June 2, 2024

Living the dream with athlete, author, veteran, and founder of the Impact Project Seth Gehle

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In this episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Seth Gehle, an athlete, author, veteran, and founder of the Impact Project. Seth shares his inspiring journey from a traumatic childhood to becoming a motivational speaker and author. He discusses the principles behind his Impact Project, his upcoming book "Strength Beyond the Shadows," and his dedication to helping others overcome adversity. Tune in for a powerful conversation about resilience, healing, and making a positive impact in the world.

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> Speaker A>Welcome, um, to the living the Dream podcast with curveball. Um, if you believe you can achieve Chee Chee.

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> Speaker A>Welcome to the living the Dream with curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today I am joined by athlete, author, veteran, and multifaceted individual, Seth Gale. Seth has got a book coming out here pretty soon.

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> Speaker A>He is an accomplished athlete. He's run marathons, and he's also been recognized in the construction industry. So we're going to be talking to him about his story, everything that he's up to.

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> Speaker A>Seth, you know, I'd like to thank you for your service as well, and thank you for joining us today.

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> Seth Gale>Yeah, thank you, sir. I appreciate you having me on the show. Thank you.

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> Speaker A>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Seth Gale>Well, current, uh, day, present day, like you said, I'm trying to be an athlete. I'm running some. Some ultra marathons and things like that. I do jujitsu. I'm a. I'm a husband and a father. I've got an amazing wife and two amazing little kids, soon to be six and four. And, uh, I'm writing a book right now. So my book kind of details my life story and how I overcame everything that's kind of come my way. And, um, I just started the. I'm the, uh, founder of the impact project, which is my.

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> Seth Gale>My new little project that I'm working on to create impacts for people, organizations, communities around the world, and just, you know, share my story in a way that's enlightening and inspiring for others. And so, uh, with writing the book and the public speaking, motivational speaking, that's kind of my two main focuses at the moment, so. And my book and my speaking covers my. My life story.

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> Seth Gale>Right. And I tell my stories of how, you know, the things that I endured to be who the man I am today and able to tell the stories that I'm able to today.

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> Speaker A>Okay, well, kind of tell us about your impact project. Uh, let the listeners know about that and why you decided to start it.

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> Seth Gale>Yeah. So I started the impact project because I had to determine a set of principles that I was living by, living through to. To overcome what I've overcome in life. And I had a very traumatic childhood, so we can talk about that. But the impact project stands for the six principles, which are inspiration or to inspire, which, for me, when I was in a place that I needed it, I was looking for inspiration. So I say, seek it when you need it, and then be it when you can, you know, don't ever forget where you came from. So when you get the opportunity to provide that inspiration for somebody, you should. But in your dark times, you know, you look for that inspiration in other people. The m m is the mentality portion of it. You know, there's a lot of ways you can go with mentality and life is a test and, and life is going to continue to test you before it rewards you. You know, you've, I think everybody has the two wolves inside of them where, uh, one wolf is the bad wolf, one wolf is the good wolf, and whichever one that you feed is the one that's going to win. So, so it's just controlling your mentality through the hard times and the good times. The p is the, about perseverance. It's just that constant drive, the constant fight to keep going, to keep surviving, uh uh, even in your darkest and hardest times, um, um, the a is about achieving.

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> Seth Gale>And so the big thing for me with achieving is when you do achieve and you do have your accomplishments, you, it's okay to smell the roses, it's okay to pat yourself on the back, it's okay to, to be proud and to celebrate your wins, uh uh, no matter how big or small they are. I think that nowadays we have so many people that are almost calling it a sin for you to be happy that you have achieved something or that you have accomplished something, uh, because everybody wants you to be humble. Well, I think being humble and humility is a great thing, but we shouldn't be so humble to a fault that we can't celebrate our, our victories. So that's the achieving part.

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> Seth Gale>The sea is committed. So being committed to the process, being committed to these principles of life and being committed to doing great things, it's, it's a daily task, it's, it's daily discipline.

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> Seth Gale>And that's consistency is key and that's what's going to elevate these principles and elevate your life. Uh uh, is being committed to the process. The t is just, uh, tenacity. So tenacity is, is a, is a word that has been used to describe me before as like a tenacious individual. Somebody who is unrelenting some, somebody who is fighting every day, in and out just to survive and to accomplish the task. And just that unrelenting warrior like spirit of, of knowing that you are going to go through some hardship or some sort of pain or suffering and walking into that fire and understanding it and knowing that it's okay to come out a little damaged a little beaten, but you're, you're going to still step in there and be that tenacious, you know, man or woman. So that is the impact project, that, those are the six principles. And then next year, probably I'll start kicking off some, some events, hopefully, and, uh, to try to, you know, raise money and awareness and things like that for, for my calls and what I'm doing.

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> Speaker A>Where you talked about your traumatic childhood.

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> Speaker A>So kind of take us through that and let us know how that was and how that made you who you are today.

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> Seth Gale>Yeah. So it's a very long story, so I'll try to sum it up quickly for you as much as I can, and it's very tough to hear. So, you know, when I was two years old, me and my sisters were all three born. And we were all. So we're all one year apart. My older sister's a year older, my younger sister's a year younger than me. And my mom had all three of us back to back years, um, by the time she was about 20 years old. So around one or two, she had gotten into an argument with my father and they were fighting. I don't remember this, but this is what I was told is they got into an argument, they're fighting, a knife came out, and my father stabs my mom behind the earth and nearly, uh, kills her. So after that, he goes to prison for basically my childhood. I think he goes to prison for six, seven years or so. And, uh, I grew up with a single mother at that point, so my mom was taking care of me, my two sisters by herself. And because of that, you know, she had trouble paying for things, affording bills, utilities, rent, all those things. And we would always go to different babysitters houses. We lived with a bunch of random people. We, you know, had these, this adverse childhood experience that you shouldn't have. And, uh, due to the situations of not having a father and the instability at one of the babysitters houses, when I was five years old, I was molested by their, their teenage child. So that happened. And that only happened a couple times. So I do remember reporting it, but nothing really came out of that. The kid never got in trouble for it and life would kind of continue to happen. And when I was around nine or ten years old, my mom became addicted and she became addicted to cracking cocaine and she became very abusive.

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> Seth Gale>And we were living in a bad house. We lived in this house that, you know, for example, my bedroom at ten years old, my bedroom had a hole in the ceiling that was about 4ft wide and 2ft deep. And basically was the entire corner of my ceiling was missing. And so when it would rain or snow, uh, uh, the elements would come into my room and, and I had hardwood floors and the hardwood floors in my bedroom were all cracked and split and buckled up because that's what they do when they're exposed to weather.

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> Seth Gale>So in that house, I slept on a little three four inch mattress at a thin little blanket and I wet the bed every night. Um, um, and to couple with all of that, you know, my mom, like I said, she was addicted to drugs. So like a lot of drug abusers would come in our house every single day, 10, 15, 20 people, and they would be in our house for hours getting high and uh, in the bathroom and I've seen many, many people passed out in my couch and the chairs that were just completely out of their minds.

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> Seth Gale>So around that same time, about ten years old, I ended up meeting a grown man. Um, and this group, this, this man, he was over at one of my friends houses. So for the sake of the story, I'll call this kid Jacob. This, this kid Jacob I started hanging out with. He was about five years older than me and I was hanging out with him. He was kind of taking care of me. He knew that I had a bad life at home, so he would, he would let me come over and hang out with him.

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> Seth Gale>Well, he had an older friend who was about 30 years old, and the first time I met this guy, he walks in the door, he's six'five, he's 380 pounds.

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> Seth Gale>He's this hispanic guy, um, um, but he's got real like pale skin, so you can, you can tell he's hispanic, but he just looks kind of white. And he's got this, you know, long black, slick back hair and he's just real big guy. And he walks in and he introduces himself to me and we have some, he kind of makes some commonality between the two of us off the rip, which was we both like playing video games, we both like football and pizza.

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> Seth Gale>So he invites me to come to his house to play video games. So, uh, I have to go home and ask, and ask my mom, and I tell my mom and she says, well, as long as you're with your friend Jacob, you can go to his house. So I go to his house and sure enough, we get there and there's several tvs, several game systems. And I'm thinking to myself, like, this is going to be awesome. Like we have multiple game systems, tv, like we don't have to take turns.

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> Seth Gale>You can. We can eat pizza, drink pop, energy drinks, coffee. Um, you know, there was no rules. You could do whatever you wanted. It was a great time.

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> Seth Gale>So at ten years old, I started to hang out with this man and, uh, my friend Jacob. And, and, uh, that basically began his grooming process for what would eventually take place. And that was for the next about five and a half years, he would begin to molest me, uh, basically every single weekend.

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> Seth Gale>So it starts off kind of timid and mild, and then it just escalates and escalates and gets worse and worse and worse throughout the years. So kind of to wrap it all up, when I was twelve, so this is about two years into being sexually abused and molested. Every weekend my mom, she gets arrested for stabbing her boyfriend in the bathroom over some drugs. That whole day alone is extremely traumatic and I could talk about that forever, but, you know, there was a fire in our front yard and the police show up and I see them throw my mom in the back of the car and she's taken away. And about five months later, I ended up at my grandparents house and they asked to adopt me. I said yes. So my grandparents started the adoption process with me.

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> Seth Gale>Unfortunately, my sisters decided to go back and live with my mom and, um, so, so they left and I was at my grandparents house alone. The sexual abuse and everything had continued to happen. At this point, on the weekends, I was still going to go see this man. And right around 1213 years old is when he had finally done everything that you could possibly do to somebody in regards to molestation or even just sex in general. Um, so we had partaken in every bit of it to include where he had finally raped me when I was about twelve or 13 years old.

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> Seth Gale>And, you know, that was obviously a really traumatic experience and you just, you don't know what to do with your life when you've experienced all of the abuse and drugs and violence Monday through Friday, and then on the weekends, that's happening. And then it finally happens where you get raped. And then I remember that night where I'm thinking to myself, like, my life is over. I have to kill myself.

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> Seth Gale>Um, you know, you're just, you're scared of having HIV AIDS or some sort of disease or what people are going to think about you if you tell somebody. And this all continued for a couple more years and I was about a month away from being 16 years old and I decided to report him on a weekend. I saw him starting to groom one of my younger friends that was hanging out with us, and I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't stomach the fact that I was going to sit there, let one of my younger friends get molested right in front of me.

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> Seth Gale>And so I don't know if anything ever happened to that kid, but I could see the signs. So I went home that weekend, and I reported him. And, um, you know, we got down to the hospital and they. They did, because he had raped me again and molested me that weekend.

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> Seth Gale>So we got down to the hospital to do the rape kit and all that, and the nurses were asking me if I had any.

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> Seth Gale>Any dirty laundry or any, like, clothes that I had worn to his house that I had not washed yet.

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> Seth Gale>And I remember telling the nurses, like, well, you know, he just raped me less than 12 hours ago. Like, I still have all of his DNA on my body.

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> Seth Gale>And, um, you know, they were really surprised and impressed by that, that I. That I knew to not take a shower, to not change my clothes. And so they test me. They find his DNA, and then they. They go and arrest the guy. And, um, he pleads guilty to eleven counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, and he gets ten years of, uh, prison.

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> Seth Gale>And that was back in 2011, so, uh, he would be free today. But fortunately enough, he died in prison in 2019.

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> Seth Gale>And, um, when I reported him at almost 16 years old, I kind of just moved on with my life. I didn't really. I didn't never went to therapy. I never had any sort of formal therapy. I just kind of moved on. And I had bad behaviors. I had some things that I was doing because of what had happened to me. I just didn't realize that at the time. I realize that now as a man, kind of reflecting on all of it, but at the time, I didn't realize how much it had affected me. So now, 13 years after the matter, I tell my story to, you know, kind of make an impact on people and show people that they can overcome these things.

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> Seth Gale>So, like you said, with the marathons, and I've been. I've won national construction awards, and I've been on the top of some of the. Some of the bigger companies, and I served my country for eight years, been all over the world. I've done some incredible things with my life where I never thought that I would ever do anything like this, uh, based on what had happened to me as a young man. So the. The dark days are important, but the good days are just as important to let people know that there is a. A light at the end of the tunnel, you know, there is this, um, um, this life that you can live and be happy with.

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> Speaker A>Absolutely. So tell us about your military career.

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> Seth Gale>Yeah, so I joined the army when I was fresh out of high school. I served for eight years. My first duty station was, uh, fort Stewart, Georgia, and that's where I met my wife. She was in college. Um, so, yeah, met her. She was.

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> Seth Gale>She was a, you know, she was this awesome, pretty girl that showed up one day and decided to give me a chance. And so we started dating, and, uh, yeah, it was. We kind of hit it off real quick, and we got married about six months later. And I had, you know, I'd been in the army for a few years at this point, about two or three years, and I had been all over, uh, been to Africa, been to dominican republic, kind of traveled around, and I decided to go to airborne school and go to the 82nd airborne division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And that's. That's where I spent the last three years of my career. And once again, got to travel a lot, got to go to Europe, Hawaii, um, all over the states. And then I did a combat tour to Afghanistan in 2019.

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> Seth Gale>Uh, after that, I got out because my daughter was born at that point. My son was coming along, and I just.

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> Seth Gale>I didn't want to be. I didn't want my kids to grow up without a father, whether that meant I got killed in combat or if, uh, I was just gone all the time because of the military. So I wanted to be very present in my child's life. So that was kind of my decision to get out.

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> Seth Gale>And after serving eight years, I figured I had done my time and I got my combat tour in, so I ended up getting out, you know, so I didn't have a stellar career by any means. I just had a very average military career. But it was great for me in the sense that it gave me, like, that sense of structure and stability and leadership and discipline that I so desperately needed as a, uh, as a young man.

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> Speaker A>Well, once again, thank you for your service.

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> Seth Gale>Yeah, thank you.

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> Speaker A>Tell us about your, your book that's going to be coming out and tell us where we can get it when it comes out, what we can expect to find when we read it.

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> Seth Gale>Yep. So my book, uh, it should be out later this year. It should be out hopefully by the end of the year of 2024. I'm thinking, like, probably September October timeframe. And the title is going to be strength beyond the shadows, the, uh, but you can find, you know, the. The easiest way to keep up with the book is by following me, whether it's on my website or. Or just social media.

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> Seth Gale>So, you know, I have Instagram and YouTube, and I have a website. My website is just seth gale.com. and my last name is ge hle.

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> Seth Gale>So Seth Gale.com is my website. That'll have my book information on there once I get it.

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> Seth Gale>And then Instagram is really the best way to keep up with me. And my Instagram is go beyond the shadows. Same thing with YouTube. It's go beyond the shadows. And that the book just details my life in greater, you know, greater detail, basically, and talks about more things that I went through. Uh, and then it just talks about just overcoming adversity and trauma and. And these things.

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> Seth Gale>It's, you know, I give a lot of life lessons in there and how I overcame particular situations.

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> Seth Gale>And, uh, how you can heal from these things.

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> Seth Gale>And how important it is to. To seek the healing and to seek the journey and, uh, to do the hard things, which, you know, if you go through hard times in life, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to find that healing is to look for that healing. And so that's what I try to encourage people to do in my book. So that is a, uh, that is the intent of the book, is to provide that. That strength and that healing for people who are going through traumatic situations in life.

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> Speaker A>Absolutely. You just answered one of my questions to give out your website, Seth gale.com.

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> Speaker A>tell us about any upcoming projects. And I know you kind of talked about your impact project. But anything else that listeners need to know about that you got coming up?

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> Seth Gale>Um, yeah, I've got a couple things. There's a, um, you know, if anybody wants to. To participate or order or wants to help. I am.

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> Seth Gale>I am speaking for the children's hope and healing center in Georgia. In, uh, Gainesville, Georgia. And they are just a. They are a nonprofit that helps children heal.

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> Seth Gale>And they give them free therapy for, uh, any kind of sexual trauma or abuse for, uh, the ages of three to 17. So I'll be their keynote speaker for their. For their gala, their 40th annual gala in August. That'll be August 17. And then. Yeah, so if you go to there, if you just Google children's hope and healing center, you'll find their website, um, you know, children's hope and healing center for Georgia. And then, uh, there is a link on there to.

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> Seth Gale>To, uh, donate, you know, donate to them. And that's just an organization. If. If you've heard my story and you. You feel like you've been impacted by it. Um, I would encourage you to go check out their websites or, or at least look up in your own area, you know, any kind of child advocacy programs that you can donate to. Another really good one is the Sentinel foundation. And their website is just foundation, sentinel.org. so that's another great charity. Or, uh, excuse me, not charity, but a, uh, nonprofit that focuses on saving children that are trafficked and things like that.

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> Seth Gale>So I'm, I am, uh, working on, you know, several things at the moment. Most of it is speaking engagements, speaking and motivational speaking and talking to children and police departments and hospitals and, you know, nurses and coaches, schools. Anybody who will hear my story and allow me to pour my, my little bit of wisdom that I have from the things that I've endured, you know. So that's, that's kind of what I'm doing right now.

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> Speaker A>Okay. Once again, Seth Gale.com. close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or just any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

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> Seth Gale>Yeah, uh, you know, nothing, nothing too crazy. I would just say, um, you know, if you're going through, if you're going through hard times, if you're going through life and, you know, you've got to eventually address those issues. If you don't address the problems in your life or the things that you have endured and gone through, it's like a, uh, monster that's waiting in the darkness, and it's going to wait for you to, it's going to wait for your darkest day, and it'll come out, and then it's going to take over your life. It's going to ruin your life. It's going to ruin your, you know, your family, your, your marriage, your relationship with your parents or your siblings, it will take over and win.

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> Seth Gale>So you have to get out and you have to fight that thing. And the only way to fight it is by, is to talk about it and to seek that healing. So that's my biggest message, is just to, uh, you know, focus on healing. If you've gone through hard times, if you know somebody who's going through something hard, try to give them some grace, but then also encourage them, like, they need to address that problem before it will eventually take over their life. So, you know, that's the biggest thing. Just reach out, get some help, and share your stories that somebody, somebody can heal and hear and help. You know, you can help other people just by talking.

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> Speaker A>Absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, and if you know of somebody who needs to hear this episode, please follow rate review share to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast app. Give us a review and a, uh, follow.

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> Speaker A>If you have any guests or suggestion topics, see Jackson 10 two is the place to send them.

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> Speaker A>Thank you for listening and supporting the show.

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> Speaker A>And Seth, thank you for all that you do. Thank you for your service once again, and thank you for being so brave and courageous to share your story.

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> Seth Gale>Yes, sir. Thank you. I greatly appreciate that. And like you said, if anybody needs anything, they can reach out. So, um, just sethgale.com or go beyond the shadows and on instagram. That's usually the best way to get me. So thank you, sir.

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> Speaker A>For more information on the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurvefball.com.

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> Speaker A>until next time, stay focused on living the dream.

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> Seth Gale>Dream.