#110 Robert Roy - Leadership Under Fire: Insights from a Navy SEAL Veteran

Rob Roy is a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, with 21 years of service in the SEAL teams, including over a decade with the elite SEAL Team Six. After retiring, he transitioned to entrepreneurship, founding Trident Coaching and Consulting to deliver transformative leadership programs. Rob is an award-winning executive coach, a sought-after public speaker, and the author of Leadership Lessons of the Navy SEALs: The Art of War. His leadership training programs, including "Leadership Under Fire" and "Battlefield to the Boardroom," have received accolades, including multiple YPO-WPO BEST of the BEST awards. Rob's insights on leadership, resilience, and team-building have been featured on Bloomberg TV, Fox News, and NBC.

Connect with Robert Roy:
-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tridenttrainingconsulting

-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertroy3/

🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.

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Transcript

Culture Versus Environment

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Culture is what makes things happen. It's not your environment. Right. I don't know your environment, but I know I'm about a product of my environment. I'm about a product of my culture, my mom, and make it make sure we got things done. And you can have that. You can have culture and environment, but your environment will destroy you. Your culture will help you. Right? Where with the school had a great culture, you know, excellence. Drive forward. Always be somebody. Be some, you know, move forward and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

You're listening to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader. What I like to call PAL. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.

Defining Leadership In Four Parts

SPEAKER_01 0:45

All right, team, welcome back to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Josh McMillian. I'm an active duty Army officer. I'm an Army leadership coach. I run my own podcast and coaching company, but I'm on a mission just to become the best leader that I possibly can. And on this show, I bring inspirational leaders on that I believe are what I call a purposeful accountable leader. And I also share information with you that I am going through in real time through journaling. And all of this is to one arm you with the tools to be a better leader, what I like to call a purposeful accountable leader or a pal, and just to go in this world with confidence. And on today's show, I'm bringing a heavy hitter, right? So Robert Roy. He's been uh in 25-year veteran of the U.S. Navy with 21 years of service as a SEAL team member, including over a decade with an elite fighting force, tier one level SEAL team six. After retiring, he transitioned to entrepreneurship, founding Trident Coaching and Consulting Company to deliver transformative leadership programs. Rob is an award-winning executive coach, a sought-after public speaker, and the author of Leadership Lessons from Navy SILS, The Art of War. His leadership training programs include Leadership Under Fire and Battlefield the Boardroom, has received accolades, including multiple uh best awards from different organizations. Rob's insights on leadership, his resilience and team building capability have allowed him to be featured on Bloomberg TV, Fox News, and NBC. And oh, by the way, he's also the face of uh video game Navy SEALs. So if you go look that up, because it's pretty awesome. And I didn't realize that he did that while he was still in the military, which is even more incredible. And then, team, just to arm you with some additional tools, you can go to McMillian Leadership Coaching.com. You can have a summarized blog article and listen to this podcast, or you can read some of the other blog articles that I've already written. And all that's 100% free because I want you to be the best leader that you possibly can be. And this episode is absolutely fire. So I'm doing something a little bit different. I don't really care about the time length anymore, trying to stay within an hour. So these episodes are a little bit longer, but I think that through storytelling, you get a more authentic picture of the individual that Rob is. So it's a little bit longer, but as always, stay to the end and we'll go through an after-action review of what I believe the top three takeaways are. And this one's going to be challenging because it's been an absolutely awesome podcast episode with Rob. Rob, welcome to the Tell us the Leadership. How are you doing, brother? Good, man. How are you doing? I'm doing well. It's how we were talking about right before we started to film this. Like, I have that infantry mentality, so I'm trying to uh navigate technology. So great to have you on the show. I know uh you're a legend, like in your own right. And when I had an opportunity to bring you on, I've never had someone from your background, like within like the special operations command within the Navy uh come on. And I always love starting off with just getting calibrated in terms of the scope of leadership. How would you define it, like simply put in your words, before we jump into your story?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Well, um, I usually tell people though, leadership are four things that I've learned over my expansive career, and not just the military, but in the civilian sector, is leadership is and it's not about um how much you know as far as like the you know the equipment you work on or uh the files or any of that stuff. It's about inspiration, direction, guidance, and hope. Um, and I know a lot of people use that differently, but inspiration because you have to inspire your people, and a lot of military leaders do that, get out there, give the speech. It's more than the speech. They have to believe you believe what you're saying to them, and you have to know that they understand what you're talking about. So inspiring them, even when you're not around, you're inspiring them. Um give them guidance is that they're you're gonna make mistakes, right? You have to understand they're gonna make mistakes if they're growing, they're not you, they're them. And then you can see that pattern of success for them. So you guide them and to get them where they're going to be, and whether it's take your job or some other job, you have to be able to let them go. So guide them, give them direction, uh specifically when they're doing something wrong, or they're you know, you're you're reading everything about that person, especially in the military. You're reading everything about their family, you know, their careers, uh, and then them as individuals, and also their past. So give them direction where they can be. Um, giving them, you know, as far as like you're you know, you're in E2 now, and you could become an officer, you could become a pilot, you become, you can change ratings and the MOSs of the Army, but the Navy you have is NECs, you know, Navy enlisted coach, you can change those to be a better fit because you didn't know when you first came in. And civilian sector would be the same thing, and talk to a person of fact, this may not be, you may be a player out of position, and then hope. Hope is something we all aspire to have. Hope is something someone gives you, and that's something you have, right? You don't have hope. People give you hope. Um, and all those things they're roll into any conversation you have with somebody on any any given day in any conversation. So those are my four things: inspiration, direction, inspiration, direction, guidance, and hope.

Early Life And Warrior Ethos

SPEAKER_01 6:04

I love those. I kind of all bow down in inspiration. I think you and I see it almost the same way. Uh, it comes down to one word for me, and it's it's to inspire. Like that's how I define leadership. And I love how we're we're aligned, two different branches. You grew up in the navy, I and I'm still growing up in the army, so that's awesome. I'd like to take it back to the beginning um for of your journey. Where did you believe uh really instilling that warrior culture, like warrior ethos? Where did that start with you?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

You know, um, I'm uh also a I got a master's in psychology and I spent a lot of time thinking about you know my the inner workings of my brain and other people as well. I had somebody ask me the other day, it's like, where does that come from? Where does that, you know, I figured it out when I was um at a very young age that I wasn't gonna be like everybody in my neighborhood. I'm sure you're the same way you're in the army. I don't know, I I I I want to say you're everybody can lead, right? But there's certain people that are just born to lead, right? That that whole, and I'm not saying I'm one of them. I'm saying that there's people that are always gonna stand out among every head and shoulders of one everyone else, no matter what they do. It's part of their work ethic, it's part of their their own self-reflections, their own self-efficacy. They're they're just these people that just get shit done no matter what. And my or my earlier age, uh, when I was younger, I always did things that were was not this is not a um selfishness, or it's not, it's a more uh self-fit selflessness of always trying to help people when I was younger. Um, you you see somebody that needed some guidance, you would just you would just naturally do that. So my earliest memory of helping somebody was like 10 or 11 years old. Didn't understand what it was, just understand that uh that person needs help and I want to help them and then talk to them and work with them. And then moving forward, as I always thought differently when I first joined the military, uh is you know, I was uh 17, 8, 17 and a half years old, and they made me the R pod of the company, uh my boot camp company. I was in charge of my boot camp company. Uh as far as like the in, you know, the it wasn't in charge. I was the guy they went to and yelled at to make sure the company was straight. And I learned at an earlier age that people some people just don't listen to you because of your age, people listen because of your background, or they have more experience with you. You have to figure out a way to get to them, you know, and that was my first exposure. And you know, oddly enough, is I think this is a thing with combat vests as well, is that because I nothing had ever happened to me like majorly when I was in boot camp, it wasn't until my commander, company commander, uh said I had to go to um it's called a Motour, motivational tour, where they send you out after working hours and you get the crap beat out of you. And I came back and some for some reason they're like, Yeah, he's been in prison too. He's he's one of us. And I thought that's a shitty way of getting people on to say that means you've brought me down instead of me lifting you up. So from that moment forward, I'm like, I have what I need to do because I'm not, I don't want to be pulled down. I want to be put brought up. I want to uh elevate people. So my you know, this is what leaders do. I change, I change how I approach people, I change how I what my expectations are of people back then. So at an early age, I learned that you can be pulled down at their level or you can raise them up at the level they can be, not your level, but their level.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I think like that mindset that was instilled in you, I think within the Navy was really forged in some of like your earlier childhood, right? Like growing up in Mississippi and then moving to Chicago, and then just like a hard life, um, if that makes sense. Like I grew up in rural West Virginia, and I have like a level of work ethic that most people don't understand because that was kind of instilled within me and my father and my grandfather, like getting up at three in the morning and working at the coal mines, like legitimately still doing that and seeing that every day, and then seeing my dad go out to our neighbors and mowing grass for them, like because they're too old to do it, just a selfless act. This dude's been on his hands and knees in a coal mine for like 30 inches for the last like 12 hours, but he'll go do something for you. I I would love to know, like, like from your perspective, and I and I heard this before uh from you of like how do we train to be a lion? I like hard work that mentality. Where did that start like really in some of like your informative years before you decided you wanted to go join the the Navy? We could talk about life choices too. I'm curious why you didn't join the army.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

The Navy was the closest door when I went into recruiting with office. Uh, I think uh I think it's if I understand your question correctly, I think it's because I I had seen a lot of bad stuff growing up at different schools. And uh I got pulled into it like every other kid would be. You gotta either be I felt I either be with the pack or lead the pack. And it was it was much better feeling to lead the pack than it was to follow the pack. This is when I was younger. I wasn't like uh put me in charge. I was like, I just felt that it was um, you know, the gangs and stuff when I was younger, and this is not gangs like the Crips and the Bloods. This is like a bunch of high school kids all around trying to protect themselves. I I I know for a fact that I didn't want to be part of a group, and I I became I got my own friends and we did our own thing, and um, it was more in direction of let's just protect each other. Um, so it's natural, I don't say natural leadership, but definitely not wanting to follow somebody else. And I and I understand, you know, earlier on that um the world is we there's followers and there's leaders, and there, but to be a good leader, you know this. If you're a good leader, then you're a good follower. And to be a good follower, you gotta be a good leader. Um, you have to be inspiring and be an inspiring. So you follow, we're always working for somebody and what they want us to be able to do. So in my younger years, in talking pre-high school, uh, a lot of these things took place. And and I didn't know you know, I never knew that the military existed before then. Um, I didn't know that, you know, you're born in the in the ghettos, you don't, you know, there's not a lot of stuff that's getting you don't have a lot of I don't say there's not a lot of opportunity. I would say that you're unaware of any opportunity because no one gets to college and no one to so you're not looking forward to, you know, like my big brother's in college. I didn't have that.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Is that because it's like living in um like almost like a bubble in a way? Because like I could see that from like where I grew up in rural West Virginia. Like you you stay in the holler. Um, and like I have friends that stay in the holler because they don't understand there's a world outside of of where they grew up.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

That's exactly what it is. You're it's not that you're not ex you know, you watch TV, you see movies, you go on the internet, but that's what other people do, right? You're not exposed to it like other you're not exposed to anything outside of your environment. Um I and I don't know if it's like this where you live, but I wouldn't I I would only venture out past my three or four blocks from where I live when I had someplace to go or something I had to do. And then I was a different person when I got out, you know, I went to the malls out in the in the suburbs and and uh those things. So so you're you're you're I think you're not captivated, but you're limited to what you what's what's uh in your environment, right? You're you're limited by what's your environment. I was telling somebody the other day, and I I said, uh, you know, why do people continue to do the things they do? And I said, well, because they don't know there's other opportunities out there. Yeah, they they just don't know. And when you join the military, you go, hey, you can be this MOS, you can go over here, you can be stationed over here. What? Where where's that? How do I get there? You know, you're especially your first overseas tour, you're you're like, well, these people are completely how how is this possible? You know, you're blown away. And I think that's something that the military offers people is it gives you a worldview, right? Not local low site, but it's a worldview of things and how they are. And you realize that we're all different, but we're all the same. Um, when you travel and then you're exposed, then you're exposed to other people within your unit, um, within the service you choose. But really, when that first time you go overseas and you're with your buddies, you're like, oh, yeah, things are different, but they're the same.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So I think that's one thing that's really like helped me too, is just being exposed to people within the military because it come from all different walks of life, but seeing like the caliber of those individuals, because what I've learned is that if you if you come into a great organization, like there's a bare minimum that's the standard, like to be successful. But most of those people are above the bar, and then that standard always just moves up. Um, and I never truly understood that because I wasn't around like a lot of meat eaters, I guess, like growing up that had that work ethic and drive. But being in like a culture like that, it just takes you to places that you didn't think you could like physically go to.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Oh, yeah, yeah, pipe hitters, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, I I just I tell a story to people and uh I try to explain to them. They go, What was your like your your term, your what was it like to be a SEAL? And I said, Well, uh, when I was at SEAL team two, this is back in uh 1987. I went to SEAL team two, I was like, I was like one of all the other young pups that went over there the first year, and then you know you walk in a door and you think you're a hot shit at Buds, and you get out of bus, you go there, and you're like, Oh man, this is I'm I'm less than where I was at Buds. At least when I went to Buds, I was, you know, as you got up that became a senior class, you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're flexing. You get to your team, you're like, you're slower than everybody else because these guys have been running for years. Like, you don't know the other courses. They shoot better, and you do everything, everything they do is uh uh mountains better than what you do. But you realize that I'll be I'll be that guy someday. I'll be that guy who's running this command and in a couple of in a couple of years. And you get there, you get a couple deployments underneath your belt, and you're working your ass off because you're like you said, you're around people that are there's an expectation that you're gonna be better while you're there. You're it's in the mindset of everyone in that place is that you know, I ran um you know seven minutes last week. I'm gonna do I'm trying to try to get down to they don't go and try to get on to 658, they're going, I'm trying to get down to you know six. You're talking like one mile time? Yeah, one mile time. I was like, I'm trying to get down to six minutes, and you're like, that's like a full minute. It's like, yeah, I'm busting my ass. And on the three mile, I want to be under 15 minutes. You're like, what the f you know, those are the caliber people you you're around. I used to uh I went for a run once with I was a dev group. I'm gonna come back to this tilting two thing in a second, but I remember this guy, Mark Lee, and I can't think of the other guy's name. I went they go, hey Rob, you know, you've been around. You know, I was I was not like an old guy there, but I'd been there like five years, but I still wasn't a new guy. And they're like, We're gonna go for a run, you want to go with us? I remember jogging with them, and then we're gonna do a five-mile run. And uh they're like, slow the fuck down. Like, no, we gotta it's like hey man, hey, hey, hey, this is a strategic run. We're just gonna do five miles, we're not trying to run. And then I was like, uh, oh okay, okay, okay. You know, like, oh yeah, I mean I'm with the like cool guys. You get to uh you know, this typical you you get that the last half mile or so before you run back into the the compound, and I'm like, you know, I take off running and I get back in there. I'm like, what happened, guys? What like you're never gonna run with us again? Like you don't you don't understand. You there's a time for that, and it's a time just to talk and learn. There's a time to to learn about things, and that's what you were supposed to do. You're supposed to learn while you're there, and it's we could run as fast as you, but we were talking, you know. So you're banned from their old guy club. Like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

There's some wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

I didn't understand it until I get older.

Joining The Navy And Finding Purpose

SPEAKER_01 17:37

There, there's some wisdom in that. I uh this so a similar story, but like a bruise to my ego. So I young infantry officer, uh, just completed ranger school, airborne school, all these things. Uh, did a combat deployment to Afghanistan, led troops in combat on hundreds of missions, and then I come back and I'm an exo for a brave company under 4th Battalion, uh, 23rd Infantry Regiment at Fort Lewis. We're going on these ability group runs. So, like A Group, the Alpha Group is the fastest group, a bunch of privates that run like four minute miles there, but a bunch of like crazy monsters. And I remember running uh because you have to have an officer in the front, and then Staff Sergeant Lion Weber, I'll never forget that dude. He was he's just a mountain of a man. Uh, he pulls me to the side in the middle of the run, talking calmly. Uh, and I'm I couldn't even have a conversation because we were running at like six-minute mile pace. It's like, sir, like I thank I love your enthusiasm, I love the hard work that you're putting into it, but you're bringing this group down. You need to go back to be. And I'm like, oh my god. And it like hurt my soul. It still hurts my soul. Like 14 years later, I look back at that, I was like, man, that's the first time I've ever been called out. Well, I'd love to kind of like take it to you joined the military. Did you join the the Navy SIELS immediately, or were you No, no, I didn't.

Carrier Fire Trauma And Perspective

Discovering The SEAL Path

SPEAKER_02 18:58

I uh had a couple of uh traumatic things in my life, and I wanted to get out of where I was. I was raised in Milwaukee. I actually eventually grew up in Milwaukee, you know, the drugs and all that other stuff. I would cross over that before I got on the bus to go to school, and I'd come back to I'd be at my school in the on in the suburbs, and then I would come back. And then there were two different worlds. Not like now, nowadays everybody's kind of the same. You know, the kids are all kind of the same, but back then it was there was definitely two paths. There were the kids that would go to a school and they were gonna go to college, and there were the kids that were there, their world was right around their block. And I went to the school where kids were the path to go to, and there were kids out there that weren't gonna go, but the majority of kids were planning to go to some kind of college. And I remember my uh junior year, and I thought, what the fuck am I gonna do? You know, they're not gonna pay for me to go to college, and my grades are not good enough to go to college because I should have, you know, thinking back now, I was like, well, I should have been working on that when I was a freshman, but I knew I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna so I went. I joined the Navy. I I watched my heroes. This is different because I'm older, but my heroes were, you know, Batman Robin, they came on with three channels. Bob Hope was something that inspired me oddly enough, and those USO shows, or I would watch them in the movies, and it would seem like the Navy was something that that was always prideful. They had great uniforms, always looked good, always having fun. I thought, oh, I'll do that. I'll just go to uh the Navy. And I went into the went to the Navy's office because the army recruiter, the Marine Corps worker were set further back in the building. So I went in the first office I saw was was that my brother was a Marine. And I had family that members have been in the army, but the Navy guys were right there when I were all cool, they were smoking, you know, and walked in. Just like really cool. Like I saw in the movies. I was like, well, I'm gonna go with these guys. I I would say looking back that it probably wasn't the best experience for me when I first went in. I always felt that I was limited by my choices because I was I was drawn more to the the combat, the more to the structured uh stuff. When I when I got in the Navy, I thought, oh, this is not what I really want to be doing. I I really this is I don't actually like this. So I joined the Navy, went to boot camp, and then I spent four years on uh USS Nemets. Off and on, I was in the Airedale and a squadron that would fly on and fly off, fly on and fly off. This is doing the uh the Middle East years where you know it was just a shit show. So we were deployed all the time. I was at sea for nine months at a time. Left there uh after four years. There was a big fire on the USS Nemets. It basically changed the Navy's policy on drugs and beards and everything. Little PTSD from it. It's the first time I saw people dying that were like not a shot dying or out overdosing, but shot that that died of fire teams that were they call them fire teams and they're fighting fires, but the explosives were going off. And I watched, you know, I could still see it, you know, it is with PTSD. You you can visually see the moment and smell of that action or that whatever that is, uh, right there, like that snapshot freezes in your brain. So that's the first time I've seen people die. Uh like a lot of people die. And then I can remember people running back like the bodies coming back. About parts of them because the planes had hit and they basically collided and and it decapitated a bunch of people. So they have the in the military, not that I'm not getting off track, but they have the cat uh casualty elevators where all the casualties go. It's the same thing in combat, but I guess on a carrier. Casually elevator, all the dead people go there, all the injured people go over here. Uh there and I fought this fire um, like from you know, 10 feet away with a fire hose all night long. Because if I didn't, there's like 25 of us. If we didn't fight the fire, you have to cool all the bombs down. Put the fire out, cool all the bombs down. Because the internal temperature was hotter than the external temperature. So they were gonna explode. And if it exploded on a carrier, you only have one way home. And these are these big Phoenix bombs back then, right? Dirt ship killers. So when I got done with that, I was like, oh, I do not want to be on a aircraft carrier. I do not like this at all. So I said, they said, You got another year left. Can you where do you want to go? I said, I want to go to Spain. I enjoyed Spain, right? I would live there for two years. I was there about six months, realized that this is gonna sound fucked up, but so maybe it's just started putting women in the military, uh, as far as like these combat roles. And I I will say uh I had a hard time with it. I really had a hard time with it. I just say I had a hard time with it. So they sent me someplace else to work, that's how bad it was. Uh, I went working for the mass at arms, and over there I met a guy who had was a seal and said, Hey, you're probably in the wrong job. You're then this is where the player out of position thing from. You're probably uh you probably were never meant to be doing that, but that's all you knew at the particular time. Because I wanted to get out and play football at the University of Maryland as I was running back over in uh Spain on the Navy base, and they're like, That's that's beneath where you where you this guy told me he goes, that's beneath you. You're you're grasping at things because you don't know anything better. He said, You should be in special operations. I was like, the what? The special what? No internet back then, no TV shows, no nothing about it. And uh he says, Oh, it's the SEAL program. Asked somebody as a command about the SEAL program, and I was like, Hey, send me back to me and ask you about the SEAL command. They're like, Oh, do you want to become a Navy SEAL? I was like, No, I just want to know what it is. They're like, Well, why do you want to know about it then? I was like, Because he said I should do it, and they started laughing at me, like you want to become a Navy SEAL. I go, No, I just want to know about the program. I don't want to be a Navy SEAL, but why do you want to know about it? Because this guy told me I should. I'm like, and I'm thinking to myself, what's why don't you just do your job? Yeah, just tell me, bro. Tell me, tell me about it. Why make it? I can't find anything else about it. No, because there were no SEALs on my base. So they're like, Yeah, they're the they're the guys that do this, um, they do all the special operations, which is still the same thing, right? That to do special operating, like what? You know, like uh shooting and I'm like, that's all they do. Like, yeah, they're like a sports team. That's what they told me. I was like, oh. That sounds awesome. Sounds often I'll be on the Navy's athletic team. Oh, because I was a good athlete. I was like, oh yeah, I can do that. I can, I can, I'll I'll do that. And I met another guy that was like, yeah, he was in the hospital. His name is Clark Cummings, was at SEAL Team 6. I met him later again at Dev Group. He's the one that actually told me, he didn't tell me about the SEAL teams. He told me he he embellished on the story that I already knew. Right? He's he was it was a SEAL, been SEAL for a long time, uh, was flown into the hospital there. I had a friend of mine worked there. I said, hey, some guy's Navy SEAL here. You want to become a Navy SEAL? Come and talk to him. So I came over, I went over shyly, went over and talked to him. He goes, What do you want to know? I said, I don't know anything about the SEAL teams. He goes, What do you know? I go, they work out. He goes, Oh, yeah, they work out all the time. He's added that in there to me. Because, ah, you know what? If you do go, don't work out before you go because you're gonna run a lot when you get there. He's just drink and party, it's not that big of a deal. Oh, wow, that's horrible advice. No, right? I was like, what? He goes, yeah, you can stay in some shape, get your miles up, but don't get all carried away because that's all they're gonna do is they're gonna beat you down when you get there. I say, what? He goes, yeah, it's gonna work you out when you get there. So I got a sports team. And I was like, why is it such a mystery then? They're like, yeah, because they they they do other stuff too, but yeah, you shouldn't worry about that now. And I was like, oh, okay. Okay, impressionable boy. So uh he goes, How old are you? And I said, I'm I was I think I was 24. I said he goes, Oh, yeah, you're good. I was like, what? Because I'm 24? He goes, Yeah, yeah, you got a life lights experience. And I was like, uh, well, that's weird. But hey, whatever. This guy said I should do it. So I went back to my man and said to command and said, hey, they go, why do you want to be a Navy SEAL? I said, because this guy in the hospital who's a Navy SEAL says I should do it. Like, you're gonna quit? I said, uh, because I'd gotten no's. Because remember, I had a previous experience with all my new division officers, and they were all females, and they were like, You're never gonna make it, you don't have the discipline, you don't have the respect. And I was like, and she had chosen words, just sign it and deny it. That's okay. Because they have to, you know, the military you have to sign these chits, you have to uh request shit to do something else. So, but it has to be run up to your division officer, your department head, everybody else. And I got to, it was no, no, no, no, no. Until I got to the XO. And I said, I want to become an I want to be. He goes, Why do you want to become a Navy SEAL? I said, Well, um, because that guy over there says I was gonna be, I should become a Navy SEAL based on my background. And uh he says, Well, yeah, have you ever quit anything? I said, I no, I would never quit anything. I because you're I so if you go to SEAL team, you're not gonna quit. I said, I promise you I won't quit. I don't quit anything. That's probably my problem, is I'm hard headed. But uh, there's nothing to make me quit once I start something, and uh, and I don't know where that comes from, by the way. I don't know where that that part of me comes from. It's like maybe I'm hard headed, but uh I signed up six months later.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I was thinking, I think maybe that comes back from like one of the things you said earlier is that there's there's some people who just have natural talents and abilities um to lead, like natural leaders. And I think some people are just born with that dog in them. Um yeah, I I I can't explain it either. Uh I I don't fully understand it, but I just feel like it's something that's ingrained in our DNA.

BUD/S Mindset And Self-Challenge

SPEAKER_02 27:52

It it has to be. I I think when I went to Buds and I first got there, I thought, okay, I'm over my head. Fuck it. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna stay here. The it's it's the only I the first thing I realized after the first run in the soft sand on the beach was oh, this is not what he told me. You know, I kept thinking that he could, yeah. He lied to me. But it's up, but I got there. Like I'm like, I got there, and so it's up to me to stay there, is what I thought. I'm gonna stay here and I'm gonna excel while I'm here. And the only place that can make me leave, because I'd heard this from Bobby Richardson. The only thing that can the only person that can make you leave Buds is you, right? It's so so he's he's like, the only person makes you leave buds is you. So everybody's got this fair same opportunity, everybody starts the same, no matter what they say to you. The only person is gonna have you leave here. Because you can fail stuff there, and then they would keep you, right? You got to do what you're supposed to do. But the only person get, and I was like, uh, you know, I embrace that, right? I I'm I'm only gonna leave if I want to leave. You know, I I was I'm in a what they call a Nobel Hell Week class. I think it's only been two of them, one in the 1960s, and then my class in the seven. Yeah. So we started with 28. We didn't start we started with 17 people, and then by the time we got to Hell Week, which is the first four weeks of training, uh, you have two weeks of prep training, then you have four weeks. It's kind of like the Rangers where you go through that. Yeah, rangers have the same thing, but it's just a lot longer.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, it's a it's a horrible, horrible marathon.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we sleep though. We have one week of no sleep. You guys have like the entire course of no sleep, right? So it's a lot more painful to be the ranger thing. I think most of our guys go, you rangers start with a bunch of people too, and you then you come back and you're like, there's only like a few of us left.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, I think it has like um my class, my squad got disbanded in the first phase because there was only me and one other person who made it through. Uh it was insane.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Yeah, it is, right? So it's like, what makes that what what makes you a kid asked me a couple weeks ago, about three weeks ago, a friend of mine said, Hey, can you talk to this kid about going to SEAL chain? And I was like, Yeah, but you know, if he's asking me, he's not uh if he's asking me to help him, then he's not a person that should try out for the program. I said, I'm not trying to be mean. I said, but most of the people that are successful in that type of in special operations are not, they're they're they might seek your advice on something, but they're not asking you to help them get to the program, right? And so I said to the guy, I said, What are you doing this weekend? He says, I want to become a Navy SEAL. I said, Okay, yeah, but what are you doing this weekend? He says, Well, um, I'm not doing anything. I said, Okay, so you know, I went to a bunch of questions. I said, uh, what's the longest hike you've ever done? He goes, uh, three miles and almost killed me. I said, Do you have a friend that's uh that's a hiker? He goes, Yeah. So what's the longest hike he's done? And he goes, he's got like 10 miles. Said elevation? He goes, yeah. Said uh call that guy up and ask him to take you on a hike this weekend, and then you try to keep up with him. I said, if you finish it, great. If you don't finish it, you know you shouldn't go. You shouldn't even try for the perfect. He's like, What? I said, man, the people in special operations are always looking for things they can't do and then achieving those. It's just a natural thing. Like, I'm gonna go for, you know, I'm gonna run for an hour. How long is that? Well, it's an hour. Well, how fast are you gonna go? I don't know. Depends how I feel, right? It's just like depends how I feel. I'm gonna go work out, I'm gonna lift, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna always add more weight. I'm gonna try to do more push-ups. I'm gonna try that's what they're trying to do. And I said, when you go on a run, I said, look, this is the thing that will set you apart. Is that okay when you go on a run? I said, How fast do you run? Because I run about an eight-minute mile. I said, I would never, never go, I'm running an eight-minute mile. I said, Well, you know how fast I run until I can catch the next person that's in front of me. Yep. Right. I'm gonna run that guy down because I'm gonna take their energy and I'm gonna run past them. You know, I'm not gonna get behind them and relax. I'm gonna pass. I want them to know that I beat them. They saw me in a parking lot, they took off 10 minutes before me, and now I'm past them. That's how I know I'm good at what I do. That's how I know I'm fucking I'm pushing myself, right? Because you're you're playing games in your head. I said, if you're not like challenging yourself when you run or anything, then you're not preparing yourself for what's gonna happen. Right. And I I'm like, it's not self-talk, it's like, I'm gonna run that guy down. I'm gonna catch him before I get to that pole. And then you're working towards that. And pass that guy and go, who else is out there? Who's next? Right. And this is a game you play with yourself. If you're not willing to do that, then you're not willing to, you're not willing to push yourself. Because I said, because you want to become an officer, people are gonna want you to lead. Yeah, and that you can't lead if you're always like, well, you know, tomorrow uh I'm gonna uh like that. I'm like, man, I'm just uh I'm not telling you you can't go to SEAL program. I'm just saying you're probably not gonna make it. Because all the people I know were always running people down, and now it's a whole that whole thing goes back to me at SIAL Team 6 is it's let's run, let's run, let's go. It's it's a race. You know, you're two two guys together, it's a race, right? You ever go a swim? You ever you ever watch um I got I got my grandson, I take him to um I take him to 24 hour fitness. I got a swim program there, and I have to walk through the entire gym with him. And the first thing he does is he wants to jump on one of the machines. Like, no, we're not here for that. I'm like, he's five years old, and I and I I kind of kind of smirk because I spent a lot of time with my grandson. He's like, I want to work out before I go swimming. I'm like, you can't work out. This is not your equipment gym, but they're doing it. I'm like, yeah, but you know, we're we've got to, and this is like a year, we've been doing this for a year. He walks in, first machine, he wants to jump on, he wants to get on it, and you know, I can do what they're doing. No, you can't. You gotta go back to your swim class, your swim class is back in the back. And I every time I walk in the gym with him, that's everything he does. He wants to get on all the equipment, he wants to use it. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, you can't. I didn't teach him that.

unknown 33:38

Right?

Leading Upward And Speaking Truth

SPEAKER_02 33:38

That's something he's in, he's he's been exposed to and is in his DNA to be always pushing himself, right? He he wants to run, he wants to race, he wants to climb, he wants to do all these things. And I think you see it, and on my end, because I'm I recognize it, is how do I develop that to be the person he can be that's always gonna be that way, always gonna be me, and with some compassion, because that's another part of it as well. But yeah, man, join the military. And when I tell people that's what you need to do, they a lot of times they don't, they're like, well, I'll start tomorrow. Like, well, then you're not gonna do it, right? And the same with business. I did the same thing with business. I I like I speak to these groups of warehouse workers or uh their supervisors or their uh the um the people that C-suite, there's it's the same thing for me. Like leadership is leadership, right? You got to speak truth to power, right? We all know that. If you can't tell your boss what's going wrong in a manner that they would understand what's not drawn out and it's not personal, then how can you lead your people? And how you expect them to come to you and talk to you about something's wrong if you you can't articulate it, right? If you can't open the door for them to uh and I what is another thing that and I don't know if you believe in this uh open door policy thing, but I always tell people it's like yo, so so you have nothing else to do but wait around for them to tell you what to do, then how are you taking care of your people? Because 90% of what you do comes from the 10% of the person above you.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah.

Player Out Of Position Calls

SPEAKER_02 35:07

The CEO says, do this, right? And he's doing all his other stuff, but 10% of what he wants you to do, 10% of what he's passing on to you becomes your 90% of what you do on a day-to-day basis, and then you'll do your 10%, you then you'll pass your 10% down to the people below you, and that becomes their 90%. And that's how it works, that's how commanders' intents work. If you're not able to do what the C the person above you tells you to do, then you're not gonna be successful because you're not on this, you're not, you're not aligned, you're not synchronized. We need to be in the, I think the ranges are like this, the seals are like this, the Delta guys are like this, the um PJs, the everybody, everybody's like this. The the CEO or a team leader tells you this is what I want you guys to do, and it's always this much, but it's 90% of what you're doing. And then that 10% you as a as a leader, and you you pass that down and you make sure they understand. If they don't understand what you're saying, then you're probably saying it wrong. Because you got to meet them where they're at as far as language. And I and the bad thing about what I say is like, look, maybe some people shouldn't be there. Um, you got a player out of position. There's there's a kid today, right? I'm working with the Navy and doing a uh a program, I can't mention it, but uh, we were out doing a uh FTX last night, and I was talking to uh there, and I said, I don't like dropping kids on on the last day. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's a good idea. I think because I've been gone for like a couple weeks from the program. And I said, I just don't um I don't I don't particularly care for it. I think it should be done earlier. We we're good people, we're professionals, we know what the issues are, we know what the problems are. Like, well, give him a shot. So I go, okay, I'll do the medical, I'll do the medical for you guys, and then I go down there and I'm like, shit, he doesn't know anything. Like he knows nothing. You know that he goes to the med bag, there's a you know, the how long does it take to put a tourniquet on? Oh, it takes um takes about under a minute, right? We know that your bleed, your blood loss, and you TCCC, you know that this person has X amount of time to get off the X. Okay, so you know, as an individual, that you only have X amount of time to put that tourniquet. Once I realize it, and the scene is safe, and then this particular this particular incident, the scene's not safe because it's an explosion in the engineering space, you got to get off the X. So you know you got to grab it and go. And he is like looking through his bag and he doesn't have a flashlight on, they're smoking, and he's just operating, and and you know, you've seen kids like that before. They're operating complete darkness. And you're like, you gotta get off the X. I'm like, I'm talking to him, you gotta get off the X. And I said, I can't be, and I use the more colorful words, I can't be your voice to tell you what to do because then you're gonna rely on me only to tell you what to do. See, they kept I'm like, it's up to you to figure out what this is. I'm gonna tell you one thing get him off the X right now, and then you figure out from here. 45 minutes later, he is still not able to function. When we got done, I said, Yeah, this guy's gotta go. And I said, Look, the the the fact of the matter is they're like, Well, maybe he can be retrained. I said, It's too much for him. You know, I don't know, you know, I don't know if if he's on the spectrum and you know, kind of joking, but I said at some point, normally people would be like, just give me a little bit of uh a leeway, and then I'll become better. And then as a leader, you can't allow your your sympathy for a person. You can empathize with them, but your sympathy, I feel sorry for you, I'm gonna let you get it. That's that doesn't work. That has no you've been in combat, you can't sympathize that you let this this guy get through because it's gonna cost uh other lives, right? Because you can't straight fire right now. You you can't, so yeah, it's but it's as bad as you feel about it, it's like you gotta go. It's for the benefit of the team. And I'm not sending some kid out to the fleet, they board some ship and this guy freezes. Not gonna happen. I said, You guys can do what you want, but my conscience is clear on this it's 100% clear that this kid should not be here. Uh and I and I and they were like, Well, you know, you you said I go, I said this shouldn't happen at this point, but yeah, I just got back. So you guys knew this. I and I started asking questions. I said, When did when did he have a problem? Well, he failed on uh the first day. What about this test in the first week? They go, Yeah, he failed that too. They're like, Well, then why didn't somebody just drop him back then? Well, you know, uh, we thought he'd get better. He's not gonna get better, right? He's it he might get better if you give him if and and I think he was given the right tools, but just some people they just can't get it. I'd like you to say everybody wants to be uh special operations like well that everybody wants to be special operators, but not everybody can be special operations, right? That's why there's a failure rate, right? And then when you lower the standards, those people coming into your organization are affected, but the organization is affected by that standard that's been lowered because now you got to retrain this person that should already know this stuff. You should already know this.

Combat Decisions And Controlled Aggression

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yeah, it's it's like thinking of like just straight straight number base, is that 1% of our population serves in the military, something something similar to that, and then 1% of that is special operations, and I'm thinking like the whole spectrum, but even less than that is like tier one level operations, and it takes us it takes a certain person, and I think there's definitely uh reoccurring themes like in younger adolescents that kind of like mold them into like that hardened warrior or the lion that you like to talk about, or that mindset. But I love that concept of like a player out of position, like everyone wants to do these things because it's sexy, it sounds awesome. Like, I want to go do these things, but when they're actually put into a stressful environment, you either sink or swim, fight, fight or flight. And I've seen it too of like soldiers like clearly not engaging an enemy and just completely froze, and that level of indecisiveness can lead to your son or or your or your brothers around you uh getting hurt or killed. Um so a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

I call it decision paralysis, right? Yeah, they decision paralysis is in combat, they just can't, you know, which way or what do I do? What do I say? And a person that's that's in tune with what they're doing will know what to do, right? No one wants to die, but you can't be you can't be catastrophizing about what if I get hit, what if I get shot? It's like yeah, you just gotta go. Yeah, you gotta go. You know, I I I tell kids when I teach this one course, I said, um, this isn't a the bit the business stuff because that'd be crazy. I was like, if you're in a gun, if you're in a if you're in a knife fight, you're gonna get cut. You're in a fist fight, you're gonna get hit. You're in a gunfight, you're gonna get shot. So you know that going in the door, right? You know that walking through the door, that this is possibly gonna happen. You're shooting at you're shooting at them, they're gonna shoot back, right? They're trying to kill you, trying to kill them. It's just who's gonna do it first, right? Can you just suppress a fire? You can't. But even these kids today, and you go, hey, you need to just suppress a fire. They're like, well, they're not there anymore. I'm like, that's not what suppressive fire's fire is. Suppress a fire, so they don't come around the corner and shoot you. But I need to, it's like, no, just continue to shoot the damn gun. Right? It's like, no, I don't, I'm like, bro, let me tell you something. The bad guys waiting for you to stop. That's called a lull. And the bad guys waiting for you to stop, and they're gonna come out and they're gonna shoot you. They're not gonna be like, oh, what is let's see, they're their backs are against me. They're gonna like, they're gonna shoot you. So you can't like you gotta be proactive in what you're doing in a combat situation. But this, I mean, this is in everything you do in your life. It's just you gotta prepare for anything that's gonna happen, you know, suppressing fire, following up, doing things like that. Those are all things that I think are translated to the civilian civilian sector. But you can't teach that. I would like to say you can teach the the foundation of the methodology behind it, but it's but it's it's a natural instinct. Like, if I told you contact right, you would be like, okay, I'm getting my guns on, looking for my target scanning, you're gonna be right. But some people contact right, like, what do you mean? Right? Or or if you're have you ever been in a passenger in a car and you've been in the right, you've been in the right side and the person's looking, uh, the person's driving, you go clear right, and they don't even look, they just drive because they trust you.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

100%. I I still do that with my wife if she looks at me like you're clear right, go.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

Yeah, but but most people don't, but that's um that's a trust thing, right? Like I'm automatically always here looking out for you no matter what, clear right, clear left. You know, they're there, it's just it's it's I don't know if it's just ingrained in special operations guys, but definitely there is a there's a method to our madness of getting things done. But I think that and I but people would disagree and say, well, you can train people that I and I don't think so. I think I think if you train a leader, if something bad happens, that's what you trained. Because there's no way uh for you to cover everything they need to know in an unknown situation. And that's what combat is, right? Combat is you're going into an unknown situation and you don't know the outcome. And you're trying to you're not predicting the outcome, but you're going to make the outcome to what you want it to be. And you lose people. So that person that you're put in that position's got to know what I need to do to take care of my people. Right? If if you if you want to bring everybody back, then you're going to be you're going to be risk averse. But being risk averse will cause that same thing to happen. You know, if you're looking at the end, I'm telling somebody about we're talking about this the other day. I was talking about um move and shoot, right? Uh leapfrogging. And they're like, what's the purpose? They were like, well, you know, it what if they move on you? And I'm like, that's the whole point. So once you set your base, that moving team is supposed to be, they're supposed to move fast enough. The oodaloop, right? The oodaloop. So you're doing you, they're gonna do the same thing you're gonna do, but you need to be moving fast enough and being aware enough of what what that is, so you can capture them or kill them uh before they kill you. And I said it's life or death. So your people have to move, you know. You only have uh so much kid that this is a kid I was talking to. Like you only have so much ammo, it's not a video game. You only have to move, you may have 200 rounds of per person, and then you and you, and that's for your entire mission, and you get caught off guard and you get to some ambush or something like that. So you only have 200 rounds, so whatever you yeah, per group. There's 10 people, it's two thousand. No, it's two thousand rounds. Like, no, it's not 2,000 rounds, it's 200 rounds, it's your ammo, it's not the combined, it's what you have and the team has. And of course, some people will be like just just fucking loading and shooting, but other people will not fire in their guns, right? And they're gonna go, who's got ammo left? It's like I got some. It's like you got all your ammo left, but then you know that that's a weak point on your on your flank, and uh and instantly as an officer or or chief, I'm gonna be like, okay, this guy, this is what the weak part of my my my uh my my feel the fire, but yeah, my feel the fire. That's a weak point on that. Now I gotta deal with him plus the enemy moving, and now I gotta uh and I'm automatically gonna adjust what I'm doing without thinking about it. I'm gonna adjust where I'm gonna put that person, put that person over here, and then have these people cover that, and I'm gonna tell that my number one guy, my pipe hitter, to go do X, Y, Z. I said, this is what happens when you when as a leader you know what you're doing and how you want things to happen. If you don't, you have to think let me think about it, you know, and I'll use an example for probably a bad example, but um Latrell's thing. You know, they're all sitting around talking about, you know, this is from the movie, so I don't actually know. This is based on what I've heard from word of mouth and SEAL teams, is they all were like, what do we do with the, you know, what do we do with the sheep herder? And I'm and and you know, what I even thought, I'm like, I should have killed him. I think that's that's terrible. Okay, so we know what happened. Do you still think it's terrible? We know that the team was killed, we know that they went to get the Taliban, we know that he had the escape with his life, and then it embarrassed the SEAL teams. So if you know, if you could flash forward and see what was gonna happen, would you would you would you still think that killing them would be wrong? And then and and if you think it's wrong, then you maybe you're in the wrong job.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yeah, not to include like the single loss of special operations, like to try to rescue them of all the pain that kind of went through that.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Yeah, it's it's so so I think um, and and again, dwelling on if there's a bunch of them that are like that, but you know that's you look at them, and that's what you do after actions and go, let's not do that again, because that costs a bunch of our lives. Like you're out there, you do what you have to do. And this happened with Bravo 2.0. I think it's Bravo 20, it happened with their the um the British um or at the first Iraqi war. They did the exact same thing. It's like we didn't we didn't learn from it then, where they they saw the sheep herd a kid and the kid ran around the Iraqis and said, Hey, you know, there's military, there's army people on the other side. Then people were back then, they were second-guessing themselves. Like, and we we're supposed to learn from our mistakes. And I'm not I'm not a bloodthirsty kill somebody, but you gotta be able to see what I know people like, what's your morality? Why I'm like, my team's first, and then and then it a lot has to do with how I think that's and this is further back down the road, how I think society is gonna look at the SEAL teams. The Navy had the um the rib, the Mark V, uh they had it had engine problems before they left. The Iraqis captured, uh, the Iranians captured it. Did you remember that story? Apparently the boat had engine problems, they decided to go anyway, and they didn't use the GPS and they got off course, and then the the fucking boat died, and then they they gave up, right? They gave up. And people or the the officer was like, Well, we don't want to fight them. I'm like, Yeah, that's exactly what you want to do, right? Because you're gonna fend them off, and we don't want to shoot the guns in them because they were loaded. They were, they were, they had ammo, they had 50 cows for working on them, but they didn't sabotage it. They just go, Oh, here you go. We don't want to die. Like, maybe you shouldn't be in the military.

Plans Versus Reality Under Pressure

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Today's show sponsor comes from 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company. They are a philanthropic award-winning craft distillery located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. For being a listener of TELs of Leadership, you'll get 10% off on any order using the promo code PandoCommando when you place an order at 10th Whiskey.com. Both of those are in the show notes, so you'll be able to find them. 10th Mountain Whiskeys and Spirit Company honor heroes and they craft legacy. I've commanded two organizations in the 10th Mountain, and both of which are very deeply impactful to me. This is a company that I stand behind. And if you're looking for a great bottle of bourbon, look no further at 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company. Back to the show. I'll never forget like this kind of like reminds me of a story. And it so it all goes to like this point is that people want to join the military and they want to do these really exquisite things, but they don't understand the sacrifice of sometimes like split-level decisions that you're able to make that most people can't even comprehend. And it's like a symphony of destruction, like the quote mega death, right? Like it's it's a hard thing. But you have people put in places of leadership, industry or in the military, that develop this plan. The plan is their baby, and they fight the plan versus fighting the enemy. The plan is just a 70% solution for you to fire, maneuver, and close with and destroy the enemy, either in the civilian world, knock down your targets, or actually on the objective. Um, but I'll never forget when I was in Afghanistan, I had um an interpreter with me, and there was actually um Taliban informants within this platoon that we were trying to change, uh train, but they're out on this outpost. And I was going around as this young lieutenant uh doing my monthly property accountability of trying to get all the serial numbers for these silly generators that are spread out all over southern Afghanistan. And I come out there and one of the Taliban um basically informants in that platoon said that I was coming to take the generator and take all their food. So they were just in a line and they had their guns drawn at me. And me, I was like, okay, you want you want to do this. I dropped the ramp out. I walked out there, I confronted all of them, and I had every one of my four strikers point the Mark 15s and the 50 cows at them. It was like, if you shoot at me, I will annihilate you all. Just know that. Like it's going to happen. Um, you may kill me, but every single one of you will die. Um but that like that level of that level of mentality isn't made for everyone. And war's not a uh a good thing. Um I wish we didn't have war, but I thank God for people like you uh that are willing to go to those places and do bad things to bad people.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

And you.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

I mean, you did a lot. I but I think that the the enemy needs to understand that, you know, you fuck around and find out.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Yeah, I love that little uh that's a math equation. I use that all the time at work.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Yeah, yeah. It's like it's it, but I don't think that there's I think it, I think you go to finishing school. Like I think Rangers is a finishing school for you being a special operation guy. You walk out of there, you know that they can put you in a situation where you can make shit happen right away, and then you just become better and better and better and better and better and better because you're professionally you're gonna you're gonna always push yourself. Whereas, you know, uh when people graduate boot camp, they're like, That's it, I'm done. I don't have to be hard on I don't have to do anything anymore. Yeah, oh it's gonna get my rate, take my test. I'm advanced. Like, no, no, you're you know, you no, that's not how you should advance. I I I remember talking to um uh one of my friends, we had an E5, high moral standard, good good kid, and then we had some uh E6s that were there, Navy E6s are petty officers, even if E5 is a petty officer, but the first classes are petty officer, petty officer um E6 is a petty officer first class, and E5 is a petty officer second class. And we had three E6s that were um running the team, and this is when I was a civilian, and I and I said, you know, if you can't, I'd put that E5 in charge because if I can't do that, like why not? Because those other three idiots are idiots, right? They have to go to him to ask him anyway, so why don't you put him in charge? And uh I remember the shit storm that we we or he went under because they wanted to put the they're like, you can't do that, you it'll make them feel bad about themselves. And I was like, well, maybe they should do their fucking job. Yeah, it's not about your feeling. This guy's gonna lead people. So he was a shadow LPO, which is leading petty officer for about nine months till we got somebody in that knew what the hell was going on. But these like those three, I'm like, how the hell those three guys even make E6 in this field? Not SEAL teams, this was a Navy thing. But that's the problem we have is that people they get it, they get advanced and they're not and they put in these leadership positions and they don't know how to lead. And you're just talking about a regular work environment, you're not talking combat environment, combat would be different, and that doesn't happen that often, but it does happen, unfortunately. Unfortunately, it happens. But um, for the most part, people that are in combat that they do very well at what they do.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

I can't say the company's name, but um, it's a it's a pretty large um company that focuses on the AI and all this stuff. I had a meeting with them last week sitting down in DC, and we're they wanted to show us this new technology that they're developing. And I sit down there, first question I asked them is like, hey, you know, if you do business with uh SOCOM or the DOD, uh, we will use this to kill bad people. And as a business, are you okay with that? Because I've had multiple different companies, I can't say their name, say, hey, we want to sell you these things, but you can't use them to target and prosecute. I was like, Well, why would you sell it to the military if that's the case, right? Like you, it's not like we're gardeners and we're creating crops. We are a gardener in a way to fertilize the soil. Uh, but like I and when I said yeah, when I when I said that, I just looked around the room because I know like these, like not a lack of a better term, but people have never been challenged. They're like shocked that I would even ask this person that question. But I mean it's a valid question. I need to know up front, are you willing to do that? Uh, or if not, then our time our meeting's over.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

Yeah. Well, there's there people rebelled it. One of a couple of the uh tech companies because they they're already using it, the military is using it to uh and I'm like, Well, that you it like you're the reason you're able to say the things you're saying because of the military, right? You don't want to help them become you, you don't want to we're trying to reduce our casualties and get our mission to accomplish faster. So whatever you can do to help us with that will be better. It's not that number of people, it's the technology that that gets us ahead of the other groups, and and our enemies now outnumber us. So, okay, what kind of technology are we used to level the playing field? And and and gotta tell you that if the presence of mine is if you look like you're a badass, that's half of it. Yeah, half of it's that's more than half of it.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

It's like they need they it's that's why I keep getting tattoos because it just makes me look harder.

SPEAKER_02 56:01

Yeah, hey, I have you seen the new army commercial?

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Uh oh yeah, it's awesome, by the way. I was blown away. Now, let me ask you a question. Uh, when you joined the Navy, if you saw that commercial before you would have joined the Navy, would that have committed you to join the army?

SPEAKER_02 56:17

Yeah, well yeah. Uh one of those the one with the sergeant major talking, and the other one with the guy carrying the weights and it's I think he says it's harder to kill a tough guy or a big guy or something like that. You ever seen that one?

SPEAKER_01 56:29

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

There's another one guy he's deadlifting um, it's an army commercial. We he's deadlift, he's in the gym working out, and he's uh I think he's he's deadlifting uh like it looks like it looks like a thousand pounds. I think it's like 750. And then he's uh he's he's he's huge and he's just picking things up. And I think he says it's hard to kill somebody this strong as me. Or something, it's something it's not, it's it's not um it's ex the term he used is acceptable to television, but it is something like it's hard to kill somebody when you're so strong, or something like it goes like like army strong, but it's amazing. But the sergeant major one was the first one I saw that they put out in December, and I I sent it out to a bunch of my Navy friends. I was like, you know, if I'd have saw this, Mike, I would I I want to join the army now. I think it's badass. I did like it, it is absolutely 100% badass. It's like uh the Marine Corps used to have the um only the few or whatever it is now. Yeah, the few, the proud, the marines. Yeah, right. It used to be badass commercials. So, because this is how I am. I saw that commercial and I was like, well, what did the army what did the navy do? And what did the army do? I'm not I'm saying, what did the navy do? What did the marine corps do? And I went to the Marine Corps commercial and I was like, What? What the hell? Because they're already you know, they typically release them around the same time, and I was like, What? It looks like a video game for Call of Duty, yeah, 100%. Like it's completely different, like it's like the Army and the Marine Corps switched positions.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

It's funny too, because like I'm I'm you know, actively in the role and recruiting last year, the Marine Corps crushed it, and the army was sucking, and it was because the the culture that was being stood up like from these commercials is like, hey, come join, there's all these jobs that you can do. And it was it was switching the paradigm that what the army can do for you versus the marine corps was like, what will you do for the marine corps? Because it's a privilege, it's not a right. And I feel like the army's starting to shift to that mindset because being in the military it is a privilege, it's not a right. If you if you don't have the standards, if you're too lazy, if you don't have the work ethic, it doesn't matter. Like you'll get kicked out. I've had to kick soldiers out for that exact same reason.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

I tell you that if the army, if that commercial, the one with the sergeant majors talking, it's like three minutes. If you if you see it, uh have you seen it yet?

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Is that the Green Beret one? I saw the special yeah, that I shared that on my Instagram. Like, that fired me up. That was I mean, that's powerful. You're already in the army and it fired you up. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

I mean, not that special. Yeah, but I was fired up about it. I was I was like, this is that is very, very, very, very good. And if that's uh if that's like the you know, the Tom Cruise movies, Top Gun, right? So people see it and they get fired up about it, and they join the military. Yeah, that's why Tom Cruise gets all those planes because people see it and they go, I want to be, I want to be like Tom, and I'm not qualified, but I'll do something else to help the mission. And that's good. That's it's a marketing thing. But that particular commercial is you know, I remember when you said Green Beret, I was like, Yeah, it's a green beret commercial. When I saw it, I thought it was just an army commercial, right? It's done, it's done that well that it's an army commercial, but it is about the marine, the green beret. You're right, it disagrounds green beret.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

Yeah, it's we definitely need like that team of teams approach, like as a country, uh and with our allies, like if we want to continue to shape this world to be a freedom-loving, open world, right? That has the dream of like, hey, I want to go create a podcast, then you can. Well, that comes at a cost, and we all have to work collectively together, a team of teams, right? Uh, because we're more powerful together.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

I argue with that. And then the more the the more the the the larger your presence, the less likely there is something to happen. Yeah. If you don't have friends, like the first thing they tell you, like in my teach tactics, I said I said, we free when you walk in a room, they have to know that you mean fucking business. They can't be, you know, I'm gonna grab that gun over there. Yeah, you go ahead and grab that gun. And but when you're when your muscle moves, I'm gonna shoot you, right? Because that's intent. And so, but you're not, and I tell the kids, it's like you're not thinking, is that intent or not? Like you know it's intent. You're capability, opportunity, intent. And so, because you're talking about legal precedence as well. I said, but do you you do not want to get in a situation when you're second guessing yourself in a combat environment of whether or not you're gonna shoot that person. And they're like, what about handcuffing? I said, you don't want to be in a situation where you're debating on whether or not you're gonna shoot that person because handcuffing is something you want to do, right? You can do that no problem at all. But it's all the other stuff that you're brain saying, don't worry about that, we're gonna handcuff them. And then you wind up, you can't get him handcuffed, he takes your gun and he shoots you. We have a couple guys that are pipe hitters I work with, and uh, you go to handcuff them and you haven't given them direct, they're just waiting. And they're giving you signals, they're breathing heavy, they're angry with you, they're they're reluctant to follow your commands, and you know, as soon as you walk up to them and you stole your weapon, they're gonna go ahead and they're gonna come at you. I'm like, so so you know that going in the door. What are you doing with your presence? What are you thinking? Because that's what it is, it's what you're thinking that determines whether or not they believe what you're gonna do, you know, and they're like, I don't understand. Yeah, I know you don't understand. So I'm trying to tell you, don't think about anything else but killing that person when you walk in, and then you can control that anger, that aggression, right? But they need to know you mean business, like when a law enforcement person pulls you over, and they're like, I just give them my ID. I'm like, why is that? Because I don't want him to uh get mad or shoot at me or something. Like, exactly. That's what you need to have. Let's do it I said, why don't we why don't we fuck with bouncers when we go to bars? Because it's like they're to kick my ass. I go, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, he's not there just because he's a big guy, he's there because he's big, he's intimidating, but you know that he's gonna come after you if you do something wrong. So is that is that what and they go, oh I had to go to the nightclub.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

That goes back to like what Jordan Peterson said of uh be learn learn to be a monster, then control it. Um and I I I really think that like society throughout the ages, um regardless um of generation, right? Like has that same mentality. Strong people uh become monsters and they learn to control it. And then that's what makes a great leader. I really, I really believe that. Like the empathy, not the sympathy that we talked about, but holding people accountable to a standard which is uncomfortable, but leadership is not a popularity contest. I'll never forget a sergeant major telling me that it's not about likership, Josh. It's about leadership. You're not going to always be popular, uh, and that shouldn't be your barometer. Uh and that that just stuck with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Well, that's why you have that's why you have peers that you can talk to, right? And not necessarily about your problems, but just talk in general. Well, you're it's a safe space to talk about those. I can't believe I said safe space, but it is a space where you can talk about different things, you know. What's happening to our vernacular and then the in the in the world?

Transitioning To Business And Coaching

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Well, I keep calling Liberty brag, and that's it's definitely brag now. Uh yeah. So let's let's take it to um after you've gotten out of the navy, right? Like doing like the entrepreneurial stuff of uh trying to coaching companies, becoming an author, like what was that transition like? Getting out of the military, doing something so intense as being a SEAL and SIL team six, and then and then joining the civilian world.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

It was um I think the transition, we all have transitions, it was uh probably three years. I tried a lot of things, man. I just a lot of things I thought that people would want from me. Anything but uh shooting. I didn't want to do weapons, but I did do weapons training. I didn't think that I should share what I knew about weapons training or combat with civilians, you know. So I I I got a part-time job, and I still have it actually uh working tactics to stay up on board with tactics, defensive tactics. I did I did that later. That's in 2000. I retired in 2005, but in 2007 I started my own company. I was doing well, let me back up a little bit. I had been working with Sony PlayStation on a video game that I was told to do while I was in the military. You know how that works, right? Help them make sure it works works out.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

You did that in the military? Yeah. Oh, I did not know that. I thought you were out.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:42

Yeah, no, I was active duty and I didn't get paid because um I was told to do it. You know how they give you a program, they say, hey, run this program, and they're like, Can we use your photo? And I'm like, well, I don't want to use my photo, you know, and they're like, went to my boss and go, we want to use this photo for the thing, it'll be helpful recruiting, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, they were like, You're gonna need you're gonna let them use your photo. And you're gonna let you use your image, is what they said. And I said, Okay. You know, you do what you I didn't want to do, but they said, Yeah, we want you to do it because of recruiting. I was like, okay, it's makes sense to me. So for uh from 2001 to 2005, uh I was in the military working with Sony PlayStation for the video game or the PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3. When I got out, uh, that's when I I asked for um, you know, what's the fee for doing all this? And that's when they started paying me. So I got paid for two years, traveled around the world with them, uh, did all their their concerts or or whatever you call those things, uh, conventions. So from 2000 uh 2005 to 2007, I did that with Sony. And then I did the thing with Sony called SOCOM Hell Week, which is uh basically a they bring video game kids to a little uh Hell Week. There's only a couple of kids I thought were good. A couple of those kids actually went to Buds. You know, there were kids that wanted to go to Buds, there were kids that Uh wanted to play the video game, but did some kids they did both. They played the video game and they wanted to go to Buds. So they didn't want Sony, didn't want kids that are going to Buds that wanted to go to SEAL training to do the program. Um, because they didn't want to be a recruiting for SEAL teams, even though it was for SEAL teams. So when I went to the interview with the kids, I'd be like, Hey, don't mention anything about if you're going to become a SEAL candidate going to the Buds. And I said, if you're going to be a SEAL candidate, you shouldn't do this because people are going to see it. And then when you get to SEAL teams, they're going to hammer you because they're like, Why are you on television? That happened to a couple of kids. Uh, 2007, I started they started doing these video games. That was 2009, and then I ran across a guy who I had worked with on a movie, a producing uh called they're part of the young president's organization, YPO. And he said, Why don't you do that for civilians? Like, do what? He goes, SOCOM Hill. We think, Can you do that for leadership? I go, Well, that said, well, you know, at Lance, that's all it is, is leadership. And so the stuff that I do was that is leadership. I said, it doesn't come across that way because these kids don't know anything about leadership. But most of the time I'm talking to them is about what leadership does, what team building does, communication, because you put that in a program. And I go, Yeah, but it's gonna be like 70. I think it's I told him 70. I said 90 hours. I need 90 hours and they can't sleep. And so who's gonna pay for this? He goes, I'll get guys to pay for it. So you're gonna get the guys, you're gonna get rich guys to go through this program. He goes, Yeah, all right. So he put it out there. The first year I did it, I had 60 millionaires um come through the program. And um, you know, it was good. It was it was hard because I didn't make and I told him, I said, it's gonna be hard as it needs to be because you guys need to know that you got your money's worth. You're paying for a program that's like a SEAL program called Leadership Under Fire. Um, it's gonna be a it's gonna it's a scaled-down version of what SEAL train is, but I'm gonna give you all the lessons of why we do the things we do, or at least the ones I respected, why we do log BT, why we put you in a why. I will tell you the why. And then, but your why is different than my why. You know, so your you have to understand what your why is that's gonna help me make me become better. My why is because I need to do X, Y, Z. Your why is I don't know why you're here, really. So the yeah, the first class was 60 people, and he goes, You can do this once a year. And I was like, I think I can. So I built a company around these once-a-year programs, and then I started, hey, I could probably do smaller programs with these companies for their teams and squad, and that's how it started. I basically started taking what I, you know, all my knowledge, uh, and then hiring people that were actually the people that work for me are except for one person, are all military. She's a Olympic trainer. Uh, she's a she was an Olympian, she got a bronze for I think rowing. Um, but everybody else, she had 20 years, and so so the my entire coaching team are people that are prior military because they understand what I'm to what I'm talking about when uh whenever I say anything. It's not easy to translate, and they and they have their degrees, their PhDs, their master's programs, and such. And so we go, this is what our program, this is who we are. And this is this is it was SOTG special operations training group, and they went into tried. And I had a lot of, you know, I learned a lot along the way, and now we have clients where we train everything from the the warehouse worker to the executive team, and so we basically we we need a lot of information from them and how they do things, and sometimes people don't want to change. There's there's this thing where and this has happened a lot. Uh, we're training a group of Harvard, Harvard uh graduates, and we had Yale graduates, and the Harvard graduates didn't want us to share certain things with the Yale graduates. It's like what yeah, and they would they were they were clumped together as a group, and my job, you know, is to to break that, right? I see it happening, and I I gotta come in and break it. I gotta break that kind of uh tribal mindset. Like we only do things you work better when you do it when a Harvard guy says it, but not with a Yale guy. I said, that's not why we're here. We're here because we want to see what we can do as individuals, not about what you're you're you're and I get that you you don't want to fail as a Harvard guy, you want to fail as a Yale guy, but at the end of the day, you're failing who you are right now. You're holding back, and we don't want you to hold back. And I would tell them that our whole thing is that for you not to hold back when you're doing the program. And then it would be like, oh, I get it now, to not to hold back. It's like, yeah, because you're holding back.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:23

I think that'd be like one of the hardest things to do of you running your your trident coaching consulting company, but trying to translate some of the leadership lessons you learned through the military in the lens of a civilian so they fully understand that. So I I love the concept of you like hiring like all these pipe hitters right around you, like people in the military, so they understand the same acronyms, they have the same work ethic and drive. How do you connect those principles in the civilian world that someone who hasn't had the same hardships that we do?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:57

We have to dial it down. I I rely heavily only my team because I'm I'm like, this is what we need to build on. They're like, well, that's not gonna work, Rob, because this is where they are. And that that that in turn, just so you know, that uh because I didn't I did understand it, but I understand how much more now is how you develop people, how you train people, is when I went back and got my master's in psychology.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

That's what I was gonna ask. Why did you go? Is it 2017, right? That you got your master's in psychology?

Psychology Tools For Civilian Leaders

SPEAKER_02 1:11:23

No, no, no, it was recent. It was like a month ago. I started in 2017. I started in two, yeah, I started in 2017 going for my degree and uh 2018, and then I got I just recently got my master's in um uh psychology.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:38

Yeah, and then also uh uh LPCC, which is licensed like a career counselor. Yeah, everybody's like, I said I'm leading people in their lives. I said, I need to know the the you know, I need to know these things of building blocks for people, and that's kind of in recent, like saying recently, it's helped me connect because I can understand how they think now, right? Not just in the military, we did this. I can take what I learned in the military and I can take what I know about people and developing people from psychology from birth and then tie those things together and then help people with some some some cognitive behavioral therapy. Um, and I use a little DBT, which is dialectic behavioral therapy, when I'm teaching with them um in one of the courses, right? So I don't I don't just come in there and you're like, hey, this is what you should do. I come in and go, let's figure it all out, and I'll do it table by table, right? So there's seven tables there, there's five people at each table, and then throughout the day, I'll I'll basically do just some psychology stuff with them at that table to figure out what you know how they're how what's mid what are they missing as far as leaders go? Because a lot of times people think leadership is about signing the check and doing the performance evaluations, and I'm like, that no, that's it's a manager. That's a manager, you're managing shit. Yeah, so it's about what do your people think of you when you walk into a room? What would they say about you? Not that it matters what they would say about you, but what are you projecting to them, right? Is it confidence? Um, I went to a warehouse recently, and this guy was very impressive. He was told, hey, you're gonna meet some people and then give them a tour of this facility. And so I'm a coach. I mean, go in at one of my one of my uh people he gives us a 90-minute, like really, really good tour. And he's I thought you guys were vendors, like for to ship your stuff here. It's like, no, we're here leadership training. He was oh, I wish I'd have known that no, I think it's perfect because we got to see everything we wanted to see, and nothing was hidden from us. And so when I went and spoke to them, that single-that's a good TTP, I would do that every time. Yeah, so it was good because I'm gonna do it, I'm I'm gonna go to one in about a week and a half. I'm gonna go up there early and go through the warehouse. And it's like it was great because I got a I got their language, how they talk to each other. And then like when I spoke, he's like, Yeah, this, yeah, this guy is a real deal then. So I got buy-in from because I had because I went to the warehouse and there for a long time. And I could talk about you know the zones, I could talk about the people, I could talk about the hiring problems, because I saw all of it when I was there and I thought it was good. And that's what you do as a leader as well, is you you gotta get down and figure out who or who am I talking to? Who are the people I'm talking to? And and I and I was and I feel great about he was the person they attached to him. He goes, I wish I'd have known. I'm like, no, you did perfect, man. You were great. You were absolutely 100% great. And I'm gonna use some of the stuff you told me when I talked to them. I told him when I saw him at the he goes, Oh shit, you're you're the guy that's here. I'm like, yeah, I'm because I never had anybody do that. I said, yeah, but because I said we need to know who we're talking to, we just can't get up there and just like, well, look, look, look, watch you pull a rabbit out of my hat. Like, no, we want to help you. He goes, Yeah, I'm I'm surprised. Yeah, I was like, Yeah, no, we're here to help you. And everything I'm gonna talk to you about is stuff I learned from you. So he's like, Wow. So I may call on you just so you know. He goes, Oh no, no, you don't, no problem at all. It's like because I I would be like, hey, this guy, blah, blah, blah. And then tell me about what you think should what the problems are. And I go, yeah, it's fine. You know, HR people don't care. I mean, they do care, but you know, if you got an issue, a problem, speak truth to power. You can do that in this environment, right? Because you told me there's an issue, but I I can't I can't fix that. But I'll help you talk to them about what that issue is that the problem you've been there 19 years, of course you know what's wrong. If you're hiring the wrong people and they don't listen and you keep losing people, you got a 30% uh rate of of people, uh, what do you call it? Um, attrition. How do you get that down to 10%? Yeah, hire the right people. Who are the right people? You know, HR doesn't know who the right people are. They just know that you need a person, right? Who is the perfect person for that job, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:35

It goes back to the story of where you're sharing um that tryout with that young man, right? Like it's it's all about like culture. I really do believe that. Like, if you can hire the right people for the right jobs, then you'll have a phenomenal organization.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

Right. Culture is what makes things happen, it's not your environment, right? And I don't know your environment, but I know I'm not a product of my environment. I'm about a product of my culture, my mom, and make it uh make sure we got things done. And you can have that, you can have culture and environment, but your environment will destroy you, your culture will help you, right? Where with the school had a great culture, you know, excellence, drive forward, always be somebody, be some, you know, move forward and stuff. You know, as I get older, people say, why don't you just retire? And then like, oh why okay, and do what? I think there's a lot more left for me to do and a lot more left for me to teach. I'm not ready for the wrap-around porch and the rocking chair and the you know, the dogs and the grandkids. I can manage to always if I'm gonna say that your life is full of successes, why would I stop doing what I'm doing? What what would be the purpose behind that? And so I I tend to push myself and continue to push myself as you know, as long as my I'm not my running marathons. I can watch a marathon, but I might want to run any marathons, but and I can help kids out. I can help, and I say kids, I mean anybody under 30 years old. So you still talk about 15 years old. Uh like my nephew, I brought my nephew in a bad situation. It's it's taken six months for me to but I shouldn't say for me for him to see that he has a future doing other things. That survival loop, right? That I'm not gonna and I think he's indicative of most kids his age that can't see a future. And he said to me the other day, you want to I want to join the Marine Corps. I was like, okay. You know you gotta do Marine Corps things before you become a Marine Corps, right? So you gotta do things before you you can't just show up and go, I want to be a Marine. It's like you can't run, you don't push-ups and just sit ups, and you've got to get ready for it. He goes, Don't they do I saw the movie in that uh some documentary because they do all that when you hit there? I'm like, yeah, but those people aren't gonna make it because it's too far. He goes, What do you mean? I go, if if the requirements for you is to run uh eight-minute mile, I say two miles and at 16 minutes, that's a requirement. That's on day one. So everybody comes in, they should they start running at nine-minute miles, and they're gonna get you down to a you know two miles at eight minutes. That's I go, that's a lot, but it's a minute. You can't run a mile right now in 15 minutes, and so you can't run around the block. So so you're you're talking about you know, seven minutes, almost eight minutes to lose per mile when you're not running. And so I'm not I'm just giving you the math behind it. Like if you can't run around the block now, there's no way you're gonna run that eight-minute mile or seven-minute mile when you get there. That's how far back you're gonna be. And I said there's no recourse for you to be to to be better unless you're going there doing eight-minute miles when you get there. And that's why you're gonna be ahead. I would never want to go there being in the back of the pack. It's just like I, yeah, you you want to be in the front. Everybody in special operations is in is in great shape because they know that they're gonna be pushed beyond where they're at right now. And and I said to the my nephew, I said, Look, man, you're probably you're probably at 40% of what you can probably do, maybe less. I wouldn't put in more than that of what you think you're what you can do. And I said, I don't know, because the way you were brought up, I don't know how to tell you that it's probably not that high. You yeah, I'll give you one more thing. And and um I'll I I typically train people, and this is what I learned as a leader as well, is that the um there are no finish lines, you know, there's some combat, there are no you can go in, hit something, and come back out, you can get jocked up and get loaded up and go out and do it again, give a quick uh frag order, and you're back out there. So you never rest on, oh thank God we're done. And I think that's in life as well, is that you you can't look for the finish line. And then when I watch kids train, I look at how they cross the finish line on a race or something. You know, my nephew's a perfect example. If I told him to run a mile, you know, I'm looking at would he would he stop at a mile or would he run a little bit past that mile? Does he because like if you give up, I'll use my block for an example. Is that run around the block, you know, it's four corners, and then you're running at the same pace for the first three corners, and that last corner you come down that long straight. Are you gonna attack that straight or are you gonna slow down and then stop at that line? Right? And people typically slow down to stop at the line, which means they gave up a long time ago. They're not looking to improve their scores, their times, or reduce and running's a real good thing because it's running is difficult for a lot of people. But if you're not able to, like I'm gonna push myself on every lap that you've come faster, and that last lap is all out because I want to know where I'm at for the next time I come back out there, and I don't run through that line, that finish line, then I know I'm only training to what my limitations are, and those limitations are me. Then why would you go out and run a ride a mile ride a hundred miles on a weekend? Because I have time.

New Books And Personal Motivation

SPEAKER_01 1:20:53

Yeah, chasing hard things is a theme that I've seen with you, and I think with most people like that come from the community is I'm and I'll forget, never forget this in ranger school eight-minute mile, five miles. That's the standard. If you run that in ranger school, they will pull you off the course because you're you're not going to make it in time because you have to go down and turn around, they will pull you off the course. So I went to ranger school and I was running around a 32-minute five-mile, somewhere somewhere around there, because I wanted to be so above that standard when I got there that no one could tell me that I couldn't do it. Same way though with the ruck march. I ran the ruck march the whole way. Why? Because I wanted to make sure confidently people knew I was here to, you know, I'm here to show up. I'm not here to quit. I'd love to kind of transition though, um, kind of wrapping this up into what you're currently doing right now, especially with some of the the books that you're that you're working on, if you could share those.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:49

Yeah. Um, there's two books I'm in the process of writing. One's about where I'm at with the companies uh and the team building and how to how to inspire people. You know, what is inspiration inspiration? Um, I think that'll be the title of that book is what is an inspiration. Because I don't think people understand what their inspiration really is as a leader and how you get it and how you hold it and how you maintain it, and then what do you do for yourself? Because you do you a lot of times we talk about leadership. We don't talk about what what healthy approaches are we taking for ourselves and what do we what are our you know, how do we maintain that and who do we look to? How do we people think that um as leaders, you know, that you just have that, you know, you're just like, oh yeah, I just I just know this stuff. It's like, no, there's a whole education behind staying on top of things that you do on your own because it's important for your people. You're not walking around your junior people like, hey, I just read this book and I want to get a big dude. You like this book? I like this book too. Thank you. No, you're looking for other people, you look for inspiration quotes, you look for inspiration other individuals, you see how other people are doing things wrong and doing it right, and then you talk to your, you know, your fellow peers uh about. But the higher you are, the less people you can talk to, or the less outlets that you should have. The other book is, and I I've changed the name of it a couple of times, but it was originally going to be the um the subdue trident, and then where do I fit in? And subdue trident, where I fit in, is the the trident's dark, it's black. The trident is what seals get, and then where do I fit in? And that goes more of my journey as you know, an African-American or black. I'm not sure what the term is this year, these these years, but I want to say black. But it's like I my journey is the same as everybody else's. But people think it's been it's different, but it's not. It's the exact same journey, it's the same kind of uh things you you would experience when you're going through the program and how I got to where I was in the SEAL team, how I got to SEAL team six. So we're like, what do I what do I think? Why was I the fastest runner? I was not the fastest runner. I was a decent, better than average swimmer. I was strong in push-ups, pull-ups, I was strong in in dips, but all the other stuff I didn't know anything about. I didn't know the SEALs did half the things they did when I came in. So everything was new for me. It was learning for me. And and you know, challenges, right? The first time you repelled, right? I was scared to death the first time I repelled off.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:01

Oh, yeah, I screwed it up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:05

Right, my anger burning. You know, I was like, I was just coming off the coming off the wall. I was like, what the hell? Um, and then all the things I've learned since then, all those experiences and going to Fort Fort Benning and jumping out of the uh the mighty Ungawa Tower. I don't know if that's still there. Yeah, but that stuff, all the all those things were experiences that I was I I was sit there sometime and go, I can't fucking believe I'm doing this stuff. You know, that was me looking around in Fort Benny. It's just like I can't believe I'm doing this stuff. And this is the army.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:35

I remember the first time I'm jumping out of a plane, we're in airborne school, and there's these like two privates, and I just got out of ranger school, so like I was just like, I just don't care. Just throw me out, I don't care. And they're sitting there like, How are you so calm right now? I was like, uh, I have faith in my equipment and I'm just gonna go do it. They looked at me like I was crazy. I was like, You're not you're not nervous at all. I was like, no, I dahana. Um, but I've been trained well, so I think we can do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:00

Yeah, that the nota people don't think no, people don't think that way. It just yeah, I I I remember um at when I jumped out the first time, I was like, it's quiet. You know, because you jump out and it's like, it's quiet. Wow, that's that was really noisy in that plane. This is me on my way down. I checked my canopies, you know, and I was like, oh shit, I'm getting ready to land. It's just 400 feet. It's like slip right. Yeah, I uh yeah, I I I just remember that some of the times that my brain is processing things differently. I'm not like worried about like you, I wasn't worried about the key, the gear, the equipment. I was like, well, the I was I was amazed at when you stand up with the with the with the sticks, right? You get your stick near to get up, stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door, or something teach you. And you're like, man, this is really the and you know people are hesitating because you can feel that bump. Yeah, you just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and all you hear is jumping out of the plane. And I thought it was so because it's so noisy, and then when you get out there, it's like, oh, this is really quiet. Okay, now where's that guy there? Okay, that's good. My mind's processing everything that's out there, and I don't think everybody does that. I think every a lot of people who are afraid are just like the ground's coming up real quick, I'm gonna die. Yeah. No, I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I think operators could get out and they go, okay, this is what I got to do and make shit happen. And I think that translates to everything else you do, is that you can and I don't say it doesn't slow down, but you're able to capture a lot more things that are happening, which are situation awareness than most people are because you're because you are in special operations. And I think it's a lot more to do with how you were brought up and who you are, who you were born. Because there's like we said earlier, there's one percent of one percent of people are in special operations. There's not a there's not a there's not a million uh rangers, right? There's not a million delta guys, not a million uh PJs, not a million. There's there's there's a couple hundred, right? I think I mean there's under a thousand rangers. I could be wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:53

Uh three battalions. Um, I'd have to look that up. It's probably less than five thousand for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:59

Yeah, yeah, that's not a lot. That's not really, you know. Not like I mean, like you consider the army as big as it is when all the stuff they do. Yeah, and you got three battalions. The SEALs couldn't put a battalion together to save their lives. They could they couldn't, you know. Um, so there's a lot of training that goes into those guys and gals nowadays. That that's yeah. My nephew wanted to be um a ranger, his dad was a SEALs captain. So hey man, you gotta run. He's like, No, no, I'm good. Yeah, you gotta run. So he missed the uh test by like four seconds or something. And I was like, yeah, it's like uh try again. It's four seconds. Yeah, but I'm like, it's four seconds. He's like, it was just four seconds. Like, well, yeah, it's four seconds over. Yeah, no one becomes a ranger with the time over. Over it did no, you should have been you should have been like a minute under. I I don't know what the I don't know what the test was to enter, but it was it was uh he was over like four seconds. Because I was over four seconds, I can't believe they're not gonna take me. I'm like, they're not gonna take you because you need to meet the minimum requirement.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:58

Minimum standard to get in the organ.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

That's it. That's it. So they sent them to um typically special operations. They uh they're like, okay, great, you're good to go. You stay in the army, but you're gonna go to uh 82nd Airborne. No, you would think no, you went to the gate guard up in um I'm sorry for him. You know what I but I don't I like I tell people, I don't know what it's like to quit. I don't know what happens with you when you quit. I don't know. I don't I don't I'm I don't think that way. Failing something is different, but quitting something, I try not to feel anything at all, but um being booted out of something, it's like fuck, what really? What did I do? And I see that with the SEAL teams. They when they draw people, they um like what happened to them like I don't know. Why don't you know? It's like why would I know? I don't know where people go when they leave the program. I know I started with this number and this is why I left. These are the guys I'm worried about. And I'm sure you're the same way, but you're the guy in New Ranger. Like you said, you have two people left over. Like, I don't know what those guys did. I I never thought about myself as I never thought about it that like, like, let me get inside your head and see what's going on inside your head. I don't know. No, you're supposed to do this, you didn't do that, you should be out of, you should be out of the team. Yeah, I'll hope you leave.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:17

It's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:34

Question one: What do you believe separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:40

Um, how they treat their people. Yeah, that's pretty much how they treat your people because they're people you can do it for yourself, but your team, your team's uh uh can magnify everything that you're doing. So uh, and I say that along with that, I think the hardest thing to do is let your people do what they can do for you. We we technically want to have all the answers and do everything, but our team knows how we think, they know what we need, and they can do those for me. I learned I learned that the hard way a couple of times with people, and I'm like, I'm just gonna let you do what you do. That's what you know. I guess they're like, Well, that's what you hired me for. Like, you're right. I'm better with them than I am without them. So I just steer the ship and everybody. I guess a good way of looking at it is Captain Kirk. I'll use a Star Trek reference.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:24

Oh, I love it. You already sold me. Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:26

Star Trek reference, Captain Kirk is sitting on the bridge, and he says, We need to get through this plasma field, and and uh I want to get out of here right away. And then he calls down to Scotty and says, Scotty, give me, give me more power. He says, Captain, I can't, I I need 10 minutes because you got two. And then everybody else, the comms and the medical people and the the the the teams, there everybody is like working towards what he wants them to do. And they get out of it, and they're like, I'm gonna get out of that XYZ. Captain, you made a good decision, last-minute decision. Because, well, I just I relied on my instincts, and that's because people trust that you you can get them out of situations because they trust you. I think having a great team around you sends you to the next level as far as like being a great leader. That's the difference. Your people around you make you a great leader.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:15

That's probably one of the best answers I think I've had out of like 97 different episodes filmed. So, quite question two, what is one resource that you would recommend to someone that wants to be a good leader or just starting out on a leadership journey?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:30

I would I think a well were a well-read uh leader, look at how other great leaders did it. I I I would say the style of other leaders, like you're you know, look at your boss, talk to your boss, but that only that's they're only gonna tell you what they want you to hear, right? But if you read when people put it all on the on the on the table, um the the better you can educate yourself of the books that are out there. You should use a variety of books, not just all combat books, you should use psychology books, you should use uh psychology books, you should use sociology books, you should use philosophy, and those are things that are gonna help you as a as a as a good leader. I think those are the things that are gonna help you, especially like uh philosophy. You know, this it goes back 100 to years. Like I can quote stuff from uh Marcus Aurelius, but that came back, that's stoic, right? But that's been around for three, three, four hundred years, maybe more than that, five hundred. Timeless wisdom. Timeless wisdom, right? If you read uh a Genghis Kong book, it's like I can't believe that there that this wisdom was it's been around and people keep using it. You don't use it all the time the right way, but if you have the if you have those those values in that stuff is easy for you, right? You put all those things, all those ideas, all those concepts in. And I think the older the book is with the information is better. Because a lot of stuff nowadays is regurgitated old stuff. They're in there in a the 60s and when people stop thinking, right? So you get somebody like Jordan Peterson that whips out stuff, he's in he's an anomaly about how he talks about things, but he's a great resource for information and how to become you know a very stern person in what you do. And there's a few other people out there now, but but basically the older stuff is really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:10

So, question three what advice would you give to your younger self if you were just starting off again?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:17

Advice I would give to my younger self. I was at I was asked this question a while ago differently, though. How do you see yourself? And uh the the one thing I would tell myself, if I could go back in time, the one thing I'd said I would say run it down, just run it the fuck down. Whenever you're doing something, run it down. And what that means is that always go after the win. Like you're gonna learn more about not winning than you are winning. So if you're always trying to push yourself, then you fail, you're like, okay, what did I do wrong? So run it down, everything. Just run it down.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:53

I love that advice. Fail fast and and keep moving forward. The last one, this is the hardest. How can our listeners find you and how can they add value to you, especially with some of the books you just talked about, your coaching company? What's the best way to reach Rob Roy?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:08

Well, I have a I have an Instagram, uh, I have a Facebook, I have a uh Twitter account, and they're all under Trident. Trident, it's either Trident-CC or Trident underscore CC. And then once them once a day, right now, once a day, I send out a video, uh, probably anywhere from 35 to 40 seconds long on LinkedIn uh and TikTok. And you can go on there and it'll just you can go through all those 180, 280 videos, and each one has a positive leadership message every day. And then after that, you want to contact me, then reach me, reach me at um RobertRoy at Trident-Cc.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:52

Rob, this this has been an incredible episode. I really was going to continue to go probably to the two-hour mark, but I want to have you back on the show, especially when you release your next book. I'm really excited to like dig into that concept of like inspiration, like from a leader. But this has been an honor, brother. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:10

Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

After-Action Review And Key Takeaways

Support The Show And Final Sign-Off

SPEAKER_01 1:35:11

Have a good day. All right, team. Absolutely awesome episode with Rob. And I I ended it quicker than what I wanted to, uh, just because his phone was just blowing up and I know that he had prior engagements today, and selfishly, I didn't want to keep him uh any longer. Uh, so I closed it out a little bit earlier than all the questions I was able to get, but I love the conversation. I always love bringing on military uh service members, especially that train um and then transition into the entrepreneurial like leadership stuff, because I can just resonate with them at a much more uh deeper level. But what were the top three takeaways that I had from this episode? The first one is to chase hard things. You see that theme through Rob's entire life from growing up to joining the Navy to becoming a Navy SEAL to founding his own coaching company to writing books to getting a master's degree and continuing to work towards that. His life has always been a series of challenges. And this kind of goes into uh the second point is when we learn to challenge ourselves, we're always putting ourselves in this disruptive space and we never get fully content, right? People that are content are satisfied. People that are satisfied never achieve extraordinary things, and people that are satisfied should not be leaders. And I genuinely believe that because leaders have that level of grit to them that they're always improving themselves. And remember, leadership, right? It is a journey, it's a constant marathon, not a sprint, a marathon to improve yourself. And we talked about several times the six phases of leadership, and I harp on this all the time. It always starts with us. If you're not challenging yourself to be more, become more, learn more, do more, then you're not living to your full potential. You can do that. Wake up at four in the morning, go jump in an ice bath like I do. It's a great start to the day. I question every single time I do it, but I start off with purpose and then I go serve myself through a workout and I read and I do meditation. I do all the right things to serve me so I can go serve other people selflessly. And that's hard to do, uh, especially for people that don't have that level, but that's what it takes to be a purposeful, accountable leader. The second one is what are you putting into this world? I love how Rob talked about like projecting uh as a leader when you come into a room or you take over a new position. What are you entering that room with energy-wise? And I think one thing that always sets me apart from other people is I have a level of charisma that was instilled in me through repetitively challenging myself and winning. So that's the theme with this one, right? Chasing hard things, pushing yourself outside of your disruptive zone, and always going for the win, like Rob talked about. And over time, that will build that level of humble confidence. I'm not talking about an ego the size of the Titanic, right? A humble confidence because we always can improve and we're never a hundred percent. But what are you projecting? Work on that, focus on that. If you're not projecting what you want into this world, how can you project what you want in this world? All right, team. Hey, do me a favor. If you like this podcast, make sure you like this, make sure you subscribe, make sure you share. And if you want, I would absolutely love it if you go to tells the leadership.buzzsprout and donate to the show. Everything that I make from this goes directly back into running this podcast. And I have an amazing editor, and I want to make sure that I can continue to produce powerful leadership content for you guys to become that purposeful accountable leader. As always, team, I am your host, Josh McMillian, saying every day's a gift. Don't waste yourself. I'll see you next time.