Resilience and leadership training

The story of Purple Heart Consulting begins in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, where Dr. David Andrews served as a special operations medical officer and combat advisor before being badly wounded-in-action on his fourth combat deployment. As for many other WWs, the medical evacuation (medevac) flight for David was one of the longest, loneliest moments in his life – a journey filled with anxiety over the extent of his injuries and, worse, unanswerable questions about how he would provide for his single-income family of six. The medevac flight started a long and difficult road to recovery and self-discovery of life after injury; life with permanent disability that meant he could no longer serve on active duty. Yet, disability does not mean inability, and David – with the help of his wife, children, and amazing friends and supporters – began to rebuild his life: “relearning how to learn” and redeveloping a sense of hope and purpose. Hired as an Intelligence Officer for a national intelligence agency, David began noticing that his perspective on life and leadership had fundamentally altered due to his injuries. There was a new sense of fostering camaraderie and shared purpose; a newfound ability to articulate a shared vision for team success that galvanized the people around him. Make no mistake: this was not others being nice out of sympathy or acknowledgement of David’s sacrifices. This was something different where David’s ability to share his personal narrative of resilience and perseverance through injury imbued others with a sense that they too could overcome personal and professional challenges. David’s newfound leadership ability was so profound, so moving and effective, that within four years of his new career, David was named as the 2015 Secretary of Defense’s Outstanding Civilian Employee with a Disability. Why? How?