Medal of Honor Recipient Kyle Carpenter on the Stoic Virtue of Courage | Daily Stoic Podcast

The gist

1. Carpenter had 40 to 50 surgeries over three years, and he says the harder courage was in the daily grind of recovery, not the five-second decision.
2. He used a staircase method: sit up, hang feet off the edge, stand, step, walk, run, turning each small win into proof the next was possible.
3. Carpenter noticed that in hospital, attitude separated those who progressed from those who stagnated, regardless of how severe their injuries were.
4. Drawing on Epictetus, he says every setback has two handles and the one you grab shapes your entire path through it.