We're not even.
We can't even wipe the snotfrom our nose yet we don't even
know if this thing is going towork.
So I think we have to honorthose and stay.
You know, yeah, we got a thinggoing on here.
You know democracy doesn't work.
Can we?
Can we talk about this and havea really robust dialogue about
(17:41):
it without throwing stones andwaving, you know, nationalism
around and know that we're acommunity of the world?
We're a community of the world,and so that it was a great
lesson for me that would set meup later on to build these other
programs and knowing how totalk to kind of both sides of
the aisle.
Thad David (18:03):
I think it's fascinating and I see some
undertones and just all the prepwork, everything we've done to
have this conversation and,right there, what you said with
it, just the seeking tounderstand, you know, versus a
lot of times we go intosituations and this one very
high profile situation but itworks as a it could be a smaller
version of the same situationthat we all want to go in and
(18:24):
say what we want to say versushow could I understand what's
going on right now?
John Register (18:27):
Absolutely.
Thad David (18:28):
Yeah, oh, I think it's.
It's a fascinating lesson and Ilove that you took it away.
And so you, you went overseas.
And then what was that like?
What did you find yourselfdoing?
John Register (18:38):
So I wound up I was a 31 Charlie, which is a
single channel radio operatorThey've changed the
nomenclatures now and I wound updoing some interesting stuff.
I had a buddy of mine we stilltalk to the state Dwayne Burbank
, the Native American gentlemanwe were doing combo.
He's my net controller back inthe in the U S, so he's in.
(19:00):
He was in Fort Wichita, arizona.
I was in.
I was stationed in Fort Dix,new Jersey, and so every morning
we would talk because we weredoing this.
If the whole system goes down,all the computers and everything
, you got a Mars system,military operation, military
field radio stations that arethat are round, and so we can
still talk through, you know,short wave or long wave radio.
And we we got together and wewere able to figure out how to
(19:23):
do an inverted V, that's, takeyour antennas and point them in
a V direction, in the directionwhere you want them to go, and
we were able to get a skip atabout five o'clock in the
afternoon to six o'clock in theafternoon all the way across to
the United States.
So we were doing morale callshome for the soldiers from the
radio.
We were keying up 50,000 wattsgoing out and we were.
(19:44):
We were broadcasting to theUnited States.
Thad David (19:48):
That's incredible.
John Register (19:49):
We wanted to be doing that, you know, finding
our location, everything.
Well, we're, we're doing it.
Thad David (19:55):
All things in hindsight we can look back and
say ah, maybe, it wasn't thebest idea.
I'm sure somebody wasn't happylooking back.
John Register (20:03):
I did that.
I drove for the commander andwe talked a lot about that,
captain Babernich, excuse me.
We talked a lot about officercannons tool, you know kind of
which way I want to go in themilitary.
So it was really a great.
It was a great experience, butI lost a lot of my track and
field ability because you can'trun really fast in the sand and
(20:24):
train that well.
So I got back to when I didcome back after six months and
the Gulf War, I wound up goingto Presidio, San Francisco, but
I couldn't run the high hurdlesany longer.
I was, I was just too much, notout of shape, but the fast
which muscle fibers to run themwere just gone.
So it takes a long time tobuild them up.
(20:45):
So I switched to the 400 meterhurdles and after five races
qualified for the Olympic trialsand the 400 meter hurdles and
in the sixth race I finished17th in the Olympic trials and I
said, okay, I got my race, I'mgoing to do one more four years.
And that was.
I was, you know, re enlistedfor those four years, so I could
just have that officer cannonschool in my back pocket, went
(21:07):
to Germany, was training overthere as well.
I was a different unit.
It was great.
I became the check ride in COICof a Bitburg.
Germany was training in tri-airand in Kaiser slaughter, k-town
.
And when I came back in May of1994, two years before the
Olympic trials I missed step tohurdle.
(21:29):
During a training run,hyperextended my left knee, I
severed the artery behind mykneecap and seven days later
through because the surgerydidn't work, I had my left leg
amputated above the knee.
So that was my into my twocareers.
(21:49):
So my track and field career Iwas not going to Olympic games,
one leager and my militarycareer I wasn't going to go to
officer cannon school duringthat point.
So I, you know I was in, I waskind of going down a downward
spiral.
It wasn't bad, but I knew thatyou know what's life going to be
(22:11):
like and a lot of folks havetrauma.
They have transitions thatthey're about to make.
Sometimes they are.
The transition happens for usand sometimes we have time to
prepare for the transition thatcomes.
And what are we going to do?
How do we handle those types ofmoments?
And I was going down thatdownward spiral.
You know, checking my identity.
Who am I now?
(22:31):
What's my identity?
Is my wife still going to stickaround?
Is my son still going to see meas his father?
Is he going to be in themilitary?
Can I support my family?
All my Olympic dreams are overand all those things were
crushing on me and I wasthinking deeply about them.
I had a general four star,general Gordon Sullivan, chief
(22:52):
staff of the army at the time.
He was one of my first callsthat came in because it was a
pretty high profile injury,asked me what I wanted to do and
I had.
I told him, sir, I have no idea.
I just you know I'm trying tounderstand what's going on, but
I'll tell you what.
I'll call you back.
I'll tell this four star, thiscorporal, tell this four star,
let me get you on my calendarand I'll call you back.
Yeah, so, but that's what thestate I was in.
(23:17):
You know, I was just so, I andI.
I wound up doing that.
But my wife, she said you know,we're going to get through this
time together.
It's just our new normal.
When she spoke those words, she,she made me understand, with
just those words, that lifereally hadn't changed that much.
(23:37):
I still have my family, stillhad my faculty, still have my
degree from the University ofArkansas, I still had dreams,
goals, aspirations.
The only thing that wasdifferent was I was now missing
a leg, and so at that moment Ibegan thinking about how that
could I advance, how could Iamplify the life I now have?
(24:01):
Do I think about the 99% ofthings that I cannot do, or do I
think about the 1% of things Ican't do and the 99% of things I
still can do?
So that's the mindset shiftthat began to happen in me, and
I have a whole sequence and aprocess about that now.
But it was at that mindset, thatshifting of that, that got me
(24:25):
down the road.
And that wasn't even the worst.
The hardest part the amputation.
The amputation was just kind ofthe beginning.
The hardest part was on June17th 1994.
You remember what was happeningon that day?
I think everybody, when I saythis, every audience member,
everybody listen to this and gooh, right, right, right, you go
(24:48):
to the same thing.
June 17th 1994, there was awhite Bronco going down the I-5
freeway.
Yeah, everybody out there knowswhat that means, right?
Thad David (25:01):
No one knows what's happening.
John Register (25:05):
We got OJ in the back and I am sitting on my
cousin's couch in San Antonio,texas.
The phantom pain that iscrushing me right now.
It's the worst pain I've everfelt in my life.
I can't get any rest.
I can't turn to left or right,stand up, sit down.
(25:26):
I'm sweating profusely.
My heart rates at about 115,120 beats a minute and I just
cannot get any relief.
And there was a note that wasbeing read by every commentator
that afternoon, every newsreporter, and it looked like the
note that was found by OJSimpson was a suicide note.
(25:50):
Forget this shell of a man,don't think of this person here.
Remember the good old days ofOJ?
Whatever, all that stuff thathe had written in that note
looked like the juice was aboutto check out and I made up my
mind.
At that moment.
I said no matter how bad thisgets, I Will never check out.
Thad David (26:11):
Hmm.
John Register (26:12):
I will never check out, and for those vets
that are out there right nowthat might be even thinking
about that, because you don'tthink that your life Is worth it
.
You are valuable.
You are created unique.
You are the only one that cando what you do.
No one else is designed to doit.
But you and you have to staywith.
You've got to fight through.
(26:32):
Whatever the support is that youneed to find it.
Come up and and and and reachout and connect, because we got
your brothers, we got yoursisters, we got you it.
We need your voice and I'mgonna share why.
You'll see from my life in thispoint of if you can take
anything from this, this life, IWent on to do some pretty
(26:55):
incredible things after makingthat decision, and if I would
have stopped it there, maybe wedon't get all these other
programs that have happened.
You're the only voice that'sout there that can actually make
it happen.
So that's my plug for it.
Hey, we got it.
We got to take care of eachother.
We got to take care of eachother.
Thad David (27:14):
Oh, that was it.
John Register (27:15):
That was my, my, my embarkation, the, the jumping
off point was that moment ofwatching OJ and saying I'm gonna
go through.
And I knew was gonna get worse.
That before it got better.
I knew it.
But I said I'm gonna, I'mwilling to go through that fight
, I'm gonna go to that fight.
And it did it got.
It got hella worse.
Thad David (27:36):
Well, what was it in that moment that Obviously
there's a lot going on his hisnote that was left?
What was it that that made youjust click Like no matter what,
I'm not checking out?
John Register (27:47):
Yeah, I, I don't know.
I think it was justUnderstanding that this was, I
call it, my night in Gethsemane.
This was just.
It was just my.
I was there alone, no one wasaround me, and this was just me.
I had I had to.
Are you gonna fight throughthis?
You know you've been throughsome tough stuff before, but
(28:09):
this was gonna.
This was taken to the brink andif you can get through this,
think about all of the livesthat you can help Because of
your one commitment to thismoment in time, this defining
moment.
I think we all get them atpoints and do we rise to that
occasion?
Because if we get through thatpoint, we can help others
release from from their pointsand do what they're called to do
(28:31):
.
Thad David (28:31):
They don't have to necessarily my thing, but
whatever they're called to do,it helps them get through that
point to discover, uncover, pushinto the space that they are
designed to, to impact and andyou mentioned something a few
steps prior to that and a fewpieces prior that I wanted to
circle back to because, as wetie into veterans and Just what
(28:53):
you had said in that moment, amI gonna focus on the 99% of
things I can't do or the 99% ofthings that I can do and just
bringing it up when, as youmentioned, veterans too I often
wonder how many people are sohyper focused on what they feel
like they can't do right now?
Why is it so important to shiftthat, to shift that mindset, in
your opinion?
John Register (29:12):
Yeah, I think you know, when I studied a little
bit later on in life, dr Martin,the Silicon Man's work we have,
he talks about learnedhelplessness.
And so you know I'm not goingto go in all the studies and
stuff, but we we teach ourselvesto be helpless and Even though
(29:33):
there are escapes, we choose tostay in the danger zone.
We tend to stay in the thenegative space.
So we have to flip that mindsetto a couple more areas.
The first one is learnedOptimism.
So I can have a helplessstatement, but I need to turn
(29:53):
that helpless statement into anoptimistic statement.
So I begin to see what are the,the things that are around me
that can support me and push meto an optimistic, optimistic
level, to see a better end formyself than this negative end.
Because if I can think about ahelpless state, I can think
about an optimistic state aswell, because they're both
(30:14):
future states.
Neither one has happened, so Ican choose which path I want to
be on.
We just think that we have togo down this negative one, hmm,
and then, after we get to thelearned op, learned optimism.
Now we can take ownership of it.
So now I can make an ownerstatement.
I will do, I will show up asand that begins to the
(30:39):
affirmations that that we canmake in our lives, our lives,
that will Advance us away fromthat negative mindset.
So there are, there are tacticsaround this.
You know, make a list of allthe negative things you think
are negative.
Make a list of all the positivethings you think are positive.
Tear the list up, you know,divided half, and then crumple
(31:00):
up or burn up the negative stuffso you only have the positive
stuff left.
There are lots of things thatwe can do as tactical, but we
also we have to make up in ourmind that we're not gonna listen
to that negative voice.
It's too easy.
It's too easy.
I have I'm having my own podcastcoming up, right, it's okay,
it's amputate to amplify and andthe amputate amplify podcast,
(31:22):
and we're just getting somethings started right now.
But the but the question I askis to every guest is You're
writing a book entitled how todestroy those.
Those lots is directed tomeeting planners and stuff.
How do you destroy the perfectmeeting?
Right?
So it's a sabotage Because noone comes up how to save a
(31:44):
meeting.
No one, no one gives you that.
But if I ask you how tosabotage a meeting, how not to
sabotage one.
You think about all the storiesof sabotage, of running a
screw-up a meeting, and there'sa story that goes behind that.
So that's you know.
We always think about thenegative, then we can, we bring
it back to the positive.
So we go from the learnedhelplessness learned
helplessness to the optimistic,to the owner mindset.
Thad David (32:10):
I Really love that and, just for anybody listening
as well, I don't know when, when, a when can we expect your
podcast, because I know I'mgonna jump in and and and check
it out.
John Register (32:19):
When do you think that would?
Thad David (32:20):
launch out.
John Register (32:22):
So I have, you know, we're batching them, you
know.
So we got the URL andeverything, but we're batching
them and when I get about six Iwant to launch.
So it looks like middle ofFebruary sometime, what would be
that maybe early March, but butyeah, we're starting to get the
shows tight together.
It's, they're, they'rehilarious, I mean, because you
can imagine they just go.
Thad David (32:41):
Mm-hmm.
John Register (32:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, because they just, they just
tell me the story of what wasthe how they would sabotage it,
because they saw Someone elsesabotage that direct way.
I'm like what really they did,what?
So, oh yeah.
Thad David (32:52):
Conversations when I'll be sure to link the podcast
.
Once it goes, I'll put it inthe bio and we can get it linked
up so anybody listening.
You go check yours out as well.
And I love that.
Exercise is something I dooften with people because a lot
of times we struggle what to do.
I just don't know what to dohere.
It's like, well, let's talkabout all things.
It would be the opposite ofwhat you, what you end result
you want.
And then, and all of a sudden,they have this big list.
(33:14):
I was like, well, let's just dothe opposite of everything you
just put down.
Yeah, and then it's a coollittle bridge and pathway to get
to that.
That good stuff, absolutely.
And the learned optimism, Ithink, is a Really important
thing.
And I don't know, do you spenda lot of time talking about
optimism and positive thinking,things like that?
John Register (33:33):
No, not really, Because that's not, it's really
not my work.
Um, I see similarities with the, with the concepts, and I
haven't studied Dr Silverman, soI'm probably gonna as much as I
probably should have.
I've studied him a little bitin his On positive psychology,
but not to the depths of, youknow, like phd level, what I,
what I with a lot of the, thoseframeworks.
(33:57):
There's a, there's adestination that happens, and my
Focus, my thought, is thatthere really is not a
destination.
There are plateaus that we canreach, but there's from that
plateau some people might callit growth mindset I say the
plateau is for our next level ofgrowth.
(34:18):
So we, we, we write, we hit aplateau in order to grow.
Um, because in my model I havethree phases and I can, I can
jump to another one.
Yeah, um, I have this what'scalled the reckoning moment.
The reckoning moment isrealized or hurtled when we
realize we do not get back whatwe desire to have back After
(34:40):
some type of trauma has impactedour life.
So that's the reckoning moment,uh, the, the, the next one,
that's when we realize that we,we are, we can't go back.
People will say, because peoplesay this and we can hear it in
people's voices or what they say.
I wish things would get back tonormal.
Can we just go back to the wayused to be?
(35:00):
If we can just get back to athe old days, it's gonna be.
It's gonna be, but the old daysremember that great.
They were just older.
So anytime we hear that we knowsomebody's in a loop Of the
past or a loop of trying to getback to a nostalgia or something
, yeah, if we can just go backto the way used to be, if we can
just go back to the time of the1980s, it would.
(35:21):
It'd be great.
If we can just get back tobefore that we had Not.
Just we can't, we can't go back, and that's an impossibility,
it's just impossible.
So Once we understand andrealize that we now have hurtled
into the revision, I can nowbegin to have a new casted
vision.
And that new vision begins witha redefining the problem, then
(35:45):
a rebuilding on that we starttinkering around with.
In other words, we don't haveanything constructed, but we're
starting to erect, maybe dig thehole for the building to be
erected, and then we have tomake a commitment to the new
vision.
That's hard.
It's the second hardest part ofthe model, and the reason it's
(36:06):
it's so hard Is because we haveusually People who are very
close to us, what I call otherpeople.
It's other very close people whobelieve for us what we can or
cannot do, which is often basedupon what they believe they
could or could not do If theywere in our situation.
So a doctor might tell meyou'll never run again Because I
(36:31):
don't have, I've never been anamputee before and I assume that
this doctor is the authoritybecause he's done, she's done
multiple amputations.
They are the authority in mylife that tells me I will never
be able to do this and I trustthat authority figure.
So therefore I believe them,because I know no other basis or
grounds, and they become thatauthority figure in my life To
(36:52):
tell me I can't do it.
So therefore I think and Iassimilate that into me very
difficult a mom or dad, you'renot gonna amount to anything,
you're just, you're just likeyour mother, you're just like
your father, right, and weinternalize those things because
as kids, we assume our parentsto be the closest things to us,
the closest people, and so ifyou, if I hear that constantly,
(37:13):
I'm never going to amount toanything from the person.
That is my confidant, my, theone that I'm closest to I have.
I struggle.
The second thing is we havesociety.
Society dictates to us ournormalities.
(37:35):
The antagonist in in um peterpan is captain hook.
He's made.
He's scaring the lost boys.
He is.
He's the antagonist because hehas his.
He's an above the wrist amputee.
He wears a hook.
Hook represents I'm.
I have a claw that's going tohurt you if I Put this into.
(37:55):
I can hook you like I hook afish, like I hook something.
You know that, uh, I want I'mgonna spear you.
And so he's made the villain,this disfigured person cartoon
character.
I Wait a minute.
I'm now an amputee and I beginto associate things around.
Every Halloween I see peoplewith disfigurements.
(38:16):
I see people that have maybeamputees or Freddy Krueger's.
They're burned over theirbodies, they.
I see Jason, who's mentallykind of deranged.
And so now society has told methat these people are to be
(38:37):
feared.
Hannibal Lecter, ladies, right,all these people are to be
feared.
Now we want to have a mentalhealth conversation and we can't
Because we've been told thatthat is wrong.
That's who we blame everythingon In society, for all of our
(38:58):
ills, all of our woes, all thethings that we don't want to
take responsibility forourselves.
We just say Big mass schoolshooting happens, oh it's, they
weren't mentally ill.
We just blame everything,instead of taking ownership Of
what we need to take ownershipof.
We cast it out.
Very difficult to move pastthose two.
(39:21):
And now, um, the third piece isI have to do it.
I've had some of the world'sbest hurdle coaches in the world
.
They never ran a hurdle for me.
I have to be the one to attackthe hurdles in my life.
No one else can do that for me.
So I'm either going to attackit or I'm going to stop at it,
(39:42):
or I'm going to go around it.
But you've got to attack thehurdle.
So maybe you start off withsmall hurdles.
You know small wins and youbegin to raise them up.
That's how we teach the hurdles.
So, yeah, so it's verydifficult.
That gets us to.
So once we hurdle that, nowwe're in the third part, which
is great, because now we're inthe renewal and we want to be in
(40:03):
the renewal.
But it begins with the hardestpart of the model and that's the
rebirth.
Once I make a commitment, thereis now a chasm that has been
created.
With a commitment, there is nogoing back to the way it used to
be.
It is an impossibility.
If you can go back on yourcommitment, I say that you have
(40:26):
not made a commitment.
You're probably in thereckoning moment and not the
rebirth.
That's the difference betweenthe two.
When a commitment is made, whenI tell the doctor, take my leg
off, and the doctor amputates myleg, I do not get my leg back.
When we make commitments, we donot get back what we had prior
to.
We don't want to hear thosethings.
It's very difficult to hearthose things.
(40:48):
I can go back on my commitment?
No, you can't.
You never made a commitment inthe first place.
If you can, because acommitment is a commitment it's
like the old joke right when youhave your breakfast baking an
egg.
The chicken was involved in theprocess, the pig was committed.
Thad David (41:11):
I've never heard that and I'm going to steal that
.
You can't get more hate fromthat chicken, but you can't get
any more bacon from that pig,you got to get another pig, baby
.
So, inside of that too, wheredo you think people I think you
(41:31):
alluded to it when do you thinkpeople struggle the most inside
of this process?
John Register (41:35):
I think it depends wherever they are,
because I think when you seeyourself, you can see yourself
where you are in the model.
Here's what happens.
I'll finish the model out.
So in the rebirth there's acouple of things that have to
happen.
One you might have phantom pain.
I've had that huge phantom painto remind you of a previous
(41:56):
state that you were in, butyou're no longer there because
you made the commitment you mayhave a longing for, in my case,
my mother, who passed away twoyears ago to see mom again, to
talk to mom.
It's not happening.
That pains me.
That is a visceral, reactiveresponse.
I'm not getting it back becausethe commitment is already done.
She has passed from this life,so I cannot get it back.
(42:19):
It could be you want to go backin the military, but you have
exited and you no longer areable to get back into your unit
or get back into the military.
You have exited and now you'rein this whole new world.
So how do we respond in thatFor me, I didn't know how to use
(42:41):
a wheelchair, but now I have touse one to get to my prosthetic
appointment.
That's new, because new is noprior point of reference.
And when new is no prior pointof reference.
If that's the definition, thenwe can't use old systems, old
thoughts, old ideas to put intoa new bucket to get a different
output If you do the same thingover and over again, expecting a
(43:03):
different result.
It's a definition of whatIntensity, absolutely so why do
we do it?
So then I have to learn themanipulate that wheelchair.
I have to learn how to put onan artificial leg.
I have to learn how to walkbetween the parallel bars.
I have to learn how to walk ona four bar walk around the
hospital.
I have to learn how to use awalker to crutches, crutches to
(43:24):
a cane, cane to free walking,free walking to running, running
to jumping, jumping to aparalympic silver medal.
That process took seven years.
Can I shorten the time?
Can I shorten it by gettingthrough those other phases
faster, by honoring that.
I need to get out of thisreckoning moment.
I need to jump past this, therevision, and start working.
(43:47):
So I have to get in the renewal.
So I have to have this, this,give myself space and grace to
grow.
I need to give myself space andgrace to grow, because when
something is new, you just can'tstart running.
If you're a toddler, you can'tstart toddling if you don't even
know how to walk, you just, youlearn.
(44:08):
You got to learn these thingsagain, and so that is the space
and grace we need.
Once we have done that, and I'mwalking, well, and I'm up on
two limbs again, walking around.
That's my resolve.
I'm resoluted, who I am.
I know exactly how I'm showingup.
No longer do I ever want to goback to the way it used to be.
(44:30):
No, you need to catch up towhere I am.
That's not braggadocio.
You just done the work.
You've read the Constitution.
You know what the preamble is.
You know the seven articles.
You know why article numberfive is the most important
article.
Right, trying to pull that back.
Thad David (44:46):
Yeah, not a bullet that you do so we know.
John Register (44:51):
We don't have to have CNN or Fox tell me what it
is, we don't have to have a talkahead tell me what to think.
No, because I've read it, Iknow exactly what it says and I
can begin to my owninterpretations off of it of
what I think the foundersdesired for that.
So now that equals my freedom,my destination, my reward, so to
(45:15):
speak.
But the reward, remember, isnot a destination, it's a
plateau for the next level ofgrowth.
That's where my model, I think,changes from some of the other
models.
Like I said, I haven't studiedthem all together, so maybe I'm
right, maybe I'm wrong, but Ihaven't seen them go.
I think they've beendestination type models where
mine is no, we hit here and thenwe elevate to the next level.
(45:38):
We've learned something.
It's not even elevation up.
Right.
Elevation usually is up.
I think it's elevation is whenyou turn it on its side and I
jump from, like maybe, a lilypad to a lily pad or a stone to
a stone, because I honor theplace where I was and then I
move to the next stone, I gathermyself and I land on that stone
(46:02):
in order to jump to the nextstone.
So I can't move to stone twounless I honor stone number one.
I don't climb over stone numberone.
If I think about go up a ladder, I'm climbing over somebody.
You've got to climb thecorporate ladder.
What if the corporate ladderwas wrongs like over a chasm to
(46:25):
help other people across thechasm of commitment.
Thad David (46:32):
There's something that I read is the book's called
With Winning in Mind.
It's a bit of an older book,it's a little bit dated, but he
was an Olympian Back in the day.
He had this goal his whole lifeto be a gold medalist in
precision shooting.
He said the most depressed dayof his life was the day after he
won his gold medal and it wasbecause and his wife told him
(46:56):
she's like well, you've had thisgoal your entire life Like, of
course, you're depressed becauseyou don't know what's next.
You've always had a goal andthat's what I love about where
you're stating this is honoringthat we're going from this lily
pad to this lily pad or thisstone to this stone, and knowing
that we're going to the nextstone.
But we got to honor where we'reat.
And I think far too often tohis point and to what I'm
hearing in your point is that ifwe don't know where we're going
(47:18):
next, it's easy to kind ofreally focus in on what we don't
have back to.
You had talked about earlierthat 99% of what we can't do
right now.
It keeps us hyper focused in,whereas when we know what that
next is, it's great, right.
John Register (47:32):
And sometimes I think we know and sometimes we
don't know, but I think we knowthat changes in the air Right.
So I think about, let me see,maybe like Jim Brown maybe some
folks remember Jim Brown great,running back right, but he stops
before the height of his careerand he does something else.
(47:52):
And then we look at maybe aBrett Barve or Tom Brady.
Michael Jordan can't give thegame up, have to stay in.
We'll switch teams to staygoing on to play, because
(48:13):
they're not what they're afraidof.
But when I listen to them talk,they're missing the four people
on the court with Jordan or the10 other people on the court on
the field going down thefootball field.
That's what they're going tomiss the most and they want to
stay part of that element.
Same thing with a soldier, samething with a military, like a
(48:35):
commander.
They're leading all thesepeople.
Now who are they going to leavewhen they get back to the house
?
And they have, just in time,their service, gts, their family
that they were never there forBecause they were always on
missions.
Somebody else was lead thathousehold.
(48:56):
That's the and Garrison.
Thad David (48:59):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And recognizing that, and itmade me think of something as
well as you had talked aboutwith the staying in.
And then I love how you broughtit back.
You know, like with all thesegreats that have stayed on their
team forand then moved teams,but thinking about the military
in general, that was one of thereasons.
I remember talking to somebuddies that we always said you
know, if we could stay togetherfor 20 years, it could probably
(49:21):
be a different conversation.
But we know immediately, if weall re-enlisted, we're all going
to end up in different spots.
And so I don't ever look backand think about what if?
Simply because I know that itwasn't going to be what it was.
It couldn't be, it was going toshift, it was going to change.
John Register (49:35):
And I don't mean to you know that, I don't mean
to make light of, I'm being veryserious, right, these are very
hard, difficult challenges thatpeople and it doesn't escape
anybody is what I'm reallytrying to say.
So then, how do we prepare forit?
That's where I really come in.
That's my work that I do now.
(49:56):
So you heard, I went on from,you know, the military to
becoming this Paralympic athlete.
I swam for physical therapy andI fluked up, messed up and made
the Paralympic swim team like anight and a day.
I ended up going as a fordnermeter hurdler.
I went as a Paralympic swimmer.
I saw athletes running andjumping with artificial legs,
(50:20):
had a leg made for running andfour years later I went to
Sydney, australia, and wonsilver medal in the long jump.
And then, you know, I wasworking for the military, that
started working for the Olympiccommittee.
And that's when the the Gulf Warto turn into the new Iraq war
you know, gulf War 2.0, what doyou want to call it?
(50:41):
And the first casualties werefirst starting to come back from
that conflict, that war, andWalter Reed was being overrun
with people that were primarilyamputees at that point.
They were getting maimed andstuff, and so we had a different
(51:03):
war on our hands than what wasthe last one.
A general officer got firedbecause trying to do the right
thing and we hadn't prepared.
So he got the axe and I hadthis new program.
I was asked by my boss what canwe do for our veterans from the
Olympic committee?
Because I had this.
(51:24):
I had all the KIAs on my door,I was getting reports.
I still have my Pentagonaccount.
I got my, I would I would postthe names of the KIAs that were
coming up and I said what do youwant to do?
And so we started a wheelchairbasketball clinic at Walter Reed
(51:45):
.
That turned into a program atWalter Reed and then programming
medical center.
I got some money, some fundingfor it from a senator, a
congressman out of Pennsylvania,and he gave me five million
bucks.
I got 10 million from fromrepresentative Filner out of
(52:08):
Chula Vista, california, for theVA side, and that really began
what became known as theParalympic Military Support for
Women.
So all these things that we'retalking about right here, right
these, the planning for thetransition begins to open up
other opportunities that you mayhave never seen coming, and so
(52:29):
what we should do is we shouldalways plan for our transitions.
The great April Holmes,paralympic Athletes.
He says train for yourtransition.
We do all these training foroperations.
Train for the transition.
It's a part of your duty, it'sa train for your transition.
Look at your options before youneed to get to your options.
(52:51):
And I think that's the alwayspreparing for.
The next thing is, you know,even when I went full time as a
professional speaker now, Itrained for that before the
United States Olympic Committeedecided to right, size me,
upsize me, you know, switch meout to something different,
because the mission changesright.
And so I was prepared for thatto go out as a full time speaker
(53:15):
because of my basement at fromsix o'clock in the evening to
about 10 o'clock at night.
I, I worked on it, I worked onthe business to see where this
thing could take.
And then, when I was going toleave in February of 2000, 2000,
2019, and they let me go in2019, january, january 4th, 1230
(53:36):
, 34 seconds.
It was great.
I had 15 years, you know, withthe organization I learned a ton
.
I had my, my stone that I had,I was on.
I learned a lot from them.
So I'm not bitter about that,it was just time to move.
I had a, I had a differentvision and now I could step to
the next stone on secure, on asecure stone because I built it
(54:00):
instead of being.
You know, I do an exercise with.
Everybody has a rope andeverybody holds onto the rope.
And it's interesting to see.
I say, okay, we're going to,we're balanced on the ropes or
feet have to be inside the rope,and we're going to, we're going
to.
I tell a couple of people tolet go of the rope because
they're going to move to adifferent job or move to a
different thing, and so somepeople just they let the rope go
really quickly, so everybodyhas to scramble, trying to
(54:20):
balance themselves out on therope.
Some people let the rope govery gently to let allow other
people time to fill in thebalance on the rope.
So what type of leader are you?
What type of?
What type of way do you leavean organization?
Do you just drop the rope or doyou really try to replace the
(54:42):
person that you have coming into, so that there's a lot less
friction on the organization?
Is it time for your to sunsetwhat you're going to do for that
organization?
Thad David (54:53):
So I wrap my head or I love the, just the idea, the
concept of it, with grabbing ofthe rope, and I can totally see
people just dropping it and justpeacing out.
I'm done, I'm out.
Yeah, I'm done, which is veryrepresentative of a lot of
things you had mentioned earlierand I was hoping to touch back
(55:15):
on it as well, because I don'tknow, we're back into 2019, but
fast forward all the way back to94.
Because you had said somethingand then it's easy to see and I
say easy to see and hindsight,because you've spelled it out so
, so masterfully of just allthese lessons that you've
learned.
But in that moment in time thatyou said that you had your leg
(55:37):
amputated, that you had thoughtit's over.
What's my life like now?
And I don't think you couldhave ever known that.
You know when you just say it'sover, and then now you're a
silver medalist, so it clearlywasn't over.
Maybe the vision was different,but what was that like for you
in that moment?
(55:57):
I mean committing to somethingdifferent.
I mean what helped you in thatmoment?
Because I think a lot of timesyou go find ourselves in that
moment unsure of what to do.
John Register (56:05):
Well, my mind is a very easy answer because I
alluded to earlier.
You know I'm a person of faithand why I say faith I mean
Christianity.
When I say Christianity I meanChrist.
So I look at, I look at lifethrough a, and not even what the
most people think probably inChristianity.
So let me unpack that just alittle bit.
So when I was going through abusiness leadership class for
(56:31):
the for veterans run out ofSyracuse University, I was doing
at Oklahoma State University aweek long intensive
certification course forentrepreneur entrepreneurship,
we had a woman that came in.
Her name is Pat Rodriguez.
Pat said to us what's the mostimportant thing?
Your business?
We all got the answer wrong.
So she's like a little littlebit of drill sergeant and she
(56:53):
was like she's built likemillions of dollars of
organizations and contracts andstuff.
She says the most importantthing in your business is not
your clients, it's not your.
Your.
Your marketing, it's not your.
Whatever you want to put inthere is your supply chain.
Most important thing in businessis how are you going to wrap up
your business?
I said, oh my gosh, what abrilliant way to think of it.
(57:18):
Because when you say, when youbegin with that question how am
I going to wrap the business up?
Am I going to put it on thestock market?
Am I going to give it to mychildren?
Am I going to train up somebodyelse to take it?
Do I just want to sunset theentire thing?
I put you in the state ofsaying that my business is so
successful that I have somethingto wrap up and I was like, dang
(57:41):
, that's brilliant.
So then it was still bugging meright Six months later and I
realized the question that I wasreally asking myself was how
are you going to wrap up the endof your life when it's all said
and done, back to dust.
How are you going to wrap it up?
And my answer was I wanted myGod to say well done, good and
(58:07):
faithful servant.
That's what I want, that's whatI want to hear.
And so how do I do that?
I have to seek first God'skingdom and His righteousness.
All things shall be added to me.
So how do I do that?
I have to be very cautious onthe foundation that I build.
So when I say the foundation, Ibelieve is Christ.
(58:28):
And so we can build in sixdifferent ways.
We can build with wood, handstubble or gold, silver and
precious stones, because everyperson's work gets tried by fire
.
And if I build with wood, handstubble and my works tried by
fire, it's a fire sale.
I smell like smoke but myfoundation is still there.
If I build with gold, silverand precious stones, my work
(58:50):
lasts.
It's purified.
Fire purifies those things.
So I have a tag or a place inmy speech where I talk about
that.
We have to breathe oxygen intoour atmosphere to survive and
thrive in our environments andthat's how I kind of look at
(59:12):
things.
Right, if I have oxygen leavingmy environment, say, I'm under
water and I can't get back tothe surface, you're a marine,
you know what do you do.
What do you do?
You know you can't make it tothe top.
What's the first, what's theresponse in the brain that
(59:32):
begins to do?
It begins with a pee.
Thad David (59:35):
Panic.
John Register (59:36):
I panic.
When I panic, I might startdoing irrational things.
All right.
So if you think back to thebeginning of the pandemic, how
do we know that America was in apanic situation?
What was the one thing we weredoing that told the rest of the
world we were panicking,remember.
Thad David (59:55):
I mean, I'm thinking about all the masks.
Everybody was buying all thisstuff, everybody's buying.
John Register (59:59):
We weren't even buying masks at that time.
We were buying toilet paper.
Thad David (01:00:03):
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, man, I forgot about that.
John Register (01:00:07):
We were fighting over toilet paper.
Thad David (01:00:12):
That's right.
John Register (01:00:13):
That's not rational, because that was not
going to solve COVID, right?
We didn't even know we weredealing with that point.
But we're buying toilet paper,so we do irrational things.
So when we are adding oxygeninto environment, oxygen becomes
rich, it becomes a sustainer,becomes a life giver and it
helps other people have otherlife.
(01:00:35):
We take oxygen away, we causepanic and stress.
So the question wasn't evenabout going back to the pandemic
.
The question wasn't aboutwhether somebody wanted to wear
a mask or not wear a mask.
The question wasn't aboutwhether somebody wanted a
vaccination or not have avaccination.
The question was, excuse me,when someone came to you, john
(01:01:00):
registered with the opposingidea that you had.
Did you add oxygen, john, intotheir environments or did you,
john, take it away?
Because that's on me, that's noton a political party, that's
not on a left versus right,that's on.
What did I do in that moment?
What am I responsible for?
(01:01:23):
For another life that is here,that has a unique design and a
capability of only doing onething in this earth that that
life is designed to do.
So that's how I look at my liferight now, when I add oxygen
into people's environment.
All the time life was given tome.
(01:01:45):
I have to push life into others.
If I'm not, if I'm causingpanic in someone's life, I got
to check myself because I'm notdesigned to do that, I'm not
designed to take life away, andthat's on me.
I can't blame anyone else.
But if I do it or not do it, sothat's how I show up, that's
(01:02:05):
what I talk about in my faith.
I am designed to do this and soI do it now through the lens or
through the platform of keynotespeaking.
I do it through the platform ofleading conversations for CEOs
and executives.
I do it through a platform ofhaving fireside chats and taking
(01:02:25):
that contextual model that Ijust said and sharing it with
those that are doing mergers andacquisitions Some very
challenging times for people andtheir employees to move one
organization to another.
Or when someone's going througha reorganization in their
business or they're trying toget people on board to go
through a new time or concept.
(01:02:46):
How do we add life through thatentire process to make the
organization not just survivebut thrive?
So I hope that answered thatquestion.
It was a long one to answer,but I'm a stereotype, so that's
what you get.
Thad David (01:02:59):
Beautiful.
I love that.
I was thinking.
It made me ponder and justthink about where I'm adding
oxygen in other people's livesin general, whether it's in
passing I think even on a basiclevel, which you were in a very
high beautiful space with thatand just in everyday passing.
Are you causing panic in others?
(01:03:20):
If somebody's got a good idea,are you sampling it out?
Are you adding oxygen?
I just love it.
It's a great way to look at it.
That can be applied to a lot ofthings.
John Register (01:03:32):
So, yeah, that's what I share with audiences and
it's a self-discovery journey.
I'm giving the recipe out hereon your show at the head, but
really the conversation is avery fun presentation.
We do a lot of activity, a lotof exercise.
I believe in experientiallearning, so I'm always trying
(01:03:53):
to do some type of activity tolock the learning in, and
sometimes we do Paralympicsports that are easy to do
inside of a room and sometimeswe do a stand-up turnaround All
these things that lock thelearning in for the individual
to be a better team player, forwhat organization they're with.
Thad David (01:04:10):
I think it's absolutely fascinating.
I love it.
Thank you so much for sharingall of this stuff.
You got a beautiful story andan amazing journey, so I'm very
happy that you jumped on andshared it all, absolutely.
I'd love to ask you one morequestion, as well as to just
share where, before we close itout with that, where's the best
place for somebody listeningthat said you know what?
(01:04:32):
I love John's message.
I want to hear more.
Where can they find you, asidefrom, obviously, your new
podcast that's coming out aswell?
Yeah, it's going to be fun.
John Register (01:04:41):
Yeah, so the best place really is my website.
It's johnregistercomjohnregistercom.
All my social media handles areup there on the upper
right-hand corner.
Everything's easy to toggle to.
You know I have a businessphone that number that's up
there.
I think my email is there too,so you can get with me or get my
(01:05:02):
assistant If you're looking forsomeone to come in work with
your teams or your employeesCEOs, executives, you know,
coaching on that.
And then we have a littlenewsletter that goes out.
I have a.
It really came from a lot ofpeople that were following me
after my presentations, and so Itry to get this community
(01:05:24):
together.
I started something called JR's90 Days Friends.
Excuse me, these 90 DaysFriends are designed to take one
aspect of leadership for 90days and drill deep into it by
conversations I've had withother people on various podcasts
or other platforms, and we takea little snippet of what they
(01:05:44):
have shared and theirmethodology, of how they shared
it, and we share it with anybodythat signs up for that.
And that goes out once a weekon Sunday, and we have a
conversation once a month or,you know, definitely once a
quarter with myself and you canask any questions kind of ask JR
anything, and that has to dealwith any one of the modules that
(01:06:05):
we have been through and it'sjust a good place to get a
community together.
It's kind of it's not onFacebook, it's on Mighty Network
, so it's behind the you know,it's kind of on the people
inside of that area so peoplecan have a good dialogue with
each other without having to thealgorithms being changed on on.
So it's, it's a nice, it's good, it's a good space just to be
(01:06:27):
involved with.
Thad David (01:06:28):
I'm definitely going to throw that into the bio and
and of the of the podcast foranybody listening.
That way make it easy access toclick and to go find you and
hopefully to join theconversation.
Absolutely, thank you.
And knowing that you've talkedto tons of people just
throughout your journey you'vehelped out tons of people I'm
curious to ask you where do yousee people get kind of hung up
(01:06:52):
to the right word or just unsureLike what do you?
What do you see as the catalystfor them?
Is there a common thread, thatthat somebody might be able to
take something away from that?
That this was it and this ishow I was able to get through my
, my problem or my struggle thatI was having.
John Register (01:07:08):
Yeah, I think the common thread is understood, or
making that, that thisunderstanding that, that self
identification moment, that youare stuck right, and I think
people think that they're notstuck, when they actually are
stuck.
I have to recognize veryquickly oh, you know what I am
trying to do, every single thing, but I haven't gone back to the
(01:07:29):
basics.
Right, let's say from a salespoint, right, why don't, why
don't I have any events comingup in February?
Well, idiot, because inNovember you stopped making
sales calls.
Oh, I got it back to something.
So it's kind of it's we havethe answers that are there for
us, but do we want to see them?
(01:07:50):
And I think we get blindsidedby our own I don't know success
or own belief in ourselves orsomething.
We just don't see it.
And so it's.
It's very important, you know,to get with a mastermind group
or get with a, and I don't do amastermind, so I'm in a
mastermind group.
I don't do masterminds likethat, like paper master.
(01:08:10):
When I look at masterminds I'mtalking about, you know, you get
to start with two people andthen two people must agree on
the third person to come intothe mastermind.
But they're really there tohelp you advance forward to see
your blind spots, because we allhave them.
We all have blind spots, and sowe're there to help each other
through those times.
So you got to get yourself witha group of people that will not
(01:08:32):
allow you to fail.
That's not allowing to failmeans you got to.
You got to have some toughconversations and you make some
you know, make some greatchoices from that, because you
have other people in yourwheelhouse and I think that's
how we get past it.
That's the.
Those are some of the actionsteps that we kind of get stuck.
Thad David (01:08:50):
I love.
Just it got me laughing simplybecause it's so obvious and true
.
But just recognizing that youare stuck, and then we do the
things we need to do to getunstuck.
But the start of it is justsaying you know what it seems
like I'm stuck and yeah, but wedon't do any other stuff until
we realize we're stuck, Becauseif I don't know I'm stuck, I'm
(01:09:10):
not going to reach out, I'm notgoing to get advice from others.
So I think it's a great greatpoint.
John Register (01:09:14):
You remember the standard old standard cars where
you had to shift the car intofirst and then you had to shift
in reverse and you got to clutchit.
If you're in the, if you everlived in like Chicago, where I'm
at right now I'm not living inChicago, but I'm back in Chicago
you had to you might havegotten yourself in a rut and you
had to rock that car back andforth.
(01:09:35):
And you some people just keepon going.
They don't realize they need atow truck or something else to
throw them a lifeline and pullthem out of the rut, because
they've dug themselves in sodeep that they're not getting
out.
I'm just not getting out, andso we have to realize before we
start going back and forth andshifting the gears, we might
need to call a truck to get usback on the road.
Thad David (01:09:57):
Absolutely.
And then the tow truck and thatand that example would just
that mastermind group or havingsomebody else that can let you
know your blind spot.
So, john, thank you so much fortaking some time.
You have a just a wealth ofknowledge and wisdom and I
really appreciate you taking thespace and the time?
John Register (01:10:14):
Absolutely I will .
Can I have the one more thingin there, please?
Yeah, so I do have a.
I wrote a book for ourambassadors.
It's out now.
It's called 10 Power Stories toImpact Any Leader Journal your
Way to Leadership Success.
It's not on Amazon, it's notout there.
On the big thing, I did it, youknow, just down and dirty.
(01:10:34):
I got it out to them because itwas at the beginning of the
pandemic and they were gettingkicked out of countries.
And if you remember, very earlyon we didn't know if the
pandemic was coming to theUnited States or what was going
to be happening.
And at the same time they werebeing kicked out of countries
and couldn't make their waythrough other countries because
those countries had shut downtoo.
So we couldn't get our ex-packsback home.
(01:10:56):
So the question was not policy.
The question was how do youlead in that type of environment
?
So you must lead with stories.
So I wrote a book called 10Power Stories to Impact Any
Leader Journal your Way toLeadership Success.
The goal of that book is, onceyou read through the stories my
10 stories you then are invitedto write your own stories after
(01:11:17):
each one of those stories.
So at the end of the book youhave your own 10 stories that
you can lead in some type of acrisis environment.
So that's the goal of the book,and now it's in paperback form
so you can get it.
And it's on the website as well, on the shopping cart.
Thad David (01:11:32):
Excellent, I'm excited to go check that out as
well.
That's very intriguing.
I love that format.
John Register (01:11:36):
It's a bathroom reader man, Definitely.
Thad David (01:11:39):
I feel like there's a Marine Corps joke in there
about why it has to be easy forme to get through.
But man, thank you, John, Iappreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Dan.
All my Olympic dreams are over.
All those things were crushingon me and I was thinking deeply
about them.
I had a general, four stargeneral, uh, Gordon Sullivan,
chief of staff at the army atthe time.
Uh, he was one of my firstcalls that came in because it
was a pretty high profile injury, asked me what I wanted to do
(00:20):
and I had.
I told him, sir, I have no idea.
I just you know.
I'm trying to understand what'sgoing on, but I'll tell you
what.
I'll call you back.
You know, some, tell this fourstar, this corporal, tell this
four star, I'll let me get youon my calendar and I'll call you
back.
That's what the state I was in,you know, I was just I.
So I and I, I wanted to do that, but my wife, she, she said you
know, we're going to getthrough this time together, it's
(00:42):
just our new normal.
When she spoke those words, she, she made me understand, with
just those words, that lifereally hadn't changed that much
Still have my family, Still hadmy faculty, still have my degree
from the University of Arkansas.
I still had dreams, goals,aspirations.
(01:02):
The only thing that wasdifferent was I was now missing
a leg, and so at that moment Ibegan thinking about how that
could I advance, how could Iamplify the life I now have.
Do I think about the 99% ofthings that I cannot do, or do I
think about the 1% of things Ican't do and the 99% of things I
(01:26):
still can do?
My name is Thad David.
Thad David (01:30):
I'm a former Marine recon scout sniper with two
deployments to Iraq.
As a civilian, I've nowfacilitated hundreds of personal
and professional developmenttrainings across the country and
it struck me recently that thesame things that help civilians
will also help veterans succeedin their new roles as well.
Join me as we define civiliansuccess principles to an
important role in successprinciples to inspire veteran
(01:52):
victories.
Welcome to another episode.
I'm here today with a very,very special guest.
He is a four time all American,two time with the Olympic
trials, two time two sportParalympian and a silver
medalist, as well as a combatveteran, john Register.
How are you doing, john?
John Register (02:14):
Thad, I'm doing wonderful.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
I can't wait to hear thequestions and get into this
conversation for your gueststhat you have listening in.
Thad David (02:22):
Man, I'm so excited to have you on.
You've got just so many thingsthat you've done and that you
continue to do and I'm excitedto jump in, so thank you.
One thing I always love to askpeople right away is just
knowing that you are a veteranand this is a show to help out
and empower veterans.
So, real quick, what got you tojoin the military?
John Register (02:40):
That's a great question.
You know I was.
I had just finished up theUniversity of Arkansas, I just
graduated with a degree incommunications, I had a baby on
the way with my wife Alice soonto be wife Alice and I had no
job and so I was like, what do Ido?
And I still want to run trackand field.
So I wound up finding that theUnited States Army has a world
(03:04):
class athlete program.
This world class athleteprogram allows a soldier athlete
to train a couple of yearsprior to the next Olympic Games
If you are bonafide or validatedby your national governing body
.
As pork and because I went tothe Olympic trials, I figured my
national governing body ortrack and USA track and field
would validate for me, whichthey did.
(03:26):
So I went into the army to arun track and field and be to
have my kid delivered for free.
So that was my, that's my wayto get in.
Thad David (03:37):
I love how we were all so similar in the kind of
what.
Why we joined is some form of.
I needed to link, and so thiswas the.
This was it.
That's that's incredible.
So you joined in, and what didyou end up doing in the army?
John Register (03:49):
Well, I want to kind of just caveat, because I
think what happens is there's atime that that we find where
what our service actually meansfor each one of us individually.
And that time for me wascrossing parade field.
I was listening to a guy and Ididn't know if I wanted to say
in or not.
And as I walked across theparade field for Jackson, South
Carolina, I began to have this,this nostalgia of all the people
(04:16):
, all the soldiers, men andwomen, who had walked this
parade field before me toprotect the freedoms of the
United States of America.
And I I got it.
That's when it hit me, it sunkinto me.
But I also went a littlefurther than that right, Because
when someone will always ask orsay thank you for your service,
and so I, I take this as alearning point, and you'll
(04:39):
you'll hear this all throughoutour present, our conversation
today, Because I think it'simportant for us to remember
what the services that we werefighting for, or, you know,
because that's fighting is abyproduct of why we all signed
up, we all raised our hand toprotect and defend the United
States Constitution against allenemies, foreign and domestic,
(05:02):
and that we would bear truefaith and allegiance to the same
Right.
And so when people come andthank us for our service, that's
the oath that we took.
So then I asked the nextquestion when's the last time
you read our United StatesConstitution?
What is the preamble say?
Why does it start off?
We, the people of the UnitedStates, what are the seven
(05:25):
articles of this, of the, theConstitution?
Why is article number five themost important article, the most
important article that waswritten?
And then, when we come into theamendments of the Constitution,
why is that important for me?
I identify as a black Americanbecause when the Constitution
was written, I was only threefifths of a human being.
(05:46):
So for me to sign up, walkacross the parade field a part
of this history that I wasn'teven three fifths of a person I
have the 13th, the 14th and the15th amendments.
That begins my journey, and sothat is, I think, what we have
(06:07):
to understand that the folksthat put that Constitution
together knew, tried to protect,ensured that we could not
dismantle it very easily.
This democracy that we'retrying to make work, because we
didn't want a dictatorship.
King George over us, like othercountries, had Right.
(06:28):
So we put them into thelegislative branch, we put it
into the executive branch and weput it into the judicial branch
to ensure there was adistributed power of government,
and we've gotten away fromunderstanding what that actually
means and why it was done insuch fashion.
So I think that's the otheranswer of my deepening and
(06:53):
understanding.
You know what my serviceactually means.
Thad David (06:59):
You can just your passion that exudes out.
Once you started talking aboutit, you can tell this is
something you do often you talkto people about.
Often you say you asked themwhen was it the last time?
And you said you feel likewe've gotten away from it.
What do you think?
We've got to wait for a minuteand what does that look like?
John Register (07:16):
I think we're trying to use it as it was not
intended.
So we want to pick out a littlepiece here and pick out a
little piece here to driveagendas and try to separate or
try to make one part of thegovernment more powerful than
another part.
So when I was building we'llget into this you know, the
(07:36):
Paralympic Military SportProgram I got a unique vantage
point to have been through fourpresidencies and been to the
White House four times and haveseen how our power structure
changes from hand to hand, everypresident writing a note for
(07:56):
the next president.
Well, it's the last one, but itwas an honoring thing that
comes.
That started with GeorgeWashington that said you know,
I'm not going to stay.
That is incredible to me whenyou look back in history of
everybody the Mussolini's outthere, the Hitler's that are out
(08:18):
there, everybody that wanted tobe a dictator and what we have
done is we've split based uponwhat we think that document
actually means and no one hasread it.
Thad David (08:31):
I love that you do that my mother-in-law actually
carries around.
She carries around little minidocuments and she actually hands
them out to people.
I was like, when was the lasttime that you read this?
You should check it out whenwas the last time.
John Register (08:48):
I mean, it's easy Download it.
It's not a very longdocumentary but I think it's
important right when we starttalking about.
You know it's for veterans andyou know this show is directed
at veterans.
It's important not to get tothe sound bites that one group
or another group can make,because we're into these short
(09:09):
sound bites now and really dothe.
It's our own personal work thatwe must do to understand why do
we exist differently than therest of the world, than most of
the rest of the world?
Thad David (09:21):
I love that and, as all things that comes back to
the work that we're putting inor that we have to put in,
should we take it on.
John Register (09:30):
Yeah, so I'm off my soapbox now let's go get it.
No, I was fascinated.
Thad David (09:34):
That's what I love about these conversations I
never know which way it's goingto go and what a powerful
starting point I mean at itscore.
That's why we all signed up andwhat we all signed up to
protect.
So it's fascinating.
So you mentioned also one thingas I think back to introducing
you, and then you joined up,obviously to be an athlete, to
(09:55):
have a baby for free, and youare a combat veteran, and so
what was that that?
I'm very fascinated to get intoeverything you've done as
Olympic trials, for justeverything you've done there.
But what was that like joiningin?
Because I would imagine there'sa story in there that you
joined up to be an athlete andsomehow ended up in a combat
(10:15):
role overseas.
John Register (10:17):
Yeah, because we all do the needs of the army or
whatever sprints of service.
And even though you're signedup for one thing, there was no
guarantee.
Let me be very clear Right nowyou can actually sign up for the
Army's World Class AthleteProgram.
It's something that we can helpto continue to work on.
But when I was going throughand the other athletes that were
with me, there was no guaranteethat you were actually going to
(10:37):
get placed in this program.
So I, fortunately, after basictraining and advanced individual
training, ait I had three daysand I wound up getting selected
for all Army track and fieldcamp and I went out there was
great and from there wasselected for the Army's World
Class Athlete Program.
(10:57):
At this time I loved themilitary.
I said this is the best thingin sliced bread baby, and I
wanted to be a lifer.
I'd already told my wife I wantto be a lifer.
So I took the officer selectionbattery test scored off the
charts, it was great.
So I kept that in my backpocket.
Let me do my track and fieldstuff and after I get out I'll
go to OCS down in Fort Benningschool for girls and boys and I
(11:22):
will be a military officer andI'll do another 20 years, get
out, work for a contractor foranother 20 years.
I got my whole life a set Right.
That was my vision.
Then I get to my firstleadership course, which is
called some different now, butit's called primary leadership
development course, pldc, andI'm two weeks in trying to make
(11:42):
my rank and I get.
They do a drill and the drill,the instructors do a drill.
The drill is on what you mustdo if you get deployed.
You know how do you make surethat you get your dental records
done.
You have to get all the stuffwe have to do to prepare and
preparing your families.
So after we finished thatexercise we come back into the
(12:04):
room and I'm held outside theroom and I just my instructor
says to me you know, foreverybody else that's going back
in the room.
That was an exercise for you.
This is real.
You've just been assigned toFort Seloch, oklahoma, six to 27
field artillery and you areheaded to operation does a
shield.
(12:25):
I was like what Excuse me?
And I was kind of numb at thatpoint.
When I left and went back tothe barracks my buddy was with
me.
We were talking about it.
I said.
He said you know, when you getback you're gonna be able to do
this.
And I said, yeah, if I comeback.
And when I said if, thatgravity of I might not come back
(12:51):
washed over me like no one.
It was like a wet big wave thatjust pushes you under right.
It's not letting you up.
That's what that press was like.
And I saw my wife.
She was coming to meet me forlunch and I just even couldn't
get out and just started balland started crying.
I mean, I couldn't believe thiswas happening and what snapped
(13:12):
me out of it was I was on theplane right over to Fort Sill
and it was actually.
I believe I heard a voice justspeak.
Believe it was a voice.
God, holy Spirit.
What I wanna say to say this isjust an answer to your prayer,
the prayer I had about seeing myfruit.
I wanna say, hey, I wanna seemy fruit, you know, and three
(13:37):
times God had told me no, don'tworry about it.
You got it and this was ananswer to that.
So going over, there was thiswhole big answer and I wound up
having this amazing time thatwas very unique.
So I got myself a Katabi.
Katabi is Arabic for book.
(13:58):
The I at the end makespossessive means my book, katabi
.
So I'm trying to learn a littlebit Arabic.
I'm getting placed on guard dutywith the Saudi Arabian National
Guard saying compound, and I'mpracticing my Arabic.
Lo and behold, this car pullsup.
I don't know who it is.
So I got my, you know, got myhand on my sidearm and as this
gentleman gets out of the car,everybody snaps to attention.
(14:19):
And it's one of the Saudiprinces.
So I hosted my weapon, so Iprobably don't want to do cause
international incident.
And as he's going down, I jumpin line.
So I practice on him and hecan't believe it because as he's
, you know, kind of shakinghands with every Saudi National
Guard person that's there andthanking them, he gets to me
(14:42):
that's at the end of the line.
You know, one of these thingsthat I've been doing is at the
end of the line.
You know, one of these thingsdoesn't look like the other.
So I say to him Salam alaikum.
He's like what?
Wa alaikum salam?
You know, he's like what I saidqueez, and he said kevelach.
He's like, oh my gosh, queez,queez, queez.
And then it's.
I had like about seven things Icould say and I it all fell
(15:06):
right in line and he couldn'tbelieve that what he had heard
about Americans coming to thisforeign country of Saudi Arabia,
their country, and he heardabout all these kind of things
that you know, whatever we talkabout, the, the, the abrasive
American, or whatever you saw,it was totally different than
(15:27):
what he had seen.
And so we had this conversationfor about probably about six or
seven minutes afterward ofasking me all these different
questions from faith backgroundto you know, he said are you
Muslim?
I said no, I'm Christian.
He said so.
We just had this beautifulexchange and I realized in that
moment that I, even in amilitary uniform, I'm an
(15:51):
ambassador for the United States, even when I was talking to him
, understanding that if I comein demanding things, I'm
probably not going to catch alot of positivity back.
If I come in trying tounderstand who you are first,
(16:13):
I'm going to have a conversationthat opens up.
So when he leaves, I can do nowrong with everybody on the
Saudi Arabian National Guard.
They're inviting me to dinner,to tea, to down into the city,
they're taking me everywhere andthese.
I think we just became greatfriends all because getting a
(16:34):
little book and trying to learnsomeone else's language or
culture or customs and notthinking that my custom or
learning was the center thingfor the rest of the entire world
.
Everybody has to revolve aroundme and I think that's great
(16:54):
lesson for all of us.
Kind of even going back to thefirst form, make one of the US
Constitution is what is the?
What do we do?
How do we show up?
How do we ensure that we're notthe we don't think that we're
the centerpiece, only being anation 400 years old or a little
bit more, right, I mean, thinkabout how old that nation is.
(17:17):
We're not even.
We can't even wipe the snotfrom our nose yet we don't even
know if this thing is going towork.
So I think we have to honorthose and stay.
You know, yeah, we got a thinggoing on here.
You know democracy doesn't work.
Can we?
Can we talk about this and havea really robust dialogue about
(17:41):
it without throwing stones andwaving, you know, nationalism
around and know that we're acommunity of the world?
We're a community of the world,and so that it was a great
lesson for me that would set meup later on to build these other
programs and knowing how totalk to kind of both sides of
the aisle.
Thad David (18:03):
I think it's fascinating and I see some
undertones and just all the prepwork, everything we've done to
have this conversation and,right there, what you said with
it, just the seeking tounderstand, you know, versus a
lot of times we go intosituations and this one very
high profile situation but itworks as a it could be a smaller
version of the same situationthat we all want to go in and
(18:24):
say what we want to say versushow could I understand what's
going on right now?
John Register (18:27):
Absolutely.
Thad David (18:28):
Yeah, oh, I think it's.
It's a fascinating lesson and Ilove that you took it away.
And so you, you went overseas.
And then what was that like?
What did you find yourselfdoing?
John Register (18:38):
So I wound up I was a 31 Charlie, which is a
single channel radio operatorThey've changed the
nomenclatures now and I wound updoing some interesting stuff.
I had a buddy of mine we stilltalk to the state Dwayne Burbank
, the Native American gentlemanwe were doing combo.
He's my net controller back inthe in the U S, so he's in.
(19:00):
He was in Fort Wichita, arizona.
I was in.
I was stationed in Fort Dix,new Jersey, and so every morning
we would talk because we weredoing this.
If the whole system goes down,all the computers and everything
, you got a Mars system,military operation, military
field radio stations that arethat are round, and so we can
still talk through, you know,short wave or long wave radio.
And we we got together and wewere able to figure out how to
(19:23):
do an inverted V, that's, takeyour antennas and point them in
a V direction, in the directionwhere you want them to go, and
we were able to get a skip atabout five o'clock in the
afternoon to six o'clock in theafternoon all the way across to
the United States.
So we were doing morale callshome for the soldiers from the
radio.
We were keying up 50,000 wattsgoing out and we were.
(19:44):
We were broadcasting to theUnited States.
Thad David (19:48):
That's incredible.
John Register (19:49):
We wanted to be doing that, you know, finding
our location, everything.
Well, we're, we're doing it.
Thad David (19:55):
All things in hindsight we can look back and
say ah, maybe, it wasn't thebest idea.
I'm sure somebody wasn't happylooking back.
John Register (20:03):
I did that.
I drove for the commander andwe talked a lot about that,
captain Babernich, excuse me.
We talked a lot about officercannons tool, you know kind of
which way I want to go in themilitary.
So it was really a great.
It was a great experience, butI lost a lot of my track and
field ability because you can'trun really fast in the sand and
(20:24):
train that well.
So I got back to when I didcome back after six months and
the Gulf War, I wound up goingto Presidio, San Francisco, but
I couldn't run the high hurdlesany longer.
I was, I was just too much, notout of shape, but the fast
which muscle fibers to run themwere just gone.
So it takes a long time tobuild them up.
(20:45):
So I switched to the 400 meterhurdles and after five races
qualified for the Olympic trialsand the 400 meter hurdles and
in the sixth race I finished17th in the Olympic trials and I
said, okay, I got my race, I'mgoing to do one more four years.
And that was.
I was, you know, re enlistedfor those four years, so I could
just have that officer cannonschool in my back pocket, went
(21:07):
to Germany, was training overthere as well.
I was a different unit.
It was great.
I became the check ride in COICof a Bitburg.
Germany was training in tri-airand in Kaiser slaughter, k-town
.
And when I came back in May of1994, two years before the
Olympic trials I missed step tohurdle.
(21:29):
During a training run,hyperextended my left knee, I
severed the artery behind mykneecap and seven days later
through because the surgerydidn't work, I had my left leg
amputated above the knee.
So that was my into my twocareers.
(21:49):
So my track and field career Iwas not going to Olympic games,
one leager and my militarycareer I wasn't going to go to
officer cannon school duringthat point.
So I, you know I was in, I waskind of going down a downward
spiral.
It wasn't bad, but I knew thatyou know what's life going to be
(22:11):
like and a lot of folks havetrauma.
They have transitions thatthey're about to make.
Sometimes they are.
The transition happens for usand sometimes we have time to
prepare for the transition thatcomes.
And what are we going to do?
How do we handle those types ofmoments?
And I was going down thatdownward spiral.
You know, checking my identity.
Who am I now?
(22:31):
What's my identity?
Is my wife still going to stickaround?
Is my son still going to see meas his father?
Is he going to be in themilitary?
Can I support my family?
All my Olympic dreams are overand all those things were
crushing on me and I wasthinking deeply about them.
I had a general four star,general Gordon Sullivan, chief
(22:52):
staff of the army at the time.
He was one of my first callsthat came in because it was a
pretty high profile injury,asked me what I wanted to do and
I had.
I told him, sir, I have no idea.
I just you know I'm trying tounderstand what's going on, but
I'll tell you what.
I'll call you back.
I'll tell this four star, thiscorporal, tell this four star,
let me get you on my calendarand I'll call you back.
Yeah, so, but that's what thestate I was in.
(23:17):
You know, I was just so, I andI.
I wound up doing that.
But my wife, she said you know,we're going to get through this
time together.
It's just our new normal.
When she spoke those words, she,she made me understand, with
just those words, that lifereally hadn't changed that much.
(23:37):
I still have my family, stillhad my faculty, still have my
degree from the University ofArkansas, I still had dreams,
goals, aspirations.
The only thing that wasdifferent was I was now missing
a leg, and so at that moment Ibegan thinking about how that
could I advance, how could Iamplify the life I now have?
(24:01):
Do I think about the 99% ofthings that I cannot do, or do I
think about the 1% of things Ican't do and the 99% of things I
still can do?
So that's the mindset shiftthat began to happen in me, and
I have a whole sequence and aprocess about that now.
But it was at that mindset, thatshifting of that, that got me
(24:25):
down the road.
And that wasn't even the worst.
The hardest part the amputation.
The amputation was just kind ofthe beginning.
The hardest part was on June17th 1994.
You remember what was happeningon that day?
I think everybody, when I saythis, every audience member,
everybody listen to this and gooh, right, right, right, you go
(24:48):
to the same thing.
June 17th 1994, there was awhite Bronco going down the I-5
freeway.
Yeah, everybody out there knowswhat that means, right?
Thad David (25:01):
No one knows what's happening.
John Register (25:05):
We got OJ in the back and I am sitting on my
cousin's couch in San Antonio,texas.
The phantom pain that iscrushing me right now.
It's the worst pain I've everfelt in my life.
I can't get any rest.
I can't turn to left or right,stand up, sit down.
(25:26):
I'm sweating profusely.
My heart rates at about 115,120 beats a minute and I just
cannot get any relief.
And there was a note that wasbeing read by every commentator
that afternoon, every newsreporter, and it looked like the
note that was found by OJSimpson was a suicide note.
(25:50):
Forget this shell of a man,don't think of this person here.
Remember the good old days ofOJ?
Whatever, all that stuff thathe had written in that note
looked like the juice was aboutto check out and I made up my
mind.
At that moment.
I said no matter how bad thisgets, I Will never check out.
Thad David (26:11):
Hmm.
John Register (26:12):
I will never check out, and for those vets
that are out there right nowthat might be even thinking
about that, because you don'tthink that your life Is worth it
.
You are valuable.
You are created unique.
You are the only one that cando what you do.
No one else is designed to doit.
But you and you have to staywith.
You've got to fight through.
(26:32):
Whatever the support is that youneed to find it.
Come up and and and and reachout and connect, because we got
your brothers, we got yoursisters, we got you it.
We need your voice and I'mgonna share why.
You'll see from my life in thispoint of if you can take
anything from this, this life, IWent on to do some pretty
(26:55):
incredible things after makingthat decision, and if I would
have stopped it there, maybe wedon't get all these other
programs that have happened.
You're the only voice that'sout there that can actually make
it happen.
So that's my plug for it.
Hey, we got it.
We got to take care of eachother.
We got to take care of eachother.
Thad David (27:14):
Oh, that was it.
John Register (27:15):
That was my, my, my embarkation, the, the jumping
off point was that moment ofwatching OJ and saying I'm gonna
go through.
And I knew was gonna get worse.
That before it got better.
I knew it.
But I said I'm gonna, I'mwilling to go through that fight
, I'm gonna go to that fight.
And it did it got.
It got hella worse.
Thad David (27:36):
Well, what was it in that moment that Obviously
there's a lot going on his hisnote that was left?
What was it that that made youjust click Like no matter what,
I'm not checking out?
John Register (27:47):
Yeah, I, I don't know.
I think it was justUnderstanding that this was, I
call it, my night in Gethsemane.
This was just.
It was just my.
I was there alone, no one wasaround me, and this was just me.
I had I had to.
Are you gonna fight throughthis?
You know you've been throughsome tough stuff before, but
(28:09):
this was gonna.
This was taken to the brink andif you can get through this,
think about all of the livesthat you can help Because of
your one commitment to thismoment in time, this defining
moment.
I think we all get them atpoints and do we rise to that
occasion?
Because if we get through thatpoint, we can help others
release from from their pointsand do what they're called to do
(28:31):
.
Thad David (28:31):
They don't have to necessarily my thing, but
whatever they're called to do,it helps them get through that
point to discover, uncover, pushinto the space that they are
designed to, to impact and andyou mentioned something a few
steps prior to that and a fewpieces prior that I wanted to
circle back to because, as wetie into veterans and Just what
(28:53):
you had said in that moment, amI gonna focus on the 99% of
things I can't do or the 99% ofthings that I can do and just
bringing it up when, as youmentioned, veterans too I often
wonder how many people are sohyper focused on what they feel
like they can't do right now?
Why is it so important to shiftthat, to shift that mindset, in
your opinion?
John Register (29:12):
Yeah, I think you know, when I studied a little
bit later on in life, dr Martin,the Silicon Man's work we have,
he talks about learnedhelplessness.
And so you know I'm not goingto go in all the studies and
stuff, but we we teach ourselvesto be helpless and Even though
(29:33):
there are escapes, we choose tostay in the danger zone.
We tend to stay in the thenegative space.
So we have to flip that mindsetto a couple more areas.
The first one is learnedOptimism.
So I can have a helplessstatement, but I need to turn
(29:53):
that helpless statement into anoptimistic statement.
So I begin to see what are the,the things that are around me
that can support me and push meto an optimistic, optimistic
level, to see a better end formyself than this negative end.
Because if I can think about ahelpless state, I can think
about an optimistic state aswell, because they're both
(30:14):
future states.
Neither one has happened, so Ican choose which path I want to
be on.
We just think that we have togo down this negative one, hmm,
and then, after we get to thelearned op, learned optimism.
Now we can take ownership of it.
So now I can make an ownerstatement.
I will do, I will show up asand that begins to the
(30:39):
affirmations that that we canmake in our lives, our lives,
that will Advance us away fromthat negative mindset.
So there are, there are tacticsaround this.
You know, make a list of allthe negative things you think
are negative.
Make a list of all the positivethings you think are positive.
Tear the list up, you know,divided half, and then crumple
(31:00):
up or burn up the negative stuffso you only have the positive
stuff left.
There are lots of things thatwe can do as tactical, but we
also we have to make up in ourmind that we're not gonna listen
to that negative voice.
It's too easy.
It's too easy.
I have I'm having my own podcastcoming up, right, it's okay,
it's amputate to amplify and andthe amputate amplify podcast,
(31:22):
and we're just getting somethings started right now.
But the but the question I askis to every guest is You're
writing a book entitled how todestroy those.
Those lots is directed tomeeting planners and stuff.
How do you destroy the perfectmeeting?
Right?
So it's a sabotage Because noone comes up how to save a
(31:44):
meeting.
No one, no one gives you that.
But if I ask you how tosabotage a meeting, how not to
sabotage one.
You think about all the storiesof sabotage, of running a
screw-up a meeting, and there'sa story that goes behind that.
So that's you know.
We always think about thenegative, then we can, we bring
it back to the positive.
So we go from the learnedhelplessness learned
helplessness to the optimistic,to the owner mindset.
Thad David (32:10):
I Really love that and, just for anybody listening
as well, I don't know when, when, a when can we expect your
podcast, because I know I'mgonna jump in and and and check
it out.
John Register (32:19):
When do you think that would?
Thad David (32:20):
launch out.
John Register (32:22):
So I have, you know, we're batching them, you
know.
So we got the URL andeverything, but we're batching
them and when I get about six Iwant to launch.
So it looks like middle ofFebruary sometime, what would be
that maybe early March, but butyeah, we're starting to get the
shows tight together.
It's, they're, they'rehilarious, I mean, because you
can imagine they just go.
Thad David (32:41):
Mm-hmm.
John Register (32:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, because they just, they just
tell me the story of what wasthe how they would sabotage it,
because they saw Someone elsesabotage that direct way.
I'm like what really they did,what?
So, oh yeah.
Thad David (32:52):
Conversations when I'll be sure to link the podcast
.
Once it goes, I'll put it inthe bio and we can get it linked
up so anybody listening.
You go check yours out as well.
And I love that.
Exercise is something I dooften with people because a lot
of times we struggle what to do.
I just don't know what to dohere.
It's like, well, let's talkabout all things.
It would be the opposite ofwhat you, what you end result
you want.
And then, and all of a sudden,they have this big list.
(33:14):
I was like, well, let's just dothe opposite of everything you
just put down.
Yeah, and then it's a coollittle bridge and pathway to get
to that.
That good stuff, absolutely.
And the learned optimism, Ithink, is a Really important
thing.
And I don't know, do you spenda lot of time talking about
optimism and positive thinking,things like that?
John Register (33:33):
No, not really, Because that's not, it's really
not my work.
Um, I see similarities with the, with the concepts, and I
haven't studied Dr Silverman, soI'm probably gonna as much as I
probably should have.
I've studied him a little bitin his On positive psychology,
but not to the depths of, youknow, like phd level, what I,
what I with a lot of the, thoseframeworks.
(33:57):
There's a, there's adestination that happens, and my
Focus, my thought, is thatthere really is not a
destination.
There are plateaus that we canreach, but there's from that
plateau some people might callit growth mindset I say the
plateau is for our next level ofgrowth.
(34:18):
So we, we, we write, we hit aplateau in order to grow.
Um, because in my model I havethree phases and I can, I can
jump to another one.
Yeah, um, I have this what'scalled the reckoning moment.
The reckoning moment isrealized or hurtled when we
realize we do not get back whatwe desire to have back After
(34:40):
some type of trauma has impactedour life.
So that's the reckoning moment,uh, the, the, the next one,
that's when we realize that we,we are, we can't go back.
People will say, because peoplesay this and we can hear it in
people's voices or what they say.
I wish things would get back tonormal.
Can we just go back to the wayused to be?
(35:00):
If we can just get back to athe old days, it's gonna be.
It's gonna be, but the old daysremember that great.
They were just older.
So anytime we hear that we knowsomebody's in a loop Of the
past or a loop of trying to getback to a nostalgia or something
, yeah, if we can just go backto the way used to be, if we can
just go back to the time of the1980s, it would.
(35:21):
It'd be great.
If we can just get back tobefore that we had Not.
Just we can't, we can't go back, and that's an impossibility,
it's just impossible.
So Once we understand andrealize that we now have hurtled
into the revision, I can nowbegin to have a new casted
vision.
And that new vision begins witha redefining the problem, then
(35:45):
a rebuilding on that we starttinkering around with.
In other words, we don't haveanything constructed, but we're
starting to erect, maybe dig thehole for the building to be
erected, and then we have tomake a commitment to the new
vision.
That's hard.
It's the second hardest part ofthe model, and the reason it's
(36:06):
it's so hard Is because we haveusually People who are very
close to us, what I call otherpeople.
It's other very close people whobelieve for us what we can or
cannot do, which is often basedupon what they believe they
could or could not do If theywere in our situation.
So a doctor might tell meyou'll never run again Because I
(36:31):
don't have, I've never been anamputee before and I assume that
this doctor is the authoritybecause he's done, she's done
multiple amputations.
They are the authority in mylife that tells me I will never
be able to do this and I trustthat authority figure.
So therefore I believe them,because I know no other basis or
grounds, and they become thatauthority figure in my life To
(36:52):
tell me I can't do it.
So therefore I think and Iassimilate that into me very
difficult a mom or dad, you'renot gonna amount to anything,
you're just, you're just likeyour mother, you're just like
your father, right, and weinternalize those things because
as kids, we assume our parentsto be the closest things to us,
the closest people, and so ifyou, if I hear that constantly,
(37:13):
I'm never going to amount toanything from the person.
That is my confidant, my, theone that I'm closest to I have.
I struggle.
The second thing is we havesociety.
Society dictates to us ournormalities.
(37:35):
The antagonist in in um peterpan is captain hook.
He's made.
He's scaring the lost boys.
He is.
He's the antagonist because hehas his.
He's an above the wrist amputee.
He wears a hook.
Hook represents I'm.
I have a claw that's going tohurt you if I Put this into.
(37:55):
I can hook you like I hook afish, like I hook something.
You know that, uh, I want I'mgonna spear you.
And so he's made the villain,this disfigured person cartoon
character.
I Wait a minute.
I'm now an amputee and I beginto associate things around.
Every Halloween I see peoplewith disfigurements.
(38:16):
I see people that have maybeamputees or Freddy Krueger's.
They're burned over theirbodies, they.
I see Jason, who's mentallykind of deranged.
And so now society has told methat these people are to be
(38:37):
feared.
Hannibal Lecter, ladies, right,all these people are to be
feared.
Now we want to have a mentalhealth conversation and we can't
Because we've been told thatthat is wrong.
That's who we blame everythingon In society, for all of our
(38:58):
ills, all of our woes, all thethings that we don't want to
take responsibility forourselves.
We just say Big mass schoolshooting happens, oh it's, they
weren't mentally ill.
We just blame everything,instead of taking ownership Of
what we need to take ownershipof.
We cast it out.
Very difficult to move pastthose two.
(39:21):
And now, um, the third piece isI have to do it.
I've had some of the world'sbest hurdle coaches in the world
.
They never ran a hurdle for me.
I have to be the one to attackthe hurdles in my life.
No one else can do that for me.
So I'm either going to attackit or I'm going to stop at it,
(39:42):
or I'm going to go around it.
But you've got to attack thehurdle.
So maybe you start off withsmall hurdles.
You know small wins and youbegin to raise them up.
That's how we teach the hurdles.
So, yeah, so it's verydifficult.
That gets us to.
So once we hurdle that, nowwe're in the third part, which
is great, because now we're inthe renewal and we want to be in
(40:03):
the renewal.
But it begins with the hardestpart of the model and that's the
rebirth.
Once I make a commitment, thereis now a chasm that has been
created.
With a commitment, there is nogoing back to the way it used to
be.
It is an impossibility.
If you can go back on yourcommitment, I say that you have
(40:26):
not made a commitment.
You're probably in thereckoning moment and not the
rebirth.
That's the difference betweenthe two.
When a commitment is made, whenI tell the doctor, take my leg
off, and the doctor amputates myleg, I do not get my leg back.
When we make commitments, we donot get back what we had prior
to.
We don't want to hear thosethings.
It's very difficult to hearthose things.
(40:48):
I can go back on my commitment?
No, you can't.
You never made a commitment inthe first place.
If you can, because acommitment is a commitment it's
like the old joke right when youhave your breakfast baking an
egg.
The chicken was involved in theprocess, the pig was committed.
Thad David (41:11):
I've never heard that and I'm going to steal that
.
You can't get more hate fromthat chicken, but you can't get
any more bacon from that pig,you got to get another pig, baby
.
So, inside of that too, wheredo you think people I think you
(41:31):
alluded to it when do you thinkpeople struggle the most inside
of this process?
John Register (41:35):
I think it depends wherever they are,
because I think when you seeyourself, you can see yourself
where you are in the model.
Here's what happens.
I'll finish the model out.
So in the rebirth there's acouple of things that have to
happen.
One you might have phantom pain.
I've had that huge phantom painto remind you of a previous
(41:56):
state that you were in, butyou're no longer there because
you made the commitment you mayhave a longing for, in my case,
my mother, who passed away twoyears ago to see mom again, to
talk to mom.
It's not happening.
That pains me.
That is a visceral, reactiveresponse.
I'm not getting it back becausethe commitment is already done.
She has passed from this life,so I cannot get it back.
(42:19):
It could be you want to go backin the military, but you have
exited and you no longer areable to get back into your unit
or get back into the military.
You have exited and now you'rein this whole new world.
So how do we respond in thatFor me, I didn't know how to use
(42:41):
a wheelchair, but now I have touse one to get to my prosthetic
appointment.
That's new, because new is noprior point of reference.
And when new is no prior pointof reference.
If that's the definition, thenwe can't use old systems, old
thoughts, old ideas to put intoa new bucket to get a different
output If you do the same thingover and over again, expecting a
(43:03):
different result.
It's a definition of whatIntensity, absolutely so why do
we do it?
So then I have to learn themanipulate that wheelchair.
I have to learn how to put onan artificial leg.
I have to learn how to walkbetween the parallel bars.
I have to learn how to walk ona four bar walk around the
hospital.
I have to learn how to use awalker to crutches, crutches to
(43:24):
a cane, cane to free walking,free walking to running, running
to jumping, jumping to aparalympic silver medal.
That process took seven years.
Can I shorten the time?
Can I shorten it by gettingthrough those other phases
faster, by honoring that.
I need to get out of thisreckoning moment.
I need to jump past this, therevision, and start working.
(43:47):
So I have to get in the renewal.
So I have to have this, this,give myself space and grace to
grow.
I need to give myself space andgrace to grow, because when
something is new, you just can'tstart running.
If you're a toddler, you can'tstart toddling if you don't even
know how to walk, you just, youlearn.
(44:08):
You got to learn these thingsagain, and so that is the space
and grace we need.
Once we have done that, and I'mwalking, well, and I'm up on
two limbs again, walking around.
That's my resolve.
I'm resoluted, who I am.
I know exactly how I'm showingup.
No longer do I ever want to goback to the way it used to be.
(44:30):
No, you need to catch up towhere I am.
That's not braggadocio.
You just done the work.
You've read the Constitution.
You know what the preamble is.
You know the seven articles.
You know why article numberfive is the most important
article.
Right, trying to pull that back.
Thad David (44:46):
Yeah, not a bullet that you do so we know.
John Register (44:51):
We don't have to have CNN or Fox tell me what it
is, we don't have to have a talkahead tell me what to think.
No, because I've read it, Iknow exactly what it says and I
can begin to my owninterpretations off of it of
what I think the foundersdesired for that.
So now that equals my freedom,my destination, my reward, so to
(45:15):
speak.
But the reward, remember, isnot a destination, it's a
plateau for the next level ofgrowth.
That's where my model, I think,changes from some of the other
models.
Like I said, I haven't studiedthem all together, so maybe I'm
right, maybe I'm wrong, but Ihaven't seen them go.
I think they've beendestination type models where
mine is no, we hit here and thenwe elevate to the next level.
(45:38):
We've learned something.
It's not even elevation up.
Right.
Elevation usually is up.
I think it's elevation is whenyou turn it on its side and I
jump from, like maybe, a lilypad to a lily pad or a stone to
a stone, because I honor theplace where I was and then I
move to the next stone, I gathermyself and I land on that stone
(46:02):
in order to jump to the nextstone.
So I can't move to stone twounless I honor stone number one.
I don't climb over stone numberone.
If I think about go up a ladder, I'm climbing over somebody.
You've got to climb thecorporate ladder.
What if the corporate ladderwas wrongs like over a chasm to
(46:25):
help other people across thechasm of commitment.
Thad David (46:32):
There's something that I read is the book's called
With Winning in Mind.
It's a bit of an older book,it's a little bit dated, but he
was an Olympian Back in the day.
He had this goal his whole lifeto be a gold medalist in
precision shooting.
He said the most depressed dayof his life was the day after he
won his gold medal and it wasbecause and his wife told him
(46:56):
she's like well, you've had thisgoal your entire life Like, of
course, you're depressed becauseyou don't know what's next.
You've always had a goal andthat's what I love about where
you're stating this is honoringthat we're going from this lily
pad to this lily pad or thisstone to this stone, and knowing
that we're going to the nextstone.
But we got to honor where we'reat.
And I think far too often tohis point and to what I'm
hearing in your point is that ifwe don't know where we're going
(47:18):
next, it's easy to kind ofreally focus in on what we don't
have back to.
You had talked about earlierthat 99% of what we can't do
right now.
It keeps us hyper focused in,whereas when we know what that
next is, it's great, right.
John Register (47:32):
And sometimes I think we know and sometimes we
don't know, but I think we knowthat changes in the air Right.
So I think about, let me see,maybe like Jim Brown maybe some
folks remember Jim Brown great,running back right, but he stops
before the height of his careerand he does something else.
(47:52):
And then we look at maybe aBrett Barve or Tom Brady.
Michael Jordan can't give thegame up, have to stay in.
We'll switch teams to staygoing on to play, because
(48:13):
they're not what they're afraidof.
But when I listen to them talk,they're missing the four people
on the court with Jordan or the10 other people on the court on
the field going down thefootball field.
That's what they're going tomiss the most and they want to
stay part of that element.
Same thing with a soldier, samething with a military, like a
(48:35):
commander.
They're leading all thesepeople.
Now who are they going to leavewhen they get back to the house
?
And they have, just in time,their service, gts, their family
that they were never there forBecause they were always on
missions.
Somebody else was lead thathousehold.
(48:56):
That's the and Garrison.
Thad David (48:59):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And recognizing that, and itmade me think of something as
well as you had talked aboutwith the staying in.
And then I love how you broughtit back.
You know, like with all thesegreats that have stayed on their
team forand then moved teams,but thinking about the military
in general, that was one of thereasons.
I remember talking to somebuddies that we always said you
know, if we could stay togetherfor 20 years, it could probably
(49:21):
be a different conversation.
But we know immediately, if weall re-enlisted, we're all going
to end up in different spots.
And so I don't ever look backand think about what if?
Simply because I know that itwasn't going to be what it was.
It couldn't be, it was going toshift, it was going to change.
John Register (49:35):
And I don't mean to you know that, I don't mean
to make light of, I'm being veryserious, right, these are very
hard, difficult challenges thatpeople and it doesn't escape
anybody is what I'm reallytrying to say.
So then, how do we prepare forit?
That's where I really come in.
That's my work that I do now.
(49:56):
So you heard, I went on from,you know, the military to
becoming this Paralympic athlete.
I swam for physical therapy andI fluked up, messed up and made
the Paralympic swim team like anight and a day.
I ended up going as a fordnermeter hurdler.
I went as a Paralympic swimmer.
I saw athletes running andjumping with artificial legs,
(50:20):
had a leg made for running andfour years later I went to
Sydney, australia, and wonsilver medal in the long jump.
And then, you know, I wasworking for the military, that
started working for the Olympiccommittee.
And that's when the the Gulf Warto turn into the new Iraq war
you know, gulf War 2.0, what doyou want to call it?
(50:41):
And the first casualties werefirst starting to come back from
that conflict, that war, andWalter Reed was being overrun
with people that were primarilyamputees at that point.
They were getting maimed andstuff, and so we had a different
(51:03):
war on our hands than what wasthe last one.
A general officer got firedbecause trying to do the right
thing and we hadn't prepared.
So he got the axe and I hadthis new program.
I was asked by my boss what canwe do for our veterans from the
Olympic committee?
Because I had this.
(51:24):
I had all the KIAs on my door,I was getting reports.
I still have my Pentagonaccount.
I got my, I would I would postthe names of the KIAs that were
coming up and I said what do youwant to do?
And so we started a wheelchairbasketball clinic at Walter Reed
(51:45):
.
That turned into a program atWalter Reed and then programming
medical center.
I got some money, some fundingfor it from a senator, a
congressman out of Pennsylvania,and he gave me five million
bucks.
I got 10 million from fromrepresentative Filner out of
(52:08):
Chula Vista, california, for theVA side, and that really began
what became known as theParalympic Military Support for
Women.
So all these things that we'retalking about right here, right
these, the planning for thetransition begins to open up
other opportunities that you mayhave never seen coming, and so
(52:29):
what we should do is we shouldalways plan for our transitions.
The great April Holmes,paralympic Athletes.
He says train for yourtransition.
We do all these training foroperations.
Train for the transition.
It's a part of your duty, it'sa train for your transition.
Look at your options before youneed to get to your options.
(52:51):
And I think that's the alwayspreparing for.
The next thing is, you know,even when I went full time as a
professional speaker now, Itrained for that before the
United States Olympic Committeedecided to right, size me,
upsize me, you know, switch meout to something different,
because the mission changesright.
And so I was prepared for thatto go out as a full time speaker
(53:15):
because of my basement at fromsix o'clock in the evening to
about 10 o'clock at night.
I, I worked on it, I worked onthe business to see where this
thing could take.
And then, when I was going toleave in February of 2000, 2000,
2019, and they let me go in2019, january, january 4th, 1230
(53:36):
, 34 seconds.
It was great.
I had 15 years, you know, withthe organization I learned a ton
.
I had my, my stone that I had,I was on.
I learned a lot from them.
So I'm not bitter about that,it was just time to move.
I had a, I had a differentvision and now I could step to
the next stone on secure, on asecure stone because I built it
(54:00):
instead of being.
You know, I do an exercise with.
Everybody has a rope andeverybody holds onto the rope.
And it's interesting to see.
I say, okay, we're going to,we're balanced on the ropes or
feet have to be inside the rope,and we're going to, we're going
to.
I tell a couple of people tolet go of the rope because
they're going to move to adifferent job or move to a
different thing, and so somepeople just they let the rope go
really quickly, so everybodyhas to scramble, trying to
(54:20):
balance themselves out on therope.
Some people let the rope govery gently to let allow other
people time to fill in thebalance on the rope.
So what type of leader are you?
What type of?
What type of way do you leavean organization?
Do you just drop the rope or doyou really try to replace the
(54:42):
person that you have coming into, so that there's a lot less
friction on the organization?
Is it time for your to sunsetwhat you're going to do for that
organization?
Thad David (54:53):
So I wrap my head or I love the, just the idea, the
concept of it, with grabbing ofthe rope, and I can totally see
people just dropping it and justpeacing out.
I'm done, I'm out.
Yeah, I'm done, which is veryrepresentative of a lot of
things you had mentioned earlierand I was hoping to touch back
(55:15):
on it as well, because I don'tknow, we're back into 2019, but
fast forward all the way back to94.
Because you had said somethingand then it's easy to see and I
say easy to see and hindsight,because you've spelled it out so
, so masterfully of just allthese lessons that you've
learned.
But in that moment in time thatyou said that you had your leg
(55:37):
amputated, that you had thoughtit's over.
What's my life like now?
And I don't think you couldhave ever known that.
You know when you just say it'sover, and then now you're a
silver medalist, so it clearlywasn't over.
Maybe the vision was different,but what was that like for you
in that moment?
(55:57):
I mean committing to somethingdifferent.
I mean what helped you in thatmoment?
Because I think a lot of timesyou go find ourselves in that
moment unsure of what to do.
John Register (56:05):
Well, my mind is a very easy answer because I
alluded to earlier.
You know I'm a person of faithand why I say faith I mean
Christianity.
When I say Christianity I meanChrist.
So I look at, I look at lifethrough a, and not even what the
most people think probably inChristianity.
So let me unpack that just alittle bit.
So when I was going through abusiness leadership class for
(56:31):
the for veterans run out ofSyracuse University, I was doing
at Oklahoma State University aweek long intensive
certification course forentrepreneur entrepreneurship,
we had a woman that came in.
Her name is Pat Rodriguez.
Pat said to us what's the mostimportant thing?
Your business?
We all got the answer wrong.
So she's like a little littlebit of drill sergeant and she
(56:53):
was like she's built likemillions of dollars of
organizations and contracts andstuff.
She says the most importantthing in your business is not
your clients, it's not your.
Your.
Your marketing, it's not your.
Whatever you want to put inthere is your supply chain.
Most important thing in businessis how are you going to wrap up
your business?
I said, oh my gosh, what abrilliant way to think of it.
(57:18):
Because when you say, when youbegin with that question how am
I going to wrap the business up?
Am I going to put it on thestock market?
Am I going to give it to mychildren?
Am I going to train up somebodyelse to take it?
Do I just want to sunset theentire thing?
I put you in the state ofsaying that my business is so
successful that I have somethingto wrap up and I was like, dang
(57:41):
, that's brilliant.
So then it was still bugging meright Six months later and I
realized the question that I wasreally asking myself was how
are you going to wrap up the endof your life when it's all said
and done, back to dust.
How are you going to wrap it up?
And my answer was I wanted myGod to say well done, good and
(58:07):
faithful servant.
That's what I want, that's whatI want to hear.
And so how do I do that?
I have to seek first God'skingdom and His righteousness.
All things shall be added to me.
So how do I do that?
I have to be very cautious onthe foundation that I build.
So when I say the foundation, Ibelieve is Christ.
(58:28):
And so we can build in sixdifferent ways.
We can build with wood, handstubble or gold, silver and
precious stones, because everyperson's work gets tried by fire
.
And if I build with wood, handstubble and my works tried by
fire, it's a fire sale.
I smell like smoke but myfoundation is still there.
If I build with gold, silverand precious stones, my work
(58:50):
lasts.
It's purified.
Fire purifies those things.
So I have a tag or a place inmy speech where I talk about
that.
We have to breathe oxygen intoour atmosphere to survive and
thrive in our environments andthat's how I kind of look at
(59:12):
things.
Right, if I have oxygen leavingmy environment, say, I'm under
water and I can't get back tothe surface, you're a marine,
you know what do you do.
What do you do?
You know you can't make it tothe top.
What's the first, what's theresponse in the brain that
(59:32):
begins to do?
It begins with a pee.
Thad David (59:35):
Panic.
John Register (59:36):
I panic.
When I panic, I might startdoing irrational things.
All right.
So if you think back to thebeginning of the pandemic, how
do we know that America was in apanic situation?
What was the one thing we weredoing that told the rest of the
world we were panicking,remember.
Thad David (59:55):
I mean, I'm thinking about all the masks.
Everybody was buying all thisstuff, everybody's buying.
John Register (59:59):
We weren't even buying masks at that time.
We were buying toilet paper.
Thad David (01:00:03):
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, man, I forgot about that.
John Register (01:00:07):
We were fighting over toilet paper.
Thad David (01:00:12):
That's right.
John Register (01:00:13):
That's not rational, because that was not
going to solve COVID, right?
We didn't even know we weredealing with that point.
But we're buying toilet paper,so we do irrational things.
So when we are adding oxygeninto environment, oxygen becomes
rich, it becomes a sustainer,becomes a life giver and it
helps other people have otherlife.
(01:00:35):
We take oxygen away, we causepanic and stress.
So the question wasn't evenabout going back to the pandemic
.
The question wasn't aboutwhether somebody wanted to wear
a mask or not wear a mask.
The question wasn't aboutwhether somebody wanted a
vaccination or not have avaccination.
The question was, excuse me,when someone came to you, john
(01:01:00):
registered with the opposingidea that you had.
Did you add oxygen, john, intotheir environments or did you,
john, take it away?
Because that's on me, that's noton a political party, that's
not on a left versus right,that's on.
What did I do in that moment?
What am I responsible for?
(01:01:23):
For another life that is here,that has a unique design and a
capability of only doing onething in this earth that that
life is designed to do.
So that's how I look at my liferight now, when I add oxygen
into people's environment.
All the time life was given tome.
(01:01:45):
I have to push life into others.
If I'm not, if I'm causingpanic in someone's life, I got
to check myself because I'm notdesigned to do that, I'm not
designed to take life away, andthat's on me.
I can't blame anyone else.
But if I do it or not do it, sothat's how I show up, that's
(01:02:05):
what I talk about in my faith.
I am designed to do this and soI do it now through the lens or
through the platform of keynotespeaking.
I do it through the platform ofleading conversations for CEOs
and executives.
I do it through a platform ofhaving fireside chats and taking
(01:02:25):
that contextual model that Ijust said and sharing it with
those that are doing mergers andacquisitions Some very
challenging times for people andtheir employees to move one
organization to another.
Or when someone's going througha reorganization in their
business or they're trying toget people on board to go
through a new time or concept.
(01:02:46):
How do we add life through thatentire process to make the
organization not just survivebut thrive?
So I hope that answered thatquestion.
It was a long one to answer,but I'm a stereotype, so that's
what you get.
Thad David (01:02:59):
Beautiful.
I love that.
I was thinking.
It made me ponder and justthink about where I'm adding
oxygen in other people's livesin general, whether it's in
passing I think even on a basiclevel, which you were in a very
high beautiful space with thatand just in everyday passing.
Are you causing panic in others?
(01:03:20):
If somebody's got a good idea,are you sampling it out?
Are you adding oxygen?
I just love it.
It's a great way to look at it.
That can be applied to a lot ofthings.
John Register (01:03:32):
So, yeah, that's what I share with audiences and
it's a self-discovery journey.
I'm giving the recipe out hereon your show at the head, but
really the conversation is avery fun presentation.
We do a lot of activity, a lotof exercise.
I believe in experientiallearning, so I'm always trying
(01:03:53):
to do some type of activity tolock the learning in, and
sometimes we do Paralympicsports that are easy to do
inside of a room and sometimeswe do a stand-up turnaround All
these things that lock thelearning in for the individual
to be a better team player, forwhat organization they're with.
Thad David (01:04:10):
I think it's absolutely fascinating.
I love it.
Thank you so much for sharingall of this stuff.
You got a beautiful story andan amazing journey, so I'm very
happy that you jumped on andshared it all, absolutely.
I'd love to ask you one morequestion, as well as to just
share where, before we close itout with that, where's the best
place for somebody listeningthat said you know what?
(01:04:32):
I love John's message.
I want to hear more.
Where can they find you, asidefrom, obviously, your new
podcast that's coming out aswell?
Yeah, it's going to be fun.
John Register (01:04:41):
Yeah, so the best place really is my website.
It's johnregistercomjohnregistercom.
All my social media handles areup there on the upper
right-hand corner.
Everything's easy to toggle to.
You know I have a businessphone that number that's up
there.
I think my email is there too,so you can get with me or get my
(01:05:02):
assistant If you're looking forsomeone to come in work with
your teams or your employeesCEOs, executives, you know,
coaching on that.
And then we have a littlenewsletter that goes out.
I have a.
It really came from a lot ofpeople that were following me
after my presentations, and so Itry to get this community
(01:05:24):
together.
I started something called JR's90 Days Friends.
Excuse me, these 90 DaysFriends are designed to take one
aspect of leadership for 90days and drill deep into it by
conversations I've had withother people on various podcasts
or other platforms, and we takea little snippet of what they
(01:05:44):
have shared and theirmethodology, of how they shared
it, and we share it with anybodythat signs up for that.
And that goes out once a weekon Sunday, and we have a
conversation once a month or,you know, definitely once a
quarter with myself and you canask any questions kind of ask JR
anything, and that has to dealwith any one of the modules that
(01:06:05):
we have been through and it'sjust a good place to get a
community together.
It's kind of it's not onFacebook, it's on Mighty Network
, so it's behind the you know,it's kind of on the people
inside of that area so peoplecan have a good dialogue with
each other without having to thealgorithms being changed on on.
So it's, it's a nice, it's good, it's a good space just to be
(01:06:27):
involved with.
Thad David (01:06:28):
I'm definitely going to throw that into the bio and
and of the of the podcast foranybody listening.
That way make it easy access toclick and to go find you and
hopefully to join theconversation.
Absolutely, thank you.
And knowing that you've talkedto tons of people just
throughout your journey you'vehelped out tons of people I'm
curious to ask you where do yousee people get kind of hung up
(01:06:52):
to the right word or just unsureLike what do you?
What do you see as the catalystfor them?
Is there a common thread, thatthat somebody might be able to
take something away from that?
That this was it and this ishow I was able to get through my
, my problem or my struggle thatI was having.
John Register (01:07:08):
Yeah, I think the common thread is understood, or
making that, that thisunderstanding that, that self
identification moment, that youare stuck right, and I think
people think that they're notstuck, when they actually are
stuck.
I have to recognize veryquickly oh, you know what I am
trying to do, every single thing, but I haven't gone back to the
(01:07:29):
basics.
Right, let's say from a salespoint, right, why don't, why
don't I have any events comingup in February?
Well, idiot, because inNovember you stopped making
sales calls.
Oh, I got it back to something.
So it's kind of it's we havethe answers that are there for
us, but do we want to see them?
(01:07:50):
And I think we get blindsidedby our own I don't know success
or own belief in ourselves orsomething.
We just don't see it.
And so it's.
It's very important, you know,to get with a mastermind group
or get with a, and I don't do amastermind, so I'm in a
mastermind group.
I don't do masterminds likethat, like paper master.
(01:08:10):
When I look at masterminds I'mtalking about, you know, you get
to start with two people andthen two people must agree on
the third person to come intothe mastermind.
But they're really there tohelp you advance forward to see
your blind spots, because we allhave them.
We all have blind spots, and sowe're there to help each other
through those times.
So you got to get yourself witha group of people that will not
(01:08:32):
allow you to fail.
That's not allowing to failmeans you got to.
You got to have some toughconversations and you make some
you know, make some greatchoices from that, because you
have other people in yourwheelhouse and I think that's
how we get past it.
That's the.
Those are some of the actionsteps that we kind of get stuck.
Thad David (01:08:50):
I love.
Just it got me laughing simplybecause it's so obvious and true
.
But just recognizing that youare stuck, and then we do the
things we need to do to getunstuck.
But the start of it is justsaying you know what it seems
like I'm stuck and yeah, but wedon't do any other stuff until
we realize we're stuck, Becauseif I don't know I'm stuck, I'm
(01:09:10):
not going to reach out, I'm notgoing to get advice from others.
So I think it's a great greatpoint.
John Register (01:09:14):
You remember the standard old standard cars where
you had to shift the car intofirst and then you had to shift
in reverse and you got to clutchit.
If you're in the, if you everlived in like Chicago, where I'm
at right now I'm not living inChicago, but I'm back in Chicago
you had to you might havegotten yourself in a rut and you
had to rock that car back andforth.
(01:09:35):
And you some people just keepon going.
They don't realize they need atow truck or something else to
throw them a lifeline and pullthem out of the rut, because
they've dug themselves in sodeep that they're not getting
out.
I'm just not getting out, andso we have to realize before we
start going back and forth andshifting the gears, we might
need to call a truck to get usback on the road.
Thad David (01:09:57):
Absolutely.
And then the tow truck and thatand that example would just
that mastermind group or havingsomebody else that can let you
know your blind spot.
So, john, thank you so much fortaking some time.
You have a just a wealth ofknowledge and wisdom and I
really appreciate you taking thespace and the time?
John Register (01:10:14):
Absolutely I will .
Can I have the one more thingin there, please?
Yeah, so I do have a.
I wrote a book for ourambassadors.
It's out now.
It's called 10 Power Stories toImpact Any Leader Journal your
Way to Leadership Success.
It's not on Amazon, it's notout there.
On the big thing, I did it, youknow, just down and dirty.
(01:10:34):
I got it out to them because itwas at the beginning of the
pandemic and they were gettingkicked out of countries.
And if you remember, very earlyon we didn't know if the
pandemic was coming to theUnited States or what was going
to be happening.
And at the same time they werebeing kicked out of countries
and couldn't make their waythrough other countries because
those countries had shut downtoo.
So we couldn't get our ex-packsback home.
(01:10:56):
So the question was not policy.
The question was how do youlead in that type of environment
?
So you must lead with stories.
So I wrote a book called 10Power Stories to Impact Any
Leader Journal your Way toLeadership Success.
The goal of that book is, onceyou read through the stories my
10 stories you then are invitedto write your own stories after
(01:11:17):
each one of those stories.
So at the end of the book youhave your own 10 stories that
you can lead in some type of acrisis environment.
So that's the goal of the book,and now it's in paperback form
so you can get it.
And it's on the website as well, on the shopping cart.
Thad David (01:11:32):
Excellent, I'm excited to go check that out as
well.
That's very intriguing.
I love that format.
John Register (01:11:36):
It's a bathroom reader man, Definitely.
Thad David (01:11:39):
I feel like there's a Marine Corps joke in there
about why it has to be easy forme to get through.
But man, thank you, John, Iappreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Dan.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.