Meet Kegan Gill

We were lucky to catch up with Kegan Gill recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kegan, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

On a cold January morning, I was strapped into an F/A-18E Super Hornet, flying a training mission off the Virginia coast. A young fighter pilot, living my dream. One moment, I was in control; the next, everything went wrong. A catastrophic malfunction forced me to eject at 695 miles per hour, nearly the speed of sound. It became the fastest survived ejection in naval aviation history.
The violence of the ejection shattered my body, breaking bones, damaging nerves, and altering my brain in ways I couldn’t yet comprehend. I was pulled from the icy Atlantic waters by a helicopter crew, battered, barely breathing, and hanging onto life by a thread.
You might think my resilience came from surviving that day. But honestly, surviving the ejection was only the beginning.
The real test came later, when I was left to piece together a life that no longer felt like mine. I spent years fighting through surgeries, brutal physical therapy, prescription drug addiction, and the invisible wounds of traumatic brain injury and PTSD. At my lowest point, I found myself unrecognizable. I was physically debilitated, mentally broken, and emotionally numb.
Resilience, for me, wasn’t about gritting my teeth and pretending everything was fine. It was about facing the truth that the man I had been, the fighter pilot, the tough guy, was gone. It was about choosing to build a new version of myself, one painful step at a time.
That choice became even clearer when conventional treatments failed. It wasn’t until I turned toward alternative healing, including psychedelic-assisted therapies, that true transformation began. Psychedelics didn’t erase my pain, but they helped me face it with new eyes. They cracked open the armor I had built around my trauma and showed me there was still light and life on the other side.
So, where did I get my resilience from?
I earned it in the wreckage of my old life. I earned it, gasping for air in the freezing Atlantic. I earned it every time I fell and decided to get back up, not to reclaim who I was before, but to become someone stronger, more authentic, and more whole.
Resilience isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you forge when life burns you down to ashes and you choose to rise anyway.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

After surviving the fastest ejection in naval aviation history and the years of recovery that followed, I realized my story wasn’t just about personal survival, it was about service in a new form. Today, I’m a motivational speaker, author, coach, and advocate for transforming how we approach healing, especially for veterans and trauma survivors.

My book, Phoenix Revival: The Aftermath of Naval Aviation’s Fastest Survived Ejection, captures the journey from devastation to rebirth, not just surviving, but learning how to live again. It’s a story for anyone who’s ever felt broken, lost, or trapped, and I’m proud to say it’s already resonating far beyond the veteran community.

Professionally, my focus is on creating a movement. Through speaking engagements, interviews, coaching, and collaborations, I share a message much larger than my own story: true healing is possible, and often lies outside the conventional paths we’ve been taught to trust. I work with a growing network of business leaders, non-profits, health innovators, and veteran organizations to raise awareness around holistic health, alternative treatments like psychedelic-assisted therapy, and reclaiming the human spirit after trauma.

What excites me most right now is the launch of The Davis Focus Project. This cutting-edge nonprofit provides veterans with access to advanced diagnostics and a wide range of healing modalities not typically available through conventional healthcare resources, including brain and nervous system optimization, cold and heat-based recovery, cellular and tissue regeneration, personalized performance programming and resilience, and cognitive optimization. This is truly the future of healthcare.

I also have some exciting upcoming events, including a speaking appearance at the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2025 in Denver, Colorado June 18th, and The National Writers Series is hosting an event for me at The Alluvion in Traverse City, Michigan, on June 26th. I’m especially passionate about expanding the conversation beyond just veterans because the challenges of trauma, brain health, depression, and disconnection are universal. My brand, Heart Rise LLC, and my work are rooted in radical authenticity, vulnerability, and hope.

At the end of the day, I’m not just telling a war story. I’m telling a human story about burning down, rebuilding, and discovering that the best chapters of life can come after the crash.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back, three qualities made all the difference in my recovery and reinvention: adaptability, humility, and perseverance.

Adaptability was crucial. After my ejection, everything I thought defined me- strength, skill, identity- was stripped away. I had to let go of who I was in order to discover who I could become. Life is never static, especially after trauma. Those who thrive are the ones willing to rewrite their own story, even when it’s painful.

Advice: Don’t cling to an old version of yourself out of fear. Be willing to pivot, evolve, and recreate who you are when life demands it.

Humility played a huge role. As a fighter pilot, admitting weakness wasn’t exactly encouraged. But true healing required dropping my ego, asking for help, and exploring paths I never would have considered, from meditation and breathwork to psychedelic-assisted therapy. Humility opened doors that pride would have kept closed.

Advice: Healing and growth aren’t solo missions. Surround yourself with people who challenge you, support you, and help you see what you can’t see on your own.

Perseverance was the constant. There were days when it felt easier to quit, on myself, on recovery, on life. But resilience isn’t built in the moments when things are easy; it’s built when you keep moving forward in the dark, with no guarantee of success.

Advice: Learn to ride the currents of life rather than constantly feeling it is a fight. Progress often looks invisible until you look back and realize how far you’ve come. Small steps, taken consistently, are what rebuild lives.

At the end of the day, no matter where you’re starting from, developing adaptability, humility, and perseverance will shape your journey more than any external achievement ever could. It’s not about becoming who you think you should be, it’s about becoming the strongest, most authentic version of who you already are.

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?

My ideal client is someone who refuses to accept that they are permanently broken, even if the world has told them otherwise.

They’re often warriors in their own right, veterans, first responders, athletes, entrepreneurs, or anyone who has lived through intense physical, emotional, or psychological battles. They know what it’s like to carry invisible wounds. They might feel stuck, burned out, disconnected, or lost, but deep down, they still have a spark, even if it’s just a flicker.

What makes someone ideal to work with isn’t how “successful” or “healed” they already are. It’s their willingness to be real, to dig deep, and to challenge the old stories that have been holding them back. They’re open to exploring unconventional paths to healing, whether that’s through mindset work, movement, meditation, or even emerging therapies like psychedelic-assisted healing.

They’re not looking for a quick fix. They’re looking for transformation.
At the core, my ideal client is ready to stop surviving and start living. Someone brave enough to step into the fire, burn down the old, and rise as something stronger and more authentic than they ever imagined possible.

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