How a Navy Special Forces Veteran Rebuilt His Life

I was a raging alcohol at the time, diagnosed with PTSD that came out broken and bloody. But I also showed people that you can recover. You can't come back from anything that's happened and you can't have a successful life. Zeb Whitehead is a transformational speaker, coach, and Navy veteran.

He helps veterans, first responders, and high performers build unshakable confidence.

Overcomes self-limiting beliefs and create purposeful lives through resilience, personal growth, and intentional leadership. You can pay all the money in the world to go to seminars, trainings, whatever. But if you don't stay with it, you don't stay consistent, it's not going to work.

“What would you say to the kid out there who might not know what his path is going to be right now?”

It's a fear. We're worried about being vulnerable and putting ourselves out there in fear of rejection. Maybe things don't pan out the way we want them to, but that's the cost of success. That's the cost of dreams. They're going to be out there and you're going to get rejected. Living your legacy podcast for those who live to live a legacy. All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast.

I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler, and I am joined by Zeb Whitehead, Zeb welcome to the podcast. Pleasure to have you here, brother. Absolutely, I'm glad to be here. All right, so you just got finished recording your episode of Operation CEO with our wonderful interviewer, Kofi, and I'm not just saying that because he's in the room somewhere with us. You guys can't see that, but he's in here. But first of all, how are you feeling now on the other side

“of it? You feel a little bit relieved to get the story out?”

Absolutely, yeah, I was sweating a little bit, but I feel good now. It's usually like a weight off the shoulders when she get it out. What would you say as far as for the audience? This is kind of their first time getting to know you. What would you say is like the number one lesson you want people to be able to learn from your story? My story, I wanted to be an example to everybody. I've been through the battles. I came out broken and bloody, but I also showed people

that you can recover. You can come back from anything that's happened and you can't have a successful life and that's really what I want people to see is no matter what happened, you can't come back. That's a powerful measure. Especially, I talk up to a lot of our service members that come on for Operation CEO and one of the core things that is like a narrative through line throughout all of them

“is just being able to, you gotta be able to take some punches because life's got hands.”

Life will fill those box and gloves on you. Well, Mike Tyson said, "Everybody has a plan to get punched in the mouth." Yep, exactly. Funny enough, I've shot for Mike Tyson on 4 separate occasions and I managed hilarious. On the 4th occasion he was like, "Hey, cameraman, how many times

you're going to take my picture?" Love Mike. Love him to death. Hopefully he never sees this episode.

This is going to hate that impression. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, how do we get the zeb that's sitting in front of me today? Walk me through a little bit of that of your journey. Yeah, so it's been quite the journey. You know, I grew up a very adventurous adrenaline-seeking kid. You know, I knew it was a big world out there. I wanted to do everything very grateful for my parents that they could put up with that. One of my biggest fears actually into adulthood was when I

had my own kids as, you know, how karma is. And so I was like, oh man, imagining how I was as a kid and now I'm having my own kid. But I got fortunate there. You got lucky on the answer.

Yeah, they didn't take that same path. So yeah, growing up, you know, wild kid always into everything.

I was good kid though. I wasn't bad, but definitely the black sheep of the family and going out and experimenting and exploring everywhere I could. Which then transitioned into the teenage years of doing rodeo and more adrenaline-fueled things and lo and behold, you know, I feel bad for my mom because I joined the military as an aviation. I had garlic mechanics. So she was relieved, right? You know, always just going to be a mechanic. And then, you know,

a month in the boot camp, I send her a message saying, oh yeah, my mom, I just joined the special forces. Absolutely. In my mom used to go, my mom used to go to my rodeos. She used to watch me ride bulls. And so, you know, that takes quite a toll on a mom and watching them. Oh, yeah. My cortisol levels

And then, here, I go and join special forces. Yep. Not to do it. Not to do it. Yeah. What?

“Where was kind of what made you decide to join special forces? I didn't. I, um, well, I mean,”

when I, I did it on a, I was sitting in a class in boot camp. And it was a STD course, and showing, you know, and they were, it was pretty gross. And, you know, trying to deter sailors from growing on the world and doing what they do. And so, a Navy seal recruiter came into the class and asked for volunteers to go take the physical assessment test. And I raised my hand. I said, if you take me right now, I'll go take your test. It could anything just give me out of the

class. Yeah. But no, I had no clue about special forces or getting involved with there or anything.

And I just wanted out of that class. And I wouldn't took test pass, me and one other individual past.

And the rest is history. The rest is history. So, you know, one thing that I talk with a lot of guys on this show about, especially your service members, is kind of like that transition back into civilian life. And with your story, your main message being like, you can come back from anything. What was your experience of being in the service and then going back into the civilian world? It was really, really tough. My life literally got flipped upside down at that point.

My, my transition may be a little bit more extreme than the others, but the things I was dealing with they're still doing with this well. Month after I retired from the military 20 years of service, got ended up getting separated. I was a raging alcohol at the time. I was physically very unhealthy. I was on high blood pressure medication, got diagnosed with PTSD, got put on medication for depression anxiety and had make choice. You know, and so a lot of those

“difficulties of separating from the military and going back into the civilian life is challenging”

for a lot of veterans because it's a different world. There's a lot of different experiences while you're in the military. And we have our own language. We have our own way of communicating

to each other. We have a bond that between each other that can never be broken. You know,

anywhere in the world, anybody in different branches of the service, and you just connect automatically. And that is very difficult to find outside of the military or other service-based industries like that. And that's one of the struggles people deal with. And that's what I hear the most is they missed the camaraderie. They missed that bond with their brothers and sisters. And so, you know, my advice, anybody like that, is find something, find a program, find any activity you can do with

like minded people, get yourself involved in things. Don't wait for it to come to you. It's not going to come to you. You've got to go out and find it. That's really, really pointy because I feel like for a lot of people who don't have the military background, don't have that service background. I like that you brought up. Don't wait for it to come and find you. You've got to go and find it. Let's say for example, you know, you've got to kid out there. He's out in the audience and he's

listening to this. And he's got an interest in cars. Let's call it cars. And he really wants to find other people who are like minded to want, you know, to want to do car stuff, no cars. Go buy, go buy them and flip them. He's not going to be able to find those people. Like the internet might give you the facade of being in that level of community, but he's not going to find those people until he goes out and goes to a car meet and talks to a couple of guys. And says, hey,

“what did you, what did you do with your motor? What's, you know, what's size terror are you running?”

Like different things like that. So I think that's a great piece of advice for, you know, our audience they're super entrepreneurial their business minded. And a lot of them are searching for that level of community. What do you say, what would you say to the kid out there who might not know what his path is going to be right now? He's kind of just struggling with figuring out where to go. What's your advice to that person? So we all have to start from a basic foundation. I think

as you were saying a lot of people think the process starts with having that identifying what you want to go out and do. Especially for a young person, if you were in the same mindset, I was where you wanted to do everything. There wasn't one specific thing that you wanted to do. And so in order to narrow that down, I think what a good place to start is just work on yourself. Start developing skills that translate to anything you want to do. So build up your mental resiliency,

You know, if you're interested in cars, go to a local in car me because those guys love talking

about their cars and they will gladly take you under their wing and start showing it. I'm a former car guy. Well, I would, I would, yeah, somebody's here off of they let me. Yeah, I've built quite a few myself. But yeah, so get out there. I mean, we, I think we have a bit of fear. And we don't, we're worried about being vulnerable and putting ourselves out there in fear of rejection. Maybe things don't pan out the way we want them to. But, you know,

that's the cost of success. That's the cost of dreams is, you know, you're going to have those

“hits. You're going to be out there and you're going to get rejected. But you need to learn to deal with”

it that only way to learn to deal with those things is being exposed to it. I'm fortunate that we

have to learn the hard way. That's right. I'm, I'm hard-headed as anything. And the last one thing that I've learned about myself over time is, oh, any lesson someone tried to impart on me early on through like guidance. I didn't pick up on it the first time. I had to go bang my head against the wall. I feel like that's part for the court. I feel like that's a guy thing. Like we just got to go bang our heads. Yeah, you know, I think that's the entrepreneurial spirit, too, as well. I think

when you see those people take another look at them. And, you know, because that's the mentality we have to have, right? That's why we'll go try things that haven't been done before. Or somebody says they can't be done. You turn around and say, watch this. Yeah. When somebody tells me something can't be done, I just do this here. Yeah. Are you sure about that? That's right. That's my favorite. Here's our

saying together. I always tell people, hold my juice box. Watch this. Now you guys don't know who he's

referencing, but Trisha is in the room with us. So we're going to speak about Trisha very, very kindly for the remainder of this episode. Now I'll just joke it. Zab, I want to take a second here to just kind of pivot into the now and into what your business is currently. Now we talked about it a little bit at the beginning with creating your title card, but you're in mental strength development. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about the, just the, what are like some of the key teachings that you're

bringing for, because my dad is in that as well. He's also doing mental strength development. He's a sports psychologist for the Jamaican Olympic team. So I know a little bit about that road, but talking about like your ethos on it. Yeah. So basing it on the people that I serve veterans, law enforcement, things like that. Whether you notice it or not, we develop very strong mental strength. Our capabilities are phenomenal. We do things every day that most people aren't

even aware of, right? You might see it on the news every now and then. But this is things they do day in and day out and they develop a phenomenal skill, a price of skill that the world needs. But what happens is when they transition from their career out into the world. They're exposed to things they haven't been exposed to before. And a lot of these people get into these career fields at a young age. And so their adult life has been in that career. And so now they're transitioning

into something new. And the biggest piece of advice I can give to people is get into the books, start learning because the tools that you currently have, being from those career fields, they're

“kind of pushed upon you. You have to develop them. You don't, you don't have to learn and absorb”

them. But now you do. You're transitioned out of that. So now you've got to want to go out to learn. And by absorbing that knowledge and strengthening your mindset, you start to become aware and you become vigilant in the new world. Before it was dangerous, right? What's around the next corner? Am I going to get shot? And whatever it may be, that's high provisional into that environment. But now you're in a new environment, right? It's now you need to look for opportunities.

You need to look for new skills you need to build. You need to see what the economies doing. Whatever it filled your end, now that's where your eyes are focused on it. Yeah. And some of those are like the intangibles, right? You've got to be able to turn not only your actual physical eyes towards something but your mind's eye or as something that's like, it's not physical. It's not here with us in the root. Like the economies, not a physical thing that I can go out and go grab,

“but I got to be able to be vigilant, English. And like know that I got to pay attention to that, right?”

Yeah. What would you say to, you know, I think we talked a little bit about, you know, just kind of that transition back to civilian life. But for our veterans out there that have made the transition and are having a tough time, I know for a fact, a lot of the service members that I've spoken to on this show, even if they're not still actively serving, they're still

What's your message to those guys out there? Thank you for one. I've had the pleasure of helping other veterans as well outside of coaching in need. And it is a another great service that they are providing by reaching out, looking out for their brothers and sisters. You know, every we just celebrated Memorial Day and that take that back. We're not celebrating

“Memorial Day. But I think a lot of people have lost the what Memorial Day actually stands for.”

Yeah. All we think of it here on the beach is the, oh, we're getting the air show as we can. And so it's important, especially for those guys that they reach out to their brothers and sister, make sure they're okay. We do suffer in silence often. And it's just a gift that they're giving back, even outside of their service. So again, thanks for all of them then do that. You mentioned, you said something there suffering in silence. And I want to just take an

opportunity here as we kind of wind the pod down. I want to take an opportunity here to just

first of all come in to you for sharing your story because I think the first step to, for a lot of

the veterans out there is to hear somebody else say it. And so they don't feel like they have to suffer in silence. Your testimony is the story that gives somebody else the permission to share

“theirs as well. So I want to thank you for that. And thank you for your service as well.”

But, you know, we're here at Inside Success. I ask this of all of my clients that come here on the show. What is Zeb Whitehead's number one tip for success? Consistency. There's nothing will happen if you're not consistent. And you can pay all the money in the world to go to seminars, trainings, whatever. But if you don't stay with it, you don't stay consistent. It's not going to work. So stay consistent. Find the passion. Find the purpose. Find your why. And with those, just those

ingredients right there, you'll be successful. I like it to chop it out of tree with an axe. And I don't care how hard you're swinging that axe. You're not going to do it in one swing. That's right. You got to be consistent. And you got to keep hitting it in the same spot over and over and over again. And then eventually you'll get there. The chainsaw is an invention that diluted consistency down into, I'm just going to hold this thing here. So I don't have to keep swinging. You know,

that's a great analogy because the way I heard it was the stone cutter. He's got his hammer and chiselings trying to crack this huge grain of rock. Thousands and thousands of swings and nothing. You see, absolutely nothing. One day, he's so exhausted. He's like one more swing.

“Picks it up. It's the chisel rocks. It's open. But I think that's where we've gone wrong, right?”

It's where waiting for somebody to make that chainsaw. You know, and that cutter that's going to slice right through that rock, but unfortunately for the path of success, the guy that developed that chainsaw and that saw that cussy rock, he's a great entrepreneur because he found a knee and he filled the knee. But that's not going to happen for those in the beginning. And so it does take work. It does say it may take years. Don't put time limit on it. Just keep moving every

day, take action steps every day. I'll do it. Now, Zab for the people out there that are watching

him. First of all, guys, if you're still tuned in at this point, I want to make sure you check

out Zab's episode of Operation CEO, which will be coming out shortly after this podcast air. So make sure you check that out. You're going to get a full deep dive into his story, his time in the military and his time after. So make sure you guys check that episode out. Just coming out right after this podcast episode, airs, but Zab for the people out there that are watching where can they find you on the internet, the worldwide web, the social media, all the things. Yeah, so I have got my

website. It's a lifecoachzeb.com. I'm also on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook all at @lifecoachzeb. Lifecoachzeb, so I'm just going to point in a bunch of directions here and my editors know that that means put those links somewhere on the screen. I don't know where,

but put them somewhere. Probably down here somewhere. But guys, this has been another incredible

episode, Zab. Thank you so much for being on the show. It has been an incredible pleasure having you here. So any last words for the audience members out there? Absolutely. Just chase those dreams. Don't let anybody tell you different. Hmm, I love it. I love it. This has been a great episode. Man, this has been great. Guys, this has been another one. I'm your host Jason Tyler and I'll catch you guys in the next one.