How an Army Veteran Rebuilt His Life After Rock Bottom

And so you take just the difficulty of transitioning out and then you throw on top of that some mental health struggles and issues you're having and it was, it was the, it was the most difficult time in my life.

What I always say adversity is inevitable, stay and broken in this option.

“Yeah, you're going to have adversity because life is tough.”

But stay and broken is up to you. Eric Gillis is a resilient, purpose-driven army veteran, educator and leadership strategist who helps individuals and organizations rebuild stronger after adversity. Through his journey from military service and personal hardship to rebuilding his own identity and purpose, he founded the rebuilt warrior to equip leaders, veterans, and organizations.

I don't want to be this guy and he said, you'll never be who you were, but you can be better. I don't want to be broken anymore, what do I do now? And that's why I come in and go, let me help you rebuild your life. Here's what I did.

And I have this framework called structure because I always say when I got out of the military,

what I realized I was missing the most was structure. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back to everybody to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcasts. I'm your host again, Jason Langen, and here we are to the semi-finals of the world cup in Miami Beach Studios, right?

And we've got a special guest today, well, what an incredible journey this guy's had to pleasure to have him in the office, but this is Operation CEO, and yeah, introduce yourself,

“what's your name, where you're from, and what's your business?”

Yeah, my name is Eric Gillis, and I'm excited to be on Operation CEO. My business is the rebuilt warrior, and then also on a short-term vacation rental company called coastline collections. So what branch of the army did you join? Let's get into it.

Yeah, I joined the US Army straight out of high school, actually signed up to join September the 12th, 2002, so a year after 9/11, right in the heat of battle, and walked right into that war and got the fight right in, and it was fun experience. Yeah, so your kind of army seniors were laughing at you, because I guess your story was, your recruiter said, hey, you don't have to leave the states, we're going to keep you

in the states almost like a promise to you, right? And then you're getting shipped out straight to Germany, and then straight to Iraq, what's it, right? Yeah, so tell us about that a little bit. So it's funny now, in the moment it was it, but yeah, my recruiter who I'd known and growing

up with, he was older than me, but we grew up together. And he was the one I joined the army with, and he said, hey, man, I can make you two promises. You're not going to deploy, and you're not going to go overseas, and I thought, that's cool. I get to serve my country, and all these fun things, and so I finished up with basic training in my AIT training, at the end they're calling out assignments, and they start calling

out Fort Campbell and Fort Hood, and all these states out places, and I go, okay, my recruiter lived up to what he said, and they got to me, they say, Gillis, Swineford, Germany, and I raised my hand and said, I'm so sorry, you got me confused with somebody else, I was told I could stay here, and he was like, nobody can make that promise to you, and so I fast forward, and I make it to Swineford, Germany, I'm getting off the bus that brought

us from the airport, my first sergeant, meets us, and he goes, hey, don't unpack guys,

we'll leave for Iraq in a month, and again, I go, I first sergeant, I don't think you understand, my recruiter, what I learned is that recruiter's lot to get you to join, so yeah, all of these ended up being great experiences, but initially I was so angry at him for not telling me the truth, because the two things he swore wouldn't happen happened. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy, but also you got to think, you know, 9/11 was a year ago,

right, if you're not thinking, hey, I'm going to end up in Iraq, and eventually Afghanistan

“or any of those, right, it's like your, you must be kind of dreaming, right?”

Oh yeah, yeah, I remember watching the TV, and realizing that I would have to go there, I think I was, I just didn't want to be in Germany, I think I wanted to be a state side, and going to Iraq was a reality, you know, when you kind of, you take the oath of enlistment,

I took an oath to do that, but yeah, the going overseas was the craziest thing, because I'd never, definitely, never left the United States, and really never left Florida at that time. Wow, okay, okay.

Yeah, I'd never been on it, so my first airplane ride is a seven-hour flight to Germany.

Yeah, yeah, that was my first flying experience, yeah, and all right, so in your civilian life, I have you been abroad, just kind of by yourself for vacation or anything. Yeah, so now I have now of flown, it's been a fact, my wife and I just got back from Colorado Springs, and went to Vegas earlier this summer, so yeah, I traveled a lot more now, but a more cultured, I would say, thanks to the military, yeah, yeah, you get over,

because Germany was great, like once I came back from the pool, I'm sure it was, it took

“a good, good beer, good food, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember our first sergeant goes, hey,”

the drinking age for you guys is 21, because you're Americans, but listen, they can drink at 16 in Germany, you guys are old enough to go fighting a war, I'm not going to police you guys drinking, so yeah, so like being 18 and being in Germany was incredible, so all those, like I hated it, but then I was like, I loved it, we would jump on a training, go to Paris, and it was just a, I really enjoyed Germany once I got past a shock of it, yeah,

yeah, so yeah, you got to go international again, man, yeah, so that's our, we want to,

I've always wanted to go to Japan, and they've got a sign there, but I've always wanted

to go to all of the Japan's, the same world, different places, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to go, so yeah, I'm a nomad, I've, I've lived been all over the world, yeah, yeah, yeah, so we, we desperately, more often, I've, we keep saying, 20, 20, eight is what we're going to go over to Japan, I say that, and then the Olympics are now late in 20, 28, the summer, so now we're talking about, oh, maybe we'll go to the Olympics, you don't need an excuse

to go to Japan, you just go, oh my god, yeah, incredible, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not going to, it's impossible to have a bad time there, yeah, so I know people that's one there and that's, the store they tell me is like it's incredible, and the price, once you get there, the, like, money is more, you know, like you spend it, not lose it as easy, so yeah, it looks incredible. For a lot of people on Operation CEO, the transition

“into their civilian life is a, is a big thing, right? They're like, the VA, they're pretty”

much play you like, a video, right? They kind of attuned it to like, you know, you're in class growing up in the 90s or whatever, and they, and they, they kind of push in that TV, they press play, and then, you know, it's like, it's like a, it's like a one or two day course or whatever, right? But then after that, it's like, there you go, boys, right, enjoy the real world, yeah, and for you, it was, it wasn't like a slap on your back

and say, enjoy the real world, it was like the slap on your back, but then getting hit with it by a blossom most, right? Tell us about your journey into the civilian transition lifestyle. Yeah, it was, it was definitely overwhelming. Again, I joined at 18 to, to the army,

so I'd never really, no adult life outside of the military, yeah. And so I get out of

the military, I'm 22 at this point, and I'd never really handle my finances because

“the military, they, they pay your housing, they pay your medical, and so, so getting out”

all those things are overwhelming, you don't know how to translate your skills into the workforce, and so, so trying to figure out how to navigate that, and then on top of that, I just had a child, so I got out in June of 2007, my first child was born in April, and so getting out with that infant, and so it was overwhelming just transitioning out, and then compiling on top of that, not realizing that the moment what these labels were is I had PTSD,

and I had a traumatic brain injury, and I didn't know those things either, and so you take just the difficulty of transitioning out, and then you throw on top of that, some mental health struggles, and in some other issues you're having, and it was, it was the, it was the most difficult time of my life, even, like, I would fight the war over that any day because the uncertainty of that was just troubling each and every day, well, that's crazy to say,

because even you in war, you experience some crazy stuff too, right? I mean, real quick, like, okay, you're, you're in a rack, what was your mission, you know, a lot of people they get their mission, a lot of people was a rack, right? So what was your role, and what was a big mission for you out there? Yeah, so our mission, I was in Samara, it was the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, he still had a big stronghold of supporters there, he had just been

captured in January, and we made it there in February, so it was a hotbed of anger towards

we go over there and I think, we may not have to go now, we call Saddam, and now all that did was

“kick a hornet's nest and make them angry, and so our mission wasn't, was to stabilize that area.”

Yeah, and so we went to a very hostile area where they didn't like it. Yeah, here we go, you stabilize it, calm down guys, it's the Americans, just everyone chill out, Saddam's gone. Yeah, we killed your leader, we're sorry, but you can't get mad about it, we want to make you not be mad about it, and so it's good times, guys, it's good times. And they're not very, they were very reasonable about it, they were angry, and they got the violence, and they wanted blood, and they didn't

want us there, they hated that we were there, and so yeah, it was literally a daily battle every single day, whether it was being in the city actually fighting with your M-16 or just them lobbying mortars, which are little explosives into our compound, it was a battle every single day. Crazy, so you're in your civilian life, you got PTSD from this intense post post 9/11 hotbed Iraq, right, and then that transition in civilian life, like it just smacks you in the face and really

knocks you down, knocks you down until you up to the low moment of your life, like you have a pretty much like a trifecta of stuff, like, and I'm just going to kind of do the bullet points, it was like going into bankruptcy, having to move in with your parents as a man, with a wife, and kids, and your dog, and gaining weight, PTSD, losing your job, I mean, it's just like, it just keeps coming, and coming, and coming, right, and so yeah, talk briefly about that,

“and then talk about that amazing shirt that you're wearing. Yeah, I mean, I think of it like if”

you if you love boxing, I'm thinking if there was a referee there, he was getting ready to do a statement 10 count because it felt like life kept hitting me and wouldn't stop. I reached a point 2009 where I felt like such a failure that I thought I'm just going to in my life, and I attempted, and I felt, thankfully, it's the greatest failure in my life, but that introduced me to counseling, which I've been adamant against. You know, there was a, there was something that you had said

in your, in your interview, where you had swallowed the muscle, a handful of muscle relaxers, and then that's when you felt fear. Yeah. Like fear that, whoa, there was no turning back, you know, like I just made a decision of like, and I felt that. Yeah. I was like, oh my god, I got it. Wow, right. So, and there's a difference, it's like, okay, yeah, it's almost like it was a call for help, a cry for help, right? But I guess you don't know it at the time,

and then when you did it, you went past that line of like, you know, that, wow, you know, I can't explain that, but it's just like crossing that line of, that's the line of all lines. Really,

“honestly, that's the line of all lines. And then you were like, what did I just do? And that's”

that fear, right? Like I couldn't imagine. Yeah. So, go, yeah. So, you, you're trying to take

in your life, right? And then kind of, what happens? Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was a fear I've never

experienced at that, up until that point, and still never experienced. It was a near reversible fear. I live, obviously, I'm here. And I went and got help, because my wife at the time came in with the ultimatum. She said, either get help or me and your kids are out and never see us again. And that became a concrete reality for me. I'd felt like a failure up until that point, but that was like a concrete reality of like, I will be a failure. I will be an absent dad,

and I will have a failed marriage. And so, um, so I did, I went and got help and, and I sat with the counselor and I just lamented all these feelings and emotions I had and I finally said to them, I said, listen, he listened patiently. And I said, I just want to go back to being the happy 17-year-old

wasn't before I joined the military. I don't want to be this guy anymore. And he said, you'll never be

who you were, but you can be better. And though people are trying to help me in the past, maybe it's because I was more open to it, that statement resonated with me. And for the first time, kind of put hope in my life, I thought, I can be better. Like, okay, let me, let me do away with this, this false sense that I can be this guy again. I'm not going to be him. And in many ways, I don't want to be a naive 17-year-old. So let me, let me just embrace this. And so I did. It made it

better every day. And that began to be how I lived my life was. I just want to be better tomorrow in the next day. In the next day. And so, I strive to be better every single day. And it was the

words of that doctor that genuinely impacted my life for the first time. Yeah, amazing. And so,

yeah, I'd insight success. We tell a lot of this here as journey, right? Started from the bottom. Now we're here before, like I keep on saying, never judge anyone that sits in that seat. If they have that perfect childhood with the, with the perfect parents and the dinners and the outings, right? The fishing trips or whatever it is, because man, life goes and then boom, like life is a

“journey. And everyone's got a hold on, right? Yeah. Honestly. So, where's life brought you today?”

Yeah. At that moment, I didn't have a title for it. But I knew that I wanted to rebuild my life. And that began the start of the rebuilt warrior. Yeah. And that's who, if you ask me what my identity is today, it is the rebuilt warrior. And that definition is broad. But what it is is I only, not only rebuilt my life to success, but I have helped others and continue wanting to help others rebuild their life. And so, yeah, I really was at rock bottom. I mean, to the point that I didn't know

that I was to the next day. And now here I am. I'm a school administrator at a middle school, my wife and I own a successful company that I think is going to continue to grow to be successful. And now I have this brand called the rebuilt warrior where I've written a book that will come out on September 11th. All right. Purposefully, I wrote it where it would come out the same time frame of when I joined the military. So, I've written a book. I have a website that has like all these

self-help for if you were looking for help, you could go there to take assessments. And then I travel when I speak that at schools and different venues to tell people that there is hope. You,

like, always, this is what I always say, adversity is inevitable. Stay in broken as optional.

And so it's that, like, yeah, you're going to have adversity because life is tough, but stay in broken as up to you. Yeah. And if you want to stay broken, you'll start there. It's not like that fine China where breaks and then it's shattered everywhere, right? We break, where we're still in one piece. We are. Right? So, I guess it's a choice for you to, you know,

“kind of, you can mentally put yourself back together. I think that's what's hard for people. It was”

hard for me because I didn't, in a sense, I didn't choose to be broken, but I choose, I was chosen to stay broken. Yeah. And again, things happen that are outside of your control, like marriages end, unfortunately, children die, businesses fail. Like some of those things are outside of your control. So, being broken isn't necessarily your fault. Stay in broken as a hundred percent your fault. And so, you have to come to that realization of, I don't want to be broken anymore. I want to be

better. Yeah. And that's what's hard. And then that's where I come in because I know what it's like to go. All right, I don't want to be broken anymore. Now what do I do? And there's not a lot of resources if any out there for you. And that's where I plug in the gap because, all right, now I'm, I don't want to be broken anymore. What do I do now? And that's where I come in and go, let me

help you rebuild your life. Here's what I did. Yeah. And I have this framework called structure,

because I always say, when I got out of the military, what I realized I was missing the most was structure. And so, I have this framework, that's a lot of people. It is former military, that's structure. Yeah, because they, they tell you what's on the wake up. You, you do, I remember our drill sergeant said, like, you do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day. And we would, we would exercise and you'd be in a class before 9 a.m. and, and then you would finish

your day. And so, like every hour is kind of set for you. And then you get out and it's like,

“what do I do? Who's going to wake me up? Who's going to hold me again?”

What time you go to bed in the military? I just curious. So, most of the time, I mean, depending on the people, they go to bed in no later than 10 most times. Yeah, you get that. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You basically train that, I think they had us in bed by 8 o'clock. All right. And you were sleeping at that time too. Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because, like, most veterans would tell you that still their life, like, I still go to bed about 9 o'clock.

I still wake up around 4 a.m. naturally. My body wakes me up. I can't help it. And so, it's like, you still have, like, those are the things that are so translatable to a real life, like, oh, cool. I can, I am perfectly set up to be successful in a job because, I don't struggle to wake up and I go to bed at a decent hour for most people and say, yeah, yeah, something how to translate that. I love the name of the brand rebuilt warrior.

Right? You think of the soldier and warrior and what people go through. And it's like, yeah, it takes rebuilding, you know, like rebuilding of a mindset because it's so intense. All these conversations I've had with everyone and operations CEO, people please tune in to

And it's given me a huge deeper and better kind of understanding and thankfulness of what we experience

here and what these stories of yourself and the two dudes last week and the dude the week before that, when they go through, I'm just like, wow, you know. But yeah, I love the brand, right? You were in that with pride. Yeah. And I'm sure you're going to get a lot of people because they're post 9/11, right? You know, all the dudes that have been coming, I've been talking to, it's like, yeah. And sometimes it's like, you just need a little help. There's that,

there's that little video of like, there's a kid, right? He's, he's like in this river and he's holding onto this branch and he's thinking he's going to drown. He's like screaming for his life. He's like, yeah, I had because the river is kind of just holding it and then, and then the mom just takes him. He's like, just, just stand, stand, right? And then he just realizes he can stand and everything's all right. Yeah. You know, but he had just no clue. He was, he was holding on for his

dear life. Absolutely. You know, so maybe that's kind of like a good analogy for, you know, what people are going through in their minds and sometimes just reach out and it's that someone that can tell you, like your counselor, hey, you're not going to be the same, but there's a pathway. You know, you can't get better. You can't rebuild, right?

“Yeah. So I started education in the prison system. That's why I started in the world of education.”

And I remember I would hear this term where they would go. We want to rehabilitate them so we can turn them back out into the free world where they can be successful. And I would think to myself, well, it's not rehabilitate them because if we get them back to where they were, that led to whatever their criminal decision was, whether it was an addiction or whatever the case would be, you know, we have to rebuild them. And that's where it came from because so many of us

want to rehab. We want to rehab to who you were, but it's like, no, that was a sick person who led to my brokenness. I need to rebuild into something better and stronger. Yeah. And in, in like the area I live, you'll see where where people will tear down an old structure. They'll leave the foundation because like for me, my foundation was great. I had great parents. They'd great up bringing. My foundation was great. I just needed to rebuild something stronger because what I have

“was too weak. And that's why a lot of people are, a lot of them have great foundations. They just”

need to rebuild something stronger. So you're already broken and in this, this may let us rebuild

you into something better. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So I asked him, what are you, what are you most excited

about? Yeah. I am really excited about helping people. I think most people get a joy out of celebrating the successes of others. Yeah. But it genuinely drives me. Again, it's why I'm in education. I love to see success of students. I love to see the success of teachers. I don't know about most people enjoy that. I say a lot of people, right? But there's also the people that just deep down inside their miserable. I can't see other people, you know, with the success of those people

tapping on their keyboard, the haters. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I get you on that. You know, I'm with you. I enjoy watching other people succeed. This is actually our first podcast in the new studio. Oh, right. Rudy is just open it up today. Yeah. Right. So beautiful. That's his success right now. Let's just take a moment to celebrate his success of inside success. But yeah, the studios look

beautiful. Absolutely. It's great. You were the first guest that I've filmed the new studios,

right? We're getting a hang of it. But yeah, they're great, man. Yeah. Yeah. And people want, and that's what I want. I just want to want to see people be successful. I want people to reset potential. I want people to, I want people to experience true joy, not just happiness, but true joy. And so like if the, what I, it's my wife and I had this conversation, we were making the drive yesterday about like, well, she goes, what do you hope to accomplish? And I go,

I want one day to be in a position where I can help as many veterans as possible. Yeah. I have no aspirations of being rich. I have no aspirations of fame. I just want to help people. And the more people I help, the more satisfaction it gives me, because I want to prevent statistics. And I want to help people because there's kids that need their dad, their mother, there's mothers and fathers that need their children to grow up and be successful. And so I just want to help. And that's what

I want the next 10 years is to continue to build my platform where I can help more people be successful. Right, man. How can people find you? Yeah. The simplest way is to go to the rebuildwarier.com. The rebuildwarier.com. If you go there, my contact information is there so you can directly contact

“me. I have a self assessment. You can do this as are you ready to rebuild? Do you need to rebuild?”

It also has like podcasts that I've been on. It has the link to buy the book that's coming out and

or whatever. Everything's in that website. So if you go to the rebuildwarier.com,

“everything you need to access for me is on there. Yeah, perfect, man. And so yeah, I mean, it's been”

a pleasure to have you as my first guest in the new studio. I'm very exciting. I call it the whiskey

room. Yeah. But yeah. So thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure to listen to your

“story. You know, I'm so proud of you for building the rebuildwarier, man. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate”

that. Do it being here. All right. And thank you guys for joining us. Like I said, dude, if you haven't

tuned in to Operation Seal, you guys are missing out, man. You got it tuned in. So yeah, we'll see you next time on the Living Your Legacy Podcast. Cheers everyone.