Vanilla SEALs vs DEVGRU: What's ACTUALLY The Difference

About this video

Ritland’s guest, a former Navy SEAL, recounts his career trajectory from augmenting with DEVGRU to working at Goldman Sachs, experiencing severe mental health struggles including suicidal ideation, and ultimately founding the SEAL Future Foundation. The guest describes how financial success left him feeling dead inside, leading to anxiety attacks and dark thoughts, before finding help through psychedelic-assisted therapy and dedicating himself to veteran mental health advocacy.

Key takeaways

• The guest describes augmentations as temporary deployments where regular SEALs support DEVGRU, gaining exposure to elite unit operations and potentially earning consideration for Green Team selection.
• According to the guest, despite achieving apparent success at Goldman Sachs, he experienced severe depression, suicidal ideation, and anxiety attacks, which he attributes to being disconnected from meaningful work.
• The guest recounts founding the SEAL Future Foundation to address transition challenges and veteran suicide, later exploring psychedelic-assisted therapy after witnessing its transformative effects on fellow veteran Will Chesney.

Episode details: published September 6, 2026 · 69.9K views · 24:58 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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