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You got to be solution driven. So when I started my company, I learned a long time ago that every person who's successful wasn't just successful and it wasn't easy. It was because they responded to their failures in a positive, solution driven manner. They improvised, they adapt, they overcame to get over those issues.
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John Patricio is a resilient, disciplined and mission driven entrepreneur. US Marine veteran and the founder of Patricio Systems. Through his experience in military service and
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business leadership, he champions accountability, adaptability and results driven success. I love my country, I serve my country. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm a Marine from day one to the day I die. Yes, sir. I'm going to be the Marine for the rest of my life. I focus on what I could control and I focus on what I can do to make this world a better place.
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My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill. Join me in wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the living your legacy podcast, the Red Life edition and Friday edition and Operation CEO edition. Oh, these are my favorite episodes. Joining me today is John Patricio. Man, what a journey. How was your Friday, sir?
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Oh, my goodness. We were here last night. We got here and we came in late, had quick dinner, went straight to
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bed, and here you are.
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And here I am. Wow.
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So where are you coming from, my friend?
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Coming from California. Right on El Dorado Hills.
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Oh, beautiful. How are things back in California?
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It was a little bit cloudy and I think it might be raining, but other than that, it's not that bad. It's beautiful weather.
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Right on. John, what are we going to learn about you in your episode of Operation CEO, my friend?
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Sure. You're going to learn about me, my history, how I'm a disabled veteran, and how I started my company, what my company does. And you're also going to learn about my next adventure.
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Oh, nice. All right, so where do you want to begin your. Your adventure? I. I just picked up a couple of keywords off your story script. I saw Philippines and I've worked with amazing people from the Philippines. Beautiful culture. Apparently Gutierrez is our common last name there. This is new to me. Is that true, sir?
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Yeah. The Philippines was conquered by Spain.
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Ah.
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Therefore, they were conquered by Spain. So what they did is they had a lot of Filipinos assume Spanish names.
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Ah, so we could be long lost, distant cousins, my friend.
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Could be right.
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I got a joke. I got a laugh in the back. You're coming with a tribe here, my friend. Who are you? Who's joining us here in the audience?
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Yeah, the person that's in the audience is my really good, close friend Jay Guevara.
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Right.
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He's like a. He's. But he's closer than a brother.
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Oh, right. Right on. Dude, that's awesome.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. You almost sound like a street fighter character. Like, are you all. Yeah, it's almost like Vega.
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Here comes Jake.
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Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about these street fighter characters. Let's talk about your journey. Where, where do you begin, sir? I begin.
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First started, I'm a US Marine.
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Right on.
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I was going to be a lifer Marine. I served in the Corps and I served. When I signed for up for the Corps, I, I became, I was excited. I for sure told my recruiter I didn't want to be support. I want to be the core element. So I went in guaranteed infantry. Wow. I came in as a little kid and I graduated as a man.
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Wow. Oh, man, what a great, what a great recruiting video.
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Yeah.
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What was it about the experience? A lot of folks don't quite understand, like, the allure and the almost the romance of like coming of age story of like serving a greater good. It's. It's in books, it's in journals and movies. As a Marine, it's almost like a knight, like you are like, sir. There's like video games about you. Like, how does it feel to be like, I'm a Marine, man? There's.
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Yeah.
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America. Like, what is that energy? What does that soul like?
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Yeah. So the Marines, it's just not the military. It's a cult. If you ever talk with a marine in boot camp, they tell you, where was the Marine founded? It was founded in 1775. It's older than the United States in a bar in Tun Tavern, Pennsylvania. Right on November 10, 1775.
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Right on.
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When a Marine sees each other, it's a small organization, so we all know what we've been through.
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Wow.
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And I told my recruiter I didn't want to go in and be a cook. I didn't want to be a motor T. I wanted to go in and I wanted to go in guaranteed of a tree. And that's what I did.
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Wow.
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So when I went in, I was in charge of myself. And then I got promoted to squad leader eventually and I was in charge of the lives of 10 men. Wow. I grew up school of hard knocks.
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What was that like? Knowing that it's not just your spirit, but the spirit of nine others are 10 men in total.
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I'm sorry, the 10 men. The synergy that's there between Marines, we were greater than the sum of our parts. Of course, we know that we're not just 10 men. We are a Marine Corps squad. And we learned in the Corps, if you have a mission, you got to improvise, adapt, overcome to accomplish that mission. If you don't, then you're just doing your job.
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Yeah.
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You're living the life. You're doing what you need to do. And it's the Oorah spirit. And it's kind of like. You know that movie 300?
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Oh, I was just starting to bring that up. Yes, sir.
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That's exactly what it is.
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Of course, there.
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The energy's there, and it's like, marines, let's go get that job done. And you get that job done.
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Being the Marine Corps, it's just like, so visually, it's so visceral. It's just like in your face, which is why it's so romanticized and movies and. Well, even though it's. That happened in real life. But Zack Snyder just took it and elevated it. And this, like, Michael Bay loves the Marines, loves the army, loves these giant billion dollar toys. These, these toys of destruction. But it's like at the end of the. Of that dopamine is the other word destruction. What is it like being designed for destruction?
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That's a good question. In the Marine Corps, what you learn is kill, kill, kill. Enemy is bad. You're good.
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You sound like me this morning in traffic. I am not lying. What is that like? Sorry for interrupting because it was just like, wow. It's just like a rhythm. Like you're pounding the heart of the, of the human soul, going, be fruitful and enjoy and speak to animals. And you're going, no, no, no. Kill, kill, kill. What's that like?
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It's what makes the Marine Corps successful.
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It's like that one cop. It's like we. We shot that dude 64 times. Why'd you stop? We ran out of bullets. Wow. When he said that. But what, but what he did was he slaughtered, like, officers. He really went for. He really went for the pain of the police officer. So what is it like messing with a Marine? Like, like these giant ships and this, like, this aura of like. But it's protection and you just feel it in the frequency of, like, being around a Marine, like, being around you, sir, you are optimized. I see Robocop. I see like the future. You're in a wheelchair. Haha. You can just, I can load you into a tank now. Like, you're the future, my friend. Have you even thought about that ascension of what you can do now?
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I did. Made me who I am. Yeah, for sure. But when you see, when you're in combat and you see a fallen enemy. Oh yeah, initially you thought he was evil. That's a human being. And then you're humbled. Yes, sir. That's what changed me. It made me realize what I wanted to do is it just made me realize that that's somebody's son. Yeah. Maybe somebody's husband. I never had a beef with that person. That person. If I saw that person on the streets, I would have nod, shook his hand, said, hey, how you doing, buddy? But his people had an issue with my people and therefore we got in contact. And it really. There was a time where I was thinking I was a bad person until I met a gentleman named Marvin Findon who changed my life. And I was telling him that I felt like I was a bad person for what I did when I was over there, of course, and people were saying you were following orders. That didn't help me. I still feel like a bad person. But he said, john, stop, stop. Just stop, just stop. Think about this. Because you feel the way you did when you were over there and you have remorse, that means you're good. Yeah, I stopped. Pride gave him a big hug and I said, thank you. And I realized that my 8 year old self and my 1008 year old self are proud of me again.
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Yeah. Isn't that beautiful?
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And I said, from this day forward, I'm gonna live the best life I can.
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That's beautiful. It's funny because what you just said is essentially entering into Eden, into, into euphoria, where it's just like the euphoria flow state where everyone, like there's monks right now sitting on some hill, going for like 30 years just to change the frequency of their heart rhythm so they can get closer to God. So what you just experienced was kind of like they're still good in him. You hear that little, that little message in movies, Darth Vader, they're still good in him. And it's just like, you understand, like the adversary, there's a protagonist, an antagonist to every story. And like you're kind of indoctrinated to understand are you the protagonist or the antagonist of this reality with that heart of the Soul of silver human being that the exterior still needs to operate. You're red, I'm blue. We have to oppose each other because it's in our nature to do the tribal thing. You're a Maya, you're an Aztec, you're a Martian, you're an Earthling. And so what happened? Now we're all alone and we won all the battles and look up at the stars and go, wow. We've been on this Earth, cycling around, and we used to look up at the stars and go, remember when we used to travel to Mars and there was another city there millennia ago? And now we're here on Earth going, a Marine designed by stars, by power, by art, by literature. And you're like, what is that for you today?
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For me today, after I got out of the core, well, while I was still in the core, I had a fungal infection in my brain, fungal meningitis. And had to go through six brain surgeries. Wow. And almost didn't make it. While I was in the Corps and I had fungal meningitis. I got antifungals and I got better. The Marine Corps said, you're non deployable because anti. Because fungal meningitis is chronic. You're going to have it for the rest of your life. And if you relapse, when you relapse and you're in a combat zone, you're going to put yourself and your Marines in danger. So we're going to process you out for medical board.
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Just like that.
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I had to think, okay, what am I going to do with my life? So I got out and I was healthy. But I was a disabled vet with a chronic infection.
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Yes, sir.
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Marine Corps was right. In 1995, I relapsed and had six brain surgeries.
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It's that year again. Keeps popping up in stories. 95. Keeps popping up.
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The last couple weeks, 1998.
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98 too.
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Had a spinal cord surgery.
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Wow.
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And after that, I lived a normal, healthy life for 20 years, just like I was healthy. I studied in Jiu Jitsu. I did Krav Maga. I made it up Half Dome. And I kept myself in shape. I ran. But then in 2018, I had issues walking. Wow. I relapsed again and found out that there was scar tissue that blocked that shunt. I downgraded and eventually, in October 2021, I became a paraplegic. Wow. First year was very tough. I was this close to being a veteran suicide statistic. Did a lot of reading. I said, I got to get out of this rut. I needed to improvise, adapt and overcome. Not the mission of the Marine Corps, but the mission of life. And that's what I did. So I came up with a quote to myself that helped me get out of this rut. And it goes like this. You are not a result of what happens to you. You're a result of how you respond to what happens to you. Since you could control your response, you could control your result. So that's what I'm doing. And that's what I did. I controlled my result. And I said, you know what, let me figure this out. So I started my company, Patricio Systems llc.
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Right on.
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And what we do is we do project management, information technology, staffing and staff augmentation. We've been very successful. We're a disabled, veteran owned company and we're a government contractor.
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Beautiful.
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But we know that the government is changing. We know that the world's changing. And with this new AI world, we're looking to pivot and change our strategy so we could help our agencies do better things by offering information technology and AI solutions.
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Yes, sir. I went on this rant at this AI meetup about folks that are disabled. It's interesting. I almost feel like it's rude. You're not disabled to me. You're just magnified. It's just a little bizarre. I'm like, I'm sorry to have to use these terms. I'm like, dude, to me you're just John, what's up, John? But I went on this rant going, now John can do whatever he wants. He can be a rock God, he can fly in a ship because he can just prompt it. And since we live in the world of optics, of social media, it's essentially we're walking around this, this storybook and we're flipping through the pages of social media and we land on John. John can be now sitting at some amazing office desk in Mars. No one needs to do any of this. It doesn't matter. And it's just like, because of AI, like, you can create these marketing tools and all these fun videos just to create your funnels and your sales. And like, without the using the D word, it's just an enhancement. But back to what you're doing. It's like, it's just, it's just a good, it's a great story for Operation CEO because there's so many peaks and valleys. And the reason why we lean so hard into Operation CEO because of the core of what it takes to be an entrepreneur and CEO is something that is magnified daily in the culture of a Marine.
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Exactly.
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And like folks are paying tremendous amounts of money to sit in a room with like minded folks and then be like zapped with the truth and then walk on coals and then they somehow have to go. Now I'm a Marine and I have to run a company. Like, yeah, dude, this is the way it works. You should have been a Marine back when you were 14, because you could have. This is not role reverse. Hello. So how do you use that energy now? And like, gosh. Because it's such. You're priceless, sir. Like you have gone up and down and you. You. Yeah, you and I are survivors, you know, and. But now we're empowered. We're sitting in the red life. And now you are ascending.
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Yeah.
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How do you use that frequency now? And how are you helping your tribe ascend?
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Sure. The frequency. You gotta be solution driven. So when I started my company, I learned a long time ago that every person who's successful wasn't just successful. And it wasn't easy. It was because they responded to their failures in a positive, solution driven manner. They improvised, they adapt, they overcame to get over those issues. So with Patricio Systems, there was times where I wanted to fail, where I don't. Excuse me. It was Patricio Systems. There was times where I could have failed, sure. And there was times where I did fail. But I didn't let that stop me. I was looking for, what's the mission, what I need to do to accomplish the mission. And that's what I did. So Patricio Systems is a very successful company. We've hired friends. I hired a good buddy of mine, he's helping take the company. But with that, in the middle of that, I started having issues with the walking. Then I went to the VA before that, I didn't go to the VA that much. And when I went to the VA I realized how well the VA took care of my brothers and sisters. The VA does so much good, but only the bad is remembered.
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Oh, yeah.
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Let's say you're at home and the lights go off for five minutes, they're annoyed. Then two days later they go off for 10 minutes, you're more annoyed. Then three weeks later, they go off for half an hour. What do you think in your head? Lights are always off. You do the math. They're always on. You just remember when they were off.
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Of course.
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Same thing with the VA The VA is not doing a good job. The VA does so much good. So when my legs were quitting on Me, I went to the spinal cord injury clinic in Palo Alto and I saw so many veterans that were happy being taken care of. That didn't make news, but when the VA does something wrong, that makes news. And I said, I want to pay it forward. I ran into the spinal cord injury clinic. I ran into the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Those guys changed my life. So I'm parent, I'm taking it forward. And I started a non profit called Improvise, Adapt, Overcome Wow. Foundation. Wow. I wrote a book on the story of my life called Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. It talks about my PTSD from Desert Storm. I served in Desert Storm, and it also talks about my issues with my brain surgeries. It talks about me surviving and becoming a paraplegic. Improvising, adapting and overcoming to being the better person than what I am. Wow. So I'm really proud of the book and I'm really proud of the foundation, and I'm looking to make a big impact on this world.
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That's amazing. Like, I'm just like, glossed over, like, wow. Because when you mentioned Desert Storm, Desert Storm was the war that I watched on television. It was like, oh, that was my first televised war. Little did I know that was going to prepare me for what I was about to see on television September 11th. There was this, like, this, like, all right, kid, here are the 90s, but we're going to start off with Desert Storm. And here's a cool hip hop song. Desert Desert. Desert Storm. It was like, do you remember that jam?
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I do, yeah.
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This is really bad. Like, the 90s were fun in Miami. And then here you are, sir. I'm just like, you said those words, like, Desert Storm. Like, that's the first war I saw on television. Clearly it has evolved and has become far more visceral. And we've had different presidents, right? I. We are in Florida, sir, and. But I was born and raised in Miami and I always liked the thing, like, to pound my chest and go, well, my life didn't quite really start until I moved to the Bay Area. Or like, I may have been born in Miami, but the soul was, like, in the Bay Area. So when you said Palo Alto and veterans, I'm like, well, of course there's genius at work there. There's. There's something beyond happening there. The water tastes a little different there. And so the weather's fantastic. How do you talk. How do you talk to folks today that are looking on television and then they're going, well, you feel it in the air. There's war among us. We need a wartime president. Like as a Marine, what is your perspective of what's happening on the feedback
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with what's going on today?
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Yes, sir.
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Political world.
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Yeah. As it's just like you pick up the phone, it's just this negativity of energy. It's just like, it's like Team America. Yeah. But it's like really, dude? Like, can we just kumbaya a little bit?
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You know, there's a thing here. So in the Marine Corps and I've served in the war, I was with Weapons Co. 1181 Splatoon. We're basically the sacrificial lamb that was supposed to go in and annihilated, but we didn't. We did a bang up job. When I looked at the flag and I see it, I say that's my flag. But then when I see all, but then when I see all the negative stuff and all the things that are going on and I see that flag on a truck and I go, you know, that's my flag too.
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Yeah.
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That's not their flag. It's my flag. It's our flag.
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Yes, sir.
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I love my country, I serve my country. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm a Marine from day one to the day I die, I'm going to be the Marine for the rest of my life. When I see all the negativity and all the things that are going on, I don't focus on that. I focus on what I could control and I focus on what I can do to make this world a better place. Improvise, adapt, overcome is going to make this world a better place. And I'm going to do that by helping veterans, showing veterans and other people with mobility issues what's available to them. When I became a para, I thought life was over. I didn't realize life just began. There's so many things you can do. Oh yeah. I went the va. I went to the VA and they introduced me to a occupational therapist. We know what those do. They introduced me to a physical therapist. We know what they do. And then they introduced me to a recreational therapist.
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Right on.
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And that person showed me how to get outside, do things with other veterans. I went to Aspen in Snowmass and I skied downhill in a modified chair.
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Nice.
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I went to the golf clinic and I golfed in a stand up chair.
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Yeah, they loaded you in.
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I ran into a 23 year old Marine named Brittany. Her back was blown up in Afghanistan and she was walking. She was a paraplegic, but she was walk in an exoskeleton and I said what the hell is that? How do I get in one of those?
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Yeah, how do I get one of those?
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She told me what I needed to do. I'm going to graduate that program next month.
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Nice, dude.
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I'm going to walk.
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Nice. Oh, dude, I better see you here for the sequel, man.
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That's my plan, baby.
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Right on, brother. Dude. Well, such a pleasure to serve you, my friend. Thank you. Th man, you're going to have such a joy working with lolo and it's been such a joy and a pleasure working with you today.
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Awesome.
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The least we can do is to be here for you, man. We are in your reality. You are the main character. I'm looking forward to. Yeah, my friend. This is operation CEO. Let me make sure John Patricio, Ray Gutierrez. And we are inside. Success. Happy Friday.
In this inspiring episode, host Rudy Mawer (“The Man in Red”) sits down with John Patricio, a US Marine veteran and founder of Patricio Systems. The conversation explores John’s journey from a mission-driven Marine to a successful, disabled veteran entrepreneur. John opens up about surviving severe medical adversity, overcoming paraplegia, and his mission to empower veterans and all people with mobility limitations. The discussion is rich with honest reflections on leadership, resilience, and redefining success—making this a must-listen for entrepreneurs and anyone facing difficult odds.
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This episode not only inspires fellow entrepreneurs and veterans but resonates universally with anyone overcoming adversity and striving to make a positive impact.