Rich discusses his motto, “Challenge Accepted,” and recounts a deeply personal moment—losing a soldier in combat just after turning 40.
Guest: Rich LaMonica, Mentor, Veteran
On Twitter | http://www.twitter.com/RichLaMonica
On YouTube: https://tr.ee/iWjeY68bvb
Host: Dr. Deborah Heiser
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/deborah-heiser-phd
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Episode Introduction
Rich lamonica is a 22 year veteran of the United States Army, having served multiple deployments in support of the global war on terrorism. Throughout his military career, he developed season leader, guided by mentors who emphasized the importance of taking care of people. After retiring in 2015 rich spent a year reflecting on his transition to civilian life, gaining valuable insights that now fuel his passion for assisting fellow veterans in navigating their own transitions and overcoming life's challenges. He has written two books. One is an award winning self help book entitled 13 Step Guide to Success, and the fiction novel out of dark darkness. Currently Rich is pursuing a PhD in homeland security.
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Resources
The MisfitNation Podcast: https://tr.ee/8Ds29RKM3p
The MisfitNation Youtube: https://tr.ee/iWjeY68bvb
13 Step Guide to Success: https://linktr.ee/themisfitnation
Out of the Darkness: https://a.co/d/bM6IYX8
The Mentor Project: www.mentorproject.org
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Watch the The Right Side of 40 playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllRiYCWyyhoLJqyUE0ERuMfd
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Challenge Accepted | A Conversation with Rich LaMonica | After 40 Podcast with Dr. Deborah Heiser
Speaker 1 0:27
All right, so excited to be here today with Rich lamonica. Rich lamonica is a 22 year veteran of the United States Army, having served multiple deployments in support of the global war on terrorism. Throughout his military career, he developed season leader, guided by mentors who emphasized the importance of taking care of people. After retiring in 2015 rich spent a year reflecting on his transition to civilian life, gaining valuable insights that now fuel his passion for assisting fellow veterans in navigating their own transitions and overcoming life's challenges. He has written two books. One is an award winning self help book entitled 13 Step Guide to Success, and the fiction novel out of dark darkness. Currently Rich is pursuing a PhD in homeland security from Liberty University, and he is the host of The Misfit nation show, a podcast he started with the goal of inspiring listeners to become better humans. So welcome, Rich. I'm really excited to have you here today.
Speaker 2 1:39
Deborah, it's great to be here with you and be on the other side of the mic.
Speaker 1 1:46
So I'd love to ask you just a few questions. I have five questions to ask you today so that people can get to know you a little bit better on the other side of the microphone. So my first question is, you have had a remarkable journey from military leadership to motivational speaking. What was the defining moment after leaving the army that helped you find your new mission?
Speaker 2 2:11
I think it was a me going through that one year of reflection and self reflection, not knowing my hands for three days in the army, you know you're giving things every day, every day, one day it just stopped, and my next mission wasn't there, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I wasn't getting those jobs right away. So during that time, I built my resilience. I built my I guess, my calling, my purpose, to find it to help others. Instead of just saying what was me, I can use my journey to help others not have the same problems I did. So I started going into school since speaking, I spoke for the Red Cross about my time in the military that gave me my jump, and I think it was all purposeful, and everything happened at the right time at the right moment, until I fell into that first job. Excuse me, when I found that first job, I found myself in front of the room speaking again, at this time, full job, and I just feel comfortable when I'm speaking to people and knowing that they're receiving it, and knowing that being a speaker, I can get out there and just tell my story. It's just my story, and if it helps one person in that room, I've done.
Speaker 1 3:22
How many can you even tell me? Do you even know how many talks you've given over the years?
Unknown Speaker 3:28
It's not a lot, probably
Speaker 1 3:30
just under 20 now. Wow. And so and you speak to schools, and mostly children, middle
Speaker 2 3:37
school, high school, and some events like the cross. Nice,
Speaker 1 3:41
wow, that's so cool. Your motto is Challenge accepted. What is one challenge you faced after 40 that truly tested your grit, and how did you overcome it?
Speaker 2 3:55
After 40, definitely losing my first soldier was right after I turned 40, I was one month after I turned 40, December, 31 and and I lost my first soldier in combat on my third combat score. And it tested everything from inside to outside, to keep calm and keep all the rest of my soldiers facing forward and not doing something they would regret wind up on the news, not have their life, and came home, getting through that till April the next year, and coming home whole was probably the biggest challenge I had.
Speaker 1 4:32
Wow, that really, I can understand why your motto would be a challenge accepted, but you didn't have to. You didn't have to do that. How did you overcome it? You know, I know that you said you had to be right there and, you know, sort of put on the show that everything was okay for everybody. But
Speaker 2 4:48
how did you do that? I think I reached down to teaching from my parents and my dad and mom taught us resilience. Up in New Jersey. You had to be resilient in the jersey. Fell down in New Jersey, stayed down. But basically people would step up. So when this happened, I just reached back and I said, What would dad do? It's actually called an effort happening. He didn't stay long, but he learned enough in that time to brush it off. And I just went out the next day, and I sat down, I talked to him, I got the resources. I really didn't take care of me until five, six years later, to really get help with me, but I made sure they had everything they needed at that time, and if I didn't do it for them, I did it as we could.
Speaker 1 5:41
You had that first challenge that came about in midlife. You were 40. You like you just stepped into midlife at that point. Do you think that your reaction would have been the same if you were 20 when that happened?
Speaker 2 5:55
Oh, no, not at all. How was 20 that happened? Just young, young rich in the army at that time. I wasn't even in the army time, still going to St Peter's College in New Jersey, I probably would have done something totally polar opposite in general, for having a polar opposite direction.
Speaker 1 6:14
Yeah. So what do you think that life offered you that got you to have that ability, to have the grace that you had when you faced that challenge. I
Speaker 2 6:24
think, besides my mom and dad, I had some legal my first platoon sergeant was Hubert Lopez, 1993 excuse me, and he always challenged us every day. Every day, he challenged us to go home at night. We had pull ups and dips every day, 10 pull ups, 10 dips every day, challenge us, and he would just sit there and watch us do it. He made his own political dip bar in his office and made us do but he'd also take care of us. He'd make sure we had the right studies going on the right path, and took care of us. And at the time, you know, we hated him. But as time goes on, in my military
Speaker 2 7:06
to make sure they take care of the next generation. And probably the next one I ran into was Sergeant Douglas Jones, passed away a few years ago, but he also he would do everything for soldiers and not for him. So when I met him, we were the same when I were both Sergeant heis, and he was my platoon sergeant. There longer, but then I passed him, I made Staff Sergeant, and then he stayed there and wound up going to drill sergeant. Made Staff Sergeant. I made someone first class. He made song first class. But in that time, he didn't go to school. He made sure everyone else went to school. Said, he said, rich, you gotta go get college. I'll do what I can. I wasn't good at it, but I'm trying. I did it. I made sure everyone else did. He never did, never took care of himself. That's lessons I learned. Take care of others before you take care of yourself.
Speaker 1 7:54
Wow. What a powerful memory. They were real mentors to you. It sounds like 100% 100% so you have interviewed so many inspiring guests on the misfit nation show. Has there been a story that changed your perspective or even your path since you've been doing your show? I think
Speaker 2 8:15
I've had one guest that's been on four times now. Terry Ann Brown, she's an author, and she's always full of energy. Great, great you. This year I had her on her latest book that came out, and I didn't realize her husband had passed. He was a Marine, so I always make jokes about Marines, just like the only guys do when she was on, I started to say things about the Marines Richie had passed away, and that was my first on the show. Oh no. What do I do now? Just said that I don't know how to recover as quick as possible. The positivity everything that she has done and will sure,
Speaker 1 8:57
wow. And Well, thanks for sharing that. Because, yeah, how could you know? But how, how nice that you've had that person on four times, that you have that connection
Speaker 2 9:09
every year she brings she, she has a book every year. So every year she's come out with the books all basically, if I come out, yes, come back.
Speaker 1 9:16
Oh, that's so cool. Wow. Four books, one, every year I'm inspired.
Unknown Speaker 9:22
Yes, she's very big inspiration.
Speaker 1 9:24
Now you're also an author. So how did writing the 13 Step Guide to Success and out of the darkness help you to process your own evolution and and how? How did it help you to mentor
Speaker 2 9:35
others? 13 step guide to success came from COVID, kind of every month, the last day of the month, on Facebook, I read, you made it through this level of Jamal, you face these challenges. But you know, every month they gave these crazy challenges that we're going with them. Next month, we'll always face these challenges. And then the final month, I did 13 steps to be a better person. My daughter just looked at me said, You need to publish that then. So I wrote the book, and she was my editor, and she put it out. And there it is, 13 step guides to success. She helped me with the OA, and basically it's how to be a better human. It's not How to Be a Millionaire, how to start a business, how to better be, be a better human and build your and that the out of the darkness. I was writing way before that many, many I write while I was in the army, and I just they write. And I said, You know what? I got to stop doing. I'm telling people to do. I have to do. So I wrote it, and I laser did last, September 11, 2023, September 11, for honoring 11. And it's about a soldier's journey, basically. And just part of the book, he's on top of the hill at the end of a battle. Smells, the smells, seasons, thinks, how did they get here? And it goes through the evolution of how we got to there, and what happens to them when we come home. TSD,
Unknown Speaker 10:57
where can people find both of these books?
Speaker 2 11:00
Both of them are on Amazon, added a darkness is on almost every electronic book.
Speaker 1 11:04
Okay, all right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna get the both of them. Okay, as soon as we are done, I'm getting both of them, and I would encourage everyone else to also, what advice would you give to someone over 40 who feels like they've lost their purpose, or that they're just starting over,
Speaker 2 11:26
don't feel down on yourselves. Remember all the lessons you learned growing up. You hit 40 some milestones. It's not something you want to say, I'm 40. I'm still 20 in my mind. But you have so much more to give the world. You have so much things, so many things you can do, even if you're not the millionaire you wanted to be, still doing something, done something awesome, that some young man or woman wants to do the same thing. You can mentor that person find that purpose. That way. Just go back and give back, and you'll find your shell. You'll find you inside yourself, your heart pumping a little more by helping that person, like we talked in the pre show about the people I'm helping, and it just helps. I think it helps me more, and it helps her sometimes when I talk to her, but she asked me some of the questions. I love doing it, because I feel so much better at the end of the day when I help someone. I think that's what people need to start doing and give they need to start giving back and help the the next generation become the leaders that we should be.
Speaker 1 12:27
You know, you live that you have been giving back since you turned 40. This is all that I know. There's, I'm sure, a ton more, which I hope you'll tell me about. But you started a podcast, you wrote two books. You know, a lot of people think that midlife is a time that it's over. You know that our lives are about our careers, but here you've done these things that are, you know, first, in the service to of of others, right? You're serving others with these by putting out the books and doing the podcast. You also became a mentor with the mentor project, and you're getting your PhD. So that's a lot. You know, it would be a lot for someone who's 20, it'd be a lot for someone who's 30, it'd be a lot for someone who's just 40. You're doing a whole lot out there. Do you think this is something that anybody could do. I
Speaker 2 13:22
think if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. I think a lot of this comes from one of my military background. The army had learned to thrive in chaos, and that's kind of what all that stuff together is chaos. And I can if everything's calm, I don't know what to do. If everything's going emotional, I feel amazing and I can just keep going. PhD was that was a challenge accepted as well. I was told, as I was finishing my master's, this is probably the last level you should go with education. You're not really an academic. A challenge accepted. I got accepted. I took that challenge and did that? Do I regret it? No, I think it's an amazing challenge for me. Podcast. I thought it would only be eight hours a week. It's not eight hours a week to get guests, to make sure things lined up, about 30 hours a week probably work. I still have a day job I do. There's a lot of stuff goes on, but I still find time for everything.
Speaker 1 14:23
You know, I think my aha moment today talking with you is Challenge accepted. I think that that isn't something that I've ever put as a midlife thing to strive for, but we should all be striving to say once we hit midlife, challenge accepted, and you've done that like over and over and over again.
Unknown Speaker 14:47
What? Other than you
Speaker 1 14:51
know, Amazon for your books. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 14:55
The Misfit nation.com. Misfit nation. That's all one word. All our stuff is there, all our audio shows, our video shows, the books are there as well. Just a one stop shop there. Contact us there. If you contact us through the website, I usually get the email pretty quickly, and we answer most emails within four to six hours, you'll get a response back to us. And our shows are live some days.
Speaker 1 15:25
And what would you like to leave? What do you have any final words that you'd like to leave with listeners
Speaker 2 15:34
today? Sure, no matter when you if you feel like you're doing and having a bad day, or feel like you're going down a bad path. Everything, every day in our lives, something's just remember that everything, every day, something's going to go wrong. Just chop it up as a lesson. Every day Things are going to go right as well. So you wake up in the morning, you make your bed that's at the end of the day. Say you have 19 victories tomorrow. Let's try to be against one and keep doing that everyday respective.
Speaker 1 16:04
I love that stack those victories and making the victories digestible. I love that. You know, one other place that people can find Rich is that the mentor project, Mentor project.org, he is one of our mentors, and we're very fortunate to have you. You're a really amazing mentor. You're an amazing person. Thank you for your service, rich, and thank you for all that you do to make the world a better place. Um, until the next episode, you can also find what I'm going to be writing about rich in a blog on substance. ance.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai