Service Above Self: A Memorial Day Tribute to the Heroes Who Defended Our Freedom

27:07Michelle Mace-Curren:Yes. I, I, that, that's what the first key to, uh, you know, as someone who deals with everything from a little PTSD to depression, the first key is to get out of bed. And that's like, if your alarm goes off, great. If you get up without an alarm, good, get up. And then, uh, if I'm having a bad day, I'll like take my shirt off, force a smile and go stand in the sunshine. Even if there's clouds, get some vitamin D going, get outside here in nature. And I think like you're saying, get outside with a walk. Like that is so good for mental health, like do, you know, 10, 20 minutes a day, just outside, man, you're going to, you're going to find life's a lot better.

27:39Chef Robert Irvine:Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I want to go to something that I heard you say publicly in a keynote, man. And I want people to understand this. And I know you probably told this story a million times now, but for our listeners and viewers, you talked about when you got the notice that you were going to be on the team and that it was time to go right. right? Still team six. And you had to tell your kids goodbye. And, and I don't think people understand the brevity of that moment, man. Could you walk us through that? Like from a father's perspective, but also the duty and service commitment that you had, where it's like, you didn't even think about it.

28:17Chef Robert Irvine:Right. Like tell them goodbye.

28:19Michelle Mace-Curren:It was, I would almost cheat a little bit because when we, and you know, not just the Bin Laden raid, but other ones, when we said goodbye. We would try to leave at night so that you didn't need to, I had young daughters at the time and I didn't want to explain to them the gravity of what we're about to do, but I'd like to see him at night and be able to say, you know, and then, and then I, you know, I'd have a 10 minute drive into work before we got on the plane. I can cry for those 10 minutes where no one's gets to see me. Um, but just, it's easier to leave him at night, but on the bin Laden raid was tough.

28:47Michelle Mace-Curren:My youngest daughter at the time was three and nobody knew where we were going. Cause we just got back from deployment. So no one expected us to go overseas, but I knew we were going somewhere where we, this, the Bin Laden raid was a high risk mission. It's a one-way mission. And so I told my three, and I, we couldn't leave at night. We had to leave during the day. So I told her, Hey, dad's got to go to work. And you know, just a way to tell you a three-year-old goodbye. And she, she told me to wait and she ran upstairs to a room and she grabbed a Hello Kitty suitcase, put a pillow and her Mr.

29:17Michelle Mace-Curren:Elephant in it. And she left it by the door and said, when you get home, you're going to take me on vacation. However, a three-year-old can form that sentence. And that's one of the hardest things I've ever seen. I actually just had a coffee with her. Just now, because obviously it's been a few years, but yeah, saying goodbye to your family again, getting back to the base, that's the hardest part. And it almost, it almost asked the question, is what you're doing worth it? Is this worth it? And for us in that case, because so many families were affected by 9-11 and we might die, this is worth it.

29:46Michelle Mace-Curren:This, this is what we're here for. the passengers on United 93 did not wake up that day to fight Al Qaeda. I've been training to fight them. We found Bin Laden and I'm going to go do it. And I mean, even as morbid as it might sound, what an ending. He's going to die. If we die with him, that happens. But we're going to do this. Saying goodbye to the family is hard. But once you get there, on the Netflix documentary, you can hear me say, I'm on this mission. This is the team and we're going to kill them.

30:12Chef Robert Irvine:Yep. I love that, man. Another really cool thing that I saw in the documentary was, and I had this quote written down, after the mission, or I shouldn't say after the mission, after you have done your deed to Osama bin Laden, right? Then you got to get out of there, right? And what most people didn't understand was like, it wasn't easy to get out, right? Like you're trying to get to Pakistan and you said, I'm just trying to get to 90. I'm just trying to get to 90. I'm just trying to get to 90.

30:42Michelle Mace-Curren:It was a tough spot. You got to figure when we went into Pakistan, we're going to Abbottabad, Pakistan, which is actually a resort town. And we're not supposed to be there. We didn't invade Pakistan. We're not at war with Pakistan. And it's a first world country. and uh you know out of respect for people living their lives the first people to show up would not have been al-qaeda or even the pakistan military it would have been the pakistani police or locals that are armed that like what's going on and the last thing i wanted to do was kill a policeman doing his job so we have that like very fine line there which means we got to get in and get out quick uh so we but we found so much stuff there we stayed a little bit longer to gather more intelligence meanwhile outside our interpreter and our snipers were like hey the locals are gathering the cops will be here we got to go and so we're dealing with that we don't want to get in a gunfight especially there a lot of bad stuff can happen but you got to figure we might run out of fuel too uh so we stay at extra minutes the helos are going longer and then we get in the helicopter and we're leaving on a mission we're supposed to die but we have 90 minutes now we got 90 minutes left on a one-way mission but if we can cross the border in afghanistan in 90 minutes we get 50 years and I got to see those kids again.

31:52Michelle Mace-Curren:And so that 90 minute flight, I found myself in a spot where, and I give myself my own advice every day. If you're worried about something right now that your worry will not affect, you're wasting your energy. You need to get your mind off it because you're, you're, you're thinking the wrong stuff. So I, we could get shot down at any moment by a Pakistani jet that launched and justifiably because we invaded, but worrying about a missile is not going to stop it. So I just started my stopwatch on my, on my wrist. And I just, I was looking at that. I'm sitting next to guys I've been working with forever.

32:22Michelle Mace-Curren:And we're, we're all in this together. One missile kills us all. We know that we probably wouldn't even feel it. Um, but it's been 10 minutes, you know, that it's been 20 minutes.

32:31Chef Robert Irvine:Yeah.

32:31Michelle Mace-Curren:Kind of looking around 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Now it's been 50 minutes. Got to get to 90, 60, 70 minutes. And you can really, I can get goosebumps right now. And I love sports analogies because I mean, anything in life that you do successfully, you didn't really do it on your own. You got a team. Uh, someone helped you. Someone supported you. your wife, your husband, your mother, somebody supported you, teammates. So I started thinking about Yankee Stadium, top of the seventh and no hitter. Like if you're watching it, you don't want to say anything, but I don't want to jinx it. And then it's been 80 minutes.

33:03Michelle Mace-Curren:I got to get to 90. And I started thinking about the single greatest sporting event in American history in 1980 when Team USA, the hockey team, was playing the greatest hockey team ever assembled in the Soviet Union. And that team hadn't lost. I mean, they're beating people by 10 goals. They've won every gold medal since I think the early 60s or 50s. And these college kids have no business being on the ice. But now they're winning in the third period. You can hear the crowd counting down. You can hear Al Michaels. 10 seconds. Five seconds. Do you believe in miracles? Yes. And I'm thinking that stuff so close.

33:36Michelle Mace-Curren:And now I hear the pilot. He was flying a little faster than 90 minutes because 85 minutes in, he said, all right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're going to be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan. to stand. And that's, I mean, that's, I think that's the first time on a mission over 400. I actually started giving high fives out because this, this was good. Yeah.

33:55Chef Robert Irvine:I mean, I, I got goosebumps just hearing you retell that story that I've heard. Right. But just, just hearing it in this moment, man, like I still get there, you know, Robert, you have, you know, 400 plus missions, man. And I have this saying that I give to leaders and to athletes. you don't rise to the occasion you rise or fall to your level of preparation yes and one of the things that i know about you and the missions that you've been on what most people don't realize is how i don't even call it over prepared you guys are but just how prepared you freaking are and the things that you simulate and the things that you go through just because in that moment you don't know what's going to happen and you have to be able to react and not think like talk to us about preparation and why that's so important?

34:42Michelle Mace-Curren:Well, it's a fine line. You want to be prepared for contingencies. You want to think of all the stuff that could happen. If this goes wrong, what will their reaction to that be? But before you do any of that, you need to make sure you are the master of the easy stuff. You've got to make sure you know the basics. And the easiest way that, I mean, it all came down, you know, we invent tactics. We meet Al Qaeda, we fight the Taliban. We come up with other tactics, but the further and more experience we got, we found ourselves getting, keep it simple, keep it simple. And when someone says like, you know, even after a helicopter crashing in the front yard, how did you clear a compound as big as Osama bin Laden's?

35:20Michelle Mace-Curren:And the answer was simple. The guy in front of me went left. I went right. And we did that over and over. And that's what we did. We, we, we mastered the basics. And, and the way that I put that now is never talk yourself into an ass-whipping. It'll come.

35:33Chef Robert Irvine:CZ Lopez. And CZ, you know, on this show, I always ask my guests, like, what's your because? What's that thing that keeps you motivated, that keeps you held accountable, like that thing that's deeper than your why? And I know from time to time, your because changes. So in the season that you're in right now, what's your because? Why do you keep doing the things that you do, brother?

35:58Michelle Mace-Curren:My because is simply because we're temporary. You know, our existence is numbered. We don't know how long we have on this earth to make a difference. So we have to make every second count. You have to make every relationship, every interaction count to ensure that we set up the next generation for success. That's always been my because. And it keeps me driving forward, man. I love it.

36:27Chef Robert Irvine:I love it. And, you know, I'm going to get into the book in a second, because as I've read it and for all of you that are watching or that are listening, the book is right here. If you're watching, I'm pointing to it. But Carnivore Leadership, go get it now. It's going to change your life. There's a lot of lessons. But before we get into that, man, let's talk about your career. Like, let's talk about what shaped you to where you are today. So for those that don't know you, right, highly decorated. I've never met a person that's in our circle, that's in our pack, that doesn't just Google over CZ, right?

37:01Chef Robert Irvine:Like, talk to us about your journey a little bit.

37:04Michelle Mace-Curren:I think it was a series of misfortunes that actually led to the path that we ended up taking. And when I say we, I have to go ahead and give credit to Janet quite a bit on that. Yeah. But was going to college, going nowhere really fast, decided to enlist in the United States Air Force. Started being stagnant by virtue of the job that I took at the time. And I mentioned job, not duty, because I don't think I really aligned with my initial duty, which was transportation. It wasn't really challenging me. But it wasn't until I became a special operator, specifically an Air Force pararescue man, that I found my purpose in life.

37:48Michelle Mace-Curren:From that moment on, every day, every day seemed like it was never work. I was looking forward, regardless of whether the situation was going to be unpleasant or something meaningful. It was the same drive and motivation to show up. And that was because something needed to happen at the time. So I ended up doing the special operations bid for about two decades. And then I got another call to be a senior enlisted leader, meaning to step away from special operations and become a figurehead for larger organizations. I was not too crazy about that prospect, mainly because I love my tribe. I love being a PGA.

38:31Michelle Mace-Curren:I love saving lives. And I love the team that we had around us. operators, support, civilians. It didn't matter. They were just phenomenal people. But the need for leadership in those other echelons, specifically the higher echelons, was something that appealed to me. And I thought that I had something to offer. I thought that I could do it different than the average. And I thought that I will go ahead and give it the same level effort and rigor that I gave special operations. That eventually led to being selected as the highest enlisted ranking member in the entire Department of Defense, Department of War today, the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman.

39:17Michelle Mace-Curren:But it was that series of misfortunes, and we can talk a little bit more about what that bad means that eventually put you in a position to where you can make the most difference.

39:30Chef Robert Irvine:So let's talk about the bad then. Let's talk about the misfortunes. Like for those that are watching or listening, like break that down a little bit. Yeah.

39:38Michelle Mace-Curren:So it begins obviously with not having a purpose in Bridgeport, Connecticut and going to Second Heart University. It was a very tough spot to be because as a 19 year old, you're trying to figure out what the hell your life is going to look like. And college to me wasn't going to do that at the time. So I just went ahead and went blind into military service. You know, I knew that, hey, you know, there's a purpose in there. You know, you're serving your nation and you're going to get the things that you require the most in your life at this moment, which is independence, discipline, and that purpose, right?

40:16Michelle Mace-Curren:Being part of a bigger team, not just an individual. So when I got into service and I was given the duty of a transportation specialist, I was sent to a rockliner station on Greece. And I got into trouble right away just because of my wild ass ways. Got an Article 15 that is a nonjudicial punishment for adverse behavior. And I got demoted. I almost got kicked out of service there at that moment. And that was the first wake up call to realize that nothing is owed to you. You have to earn your keep every day. You have to follow the rules and you have to make sure that you exemplify those rules if you want to be a cut above the rest.

41:03Michelle Mace-Curren:And I fell grossly short at that moment. So that was wake up call number one. Wake up call number two, in order to fix that one, I needed to find a purpose. And that's when I decided to join the ranks of pararescue. And I didn't make it through the first try. I was 147 pound kid. My legs were not really all that strong. And man, I just couldn't keep up with the finning at times, swimming with those big rocket fins. And I got a setback. I was given an opportunity to come back at a later day. And it was at that moment that I had my second wake up call. It's like, all right, so you really have to work harder than the average in order to make it.

41:45Michelle Mace-Curren:Because there were some guys that were just breezing through the program and I was having a tough time. So what did I do? I went ahead and parked my car. I started riding my bicycle everywhere to go ahead and get that leg strength that I needed. And I started swimming at least five days a week just to go ahead and make up for my shortcomings. By the time I got back to the training pipeline, the instructors were like, holy crap, what the hell did you do, man? You must really want this. And that was success story number two out of adversity. Then throughout my tenure as a senior enlisted leader and as a pararescue man, there have been many other failures that ended up becoming synonymous with lessons.

42:27Michelle Mace-Curren:I never looked at a failure from then on as something that was going to hold me back. I looked at failures as something that was going to make me stronger, that was going to give me further drive, more motivation, a chip on my shoulder to just go ahead and keep on pressing forward. And that became probably like the greatest lesson learned to where in several bouts of adversity, I found opportunity to go ahead and prove myself that I was better than who I was the day before.

42:58Chef Robert Irvine:I agree. And you and I, we've had this conversation, right? Right. Adversity reveals character and failure shows that drive that you have. Right. And I totally believe that a lot of folks don't want to accept the lessons that you learn, not just about yourself. Right. But but just the lessons within the lessons sometimes. You know, I think social media today and we could talk about just media in general, they always highlight the wins. And so I think from a societal standpoint, we just assume that like everybody who wins was born a winner and they never go through anything. But but you were proof that like in order to get there, in order to climb the mountain.

43:43Chef Robert Irvine:Right. You got to get pushed back a little bit. Like no one just easily goes up the mountain. No one easily does that track like you learn things. Talk to us about one of the biggest lessons that you've learned and how that's parlayed into leadership. it for you?

43:59Michelle Mace-Curren:I believe that one of the biggest lessons that I have learned is the value of humility. And I will explain what I mean by that. When you become a special operator, you get put in a certain pedestal, right? So you have a certain standing. You have a specific uniform that is unmistakable. People expect certain things about you because you have gone through one of the most rigorous training pipelines and crucibles that the Department of War has to offer. and you have that aura about you that this is the person when the chips fall that is going to make things happen. Sometimes those things can get to your head.

44:39Michelle Mace-Curren:Specifically when you start ascending through the ranks and people are shyer and shyer about telling you no, you're doing something wrong. Everybody tends to agree with you. You start getting a lot of yes men around you. And that is very dangerous because if you start believing that hype, you're eventually going to become what many call a victim of your own success. And that is not a victim of your own success because you continue to do good. It is just that you're a victim of success to where your credibility is going to diminish over time because you become an egomaniac. And you decide to go ahead and start disregarding the input and the candid feedback and the criticism of people that matter.

45:27Chef Robert Irvine:Michelle Mace Curran. I love starting my episodes by asking my guest about their because. That thing that's deeper than your why, that purpose, that mission that drives you. And it changes over time, right? So if I were to say today, Mace, what's your because? Why do you keep doing the things that you do and giving so unapologetically from your soul? I love this question and that you started with today because I think it's clearer for me today than it has been at any other point in my career in the various chapters. and being an entrepreneur post active duty military, quite the shift, quite the change in just structure, you know, used to having a chain of command and very clear mission and orders and being part of a high performing team.

46:19Chef Robert Irvine:And now I'm a solo entrepreneur. There's no playbook. There's no wingman who's in the thick of it with me, even though I have some amazing people that help whenever I need them. And so I tell people they're always surprised that I'm so passionate about what I'm doing now because it seemed like I've already done things that people look up to in such a unique way. But I feel so clear that I'm creating my legacy now, even though I got to fly for the Thunderbirds, which is just a cool thing to be part of. And it gave me the platform to do what I do now. It gave me the perspective and the wisdom to be able to present my ideas in a way that really impact people in this new chapter.

47:02Chef Robert Irvine:But I get to tangibly see the inspiration happen in front of my eyes when I give a keynote speech, when I talk to someone afterward and they tell me how that moment where they felt like I was talking directly to them just changed their life. and now with my book, I get these amazing pieces of feedback that are very similar where they're like, I feel like you wrote this for me and I know what I'm going to go do differently now. So it's not just, I feel good. It's I'm going to act accordingly because of that. And so having this platform and this position and this timing to be able to not just feel fulfilled myself because I get to control my schedule and I'm my own boss and I have creative control, the narrative, but just to see this legacy being left when I talk to a 20-year-old woman who wants to be a pilot, or I talk to a 65-year-old man who's retiring and feels like he's lost his identity.

48:01And so I feel like that's still sort of my why,

48:05Chef Robert Irvine:but I like that you took it a little bit deeper because being an entrepreneur is hard and uncertain And it just keeps me running towards the target without hesitation, maybe naively sometimes, but I absolutely love it. I love that. I love your answer. And I love I've told you offline, like, I just love the person, the human being that you are so inspired by you. You know, my best friend in the world is celebrity chef Robert Irvine, whose mission, whose because is helping our heroes. Right. Like our military, our veterans, our servicemen and women, first responders that really make what we do in the United States easy.

48:49Chef Robert Irvine:And I know that we all have adversity. We all have challenges. But, Michelle, without people like you, I don't think the world would understand the true adversity, the true challenges that we would have. So, again, I just want to thank you for all that you have done, all that you currently do, and all that I know you will continue to do. So, thank you for that. No, that means a lot. And Robert has just done such an incredible job of using the platform he's been given to give back to the veteran community. He's, you know, just a handful of people are doing it at that level, and he's one of them.

49:23Chef Robert Irvine:So, I love that connection. Absolutely. So, you are Wisconsin's finest, born and raised in Wisconsin, right? My youngest son went to undergrad at Beloit in Wisconsin. So I got to spend a little bit of time in that great state. Talk to us a little bit about growing up in Wisconsin, but more importantly, when did you know that, yeah, I'm going to go support and fight and defend for our country in the Air Force? Yeah. Yeah. Growing up in Wisconsin was a great place to grow up. And, but my dad would be very sad if I didn't tell you when I was growing up, we didn't live anywhere close to Beloit, but we would drive past the exit for it.

50:02Chef Robert Irvine:And we were going on a road trip and he would say, you know how they named that town? It's the sound a quarter makes if you accidentally drop it in the toilet. The most obscure thing that I remember from my childhood. I don't even think I've ever been to Beloit. So I apologize for people from there that are listening. But that is what my dad would say. That's the most dad story I've ever heard. Of course. And well, I won't I won't bash Beloit because my son went to college there. But yeah, like it's one of those towns that has a ton of history, but you can miss it if you don't pay attention. Yeah, that's that's weird.

50:43Chef Robert Irvine:Yeah. Lots of hidden gems like that in the Midwest in general, I think. But yeah, so I didn't grow up in an aviation family or military family. My grandpa, my dad's dad had been a lieutenant in World War Two in the Navy. And so there was a small exposure there. He passed away when I was two years old, so I don't have any memories of him. But his trunk, his like military green metal trunk with Lieutenant Kern stenciled on the end of it, was at my grandma's house growing up. And I used to open it, take out all his stuff. There were letters that he had written to my grandma. There were black and white photos from him in like the Pacific during World War II.

51:23Chef Robert Irvine:He was in the thick of it. and his uniforms were in there. And I would actually try them on and put on his spectacles and his wooden pipe was in there. And it was just like this treasure trove of what felt like adventure coming from a small town in Wisconsin. And so I think that was in the back of my mind. And fast forward to high school where I need a way to pay for college. And I'm a good student, but my parents don't have a college fund for me. I start talking to my dad about this. and he had gone to UW-Madison for a while and he had seen all of the ROTC cadets running around. He wasn't in ROTC, but he was just like familiar that it existed.

52:04Chef Robert Irvine:So we start talking about that. We end up settling that Air Force ROTC would probably be a good fit. Great scholarship opportunities. At that point, I didn't want to be a pilot, but the Air Force, I associated with this idea of exploration and adventure And it just felt like the branch that I got the most excited about. So I go off to college in Minnesota on an ROTC scholarship as a criminal justice major. Because my plan is to do four years in the Air Force after I graduate to pay back my scholarship. And then I want to be an FBI agent. That is my dream as like a 16 year old. Wow. I don't know why.

52:47Chef Robert Irvine:I always joke that I love the X-Files growing up and, you know, the most accurate representation of what FBI agents do, hunt down aliens. But there we are. That's amazing. And then halfway through college, I'm already going to commission as a lieutenant when I graduate college. We end up visiting an Air Force base and I see two fighter jets take off in full afterburner. And I am just awestruck. It is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Goosebumps, jaw dropping. And I'm like, forget the FBI. How do I go do that? And then it became my singular focus on how I can make that happen. So as much as I feel like I know about you, I never knew the how you got there.

53:34Chef Robert Irvine:That's awesome. That's awesome. So let's talk about, you know, you're enlisted. You're doing amazing things. When did you realize that you're a leader? And there's a purpose that I'm asking this question. But when did you know, when did you accept the responsibility? I'm going to ask it that way. When did you accept the responsibility that I have to lead? I have to lead people. That's such an interesting question because that's one of those titles that I always felt a lot of imposter syndrome around. And it's because I didn't stay in the Air Force long enough to be what the Air Force talks about as like leadership, like a squadron commander.

54:18Right.

54:19Chef Robert Irvine:Like I would have, I left at 13 years had I stayed in for probably two more years, I would have gotten into a position like that. But I left before that. And so I had so many moments where I was a leader, even if it wasn't at that level in that title. Right. Like I was a flight lead in formation. I was a mission commander putting 60 aircraft in the air. And I'm the one in charge of that entire thing. I go to the Thunderbirds and I'm for two years. My title is the lead solo. And so it's funny because from an outside perspective, I was leading in so many different ways. And when I was in that role, when we took off and I was the mission commander or the flight lead or the lead solo, I very much was empowered to be the decision maker, to execute as the leader.

55:11Chef Robert Irvine:but I had a harder time kind of identifying as a leader in general, right? Like when I'm not officially in that role. And I don't think it was until almost when I left the Air Force and I started to interact much more with the civilian world where people would always refer to my leadership and refer to me as a leader. And I was like, wait, is that true? Is that accurate? And now three years later, you know, writing the book, I think really solidified that for me because so much time went into thinking about the experiences in my career, pulling stories from them and being like, what wisdom is here that other people can learn from?

55:54Chef Robert Irvine:And now I'm speaking as a thought leader, which is a whole nother ball game. And so it was a bit of a circuitous route to get there. I don't feel like I commissioned into the Air Force as a lieutenant and was just like, I'm a leader now. I definitely stumbled around it for over a decade. You've been plugged into Mick unplugged. Don't just listen, take action, rate and subscribe. Follow me on social and get the full experience at Mick hunt official.com. Keep building, keep leading, and most importantly, keep dominating.