Cody Alford: What Makes a Warrior When the War Is Over?

the, you know, knowing your mission now, like, cause, cause what I hear is like, you knew what you wanted out of football.

You knew what you wanted out of the military.

Cause there's many people that have discipline, but no mission.

That's a huge and great point, right? There's a lot of people with external discipline with absolute zero internal foundation.

And I was one of those people.

When I retired from the Marine Corps back in September 2018, I lost my mission, my identity, my purpose.

I was so happy I was getting to retire.

I was super desperate at the time too.

My brain was shutting down.

I'm drooling on myself nonstop.

I was pretty tapped out.

And so I was excited for that opportunity to get to experience life.

But as soon as I picked up my retirement paperwork and I got escorted off my own compound, I instantly lost...

As quick as, even though I was looking forward to that transition, as soon as I got escorted off the compound, I was like, I am so lost.

And when I got out, I didn't know who I was, what I stood for, or what I believed in.

Those three things, I had no clue about any of them.

And I was determined to make that my mission.

If you don't have a mission, and some people, I think, take a mission and they look at it completely different.

A mission can simply be, I'm going to go through my day without having any negative self-talk.

I'm going to go through my day and before I touch my pillow, I'm going to make sure I do at least 20 push-ups.

20 push-ups.

Before I even touch that pillow, I'm going to make sure sometime in this 24-hour period, I'm going to do 20 push-ups.

That could be your mission.

Your mission is wherever your feet are at and what your mind is going through.

And I live in a really weird, unique world where It's all in my head.

the, you know, knowing your mission now, like, cause, cause what I hear is like, you knew what you wanted out of football.

You knew what you wanted out of the military.

Cause there's many people that have discipline, but no mission.

That's a huge and great point, right? There's a lot of people with external discipline with absolute zero internal foundation.

And I was one of those people.

When I retired from the Marine Corps back in September 2018, I lost my mission, my identity, my purpose.

I was so happy I was getting to retire.

I was super desperate at the time too.

My brain was shutting down.

I'm drooling on myself nonstop.

I was pretty tapped out.

And so I was excited for that opportunity to get to experience life.

But as soon as I picked up my retirement paperwork and I got escorted off my own compound, I instantly lost...

As quick as, even though I was looking forward to that transition, as soon as I got escorted off the compound, I was like, I am so lost.

And when I got out, I didn't know who I was, what I stood for, or what I believed in.

Those three things, I had no clue about any of them.

And I was determined to make that my mission.

If you don't have a mission, and some people, I think, take a mission and they look at it completely different.

A mission can simply be, I'm going to go through my day without having any negative self-talk.

I'm going to go through my day and before I touch my pillow, I'm going to make sure I do at least 20 push-ups.

20 push-ups.

Before I even touch that pillow, I'm going to make sure sometime in this 24-hour period, I'm going to do 20 push-ups.

That could be your mission.

Your mission is wherever your feet are at and what your mind is going through.

And I live in a really weird, unique world where It's all in my head.