Hi everybody and welcome back. This is Christmas Abbott and building a badass. In this episode, I get to actually talk about one of the most exciting and challenging decisions and experiences of my life to date.

Of course, I believe that, I don't know, giving birth pretty darn soon might be able to rival this experience.

However, it's this experience that gave me so much of who I am today.

And I know that this is a collection of experiences in my life and the great eight, as I've been calling it, of life that has helped define who I am.

But really, this one, as I indicated last podcast, going into Iraq, has been my life university.

And through this experience, I learned so much about who I am, who I want to be, and how to make that happen.

There are so many things that happened in Iraq. Small summary is an epiphany of life. I quit smoking and I found CrossFit.

I found organization and structure and the chaos inside my head. And I really really kind of not discovered but I built myself worth.

And this experience and the story that I'm about to share with you, it's, there's nothing else in my life that has rivaled it.

And I know that having my son soon will, but on a completely different level and experience.

And really, I'm talking, like I know what's going to happen soon with having, giving birth to a human being, like I have human being inside of me. That's wild.

But with this, you know, there were so many amazing tangible lessons that I walked away from Iraq from with in hand that are a core of who I am today.

And it is defined me. It has built me. It has broke me in a way. But really gave me the fuel to continue to go forward.

And really dig into that relentless pursuit of my dreams. Where before these other stories, you know, the baseball and the drugs, they, they were really kind of wonderful and influential.

But Iraq was the change. That was the change that I needed in my life in order to be able to continue to go forward and be my most potential, which is what, you know, people ask, what's your biggest fear Christmas?

And before my child coming into this world, and it still is, is not living to my full potential. And Iraq allowed me to discover and utilize the tools of what that actually looked like. And that's rad.

So leaving off from the last story a little bit is, you know, I, I let you guys know that I was so lost. I didn't have any self worth. I didn't understand the lifestyle that I was knowingly indulging in, you know, and allowing the my circumstances to dictate my life.

And I wasn't taking charge of my life. I was just letting it happen to me. So in this weird twisted some, you know, some conscious way, I knew that I needed a radical change.

And fun fact is that I was actually rejected by the military when I was 18 because of health issues. I had childhood asthma. I had crazy severe allergies. And this was pre 9, 11, where, you know, they wouldn't just let anybody in.

And they also didn't tell you about waivers. So I actually tried to go into the military as a military police. I wanted to go into the Marines. Listen, guys, everybody out there.

I love all the military. Okay. Thank you all of our service people for what you do. And, you know, I wanted to be on your team. I tried really hard.

And I knew even at 18 that I needed more discipline and structure of my life. And I wanted to serve my country like my grandfather's had done. And, you know, no offense Marines, you missed out on a good one here. Okay. So I wasn't allowed to get into the military.

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