Get Up Live More is not a motivational slogan. It’s a vow.
Forged in loss, carried through war, and tested in the aftermath of everything that should have broken a man, this book is a trauma-informed memoir about discipline, not as punishment, but as necessity. Discipline became survival long before it became a choice.
James Elmer lost his biological father to a drunk driver before he could form a memory. The absence that followed was later filled by a stepfather whose authority was enforced through fear, and whose suicide left a permanent mark.
As a child, he learned fear before safety and carried anger like armor into his teenage years. Long before he ever wore a uniform, James learned to fight, but not yet how to aim that force. Street fights, grappling tournaments, and early MMA gave him intensity with nowhere to point. When structure finally entered his life through the military, it didn’t just give him direction. It gave him a place where his chaos belonged and a purpose strong enough to shape it.
What followed was a journey through elite training, combat in Iraq, split-second decisions under pressure, brotherhood, and loss that would permanently rewire how he understood and carried forward pain, purpose, and responsibility.
At the heart of this book is a Ranger brother whose life, leadership, and death became a standard James would carry forward, and a bracelet bearing four words:
Get Up. Live More.
Those words became more than a memorial. They became a standard.
But war doesn’t end when you come home.
After combat, James faced a quieter, more dangerous fight: PTSD, physical breakdown, addiction, divorce, silence and the moment where everything nearly ended in a single room with no witnesses. What saved him wasn’t motivation. It was micro-structure. Tiny disciplines. Small decisions.The same micro-missions you’ll find in every chapter of this book.
This book is intentionally built differently.
Short chapters.
Clear pauses.
After-Action Reviews.
Micro Missions you can complete even on your worst days.
This book was written for people who know that thriving doesn’t mean finished.
It’s for the ones who look successful on the outside but carry weight internally.
For leaders who have momentum, but want meaning.
For disciplined people who want discipline grounded in purpose and meaning.
And for those barely holding on.
This book will meet you where you are.
If you’re thriving, it will challenge how you define strength, leadership, and resilience.
Get Up Live More is for:
- veterans and first responders carrying unseen weight
- men and women rebuilding after trauma, loss, or identity collapse
- readers with ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, or emotional overload
- anyone who doesn’t need inspiration, but needs a reason to rise and keep going
This is not a story about becoming unstoppable. It’s about rising after survival.
It’s about carrying the fallen forward by refusing to waste the life you still have.
If you’re alive, you still have work to do.
Get up. Live more.
