How Working in a Special Forces Environment Changed Me | My Military Story

In this episode of Unapologetically Wild, I continue sharing my military journey and the experiences that shaped me into the woman, leader and coach I am today.

From travelling overseas and working within an elite Special Forces environment to navigating the challenges of leadership, deployment and personal growth, this chapter of my story is one filled with lessons in resilience, trust and self-discovery.

I open up about the highs and lows of military life, the moments that challenged me, and the experiences that taught me the importance of vulnerability, teamwork and backing yourself even when things feel uncertain. Looking back, I can see how many of these lessons continue to influence the way I lead, coach and show up in the world today.

This episode is a reminder that growth rarely happens inside our comfort zone. Sometimes the most challenging experiences become the very things that shape our confidence, strengthen our character and prepare us for what comes next.

In This Episode We Discuss:

•  My experiences working within a Special Forces environment 
•  The realities of military life behind the scenes 
•  Leadership lessons that continue to influence my life today 
•  Building resilience through challenge and uncertainty 
•  The journey of becoming a Physical Training Instructor (PTI) 
•  Why vulnerability creates stronger leaders and stronger teams 
•  Learning to trust yourself under pressure 
•  The power of perseverance when pursuing a goal 

Key Takeaway

Growth doesn't come from having everything figured out. It comes from continuing to move forward, learning through every experience, and allowing both the wins and challenges to shape who you're becoming.

About Kadi

Meet Kadi Sonntag, the unapologetically wild woman leading the charge on living life boldly and breaking free from the limits society tries to set. Born in Maitland in 1992 and raised in Newcastle, Kadi’s love for sports (anything but school!) started early.

From swimming at a national level to competing in high jump at nationals and playing representative basketball, Kadi was always moving, growing, and pushing herself. In high school, she was the sports and school captain, proving leadership comes naturally.

At 19, Kadi took a leap and joined the army, starting as an admin clerk and eventually becoming an army physical training instructor in 2019. She’s served on peacekeeping missions in the Middle East, taken part in exercises in Asia, and now holds the rank of sergeant. Talk about resilience!

When she’s not leading in the military, Kadi’s got her sidekick—her dog Piper—and she’s all about empowering women to tap into their inner strength, unleash their wildest selves, and live unapologetically. Whether she’s playing for the Defence National Basketball Team or sharing her journey on Unapologetically Wild, Kadi is here to help women break free, find their power, and live on their own terms.

Connect with Kadi: @kadi_sonntag

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Unapologetically Wild with Katie Sontag. I'm Katie, a woman's empowerment coach, healer, and your guide to embracing your most powerful, authentic, and unapologetically wild self. As a sergeant and physical training instructor in the military, I've spent over a decade thriving in a male-dominated industry, pushing boundaries and helping people discover their inner strength. Beyond that, I'm a certified success in life coach, Reiki and Lightcoat healer, and NLP practitioner. I'm also a proud dog mum of my big fur baby Piper, who reminds me daily to stay present and playful. Oh. And when I'm happy, you'll find me dancing like nobody's watching. Yes, I'm spiritual and bring a little bit of magic to everything that I do. This podcast is for high achieving women ready to break free from social norms, reconnect to their strength and sensuality, and own their unique essence. Here we'll dive into topics that are often considered taboo, share personal stories and life lessons, and host empowering conversations with incredible guest speakers, all while keeping it real, raw, and relatable. Let's get wild. Tap into your feminine power and unapologetically lead your life on your terms. Hello, hello! Welcome back to Unapologetically Mild with Me, Katie Suntag. Now, I am continuing the series. If you haven't already listened to it, go back and listen to the first part of my series. This is the series about my military career. It was asked by a beautiful person, beautiful lady. She wanted me to share my career, and I got this incredible message from her thanking me for being so real about my uh my career, really, and about everything that I've journeyed. And I'm gonna let you know that it was very draining. My first episode, reliving something that I haven't relived, that holds a lot of emotion, a lot of different phases that I move through, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt. One, it's beautiful that I got to release all of those things and share with you the truth of my experience. And two, I am grateful for this beautiful woman for opening this up for me so that I get to also go back and understand sort of what it what needs to be released. And I think this is the beautiful thing is sometimes when we we don't go back and then we do, it kind of can allow us to move anything that's been sitting there holding us back. And it can allow us to see patterns, it can allow us to acknowledge what we've been through in our life and be so proud of where we are today. And as I continue this series, I hope you get to experience and witness how my career grew and also how I grew to be here from my career. So I'm so grateful and I'm going to just continue on. I had actually a beautiful soul tell me that it probably would have been easier if I had just literally done this episode for a few hours, but I'm actually really grateful that I'm doing it in pieces. One, because I get to process each piece. Two, it was actually kind of wild, and I want to share this experience with when I finished the episode and I had a few things I needed to do. I wanted to go grocery shopping, and knowing that when I move through things, it can take energy and emotion and all of these pieces, right? And I felt really heightened going to the shopping center to the point where I had so much sensory input that holding a bag was really annoying and it was on my hair. I was like feeling all these things and I was getting frustrated with it. I had to like stop myself to slow down and walk slower, one of the tools that I use and breathe. So when you're simply feeling overwhelmed and there's a lot going on and you're emotionally processing things, and then you're trying to go out and do mundane tasks, it can be quite hard. And I wanted share this with you because I think it's really important to understand that as you move through what you're learning and growing through, and you know, maybe it's traumatic, maybe it's not, maybe it's just got different feelings and things attached, and you're going back to into that old woman of who she was, who I was in that time, uh, it can be quite confronting. And I was walking through and I'd slowed down and I breathed, and then you won't believe it, but I was walking to get on an escalator, and there was green slime on the floor, like someone had dropped green slime, and quite hilariously, I slipped. And obviously, I'm so lucky and grateful. I'm very strong. My body is very robust, and I did not hurt myself one bit. But it was so interesting because someone had yelled at, Oh my god, are you okay? And I'm in a shopping centre. You can imagine how embarrassing that is, just in general. I mean, anyone who falls over, and I'm in white pants, falling on green slime. Perfect outfit to be wearing. And all of a sudden I was like, no, I'm fine, had a little giggle, stood up and just slowly walked onto the escalator. And I saw this man behind me once I sort of gathered myself. He was moving the slime like with his foot. He was trying to like get it out of the way. He didn't have any paper towel or anything by the sounds. Well, he didn't look like he did, and he was kind of trying to make it better. And I was so grateful in that moment because even though I'd fallen over and I'd had, you know, all this processing that I knew was happening, and I could just appreciate the fact that that moved really quickly. So years ago, that would have taken me days and weeks to process. And I, although, you know, ideally would have stayed home and not like not been out processing it, I could actually still do tasks, process through the emotion. And I then went to a networking event that night. So it's actually insane to see the growth of how that one little thing of emotional processing that would have taken months, weeks, fucking ages to process before. I could still do tasks. Yes, it was, you know, not ideal and falling over is not really what you want to do, but I could laugh it off, move forward, keep going, and stay in the present moment. And I think that's just a really beautiful gift that I wanted to share with you because life doesn't have to be perfect and it's actually beautiful in the mess. And the mess sometimes is sharing about your past. And yeah, that's how we're gonna start today. So I'm grateful that I get to share that with you and let you know that it's totally okay to be in the mess and to allow the processing to happen and however long it takes you is totally fine and totally normal. And though you can actually improve that processing time so that you can still move through life powerfully and fall on your butt. So I wanted to share that and I'm gonna pick up from Malaysia. I didn't really actually write down where I was at, but uh, from what I remember, I was, you know, I got to become a pay clerk and it was kind of nearing the end of, you know, 2015 is sort of where I think we got to. And I deployed to Malaysia and I talked about that experience. And then after that, I was actually super lucky and I I got posted to a special forces unit. And this was probably one of them, well, this was one of the most incredible postings of my career. I got to be a clerk in a special forces unit in a unit where they look at, you know, selection and high performance. And it's actually quite fitting that I'm talking about this today because last night I just did a presentation for the reserves on high performance in in So Command. So of course we're talking about this right now, and it was really beautiful to get this posting was an incredible achievement. Uh, they don't, you know, it's it's a real honor to work with the best of the best. And I got to really learn a lot about myself in this process because as I was there, I was training to become a PT. And I think there's something really beautiful when you're around people who are high performing because they are so much looking at the goal that they're going for that they want you to come to. And I find this in life when people have really have got something that they truly want to go after, then they aren't looking at the shortfalls or they're not picking at people. They're literally looking at like, how do we get there? And then how do you get there? We all get to win. And I think this is really beautiful. And my experience in that community was I was very lucky. I was very good at my job, and that was rewarded. And I think that's a really interesting thing. And a lot of the time, why when people get posted to those special units, it's really hard to leave and go back to regular army because because they're so high performing and you get so many opportunities, uh it's really, really hard to go back. It's just such a different world that you can't, I can't even really explain it to you. And obviously you're assisting them. So you're not, you're not special forces, you're you're a contributing factor to their job. Like you're an admin person that does admin so that they can do their job more effectively, right? Like that is, you're assisting them. And I was so lucky in this posting. I feel like I had when I first posted in incredible leadership at a female uh senior chief clerk at the time, and she was really, really powerful, uh, a beautiful role model in the fact that we all help each other to meet a common goal. And I felt very blessed in that because there was a time when I got really overwhelmed. And I remember walking in and saying, like, this is all too much for me. Uh, there's a lot going on. You know, I had a really big job. I was the selection wing clerk. So I was helping the woe that I was with with the applications for selection. So we'd read over them, we'd put them in, you know, different mailboxes, all the things, right? And then get them ready so he could make his assessment and do what he needed to do with them. And it was, you know, you're flying all around Australia to do these so they could do the talks. And I was, you know, organizing the travel and all these different things, the admin in the back end. And so it's really cool to be able to see this side of defense that not everyone gets to see. And I was so lucky that I got to support this and the experiences of going over to Perth and watching the selection and, you know, only parts. Obviously, we don't get let into everything, of course. It's very um secret and specialized. And then also being able to do that in um Sydney was such an honour and a privilege to the point where I got to, you know, assist in selection in Sydney and I got to run a punishment pit. So the men, you know, wanted to see how men would react to a woman telling them what to do. And I think it's really powerful when a man or men in such a high-performing space, because they knew I wanted to be a PT and I was already a CFL. They wanted to put me in a position where I was very well looked after. Um, there was a man behind me making sure I would be safe and also seeing what was going on and how they would react. And, you know, obviously there was lots of other people around, and but they trusted me to do something that gave them an edge to find out something about the people that they were bringing into their organization. And I had so many of these opportunities. I just feel so blessed. I got to, uh, it was really, really beautiful. I got to also be a part of this incredible program. And I've talked about this before, where they had um special forces mentors for AIS athletes. And it was incredible because, you know, all the other mentors were special forces. And then the guys that worked with me were like, we want you to be a mentor. And I was like, well, that doesn't really make any sense. Because if why would you want me to be a mentor? I'm not special forces. And, you know, that's the whole draw card of these AIS people. They're coming for this experience of this day where they get to learn leadership and communication and all of these incredible high-performing skills to be a team. And a lot of them were in individual sports, you know, winter sports, you know, looking to go to the Olympics. These were very incredible young people. And so it was an incredibly put together day, but they trusted me and they gave me the opportunity to be a mentor. I remember when I first met my group, I first thing I said, you know, having imposter syndrome was, I am not special forces, I'm an admin, I am your mentor. So I just want to be very clear that I'm not a special forces operator, but I've been given the opportunity to lead you. And I felt very like, I was very self-conscious. I remember, you know, all the other mentors didn't speak to me. They looked over and they were like, oh my God, why is she here? Especially because I normally used to being in this administration role. And I remember, you know, being like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And the first activity when we went out, I was like, okay, here we go. Like, so nervous, right? Like everything's going through my head. I'm trying to pay attention, I'm trying to do all the things. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like, how do I even do this? And I remember I got an instruction wrong and I gave it wrong to the group. And we got into the huddle afterwards, and I was like, oh my gosh, I thought, why did they want me to do this? And they were saying to me, like, trust us. We we've done this for a reason. We know you're gonna be really good at it. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna trust you. And there's something to that as well, to be around people who tr who see you, and then they they give you an opportunity and they trust you. And it's like you believe in yourself because they believe in you. And anyone who's experienced that in a high-performing team is that's such a privilege uh and such a it's just so amazing to have that feeling. So, you know, I was like, okay, guys, we got in the huddle and obviously everyone's a bit upset. We've lost the first activity. And I was like, look, I want to be truly honest before we get into this powwow. I misled you, and I was the one who got the instruction wrong, and that is my fault, and that is why we failed the mission today. Now let's talk about how we can move forward. Obviously, next time I will make sure that I get my instructions correctly and I give them to you correctly. And I remember even in that moment, just me admitting and being vulnerable and sharing, everyone in the group relaxed and they were all all of a sudden very constructive, very open with their feedback about how they felt. And, you know, I was like, I was nervous and all the things. And they, you know, everyone started to be beautifully constructive and vulnerable and open up and share and look at ways that we could communicate and be better in the next one. And one of the most incredible things, and I'll never forget it, was that throughout the rest of the day, we started winning and we ended up winning the whole day. Now it's wild to me because I wasn't the most experienced, I wasn't the best leader, I wasn't, you know, the one who was a special forces trained person. But the men that did this program saw something in me that was the ability to allow these people to lead and to be led in a way that was really powerful. And I remember sitting there at the end and they had to give a speech on their day. And oh my gosh, there was this incredible young man who got up and he gave this speech. And I'm sitting at the back of the room, you know, and he's like thanking me and saying I was one of the greatest mentors, and it was just the most incredible thing. And I'm like trying not to cry, like every part of me, even right now, like I can see it, I can see him standing on the stage, can see me sitting in the chair, and then one of the men come over to me who obviously gave me this incredible experience, and you know, put his hand on on my shoulder and was like, Do you get it now? Like, do you see it? And I think this can be the flip side, right? The incredible opportunities where people see your potential, especially in a time where I was trying to see my own potential to make it to become a physical training instructor, and I've been failing for years. And it was such an honor. Like, I don't think I'll ever have that experience again to that level. Well, maybe I will, but it was a really beautiful part where then all the mentors came to speak to me, of course. And I think sometimes we underestimate our abilities, and to have people in your corner like that and to be in really high-performing supportive environments makes a huge difference to your life and how you show up as a person. And I remember even training there, like I was, you know, working, still doing admin, obviously had a different chain of command come in. And that was that was a bit of a shake up for my administration chain of command. Um, the chain of command that were, you know, the hire-ups were amazing. And I was so lucky and fortunate to have these incredible men who already knew me who supported me in my training. And some of them would come and do, you know, circuits if I needed to work on running lessons. Um, and it was just incredible to see that they would try and help me get out so I could go and run more lessons or I could go and train and try different things. And I remember even myself seeking to go and see a sports psychologist, right? Like it was a time where I was like, I know my mindset is my biggest thing that's holding me back. And I learned this through being around these high-performing people in a high-performing team, looking for things that they wanted in a high-performing people, right? To be in the their association. And they're next to them when they lead. And I just felt really grateful in this time because it was really a time where I got to flourish and yeah, learn a lot about a side of that I didn't really know. And I also even got the opportunity to deploy and, you know, be in Dubai for five and a half months to support them administratively, to send them overseas or whatever they needed, you know, accommodation, all the different things, right? And that was incredible too, because, you know, again, being able to see how far you've come and how much you can, you know, look after yourself and do things and honor yourself. It was just so incredible. And this part of my career was really amazing. And, you know, there were also parts where sometimes you definitely knew that you weren't, you know, obviously you're definitely not part of the team as well. You know, there are times when you're part of the team, and there's times when you're definitely not part of the team. And I think that's that's sort of part and parcel of the fact that you are never going to be an operator unless you decide to go and do that. And I think there's there's that's everyone's journey, and also you were definitely support staff. And so I think sometimes it was a bit of a kick in the teeth, and then other times they'd nominate you for some award that you didn't even know about, and you ended up like coming second out of all of Australia. Like I was so fortunate to work with these incredible people that saw my potential and helped me move forward. And I honestly think that the beauty of the military are there's so many postings that give you so much. And I was doing a lot of work, and at the same time, you know, going through my own mental battles, trying to change careers, trying to battle with work and trying to work out what that all looked like, even if I wanted to stay in the military. And the only way I knew I was going to stay after this posting was to go to be a PTI. I remember I even got offered my dream posting of Perth to stay in the SF community, but I knew that it was a moment pivotal. If I didn't go after my dream of being a PT, I would be stuck in admin again. And I didn't want that. And so I didn't want to stay in that in my career. So I made a decision that I was going to do it by the end of that posting. And I was in the perfect environment. If anyone, if there was any time I was going to get this done, it was now. And I felt so lucky that I got there and I finally passed my fitness test. You don't know how many times I did that bloody fitness test. And I remember one of the, you know, woe woe she would stand out there and watch me with her arms crossed. She just scared the crap out of me. For good reason. I mean, she wasn't meant to be there to be my buddy, but she would be the one recommending me to become part of her trade. And I remember that being such a scary process, but such a pivotal time for resilience and you know, failing and then going again and failing and going again. And I actually really respect the fact that it was quite intimidating because then when I went down on course, you know, it was. Like there were people out there, of course, to intimidate you. That was kind of the thing. And I think my experience through that made it easier for when I did go down on course because I wasn't confronted by having someone staring down at me, you know, making me feel small, so that I could then make myself feel bigger. And I think that's a really interesting piece. Army talks a lot about, you know, bringing people down so they can rebuild them. And I think there's there's some beauty in that. And I think in change, we all get pulled down to a degree. And we have to rebuild. It's almost like rebuilding the foundation so that we can hold the capacity for that next level. It's the same with this. And yeah, it was actually crazy because you're gonna like I ended up getting a virus, which I had no idea about. We were going to the doc, and they're like, you know, here's some uh antibiotics. Uh and then we'll do everything but beat a virus. And I was like, oh, I don't have a virus, ridiculous. Anyway, I get down on PT course and I can barely do, I remember I tried to go to the gym before I went down there, and I could like I was dizzy and I couldn't function and I could barely do any workout, let alone anything else. And of course, you're never going to tell them it took me seven years to get to this point. Like I'm never gonna tell them on the first day that I feel unwell. And they ask you, you know, it's the same old, same old. Um, and it's wild when you kind of get into PT and people don't tell you that they're well and then they go down, it's obviously not ideal. Um, but I watched this happen so many times, right? In in the system, it's so wild that we conceal everything because it could mean that we don't get somewhere or it could mean that it ends our career. It's actually a really interesting piece. I remember even when it came to going and seeing a psychologist, um, even later in my career, I wouldn't tell them why I was going to see that person because I knew that if it if they deemed it being something that could affect my job, then I would have to step back from my job. And then maybe that would mean that I don't get promoted. And that's a pretty wild thing to think. And a lot of women I've spoken to also have this feeling when they have children because you know they go and have a child and then you know, obviously their career's put on hold. And I am very lucky I never had to understand or experience that. Um, but that is another whole other factor. And it's also a thing when sometimes, you know, I remember even being in that SF community, and there was a moment where I was lucky enough to be in the room when they were doing a board of studies on this girl who had made it through selection. And it was so interesting watching, you know, the different sides of talking about having a woman in it being a, you know, being in the SF community and actually being an operator and what that would look like and the different sides. And we can talk about this, and we can talk about equality, and we can talk about how people's bodies are different and mentality is different, and we are brought up so differently as women, and that all is very much affected in these worlds, and you will always have people who will be for it, and you'll always have people be against it, male or female, like it really doesn't matter. There's always going to be really strong opposing points of view. And one of the things that I think is probably the most profound thing I saw in that room, and they had all the COs and they were having this chat, was their choice to let the system they had built decide whether that person was meant to be an operator or not, right? They build a system where there's a course they get selected from, and then they have, you know, an 18-month course where they then do many different courses in between to see if they are ready to be an operator and to allow what they have built to show them if that's possible for someone is such an incredible thing to trust the process. What a beautiful like thing for life, right? And so it's just so interesting. I got, you know, also got promoted at that unit. I became a corporal, that was a really big deal. Uh, my first ever promotion. And, you know, to be able to then even sit in that and be like, wow, I'm actually a corporal. I have privates underneath me. I have to learn to manage and lead. And how do I want to be as a leader? And one of the biggest things I think over my career as a woman that I learned is that lots of men and women lead differently. And, you know, we learn just as much from our shit leaders as we do, probably more from leaders we don't like than leaders we like. And I think the beautiful part of that is we get to choose who we are as a leader as we move forward. And that that growth can change and you can have different perspectives and different ways you do things. I felt really lucky that I'd had incredible leaders to show me collaboration, support, communication, all of these things. Vulnerability is not weakness. And I took all of that and ran with it. Like it was so beautiful, even though I'd also had leaders that had shown me that, you know, the opposite of that. And I think that's what made it more powerful was because I got to choose who I would want to be as a leader, and that got to be in everyday life. And that was a beautiful time. I mean, it was also very, it was a lot, and you know, I moved through a lot during that journey, but it was incredible what happens when you're in high-performing spaces. And it was always a place where I felt very, very comfortable, very happy. Um, and also the most testing. And I think it was a beautiful way to transition then into my next career, even though obviously still part of my army career, but the exciting time when I became a physical training instructor, and I remember that course was brutal. And because I'd come from a hard-performing team and I'd come from a place where rank wasn't really a thing. Obviously, if there's people around, of course, you absolutely acknowledge their rank. However, you know, when we're in barracks and just talking, there's no rank. And I had to go back to a training establishment where, again, like every training establishment, they break you down to build you up. And I had to remember that I had to go back into being more regimental. And that's a really interesting mindset shift as well, because then, you know, you have to, of course, make sure you address everyone. And I remember getting in trouble for that multiple times because I just forgot I was out of the habit. And I remember, you know, that course being so testing because you're tired and you're, you know, they're flogging you physically, they're flogging you mentally, um, in the best way to help you become the best instructor. You're flogging yourself because you want to be incredible at lesson taking. You want to absolutely blow them away. Uh, and you're there practicing all the time. I remember my roommate and I, we'd be up talking lessons out to each other and you know, reading over notes so we make sure we didn't fail in a gnat and fizz exam. And it was such an incredibly intense period of six months where your whole life is on hold and you live in a bubble. And I find that with courses, especially this one, you were just in this bubble. And I think sometimes that's really scary. I had a lot of friends from the outside. I remember calling one of them and a friend I'd had since high school, and she was like, Wow, you are really in a bubble where like almost the rest of life doesn't matter. It's like not there. And so I think that's really interesting when you kind of get into that because you don't know you're in it, but you're really in like with all the people around you. And it can be incredibly beautiful how you bond with people in that experience. And I think that's the thing that people don't always understand when it comes to the army, is you can make lifelong friends with incredible people due to bonding through incredibly crazy stuff. Uh, and can be traumatic stuff, it can be just really intense things that can be helping each other through, you know, some really, really tough times. And I remember even when I first got on that course, like I was saying, I was sick and I ended up in the first fitness test. I went down on the run. And like to the point where I was nearly at the 5k mark, and I was like, you know how like marathon runners, when they're running and they're getting about to fall down, they like do zigzags. That was me. I was zigzagging towards the finish line. Apparently, I I only made it like I think I was 20 minutes away, 20 meters away from the finish line. And then I had these like six burly men pick me up. I'm a dead weight, by the way. Like I'm completely passed out. I don't remember any of this. Completely passed out. They pick me up, they take me to the RAP. I wake up in in the RAP with like a drip, I think, yeah, a bag of a drip in. And then I had like all this ice on me. And I was like, what is going on? And what am I? And I'm like, what the fuck? And there's like paramedics that just walk in, and I'm like, what is happening? And yeah, I'd gone down because of my virus and because I had drunk, I was so dehydrated because I had drunk coffee and I was so stressed, and and all of these things, right? Compound because you want to do so well, especially it'd taken me seven years to get there. It wasn't like I'd only been trying for a year, or I just and some people don't have that problem, right? But there was like, you know, I'd been battling to try and get heaves, and I was struggling so hard, and my running wasn't great. And so there were parts of the barrier test that I was really struggling to do. And once I'd finally got there, there was nothing stopping me, not even bloody my virus, to finish that fitness test. One of the things I really love about the army, though, is the fact that although that was a horrible experience and, you know, they were pretty mad because I didn't tell them that I was sick, uh, it did change. Apparently, the next course they were very, very um on top of if anyone was sick to move them to the side. Uh, but I then didn't participate for the first couple of days because I was in the ROP recovering, and I remember one of my girlfriends, she'd come to me and bring me food, and it was really very sweet. But I was freaking out because I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to do this test again. Because of course you do retests, and that's can be just as scary because you're like, oh my gosh, I have to retest this whole thing. And they'd already done their first testing, a second testing, and so then it was up to their third testing, and that was where I was coming back in. And so I was like, oh my gosh, it's technically my second test, but I'm with people, one of my girlfriends as well, who were literally on their final test. So the stress, the anxiety, all a lot. But the beautiful thing was they were like, your run, like, you know, do everything, of course, to however you can. The doctor cleared me. And they were like, but your run, please just stick to passing. And they were like with me on a bike. I remember watching me like a hawk. Like, are you good every time I come around? I had to like fully acknowledge the fact that I was okay. Completely passed was no issues. It was awesome. But yeah, that test, that like rest of that course was so testing in so many ways. Like I said, I was in a bubble. Everything that mattered was in that bubble, right? Like the next test, the next fitness thing, the next way we showed up, you know, the next time we got in trouble, making sure we brought the right things to wear, and like all of these little things, you know, and they're watching you like a hawk all the time. And it's something that, yeah, unless you're in that environment, I don't think you can truly understand. And it's why you make such incredible friendships and you bond so beautifully with the people that are in your sort of course because you go through so much together, and that shared experience can really build you into the person that you become. And I was so grateful that I had some incredible, incredible friend that came to my march out and my family. And it was such an incredible thing to be like, I did this like seven years later. And, you know, there was so much in there, too, that because I'd been around for a while that I didn't agree with. And it was really hard at times that to look at the leadership and things that were happening that I didn't agree with, and obviously put them in the eval at the end. But where do you draw the line of speaking up? And that was a really big thing. I was um pretty young in my leadership, and I, as I'm older now, that would be a very different story. However, I really am grateful for that learning and that seeing different leaders and different people presenting and how they had different gifts. And I think that is one beautiful thing about the military, is you do get exposed to lots of different people and their learning. And it is really beautiful to see that. And you do also get treated time at times where you're like, that is not okay. And that can be a bit of a fight. Where do you push the line? Where do you not push the line? You know, how is that going to be seen by other people? And how can you support people around you when things aren't right? When do you speak up? And I think that's a really interesting thing with age and learning is like what does that mean to you as a leader and where is that line? And as a woman too, I think there's a different perception of us. And you know, sometimes we can be seen as whining or complaining, or you know, it's a lot of that stuff, not only from our peers, but from the people that are leading. And it's just a really interesting dynamic. And things that I could constantly see and was going back and forth with all the time. Because yeah, it just it is really interesting because you really have to choose who you want to be and how you want to show up. When do you take that time as well? Because it can mean it can mean your career, it can mean, you know, not being on that course. It shouldn't, but it can. So it's just a really interesting balance. Anyway, I'm gonna talk more into that on the next episode. But thank you so much for listening to i journey thus far. And sort of we're hitting around 2020, 2019, actually. So that was really a bit of a journey from 2015 to 2019, kind of in that ballpark. Um, but yeah, I look forward to talking about the next phase in my next one, talking about my first ever posting as a PT and the incredible and wild journey that was. Um, yeah, and I hope you've got something out of it. Please share. I'd love comments um for you to share below. I'd love for you to subscribe. I get so excited when I get a new subscriber. I do a little happy dance. Um, I'd love for you to share with someone that you think would love this. Um, and if you are on Instagram, I'd love you to follow Unapologetically Wild with Katie. And if you share it, please tag me. I would absolutely love to celebrate the fact that you've listened to it. And if you have any anything you want to share about it, I would love to know. You can DM me, uh Katie Sontag on Instagram, Facebook, everywhere. And I hope you have the most magical, magical day. And I look forward to the next episode with you. And yeah, I love you all.

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Thank you for tuning in to Unapologetically Wild with Katie Sontag. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend who needs to hear this. Together, let's build a community of women who are ready to embrace their wild, unstoffable selves. If you don't already, follow me on Instagram or Facebook at Katie.sontag for more empowering content updates and behind the scenes button. I can't wait to connect with you. Until next time, stay wild and unapologetic.