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The Hard Way w/ Joe De Sena

Lost His Legs, Found His Strength: A Blueprint for Resilience

The Hard Way w/ Joe De Sena

Spartan Races

Fitness, Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, 792700

4.7870 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Joe De Sena sits down with a Marine veteran, Rob Jones, who lost both legs to an IED—but didn’t lose his drive, purpose, or grit.
 
Instead, he came back stronger, running 31 marathons in 31 days, winning a Paralympic medal, and building a powerful life rooted in service, family, and leadership. His story is a masterclass in resilience, perspective, and unstoppable mindset.
 
If you’ve ever felt stuck, defeated, or uncertain about your path, this episode will show you what’s possible when you choose purpose over pain—and keep showing up, no matter what.
 
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:48 Meet Rob Jones
01:11 Life lesson from the Marines
02:36 From selfish college kid to selfless soldier
03:47 Why selflessness matters for success
04:57 Can selflessness be taught in schools?
06:14 Ego, avoidance, and the courage to take responsibility
08:16 The IED that changed Rob’s life
09:59 The power of perspective after trauma
11:23 Dark moments: Waking up after the blast
14:15 Projecting a hopeless future vs. choosing to live
15:02 Marathons, medals, and fatherhood
17:32 What’s next for Rob
18:51 How do people find Rob
20:23 Final thoughts
 
Connect to Rob:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You can make a guess about what might, what you think is going to happen, but you don't know.

0:03.5

You don't know what's going to happen.

0:04.5

So if you can have that attitude throughout your entire life, you know, you're going to be able to overcome anything.

0:09.0

Put other people before yourself.

0:11.0

If you want to be able to learn and do all these things that you do in life, you have to be able to tie it back to something that's extremely powerful. There is nothing more powerful than the way that you feel about, the people that you care about, your family, your friends, all these people.

0:25.6

Welcome to the Hardway podcast with Joe DeCena, founder and CEO of Spartan races.

0:30.6

We're teaching you how to overcome your obstacles in your life the same way we teach our 10 million plus Spartans to overcome obstacles on the course.

0:39.0

With insight from the smartest, most accomplish experts from every corner of the world.

0:43.2

Get ready to elevate your life today.

0:46.7

Joe DeSenter here, CEO and founder of Spartan, host the Hardway podcast, got my buddy Rob Jones on, Marine,

0:54.1

dad, inspirator, marathoner, instructor, like just a

1:00.1

real badass.

1:01.2

Welcome aboard.

1:02.1

Hey, thanks for having me, man.

1:03.2

I appreciate it.

1:03.8

I defer to military, especially folks like you, thank you for your service.

1:08.0

I get super excited.

1:09.0

I'm jealous.

1:09.9

Can you tell people out there before we get

1:11.9

into it what can you say that folks can apply to their everyday life that you learned in the marines

1:18.3

what could we do do we make our bed in the morning like admiral mcraven says like what could we

1:23.0

do to level up yeah i mean i would say definitely go to find that Admiral Craven speech and do

...

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