Lessons On Resiliency With Benjamin Hall
23:08 Share

With the Venmo debit card, you can turn the mini golf outing your coworkers paid you back for into a trip to Miami with your best friend, earning you up to 5% cash back. Use Venmo to pay for the things you love to do. Visit venmo.me slash debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A., pursuant to license by MasterCard International Incorporated. Terms apply. Dosh cash back terms apply.

It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. I am so thrilled to welcome back to Live in the Bream, somebody that you know and love and so exciting to hear his voice again in this brand new project that he has.

He is a longtime colleague of mine at Fox News, a war correspondent. He has traveled the world. He is a New York Times number one bestseller. And he's got a new one, I predict, is going right back there. It's called Resolute. Benjamin Hall, welcome back. Thank you, Shannon. Pleasure to be here.

And I love the subtitle. This really gives you a flavor for the book to how we humans keep finding ways to beat the toughest odds. And you are obviously one of our finest examples of that. And I love this book. It is so personal in nature and really allows people to hear the next step in your story, which is.

How do you persevere in a life that is different, it's new? Where do you find strength? Tell us your take on this book and why you thought it was important to tell this next chapter. You know, what really amazed me when I was recovering was that I thought that the tough part would be being in hospital.

learning to walk, recovering from all the injuries and then getting home and that would sort of be the tough part over. And I was absolutely wrong. When you are surrounded in hospital by doctors and physios and nurses, you have 24-hour care, you've just got that support system and you've got one focus is just to get better. That part was actually easier than what came afterwards. And when I got home,

I realized that I was taking a new person, a different person, very physically different, back to my family without all that support around you. And you had to figure out how this new person would get back into their life. And, you know, it put...

added pressure on our family. You know, there are things that I couldn't do at home anymore that my wife had to figure out how to do. There were different, I couldn't move in the same way. I couldn't play with my children the same way. People interacted with me in a different way. And that was actually the real learning curve in that moment there. And so what I write about in this book, as well as the attack itself and recovering a little bit at the beginning, is how I had to realize that I was different because of my injuries, how things would be different

And just come to terms with what I could and couldn't do. And the point of the book is not about the things that I learned I couldn't do. It was about all the things I realized I could do, the opportunities I was given. You know, and the book is about finding great moments, positive moments, even when they look bad. And today I just feel that I've managed to do that. And I hope that the book conveys the ways in which I did so.

It really does. And it offers so much encouragement and inspiration to other people, I think, who pick this up and who have had the chance of crossing paths with you. And you talk about a lot of that in the book as well. I thought it was really interesting where you talk about pain and when it showed up and the way that you decided to start speaking to that.

Instead of saying this is horrible. I can't get through it. This is excruciating You really changed the conversation that you were having with yourself and this idea of pain Listen, I live with chronic pain for a couple of years before I finally got help and it's nothing compared to what you've been through But I was in a very dark place and I thought gosh I wonder how that helps you mentally if I had thought to make that shift in the way that I viewed my circumstances

And the way that you can almost welcome something that is very unwelcome in your life, but it gives you some form of coping and control. Yeah. Pain, ongoing pain that you have for a long time is really tough. It's debilitating. And you've either...

you either let it take over your life and knock you down or you have to find a way through it. And, you know, for me, I started to talk to the pain. I started to say that the pain was my body telling me what needed to be fixed. It was guiding me. It was helping me. And I had to learn how to embrace it in some senses. I remember one case, I write about this when I had some skin grafts that didn't work. They were put on in the wrong way and something, and they had to skin them off me. And it was painful things I've gotten through. But

Halfway through, I was screaming. Halfway through, I stopped and I said, that isn't helping. What I'm going to say is bring it on. I said, that hurt. Bring on the next one. Let's see what you've got. Let's see if that knocks me down. And I looked it straight in the eyes and I just found a way of getting through that in a way that I felt strong.

I didn't feel weak anymore. I felt strong. And I learned so much in that one moment that, you know, you can use the power of your mind and you think you have goals. You know why you're doing it and you know what the end goal is. And you can get through some of the almost impossible moments. And that gives you such strength and

That I had to learn that. You know, Mike Tyson says everyone's got a plan until they're punched in the face. And the thing is, you think you're going to get through things. But when pain creeps up, you've got to find a way through it somehow. And it's different for everyone. I think everyone has to find their own way of getting through it. But it is possible.

Yeah. And you talk about in the book, too, you have to find out what it is in your life that's worth fighting for. What is it that will get you across that next barrier that will get you through that next challenge? And having that focus, whatever your challenge is, because...

Very few of us are ever going to experience what you've been through, but we will have a life full of challenges. If you can find that thing worth fighting for, that can be fuel. Absolutely. And I just think, and I wrote this book, not only if you're injured in the way I was injured, but like if you have...

You know, even things like financial problems or chronic pain or family issues or anxiety. Each of those are things you have to find a way through and you've got to figure out why you're getting through it and what drives you. And look, for me, it was the very clear ones, a family, faith, you know, trying to.

For me, it was also – remember Pierre, Cameron, Sasha, our fixer, they died that day. And one of the things driving me was to say I'm not going to let life fall away from me. I'm going to do everything I can for them. So let's not complain about me. Let's do it in their names and let's be strong for them because they're not here so I will be here. Let's do it for my family. Let's do it for my work, which I love. And so I found a whole lot of things that keep driving me. And look –

I'm really well healed. I mean, I'm soon to start hopefully running and doing these other things, but I still go back to those same goals. They continue to drive me and I think they will be with me forever. Yeah. Let's talk about your family. I mean, you have shined a spotlight on your wife and just talked about how she's exceptional and that, yes, something like this in your life will change the way that you live and your family and your relationships and just your day-to-day reality. Um,

But that she has been an unending strength for her. And you're now four girls that you have as well. That's right. We had our fourth daughter six months ago. But look, for me, I'm so lucky. I'm married to Alicia, who's the most incredible woman out there. And one of the great things is that when the moment this happened, not a single time did she say to me, oh, life is going to be bad or this is terrible or what are we going to do? From the minute it happened, she said, all right,

let's figure this out here's what we're going to do it's we're not going to worry about it we're going to find a solution and she just took over you know taking care of the kids while i was away for six seven months she kept that so strong that it gave me the strength to keep recovering and i also write in the book about how remember one night i was back in london and our house was broken into in the middle of the night 2 a.m two people came through a window and they were taking things and

My wife, the dog barked at first, and then it was my wife, Alicia, who got up and was going downstairs. And I was saying, don't go, don't go. Well, I'm trying to get my legs on. She said, I've got to go scare them away. And it was my wife, Alicia, heavily pregnant at the time, who went down the stairs and screamed and shouted and got these two people to run away. And she scared them off and

First of all, what an incredible woman to do that. But also what a reversal of roles. I was the person who was supposed to protect the family. I was the guy who was going to protect our house. And boy, was it tough to see that I couldn't do it on that occasion because I couldn't get my legs on trying to put the prosthetics on. And my wife was doing it. And I just it was a real eye opener to me that how different life was, but how she had had to fit in to do things that I wasn't able to do. But it was it was an amazing night that she did.

Yeah, you talk about the mental shifts that you have to make here, too, because you share really personal stories within the book. I think about a couple of different hotel stays and places where you've gone by yourself and you have that independence, but just the things that most of us would take for granted.

become real struggles. And for you, you talk about it wasn't just physical being there in that hotel room and thinking, oh my goodness, how am I going to get a bath or how am I going to get around this room? But the mental toughness part comes into it too, because that can be very damaging or at least a blow to the mental aspect of your recovery as well. It's not just the physical. Yeah. And you know, you have to learn

Things are constantly happening, which happened for the first time for me. And the first time they happen, you have to figure out how to do them. But they can be very difficult the first time. And I remember I was in D.C. for a trip and it just wasn't going well. And I was in a wheelchair and I was on the ground and I couldn't move. And I just hit a really low point and I couldn't help myself. I was all alone. And I reached a pretty bad point one night. And I just, you know, I sat there and I lay there for a while.

And I just had to find a way through it. But I write about that kind of quite clearly in the book. But I never stopped. And I kept going. And I always said, this is really difficult. But just keep moving forward. Just do the next thing you got to do. Keep going. And then once the trip had finished a few days later, then I got to stop and evaluate it. But I think that's the thing that I've learned about resilience. It's not...

You think that being resilient means that you can get through the toughest scenarios and they're not hard. That's not true. I think that being resilient is that when tough things come up, they still are tough. You've got to be strong to get through them and you've got to fight them. But...

You know that on the other side, you always know that it's going to be good on the other side. And that strength saying, yeah, this is tough, but I know I'm going to find a way through it. That is what I consider resilience. It doesn't mean that everything is easy. It just means that you know 100% that it'll be good once you've done it on the other side. Yeah, and you encourage readers through your own work.

and your own realization of that, that they too probably have more reserves of strength, of ingenuity, of whatever they need to get through something than they might think when you're first looking at the battle or the tragedy or the challenge, whatever it is,

in front of you, you write in a way that very much encourages the rest of us to believe you will have what you need in that moment when it comes. Yeah, because look, I hope no one ever really has to find out how much resilience they have. But I did the tough way and I was in one of the worst, you know, close to death and I was in such pain and I was almost on the ground after the attack. And I had to find the resilience. There was no option for me. It was find the resilience and find a way to save yourself and get home or not make it.

But many people don't actually have to find that and I love that. I hope they don't have to but what I learned is that it was there. It was inside me and when I really needed it, it came out. You know, I covered conflict for many, many years and I've sadly, I've seen many people injured. I mean, I was injured and people lose their lives and I always ask myself, back then I always said, I wonder what it would be like if it happened to me. I wonder how I would react, you know, because I've seen people react in different ways and

But you don't know until you've actually got to find that strength. And what I now think is many people might not realize they've got it in them, but they do. When you need it, you do. And so that gives you a lot of reliance on that. And I think that's a really strong thing to have. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.

Again, we're talking to my colleague, my friend, Benjamin Hall, his brand new book, Resolute, How We Humans Keep Finding Ways to Beat the Toughest Odds.

So many personal stories and photos and recollections in ways that you are connecting with other people who have their own challenges. You mentioned earlier that part of this formula for moving forward was your faith as well. And I know for some people when they face a really tragic, difficult thing in life, they may turn away from their faith and say, where was God in this? Others turn to their faith and it becomes a new level of dependence and intimacy with

knowing that God is in your story and overseeing it and weaving through it. What's been your journey?

Well, you know, I was raised a strict Catholic. I was educated at a monastery and through my 20s, that really defined my life. I mean, it was the center of my life. But I started covering conflicts in my 20s and 30s and I started to have a journey with religion. I sometimes wasn't sure what role it played in my life and I went away from it and then I sometimes came back to it. And I was always wondering how important it was in my life. But

That moment after the attack, that moment when I was lying there on the ground, I thought about my family first. And then after that, I spoke to God and I asked God, please, God, get me home. Please, God, get me home. And, you know, when everything was taken away, when I was lying there, I went back to my faith.

and it was always there and I had gone on this journey but I realized then that it was always there was a safe place for me and it continued to grow ever since I write in the book about the chaplains I spoke to at the Brook Army Medical Center I talk about that how they talk to people who are injured in the role faith plays in that some people ask themselves or ourselves artists an injury gosh why would God have allowed this to happen to me and that raises questions and doubt but I found the opposite I thought

I've been given a chance and God is on my side and he saved me. Yeah, I'm missing limbs and yeah, I'm injured. But I was saved that day and I mustn't waste that and I must keep talking to God and thank him for that. So, you know, it's people often ask these questions after they're injured. But I found turning back to God has really helped.

I know he's a constant comfort and presence, not only in the mountaintops, but most especially in the valleys is where I felt the closest and the most growth. Not that we would choose those, but that that is one of those things that can happen. Well, and you say valleys. I mean, I actually quote Psalm 23 in it, which I've loved for a long time. And there's that one line, "'Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.'"

And I feel that so immensely. I walked in the valley of the shadow of death myself, and now I fear no evil because God was there for me. And so I talk about being in that valley and finding a way out thanks to God. And what a comfort Psalm 23 is for so many different moments in life that those valleys, he is there. Now, I got to tell you, there's something I learned about you in this book that

that I bet most of our listeners and viewers don't know is that you are a stage star as well. There are photos to prove it and you do say in the book, "Please do not go YouTube this because it exists out there." But you know that automatically makes me, I'm thinking like, I'm gonna get, luckily for you, I did forget. Though as I was reading the book, I was like, "Yes, I must at some point go Google this and find you on YouTube."

But I love that this story is part of your story. And tell us about that experience. Well, look, I mean, I was a chorister growing up and I was a head chorister in our church. And I released CDs and I was soloist at Notre Dame. And singing was really a part of my life when I was young. And I was asked to play the lead role in this opera called A Mile in the Night Visitors. It's like a Christmas opera. They play it around America every Christmas and

I was in Nashville for four months performing it. Um, and I was in Italy for four months. So I toured around with it, but, but the story of this opera is about this crippled boy, the lead role, the role I played who can't walk because his right leg is, it doesn't work. It's a total cripple. And the three Kings arrive on their way to find Jesus. And, um,

They, with prayers, they make this boy walk. They heal his right leg.

And what an incredible coincidence or circle that here I was decades later. I was the boy whose right leg wouldn't work. And, you know, thanks to God and other people, I learned to walk again. And there's this amazing scene in the opera where I sing on stage about, look, I can walk, I can walk, I can pray. And I just came back to that moment that suddenly all these years later, the same was true in my real life.

Yeah, I mean, the pictures are here to prove it. I'm trying to flip through and find the picture right now. But this is young Benji Hall. And there you are, playing the lead role in a mall in Nashville, which is the most America place that you probably could have been for four months.

But I love to, there's so many pictures of your family and you openly share about that. And I know we talked about this with the last book that you had worries about when you returned to your family, how your kids would react and what they would think about a different dad, at least in this physical shell, there were some changes.

But you share in this book about, you know, vacations and challenges that you have, but ways that you work through it and that the girls are just as resilient as you are and say, this is dad, this is our family. And sometimes I think kids are even better at moving past these things than adults are. They're so resilient. And I remember my wife, Alicia, and I were quite worried about telling them about my prosthetics and my other injuries and how they would react because we didn't want to see me at first because I had facial injuries and whatnot.

and we spent months deciding how we were going to tell them and how they would react and we built up to it and we had this one moment I was still in hospital I was on FaceTime and we told them and it was

They barely responded. Oh, great, you've got robot legs. Great. And that was the extent of it. And they have been totally fine ever since. Now, I will add one thing, which is that my eldest daughter, Anna, is about to turn 10, and I'm actually starting to see it play a bigger role again. She's of an age now where I think she sometimes wants me to wear pants rather than shorts, and that it's becoming an issue again. So the journey is never over, and I suspect there will be times when...

You know, they won't want it to be the focus, the main focus of every room we go into. They won't want it to be such a big issue. And so I know that I'll keep working on that. I also look forward to meeting any potential boyfriends when they bring them home when they're much older. And I'll be standing there probably wearing my body armor and my prosthetic legs just saying, you know, you got to come past me first.

Exactly. I am a robo-cyborg that will take you out if anything, if my daughter comes home with one tear, that's the end of that. By the way, I also have to give a shout out to your doggy. I love that you talk about the dog. Actually, you have a lab like I do and that the dog actually rose to the occasion when the folks were trying to break into your house and Alicia ran downstairs.

Because ours, too, has a lot of bark up front, and I'm hoping it would be enough to scare people that intend some harm. But if you have a treat in your hand, you know, she's allowed. You might get free passage from her. She might be like, right over here is the silver. This is what you really want to get into. We always asked ourselves, you know, would Bosco, if someone broke in the house, do you think Bosco would actually do anything? And he did.

he actually came to. He wouldn't stop barking and it was the thing that alerted us and got Alicia down the stairs. So it's also because Bosco had a cyst grow on one of his legs and he can't walk very well and he can barely put the leg down. It's this big old thing. And...

It happened at the same time as I got back. And you want to talk about dogs and their owners. The two of us now hobble around the park together. And we've both got similar injuries. And I just think it's hilarious. So, you know, things change. But in many ways, things are just the same.

Mm hmm. Well, I love all those personal details and touches in this book. And, you know, there's discussion of Ukraine and Israel and so many other things, places that you've been and things that you've done on a professional level, too. And I always love to see you doing what you do, because I know you love it so much and you are so fantastic at it. I hope folks will check out this new book by Benjamin Hall, Resolute, How We Humans Keep Finding Ways to Beat the Toughest Odds.

Benjamin, you keep doing that and you model a way forward for people through some of the toughest things. I'm just very honored to call you a colleague and a friend and congrats on the new book. Thanks, Shannon. You do the same as well. You inspire so many people. So thank you for that too. And thank you for anyone who buys the book. I'm really curious to know what they think about it. So get back to me.

Yes, it's everywhere that you'd like to get your book. So go out and check it out. Resolute by Benjamin Hall. That's it for this week's Live in the Bream. And Benji, hope I see you in person soon. Looking forward to it. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at the quiz. Fox. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz.