#119: David Brown - A SEAL’s Journey Against the Odds—Grit, Leadership, and Triumph

David Brown is a graduate of BUD/S class115 and member of Underwater Demolition Team 21 and SEAL Team 4. David went on to conduct Navy special warfare deployments in Central and South America, Europe the middle east and Africa. Later he served the federal government as a Special Agent for 28 years, retiring as a Senior Executive. David’s latest venture is a new book about perseverance, overcoming obstacles, and becoming a Navy SEAL by former Navy SEAL David "Brownie" Brown and NY Times Bestselling author Bob Gettlin.

Connect with David Brown:
-Website: www.udtdave.com
-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UDTDave

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Transcript

Why Purposeful Leadership Matters

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I know you asked your other participants, uh other interviewees, you know, the definition of leadership. And what you said is the definition of leadership is to be the example for everyone to emulate. And in in order to lead, you had to be in that mindset, and you had to be the example because if you weren't, it was the difference between their lives, making them making it out alive or not.

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 a POW. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.

Meet David Brown And His Book

SPEAKER_01 0:45

All right, team. Welcome back to Tells the Leadership. I am your host, Josh Pravillion. I am an active duty army officer, and I am on a journey to become the best leader that I possibly can. And I plan to do that by bringing on other purposeful, accountable leaders or pals, those who lead with intention, integrity, and make an inspired impact. And here's my why. I've seen the cost of poor leadership. How it can destroy morale, break trust, and in worst cases, lead to a loss of life, including through suicide. That's why I'm committing my life to helping others lead with a purpose. And through Tells of Leadership, I share real stories and actual insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons. And a couple of free tools. The only one you need to remember is Linktree slash Tells of Leadership. That'll be in the show notes. It has everything uh in terms of leadership resources that'll help you be a better leader, including all the different articles that I've written, which has now over 33 and 106 podcast episodes released up to this point. But on today's episode, we're gonna have David Brown on, also known as Brownie. So David is a graduate of BUDS Class 115, a member of the underwater demolition team 21 and SIL Team 4. David went on to conduct uh Navy special warfare deployments in Central and South America, Europe, and in the Middle East and Africa. Later he served as a federal law enforcement agent and special agent for over 28 years, serving as a senior executive. Today uh he is working on his latest venture, which is Anne Goliath, a book that pro focuses on perseverance, overcoming obstacles and becoming a Navy SEAL, what it takes to go through that journey. But I'll tell you, I read everything um from cover to cover. I devoured his book and it was phenomenal. I highly recommend you go read it. It's a simple read. If you want to go listen to it on Audible, it's also available there. So let's go ahead and bring on David. David, welcome to the Tells the Leadership Podcast. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Good. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Good. And I always love saying the exact same question that we just uh said when we're in the studio. Uh it it is an honor and a privilege to have you on. Um, and I've been a lot more intentional recently with the podcast of doing my due diligence and reading people's books who actually come on the show. And I have to say, uh Anne Goliath, the book that you wrote, is phenomenal. Um, so I'm really like like to dig into your story, but just take a quick opportunity for you just to introduce yourself to the listeners who's David Brown.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Okay, well, I'm uh a regular guy, I would say, from coal mining town and small coal mining coal mining town, Wolksbara, Pennsylvania. Grew up blue collar all the way. My dad owned uh a little television shop, and some point in my teens, I decided I wanted to be uh I wanted to go in the Navy or in the military and decided on the Navy. And some reason I decided to pick like one of the hardest things to do and become a Navy SEAL. And uh I did that for several years, traveled around the world doing operations with uh UDT 21 and SEAL team 4, and and then after that, I had a family, so I decided I was gonna go ahead and get out of the Navy and become a special agent with uh the federal government and did that special agent work for 27 years and uh retired and decided to do some other things, did some acting, volunteer work, nonprofit work, and uh here I am, wrote a book and talking to you right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, so the first thing that struck me uh about your journey as happen when you started. So you grew up in Pennsylvania in a coal mining town. I grew up in rural West Virginia in a coal mining town. Uh, and I think that's a great place to start. Just your childhood, you being brought up in that type of environment and how that forged your mindset mentality, that that grit that you have to just not quit. And we'll definitely get through that, like through your story. But if you could walk me through your childhood and some of the key memories that forged who you are.

Coal Town Childhood And Early Grit

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Well, um, I wouldn't say it was a bad childhood. Um, we my parents had five kids, and I was at the end of that. So, as most kids that are at the end of five, you know, we don't get a lot of attention from your parents. So I was out running around in the wild a little bit, but I did, you know, my mom was a fiery uh Irish redhead. And uh I think I or not think, I know I inherited a lot of her chutzpah, if you will, and uh her um ability to be confident in herself, even though she didn't graduate from high school. And um and I I adopted that pretty early in life. Uh, you know, I was a little kid. When I say little, I was like the smallest kid, smallest kid in class, always even smaller than most of the girls. So I got picked on a lot. And uh from that, I would say uh a lot of my personality came out and uh developed from there to be, as you say, some grit. And um and I stuck up for myself, got into a lot of fights, and uh that benefited me later on in life, not so much to get into fish fights, but certainly to stick up for myself. And so that's you know, the as far as being growing up in a coal mining town, you know, you'd never think why would someone number one go into Navy if you're growing up in a valley in the middle of Pennsylvania where they're hauling coal out of the mines and and go into the Navy and decide to be a Navy SEAL of all things. And um, I guess the story behind that is I loved Jacques Rousteau and I love James Bond, and I loved all the cartoons of the time, you know, Speed Racer and Johnny Quest, and uh and my brother was a big motivator for me, and that was in that era. And so when I decided I was gonna, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to decide I was gonna go in the military because there weren't really a lot of options for me. My parents didn't have the money to send me to college or pay for it, and so I was practic, very practical person, and I thought, you know what, Navy's gonna give me room and board, they're gonna feed me, and they're probably gonna teach me something. So um, and uh I decided to be uh, and then maybe that's another story you want to you know extrapolate a little bit on, but I decided on being a Navy SEAL.

Scuba Curiosity And Risk Early

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah, I you and um one of the things that I took from your book is your your willingness uh just to be extremely confident in your gear and your equipment, and then starting back with your first scuba experience uh when you did your uh diving certification, you went a little bit deeper than you were you were supposed to. Was was that where the love for you wanting to be a Navy SEAL or that drive really kind of came from when you first did that uh diving class with with your dad? And I can't remember the name of that place.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yeah, Harvey's Lake in Pennsylvania. It's a natural, cold, very cold water lake. And uh it wasn't something you jumped into even in the summer and said, Oh boy, this is nice and warm. You froze your butt off all the time. Um, and you're right. I did I had my first scuba lesson at about eight years old. And it, you know, today, if you were, and kids get certified scuba even at eight years old today. But the difference was is I had no lessons. It was a guy with a tank or had a shop, a dive school, and he put a tank on my back and said, you know, don't hold your breath, swim around in the lake, have a good time. And then he went up and talked to my dad while he threw me in the lake and I swam around. That was my first scuba experience, and I just loved every minute of it. Froze my butt off. Uh went, as you said, he said, don't go any outside the swimming area. Of course, I wasn't gonna listen to that. So I saw a sunken boat down in the depths, and I said, That's it, I'm gonna go to it. And uh I did.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

How how heavy were the the tanks?

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Well, that tank wasn't so heavy, it was a little pony tank. Uh, you know, I probably weighed about 60 pounds then, but you know, a steel cylinder back then we were using all steel, they didn't even have aluminum yet, and so it was about 35 pounds, and so it was more half more than half of my body weight when I did get my first tank. Like I said, I was the smallest kid, and when you throw 35 pounds and then you put dive weights on, uh, it was a challenge just to get to the water.

Wrestling Pain And The Quitting Spiral

SPEAKER_01 9:26

So I can uh I can resonate with that, especially being in the army and combat arms. Some of the uh forced ruck marches that we had to do. I remember going through ranger school and we weighed our rucksacks. I think it was in mountain phase. And when you're the AG or you're uh a gunner, I think all the equipment that you're wearing too include like a tripod or your belt. Like, I think I was carrying over 120 pounds. And at the time I weighed a hundred, I think I got down to 180 pounds, and I'm a six foot two frame, so 180 was pretty light. I was like, man, I don't know how like little guys do this because like I was at like the top of my physical capability, and that's what I reading your story. Uh I tie a switch with you um of learning to take off the governor, if that makes sense, of when you started doing wrestling at a very young age. Um, could you walk me through how you you learned your physical limits, but then went beyond that at a very young age? Because I got that from your wrestling experience, and I'm I'm curious.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Um well the the wrestling experience was a result of my failed uh attempt to be a football player um the year before. It's uh less than about 80 pounds playing freshman football was not a good idea. So I got my butt kicked and I quit. It was a horrible experience, and something that actually stuck with me the rest of my life. And there's a big definition of what failure is and quit is for me, probably different than everyone else. But anyway, we'll go into the wrestling story. You know, I just there was something inside of me inherent that said, you know what, you're not gonna be a failure the rest of your life, and you need to do something about it. And uh and I joined the wrestling team, and lucky for me, I was a lot, I was a natural 98-pound kid all through high school, even as a senior. And uh I uh managed to get to the district championship, and in the semifinal, well, you know, uh I wasn't the best wrestler in the in the district, and no one thought I was had a chance to win. And I made it to the semifinals, and the person I was wrestling did a move on me, wrenched my shoulder, took me to the mat, almost knocked me out, and I managed to recover from that, and I beat him. You know, at the last second, I beat him, and uh, but I was hurt. My uh my shoulder was on fire, and I was but I was in the finals, and I had to make a choice at that time. The coach was saying, you could do this, you can do this, and it was either you know, go back to the way I was uh in football practice and quit and be a loser, or go into that final and convince myself that I was gonna win, because you can't win if you don't convince yourself you're gonna win. And uh, two things I learned about that match. Number one is you could be the underdog and you can still win, and you can win in especially physically, even if you're hurt, and I was hurt pretty good. And uh and at the very last moment, I was last period, I was getting beat. Thought I was gonna, and that there's a thing called a quitting spiral. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's why most people quit is because they convince themselves there's a better reason is that it's better to quit than to go on in the process because the process is so difficult, it's painful, maybe um it's um physically difficult or mentally difficult, and they create people create reasons why they should stop and go to the easier route. So I had a choice. I was gonna either succumb to my quitting spiral or I was gonna push forward, and I did. And that another major milestone for me growing up and using it later on is after that I said, you know what? I not only am I not gonna quit, I know I can win uh through through this process, even if I'm the underdog. And um, and that was a big that was a big deal for me, and that's why that story is in the book.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

When you went to that, I think the regional championships of where where you won. Uh, and I I found myself getting lost in the story because I also like wrestled in high school, and there were just a couple times of where you get in a flow state of where you're wrestling, of where it just becomes um almost like muscle memory. You do these moves and it just feels so fluid, and other people are watching you, and it looks almost incredible. But when you're in the moment, it just becomes a fluid uh as as like water. What injury did you have before you went into that? Like I was curious when I was reading your book. You I I knew that you were hurt, but what was the injury that you were diagnosed with?

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Um, well, the uh you mean it happened during the match, you mean, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, during the match.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Yeah. It was um so if you're familiar with wrestling, then you know what a bar arm is, right? So I I had stood up on the semifinal match, I stood up to escape, and the my opponent took not one, but both my arms and put them in a double bar arm and tripped me forward. And as he did that, he fell, he fell on top of me, taking my arm and wrenching it up to the to the back base by the base of my head and almost pulled my arm out of the socket. And so that was the injury I had uh going and and not to mention, uh luckily my face broke my fall on the mat. And uh I was basically almost knocked out. They brought the smelling salts out to get me to revive me and then asked me if I wanted to continue. Uh that you know, back in the day things were a little different. I guess today they would have dragged me off the mat and uh said you're done, but uh not back then.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, I I just think about like uh so my both my son and my daughter wrestle and in these tournaments, and to kind of frame it, my daughter's 11 and my son is seven, but the intensity of which that I see these little kids just going, and then like me, me as a father uh being on the sideline and and trying to root on my son and my daughter, I find myself getting like so forcible that I'll get down on the mat and I'll start like slapping the wrestling mat. There's just something about wrestling that it just fires me up because I think it's a great sport to teach that intestinal fortitude and that do not quit. And I really can't think of another another sport in time that teaches those valuable lessons at such an early age. And I love how you transitioned from a failure in football, which when I was reading your story, you were crushing it, but it got to a point of like physically you just couldn't handle it with the weight and like just getting crushed by much larger human beings. But then you pivoted that failure in your mind, you processed that, and then you challenged yourself in in wrestling. Um, and I think that's a theme too that I noticed with you throughout your leadership journey that that failure won't define you, that you'll push yourself and you never let failure happen again uh throughout your entire professional military career, at least. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

And it's all about perspective. You know, some people say, oh, fail often, fail this, fail that.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Um, I don't subscribe to that. I subscribe to you can never fail if you learn from whatever you're doing. You can never fail. Failure is the complete loss and a complete disaster, if you will, that you didn't accomplish anything. And if you look at your life at everything you do, and you go at it 100% and you work really hard, even if you don't make the grade or pass the test or make the run in time. Um, if you look at it and say, Well, okay, this is what I did, so this is what I need to do in order to succeed the way others perceive success, then you can never fail. I never after that, you know, and I've had I have naysayers, oh I say I never fail, and they're saying, Oh, that's impossible. Well, no, it is. It is possible if you have the right mindset.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

I I I I find myself going to a similar football story, uh, but different. So, first year, seventh grade, I start playing football, and we have to run uh two and a half miles uh one way to our practice football field. At this time, to some vulnerability, I may have been like 200 pounds, like in the seventh grade. So I wasn't the skinniest kid. I felt like we had opposite problems on the spectrum. And I uh Mr. Truman, I'll never forget this dude's name, uh, state trooper for West Virginia, and he's just having everyone go in a formation run, like military run, and I keep falling out and I keep falling out and I keep falling out. No one else has fallen out except McMillian. Everyone's stopping on the side of the road and they're doing push-ups in the gravel, and he's letting me catch up and run past them, and he's like, hey, they're gonna keep doing push-ups, McMillian, until you improve yourself. And like that's always stuck with me as such a valuable lesson, is that uh I failed my team that day. I'm never gonna let physical fitness be another barrier to to me and and my team. Um, so when I was reading your book, that just all those memories started flooding back in.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

You know, that's I'm I'm so glad that I get goosebumps when I hear people tell me stories uh like that. And I've had a lot of people contact me and said I related so much to the stories because I thought I had really uh interesting stories, but I also knew other people were going through very similar things than I were was going through. And I thought when I wrote this wrote the book, I wanted to say not just how I did things, I wanted to come back, I wanted the people to analyze themselves and say, you know, yeah, I know what I did, why did I do it? And why am I why did I go in this direction and not that direction? Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but I really wanted the reader to put themselves in my shoes and then in their own and ask themselves the same questions.

Why The Book Starts With Divorce

SPEAKER_01 19:54

One of the things that struck me most about your book is how you started it and how you finished it. Um, because it's not a chronological uh flow, if that makes sense. You started with a failure um and a very transparent failure at that of your wife very long time leaving you in a divorce. Um because the level of success that you strived for within the Navy and within federal law enforcement and not wanting to fail, if that makes sense, and knowing that relationships were probably struggling with you, like that resonated so deeply with me because me being active duty and I got when I was a company commander and had a privilege of doing that twice. Uh almost every point of friction in a soldier's life is their family. Uh, and people don't truly understand, even on the federal side uh or government uh service side, the sacrifice um that that people have to go through. And I was telling you that I just started working at the Pentagon now. That's an hour commute one way and an hour commute back. Um, and it's intense. And who shares that burden? It's the families. But you starting that book like that with a failure, it hooked me. Um, so what what made you start it with that story?

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Well, what you just said, it hooked you. I needed to reader to understand this is not a book about being becoming or being a Navy SEAL per se. This was a story about a human life that that went through traumatic and remarkable amounts of tragedy. But the reason why I came out the other side the way I did was because of the all the events leading up to that point, all the difficulties and the overcoming the obstacles. And um, I wanted to be as real and as heartfelt at the very beginning, because I wanted the reader to trust me the rest of the way to know that I was gonna give every emotion and every detail that I could to the reader.

Choosing The Navy Against Doubters

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I really think that that was such a beautiful like opening to your book. Um, because then then I was fully bought into how can someone that goes through being a Navy Sylvan I come from like a slight SOCOM background, so I understand like what you had to go through. Um how could someone be that successful, be a federal agent successful in that? Uh, but start off with that story. Um, and and that really uh piqued my curiosity where I wanted to deep dive into that. So I think that's a beautiful transition point to all right, your high school time, um, some of the things that forged you as a very young man. What drove you uh to to join the Navy and walk me through that experience of you wanting to join the the Navy and be a Navy SEAL and you can tell in your recruiter that story?

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Yeah. Um, you know, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I'm not a big guy. So when I walked, um first I went to my parents and said, Are you going to pay for my school, my college? And my mother basically just said, No, it's not gonna happen. You know, um, I didn't know it at the time, but my family has a long history of military service all the way back to the 1700s in the Netherlands. So it was it was natural, it was instinctive for me to go to the military anyway. Um, and so uh when my parents said you're not gonna pay for college, I said, okay, I'm gonna look into the military then. And I actually looked into the Coast Guard, Coast Guard recruiter wouldn't guarantee me a rescue swimmer billet. Um, so because I didn't trust anybody for that much to be able to swear my uh allegiance for four years and not have anything guaranteed, I went to the Navy. And that's when the recruiter, you know, walk in, talk to the recruiter. He says, What do you want to do? I said, What do you got to offer? And he has me a book, Navy, uh, Navy jobs book for and he said, Take it home, take a look at it, pick something that you're is interesting. So I took it home, looked, started looking, and all of a sudden I come across the page that says UDT SEAL, underwater demolition team seal. And then it just described all the things that Jacques Rousteau and James Bond did, jumping out of airplanes, blowing stuff up, machine guns underwater. Um, it was it was like my dream job. So I went back to the recruiter and I said, This is it. This is the perfect job for me. This is what I wanted in my whole life. I'm a certified scuba diver and all this other things. I love shooting guns. And he just looked at me and just laughed and said, No, no, you can't do that. Um, you're too small. Uh, I don't know anybody who's ever made it through the training, but the ones that have are really big, muscler guys. And look at you, you know, pick something that you can really do and go read that book again and come back. And I did. Uh, he's an authority figure, right? So I figure, okay, maybe he's right. I went back and I looked at UDT seal again, and it wasn't like I could go on the internet, it was 1980, there was no such thing. And I just from that three pages of description, I went back to him and said, no, this is what I'm gonna do. Sign me up.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

When you when you went back and you signed up, it wasn't a straightforward process. So you what was it like for you uh leaving the civilian world and then joining the Navy? What were some of the struggles that you faced up front before you even got a chance to go try out a butt?

Is Confidence Born Or Learned

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Yeah, I was uh well, my parents were sick of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania weather, and uh, like all people that were gonna retire, they moved to Florida like the day after I graduated from high school. They went to Florida, so my my home today basically here I had no place to go. Um uh I lived with my brother over the summer, and uh the you know, day came for me to enlist, and I did, and uh I really it was an all-or-nothing proposition for me. Um, my parents were living in a two-bedroom condo in Florida with my sister, raising my sister, and my brother was you know living with his girlfriend. I had no place to go. It was either a success or nothing. And uh I still remember the you know flying out of Scrantonavoka airport uh to Great Lakes, where the boot camp was, and I just had the actually the best feeling I had. I just I just thought I'm so glad I'm flying away and flying into my future. I was just so confident. I just I just knew it was gonna be great for me to be in the Navy.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

You you had a moment of defining arrogance versus confidence, um, and then talking about how confidence is part of your genetic composition, I guess if that makes sense. It's just part of who you are. Is that innate in people? Do you think that confidence is something that you learn or is it something that you're born with?

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Um, I can that's a really a double-sided question because um, you know, in the book, I did a lot of research trying to answer why I am like the way I am, and came across a uh genetic um scientist, Robert Ploman, who wrote a book called Blueprint, DNA, how DNA makes us who we are. And I was studied what he studied, and according to his research, absolutely confidence is born. You are born with certain skills that contribute to a person being more confident. Doesn't mean you can't learn to be confident, but people who are predisposed to be confident have a much easier time. As in when I was a kid, I was a confident little kid. And it's not like somebody taught me that. It just came out of me through my experiences where people said I was too small to do this or too little to do that. To me, that incurred that was energy for me, that was fuel for my fire, if you will, to do be more aggressive and to do better and to be a better person and to achieve the things that they couldn't say I could do. So, to answer your question, is personally, I was born with it. I think if anybody, number one, the the this I'd like to make a recommendation for everybody. If you're wondering about where you're going in life or doing and you need to look at yourself and you need to go back and look at your family history and look at your father and your parents and your grandparents and your ancestors, like I did. When I did that, all these things came clear to me why I am the way I am, because I inherited all these personality traits, and it all became clear. This this it wasn't like I had to take a personality test, which I have many times, like everybody in the government, right? But the only thing it did is it just clarified to me what I what I already knew. So um, so that's the answer to your question, yes and yes. Um, if you weren't born with it, then it doesn't mean that you're out of luck as far as confidence goes. Confidence is is manifested through experiences. The more familiar you are with an experience, the more confident you become. That isn't that's different than being personally confident in yourself. Confident in the ability to do something is one thing. Being able to start something, you have to have personal confidence, and that comes from within. And that comes from life experiences, and that comes from knowing you're going to eventually succeed in some way.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

I I I 100% agree with that. Um confidence was always something that that I had uh growing up, even you know, as a heavier child going through uh, you know, middle school, getting picked on and bullied because of my weight. Uh, but that was something that I always had in me when I was going through junior high, when I was going through high school, uh, I always seeked hard things. And I love how you tie a lot of your own self-discovery to your your past um and your family's past and identifying that, hey, a sheepdog tendency runs in my family. There's a reason that I'm drawn to the Navy in these types of career fields because it's in my DNA. And I honestly, you know, I've filmed over a hundred episodes now and no one's ever made that correlation. So I I'm definitely very interested in the reading that book that you cited in yours.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

It it's great, it really explains a lot and reveals who why you are the way you are, and through statistics, you know, I'm not a scientist, I'm a trained criminal investigator, but I just felt that if I said things on my own, if I gave you a list or I said this or these are my opinions, that only holds so much weight. But when you go to the actual scientists who did the studies, and there are many, and they're quoted in the book, I think that adds the credibility and the and the comfort if somebody wants to look into themselves and say, wow, why am I like this? And why am I what are my abilities and why do I have them? It's a great way to do some research and and feel comfortable about yourself because you don't inherit only the good things, sometimes you get the bad things, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

So that and that explains that gives that that explains so many things to so many people.

BUD/S Running Struggles And Injuries

SPEAKER_01 31:49

I have a Scotch-Irish background, uh, with my last name being McMillian. So I have a tendency sometimes of having a short temper. Uh so that's uh it's just part of part of the uh part of the process. So I'm very interested in reading and picking up that book, but kind of transitioning back to uh your Navy SEAL time. You just show up to BUDS before you get ready to train. And we're reading through your book, you struggled with running. Um, so how did you improve that before you got into to BUDS your first time around?

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Well, when you have a 28-inch inseam, you're not gonna be like the fastest runner, right? And maybe there are some faster runners who are a little short killing kids, but uh uh I was just never a good runner. And you I'm not sure if you want me to talk about the story going into BUDS or the story that was the revelation as to why how I made it through.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Well, I think the the mentor that you had right at the beginning of BUDS before you actually started, uh gave you some very powerful advice. It didn't stick the first time, uh, but then when you went back the second time, and then you were able to partake that wisdom on everyone else.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Yeah, I I had a I was really lucky when I got there, uh I had a senior chief pull me aside, wasn't a really big guy, a little bit bigger than me, and he he just knew because he went through it, you know, the challenges that I would have. And one of the things he said, and I didn't understand it at the time, but he said, When you're running through sand, you just step in the footprints of the person in front of you. Every time you run in the sand, you leave a divot. And so the person in front of you is leaving these divots, and he said, just step in this in the footprints of the person in front of you, and that's how you run in soft sand. He didn't give me the physics of it. What he was doing, he was giving me the mental aspects of it. You need to stay with the rest of the group, and by doing that, just you're taking the energy of that person in front of you in those footsteps, and you're you're making that, and because I was such a weak runner mentally, it was really good for me to understand that. And it meant a lot more later on in training.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

I think that was extremely fortuitous, too. Like uh you getting ready to go through this very hard process, having someone who shared the same physical struggles as you to help get a leg up, at least from some of your weaknesses that you had. Uh, so the it was funny reading your book, you and I share a story about uh one obstacle, the dirty name. Um I I remember going through ranger school, I was running down uh a mountain. The very first office go there is is the dirty name, and I was like, I'm gonna breeze through this. So I'm running full speed. I jump on the first log to the second log, uh, and I think I'm gonna ace it, and then I'm just flying and I hit chest smack on the third long, knocks the wind out of me, and then I fall down. And then when I was reading your book, uh it's funny because that brought back that memory of me at Ranger School that I tried to like suppress and just keep far, far down.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

Yeah, it was very difficult for me. That was the one besides running, that was uh truly an obstacle, both physically and uh metaphorically. Uh and it was just it was something that it didn't matter what my size was. I had to figure out how to overcome it. Uh and because as you know, going through military training, especially special forces types of training, they don't make concessions because you're five foot three, and they don't make concessions because you're 250 pounds instead of being 150 pounds. You got to do everything just like everybody else does. You got to carry the same weight, you got to swim, you got to jump, you got to do all the same things. So that obstacle, regardless if I was a few inches shorter than everybody else, I had to figure out how to get over it.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Going through BUDS the first time, what were some of the the challenges that you kind of uh went through and how did you overcome them?

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Uh well the you know the biggest challenge was running, as I told you uh about. And that the as this the story goes, um unfortunately I I checked in a few almost two months before the training started, and they they don't let you sit around in the barracks when you're waiting for your class to form up. So I was out there doing physical training and everything else with everyone else, and and uh as my first class formed up, about Hell Week is if you're familiar with Hell Week, Hell Week is four weeks into first phase. I'd already been doing the physical training then for eight weeks. By the time I got to my fourth week, by the third week, uh I was in pretty bad shape. Uh I had these large golf ball-sized knots on my legs, and we had just got done with uh log PT, another infamous exercise and special forces training. And I didn't know it, but I had pulled a muscle in my groin, and we were going into a four-mile timed run, and uh I could barely get out of bed that morning, but uh popped a bunch of Motri and got up and dragged myself out to the beach and did a four-mile timed run, not very well. Um, barely made the distance, let alone didn't even come close to the time, and dragged my left leg over the finish line, and they sent me to the sick bay to see what was wrong with me and the instructor. So here you got I got a guy, you got a guy here who can barely walk, and the instructor looks up at the pull-up bar and says, jump up there. Like, what? I can't even walk, but I jumped up. I managed to get up there on the pull-up bar, hanging on the pull-up bar, and he brings out a ruler and he puts it under my feet, and he says, One leg is shorter than the other. Brown, you got a problem. You can't go do SEAL training with what I thought he was nuts. I've been through so much, so many exams and everything. So they sent me all the sick call and they did a bone scan and some other things and figured out, yeah, I pulled the groin muscle, and I'd broken both of my legs. I fractured both tibias on my left, both left, left and right, and uh from running, believe it or not. It's a frequent uh uh injury and buds because of running in jungle boots. Uh and unfortunately, happened to me, cracked both of my legs. But uh the good news was is when I went to the review board, uh they had rolled the other people out that uh didn't make it, but they looked at my record and said, anybody can run a four-mile timed run on two broken legs, you get another shot. So and uh I go back to my wrestling story for the you know, this the uh grit to know that even though I was hurt, you know what, I'm gonna finish this, I'm gonna finish the run, I'm gonna complete the mission, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah, I think it's it's that killer instinct. Um that you you learned it it I think there's only a very selective amount of people that go through life and they they truly challenge themselves physically to where they get to a point and most people just quit. If you go out on a run, you're doing like a five-mile run or something like that. Most people just quit when they get uncomfortable. Uh another next group of people, they'll push themselves, but there's a very small percentage of people that I believe that have been discomforted so much to where they are able to push beyond physical limitations, um, like an actual injury that you had. And I think it's a blessing and a curse from your story is that you went out there, you did a four-mile timed run, uh, and you had two broken legs. But because of that, the grit that you did to go through there, you were given a second opportunity and you capitalized on that second opportunity. Could you walk me through that?

Goon Squad Lessons And Mental Breakthrough

SPEAKER_03 40:16

Um, yeah, I um they sent me out of training for eight weeks. Uh, eight weeks is enough for bones to heal. And I came back in and started at the beginning of training. And uh and this, you know, running, go back to the running story. I was not I still not a fast runner. Uh and and uh we they had what's called the goon squad, and everybody who was fell behind in the run was put in the goon squad. And I was put into the goon squad for the first couple weeks of training. And in the goon squad, one of the wonderful things you get to do is go run, jump in the ocean, roll in the sand, and then you get to do all kinds of torturous exercises until you collapse, basically, or um until you win a race, let's say. Uh, one of the races was carrying people. You had a firemen's carry one of your one of their uh teammates or one of your trainees, and you would do races in the sand. And uh uh one day in a goon squad, I was forced or I was told to carry a guy named Tony Guma Tautau. Just you can just imagine what Tony Guma Tautau looks like.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

He sounds like a massive guy. Samoan.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

230-pound Samoan. And uh I was about 116 pounds at the time. Like, okay, Brown, you and Guma Tautau pair up, run over the berm, hit the surf, and then come back. Good news was Tony Guma Tautau throw me over threw me over his shoulder like I was a rag doll. He ran up and over the berm, threw, we jumped in the water, so we had this huge lead, and then came my turn. I'm at the bottom of the berm, and Tony basically climbs over my shoulders. He's covering my entire body, and I'm and I'm walking up the soft sand berm with him on my back, you know, basically like one, no, one, one. You know, it was it was, I don't know how to describe it, other than holding my breath, gritting my teeth, and carrying a Volkswagen up a up a sand hill. Got up to the top, started running down this, you know, running down's a lot easier than running carrying him up. Um, unfortunately for me, and you know, probably not probably funny for him is I lost my footing, too much weight, right on my face. He bathed me in the sand. We both jump up. Instructors are like, they're catching up, get up there. Tony jumps on my back, and I managed to cross the finish line before everybody else, and uh, we won the race. Um, and uh, you know, one of the instructors said that was the funniest goddamn thing I've ever seen in my life. Brown, we go back to the you guys are dismissed, go back. And uh, but the story the the reason I'm telling you that story is because I knew I couldn't survive in the goon squad, I could never make it through buds being in the goon squad. And uh we had another run that week, and we were running down uh we we ran usually between four and six miles in the soft sand, and I was falling behind again, and the pack is pulling away, and I got the ambulance right behind me, just like get in, buddy. You can go take a hot shower right now. You don't have you can quit right now. And I was falling behind, and I had to make a decision like the other decisions I told you about. Am I gonna give up? Am I gonna get the ambulance? Am I gonna quit? Or am I gonna catch up to the rest of the pack? And uh I s I swear, and I put it in the book, I had an outer body experience, and there's there's there's medical uh reasons. To have one of these things. And I just almost like I left my body, looked down at myself, and I started sprinting. It was I couldn't feel my, I couldn't feel anything. I didn't feel tired. I didn't feel hurt. I didn't feel hot. Sprinted up within a few seconds, I caught up to them and I never fell behind again on a run. It was a switch that went off in my head that released super strength, like people lifting cars off people when they are in accidents, and I swear this is what happened to me. And I did something that I never thought I could, but up in my head told me I couldn't. I couldn't catch up, I couldn't run fast, I couldn't do this, I couldn't do that. And it was an until I was able to release that negativity in my own mind. I wasn't able to do it. And then I finally did it, and that was it. The only reason I couldn't run as fast as everyone else is because my mind said I couldn't. It's not because I wasn't on a physical ability, because I caught up and I never fell behind again.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

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 Tales of Leadership, you get 10% off on any order using the promo code PandoCommando when you place an order at 10thWiskey.com. Both of those are in the show notes, so you'll be able to find them. 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company are honors heroes and they craft a 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. Yeah, I I so I I reject the fact that short people aren't fast because I remember going through Ibolic and just like everyone was crushing me on runs. Uh as infantry officers, uh Brian Somkowski, I'll never forget this guy. Uh he was able to run 10-minute two miles, um sub not uh sub-10-minute two miles. But that's such an interesting thing to me of like when you get into a physical straight, uh physical demanding obstacle that you're facing, and you you're able to remove the governor, I guess if that makes sense. Like it's always like the famous examples of like mothers trying to protect their children being able to lift very heavy obstacles and things like that. I really reflected on on my past. I've never had that that outer body experience that you had. But from there, when once you had that, now you had an even more indomitable mindset that, hey, I am not going to fail. Was that that moment for you when you were going through buzz that you realized, hey, I got this in the back?

SPEAKER_03 47:02

I wouldn't say I was so confident to say, oh, geez, I'm gonna graduate now. I hadn't even been through Hell Week yet. Um, but what I did know was that nothing anyone can do, even myself, was gonna stop me from trying to do it, if you will. If I don't want to say I don't want to say negative, I'm just saying nothing was going to stop me. I was willing to die out there on that sand.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Yeah, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 47:31

Anything that they were gonna throw at me is, you know what? I don't care what you do, I am going to make it through. I didn't feel like, oh geez, you know, yeah, I'm a tough guy now. I caught up with the rest of the pack, you know. Geez, I'm there, everything's gonna be easy. But what I did know was nothing they could throw at me was gonna stop me from from doing everything I can up to the point of death, if you will, that it was gonna nothing was gonna stop me.

Smurf Crew Team Cohesion Wins

SPEAKER_01 48:01

When you were going through this training, were there common characteristics that you saw within like your peer group, for example, that you went through, especially the second time? I can't remember the name of your uh your squad that you went through. Was it the I don't want to sound negative, but the Smurfs? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

Smurf Smurf boat group, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

That's what I was saying. It's like, was there a common um character or value base that everyone had? Because the second time when you went through buds, you were around a group of people and you won most of your competitions.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

We did, and the Smurf name comes we are the very first Smurf crew, because at the time that's when the cartoon came out, just we were going through training. And so one of the officers came in and said, Look at these little guys, they look like Smurfs. And so from that from that point on, every short boat crew is now called the Smurf crew. But uh your point is is that you know, we we didn't know each other from Adam coming into that, and they we and the only reason we were paired up was because we're short, it wasn't like a personality comparison, you are this or you are that. It was a we all had the same mindset, and I want to say that genetically we all had the same qualities that we had developed since for since we were kids, and we all came into this experience being in a boat crew that we were gonna help each other no matter what happened, we were all gonna make it through, and we were going to win when we could win, and when we didn't, we we shared the victories and we shared the defeats, yeah, but we did it as a group and as a team, and there's nothing stronger, as you probably know from being in the military and being in a small unit, there's nothing stronger than a team dynamic.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yeah, team cohesion is is everything. Um, just humor and then the the multiplication effect, I guess if that makes sense. Like when you're put into a a very hard situation, uh it's almost easy in a way. I had a really good friend tell me this one time of like if you have a horse pull a trailer, that horse could pull 2,000 pounds. But if you have two horses pulling a trailer, that horse or two horses could pull 8,000 pounds. There's a multiplication effect that you have when you're just on a good team that you can do more than you ever thought possible.

SPEAKER_03 50:37

And and we did that. We we outpaced and we outswam and we out paddled much bigger, stronger crews simply because we did it as a very synchronized team.

Night Surf Passage Near Drowning

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Yeah, that that that's the key thing there, that you operated as a team. Uh there was one story in the book too of where you were doing, I think, one of your final uh evolutions uh and you had a pretty significant uh flipover with everyone. Uh I think you even ruined your your ducky. That's what we call them. Uh at least when I was going through ranger school, they were called uh the duckies. Uh, could you could you walk me through that experience?

SPEAKER_03 51:22

Yeah, we were on uh San Clumania's the last phase, third phase, and um land warfare. We're out there shooting guns, blowing stuff up. And one of the final tests is night surf passage, is what it's called. So we had a rubber boat, which we call IBS inflatable boat small for everyone who's not familiar with that. Um, so we one of the final tests, you get in your IBS at night, you load it down with 400 pounds of demo, all your weapons, everything's tied in, and you paddle out into the surf and you know, off San Clemente. Well, we were the somehow we got selected to be the first boat crew out, and uh the waves we couldn't see them. It was a no-moonlight, cloud cover, it was complete black. Only thing we could hear was these huge breakers just crushing it off shore. And we start to paddle out, we get pushed back, start paddling again, and all of a sudden we we get out past the first uh rollers, and then we get sucked, start getting sucked in to a wave coming in. And now these boats are 12 feet long, right? And they have six people on them, and we're paddling as hard as we can, and all of a sudden we're paddling it. The boat's going faster than we're paddling. That's how this wave was sucking us into the trough. The boat basically just went stood up straight on in, and the wave was so big it curled over the top of this 12-foot boat. So you can imagine how big this boat is wave was and just crushed us. People went flying everywhere. Um, never saw the boat again, never saw, didn't see any of my crew. They went under, I went this way, they went that, everybody was scattered. And uh I thought I was gonna drown because we didn't have any active flotation at the time. Everything was um you know tied up. You know, you had to activate it. And you never activated your life vest in training because you never had to. But this was a real emergency. I got I was getting pounded under the water after once or two breaths coming up and the waves pounding me. I finally pulled my life vest, which saved my life, and uh made it ended up making it into shore. And a really interesting story if you remember. I almost I thought I was gonna get crushed on the boulders because the waves were breaking on them, and somehow a wave picked me up and landed me right on top of one of the boulders. It was amazing, and I just stood up, it was like perfect 10. Holy macro, I'm still alive. And uh, unfortunately for the rest of my crew, they were sucked out to sea and they ended up popping a flare and they were rescued. Uh, and then they called us, they basically called the rest of that uh evolution off because it was so dangerous that we were gonna get somebody killed basically if it continued. So yeah, that was uh one of those oh man, oh crap, I'm gonna die situation.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

When I was when I was reading your book, I was like, yep, I'm glad I joined the army. Uh because like the extent to my I guess IBS training is that we had to go to Santa Rosa Island in Ranger School, uh, and we paddled uh across uh this very nice waterway uh at Egland Air Force. Uh that was the extent of my water training. When I was going when I was reading that, I was like, man, that is intense. And it's crazy too, like how lucky, you know, kind of looking back at it now, and that was uh uh something in your book too. I think you called it ROL, return on luck, of how lucky you were to be picked up by the water and just put on that rock almost like at the perfect time at the perfect spot, because that that never happens.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Divine in inspiration or divine uh intervention is is all I could say. Was um, you know, it was two things, one of two things were gonna happen. It was gonna pick me up and crush me on it, or it like it did, it picked me up and set me right on top. So, you know what? It's it's it's really good to be um skilled, but it's really even better to be lucky and skilled.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Yeah, we had uh a saying in Afghanistan because there's just so many IEDs, uh, every step is a lottery. You you don't know what uh ticket you're gonna draw. I 100% agree with that, is that I've seen some of the greatest war fighters um you know be casualties. Uh, and at the end of the day, they're at the wrong place at the wrong time and they didn't have the right odds in their favor. That's just the nature of the beast. Um, it's definitely luck. Uh a lot, a lot of the time uh with success in our chosen profession. Um, it definitely is luck is a huge factor. Yeah, kind of continue. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

Uh it's nothing you can dwell on. You you won't do the mission if you dwell on the possibilities of you not coming home. And we always thought and we I always knew I was coming home.

Leadership As The Example

SPEAKER_01 56:17

So yeah, I I had the same mentality. Um, it was funny when when I would be deployed, I would cut off comms from my wife, uh, if that makes sense, because mentally I had to be in the game. Um, there couldn't be any distractions. I was in it. Uh I had to stay focused for my men that I was leading. Uh, and that if I were to talk to my wife, I would lower my guard, I would get complacent, uh, I would get comfortable. Uh, and I'm she still holds it against me to the day. She's like, hey, you you all your friends were calling their wives and texting, and uh, because they would go to this little MWR where they were able to do it, but you you never called me. It would go like four months at a time before you called me. He's like, Well, just know that I'm here and I'm alive. You're welcome. That's the prize.

SPEAKER_03 57:06

You know what you just said, uh, I know you asked your other um um participants, uh, other interviewees, you know, the definition of leadership. Yeah, what you just said is the definition of leadership is to be the example for everyone to emulate. And in in order to lead, you had to be in that mindset and you had to be the example because if you weren't, it was the difference between their lives, making them making it out alive or not.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Yeah, yeah. That that was going to be one of the questions I was going to ask you of how you define leadership. Usually I always started at the beginning, um, but with this one, I wanted to spend a lot of time on your book because I just loved the structure of your book. Um, and I so you go through Navy SEAL training, a lot of that is self-leadership. There's some team level stuff, some, but once you get through that, you get through Hell Week, you show up to your first team. What was that experience like? Because I don't think you luck again, return on luck. You never really had a conflict that you were were deployed in. You were you were in time a relatively uh time of peace, correct?

SPEAKER_03 58:13

I was, yeah. Oh well, you know, there were several things that happened. Uh, and again, luck would have it, I was not involved. Beirut, Granada, um, and um Panama. Oh, yeah, Beirut, Panama, yeah, those those are the ones that were. In fact, we were in, I was in uh uh Brazil when Grenada happened. I mean, we were the logical platoon to send to Grenada. We had been training for over a year. We had we were deployed, we were right there, and still to this day, I have no idea why they didn't send our platoon to Grenada. No, no idea. I mean, we're a stone throws away practically.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

What what was that um experience like from a leadership perspective? It's like, hey, you you're most of your career up to that point, you were just focused on yourself. Hey, I had to be at the right place, the right time, the uniform. We were doing team level stuff. We had to, I had to go through this training, but then you show up um and you're part of an actual team. What was that transition like for you?

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Well, luckily, you know, Buds really instills into you with the team um the team attitude and the team mentality. But once you get to the teams, it's it's different in this way. Uh each person in the in a platoon is responsible for certain things. I was uh, for instance, I was involved in in uh cartography, water ops, diving ops. So I was a diving supervisor. So I was responsible for every everyone, every platoon member's life when we went on a dive. I organized it, I did safety briefs, I made sure your equipment was right, and everybody in the platoon had their thing. There was air ops, there was demos, there was weapons. And so it's there's we have a saying, uh, trust them with your trust them with your life, not your money or your wife. Okay. So there's a there is there is this level of, you know what? I don't care what happens off of this ship or outside of this operation. Everyone was how how do it's hard to describe how meticulous we were when we were taking care of each other, preparing for an operation. Um, everybody felt a hundred percent that everyone's life depended on them, and they acted accordingly.

Responsibility Culture Inside The Teams

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

Yeah, I I understand that um just from the standpoint of like going through actual combat operations, doing PCCs and PCIs, from the Army perspective, uh having non-commissioned officers just be very intentional with junior soldiers, making sure they have the right equipment, checking them, uh, making sure they have all the right tourniquets, the medical supplies, everything that they need. Um, and and in a more specialized unit, it's a smaller team. So you have more duties and more responsibilities and more specific skill sets, so you lean on each other even more. Um, and it's a tighter bond. Uh because it's truly life and death most of the time for a smaller team and a smaller organization. Uh there was go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:24

I was gonna say when you pull the ripcord, the parachute has to come out. You know, you take a breath underwater, the air has to come into your lungs, you know, and and we were individually responsible for those. Me, I was responsible for that happening for my teammates. So um, but we had I gotta I gotta brag a little bit. I had like one of the best leaders to teach me on when I deployed uh to South America and Bill McRaven.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

So I was gonna ask you that next, so I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:56

You know, there's um I don't know how other officers are and other military commands, but Bill McRaven was like a brother. Uh get granted he was the lieutenant and he was in charge and he made things happen, but you know, he took care of everyone as we were brothers. Um that's what I guess maybe that's where the long-lived the brotherhood type of uh the saying goes. And he was an officer, and we understood that, but he was more of like a blood relative, and he led like he was leading his family.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

That was going to be one of the the questions I was really wanting to jump into is like what what were some of the defining um lessons that you learned from him? I guess to start off with a funny story of how you got in trouble and how he the one time you saw him possibly get mad.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

Yeah, he's about as level-headed as you can be. Um we were doing a hydrographic reconnaissance on a very cold beach in Chile, and uh it was taking longer than anticipated, and so my leading petty officer said, Go back to the ship and get some lens paper. We're gonna have to guide these marines into the beach at night, and the only way we could do that is with our lights, and so I went there and I'm running around the ship looking for this red lens paper to cover our flashlights, and I get up on the bridge, and uh officer turns around. I don't know him from Adam. He said, What are you doing here? And I'm soaking wet, I'm in my booties, I'm sandy, and I'm standing on the bridge of the ship. I really didn't have a lot of deference to a lot of different people, so I could care less that he is an officer. I just needed my lens paper and I needed to get back on the beach. And that's what I told him. I need red lens paper. He said, What do you need that for? I said, it the um the landing's taking longer than anticipated. He said, It's going off. The officer said to me, it's going off as planned. I said, Are you kidding me? The way this ship is run, it's gonna be the more important before we get those LBTs on the beach. And he got I got wide-eyed, and I was like, uh oh, because he was pissed. So I ran off the I ran off the bridge, and then the next day McRaven called me into his stateroom and he said, Did you have a conversation with an officer on the bridge? I'm like, Yeah, I told him what happened. He said, Do you know that the cat that was the captain of the ship? And you told him he didn't know how to run his ship. I got my ass chewed out for like 30 minutes. He said, Don't you ever go on the bridge again? He said, Get the hell out of here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

That that was the best story in the world. Um, when I was going to the naval postgraduate school, I had no idea. I was naive to the fact that a captain in the Navy is not a captain in the army, it's a colonel. Yeah. So I may or may not have had a similar experience uh as you going through that. Um yeah, that what a blessing to have uh at at the time McCraven as a as a young officer be be one of your leaders uh that you were able to learn from. Uh, because everything that I've read about that man is that he is uh he is the standard, um, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

Yeah, another leadership trait quality is you know, care for your people.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:21

Um and care develops trust. And he was turn he certainly cared for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

Yeah, that that's um it's a breath of fresh air when you lead your team as a family. Uh because I think too often nowadays uh there's I call it uh transitional leadership because I see it all the time in the military of where people view people as objects to advance their careers. They see them as a a transitional stepping stone to get across that pond. And great leaders are I truly believe are transformative. They invest in their team, they truly care about their team, not just from a standpoint of what you can do for me, but like Who are you as an individual and lead you as a family member? Um, because at the end of the day, you guys are family, you spend more time with them than you do your actual family, at least from from my background, and I know you could probably attest to that being true.

Bill McRaven Leadership And A Lesson

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

Yeah, absolutely. You're 100%. Um, you know, as a special agent in charge, when I was hiring people, one of the things that I would tell them in their interviews is I'm gonna hire you for a couple of reasons. One of them being I see in you the ability to rise up to the level I'm at, and my job is to make sure you have are trained and you have every opportunity to replace me at some day. And you want I wanted to instill in the people coming into my organization that they're gonna have every opportunity to advance as as much as they possibly can. Not everybody will, but as much and as quickly as they can.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

That I think that that's that is beautiful. Um, and that's a nugget that more people need to hear is that your job as a leader is to work yourself out of a job. Um, and John Maxwell, the six levels of leadership, I think, he or five levels of leadership kind of defines that perfectly at the summit. Um, your job is to work yourself out of a job because you've trained your people so well. Um, and at the end of the day, it's um it goes back to that that multiplication effect. And I think that's a beautiful um transition point because I know we're a little bit short on time. And I'll be honest with you, I have so many questions because you have such a unique background of of where and what you've done. But why did you choose to uh you know leave the Navy after you you got your trident and then go into federal law enforcement?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:52

Um, two reasons. I climbed the mountain. Um became a Navy SEAL. What I wanted to do, and I just realized that wasn't the pinnacle of my life or my career. And when you climb a mountain, what's next? Another mountain, right? That's it. So um I had a family also, and I wanted to actually see my family because I was deployed almost the entire time I was with the teams. So um, and I wanted to choose a profession where I can further my sheepdog characteristics and traits, and uh, as I would say, carry a gun and wear a suit and carry a gun and uh protect society from the wolves, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:36

When you were going through uh federal law enforcement, how what were some of the similarities uh that you uh traits that you learned being a Navy SEAL that correlated to federal law enforcement? Because it to me that seems like two polar opposite backgrounds, if that makes sense, like very specialized um special operations unit, then going into federal law enforcement, and then like you said, being a criminal investigator, it seems like a different skill set.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:05

Um it is it is in the when you say skill set, yeah. Um, but when it comes back to you know, personally, your what your personality is set up for, and what will make you which gives you the best opportunity to excel and be the best person you can be, that was the job for me. My whole thinking was number one, the teams and law enforcement, integrity is number one. You have to have integrity going into the teams, and you have to have integrity with law enforcement. You can't go and testify in federal court if you don't have integrity. And I was saying about integrity, no one can take your integrity, you have to give it away. You need to protect your integrity like it's your life because it is. And um, confidence is another thing I would um talk about, but um, but you to answer your question, you know, they are not mutually exclusive being a military small unit because when I went to be well, I went through I was an NIS agent, NCIS, an EPA agent, environmental protection agency, and then later with the interior, they're all smaller organizations, so actually it fit really well into the uh mantra that I followed uh going through the teams and into the uh special agent work, is we worked in small teams, we worked very hard, we were very dedicated, and the difference was is since I wasn't in a war with the teams, I was a I got to go into battle, let's say, uh when I was with as a federal agent.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

Yeah, that was one thing that that I noticed throughout this entire journey. Uh, but there was like definitely a clear point of you were relentless throughout your entire life. Uh football, that was one of the key things that was a failure. And then you remedied that with wrestling, you joined the Navy, uh, you and Mary had a split, you realized that was a failure, you went back, you conquered that, you went through buds, you went through Hell Week. Um, then you meet the pinnacle of your federal law enforcement career. And this is where like the story kind of circled back in the book, uh, where it started off with. And you know, this is this is going to be a harder question, right? But like real you was that relentlessness that you had looking back now, would you have changed it? Would you have tried to have like a different type of I hate the use of the word balance because I I genuinely don't think that we can achieve that in our lives, but like a harmony. Uh, as you were going through this, would you have still had your younger self? What would you say to your younger self if you had to redo that all over again?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:51

Um I don't think it was possible to have changed anything. Even I was who I was at the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:58

Yeah.

Leaving The Navy For Family

SPEAKER_03 1:11:59

And I don't without having, without experiencing the things that I did, I don't think I could have gone to a younger self and said, you know, Dave, I think maybe you shouldn't work so hard, and maybe you should go home, and maybe you should take more vacations, and maybe you should, you know, maybe you should do all those things like I would say normal people do, because it wasn't in me. It just it it was it was not possible. It wasn't who I was. I would have been miserable. And um, I don't want to say that I'm glad, you know, I sacrificed my marriage or or whatever. I'm just telling you that the you know, the life, I don't have any regrets, I guess is what I would say. Um, I am a much better person now because I've gone through all that crap and I've overcome it. Um, whether it was family matters, whether it was you know working hard or too hard. And I guess at this stage of my life, I'm a much better, a much happier person because I got to live through it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:03

That's where I I left wanting more uh at the end of your book, of where you had that epiphany that you know you had your marriage, um, then your second relationship immediately after she ends up dying of cancer, which is you know absolutely insane. Um, and then you finally find someone that allows you to cover your weaknesses, if that makes sense. Not necessarily your strengths, but your weaknesses. Uh and I think of this as like um in in a military operation, we all have dead space. Uh, dead space is a terrain that we can't put obstacles on. So what do we do? We typically try to like constantine it off, or we cover it with indirect fire systems. We all have dead space in our lives for blind spot. And I think I've been blessed from the opportunity because you and I share the same trait. And I think of myself as a sheepdog, is where I I go through life and I always try to get the hardest jobs. I always try um to push myself to get to the top of that mountain of regardless of where I'm at. But my wife has always helped me along the way. And you and hearing your story, it just again it resonated deeply because it brought me back to the end and then where you're at right now. Could you just share like some of the uh some of the techniques that have kind of helped you decompress that of how you internalize what your strengths were and then what your weaknesses were and how you were able to just grow?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:33

Um, through the process of writing the book, I I was trying to answer questions as to why I am the way I am and why can I not relax and why can't I not be satisfied? Why can't I celebrate the victories that I've had or the certificates of the um accolades? And I you know, I look back on my life and I was not happy. I was not satisfied, I didn't feel successful. And it wasn't until I did this evaluation that I talked to about, you know, go understand your I had to understand myself in order to appreciate where I was in life and to be, I know this sounds corny, but to be a happy person, to be satisfied with the things that I've done and to look forward and to embrace my personality, which is pathologically persistent. I have to move forward constantly, and instead of looking at it as a negative to the going to the next mission and the next mission and the next mission, now I know that's inevitable, but at least now, in between missions, I take time to pause and to celebrate my life, knowing that the next mission is coming. But that's okay because that is a positive for me now. And my wife, as you said, you have to have someone in your life who grounds you, and she's there cheering me on the whole way, understanding that I'm always gonna go for the next mission, but she's there to help me celebrate the times that are now.

Integrity And Small Teams In Law

SPEAKER_01 1:16:09

And uh that that's honestly such a beautiful thing of when you have a relationship like that, of where yin and yang, my wife is very calming and soothing, and I'm I am a javelin, I am a hammer, uh, we are going to get it done. Uh, two totally opposite people, but we make each other better and stronger uh at at the the end of the day. Um, and I love how you ended the book of where you started, uh, because it's such again a transparent view of your whole process and your whole journey and how you reflected on that. And that's another nugget, too, that I don't think too many people focus on, especially when it comes to leadership, is that the person that you need to study the most is yourself because you are with yourself 100% of the time. And there's so much um tacit knowledge or lessons that we've learned that we don't internally process, but it's there subconsciously. And the only way to get that out is to reflect and through journaling. And and you writing this book in a way was you know a journaling experience for you, um, a therapeutic process for you. Of now you know yourself probably way more um on the other side of this after after you wrote the book. So I I think that's beautiful of how you were able to do that and to you know heal and understand, hey, this is why David does what David does, and this is what makes me awesome about it, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:38

Exactly. I think everyone should write their own book, you know, whether they publish it or not, it doesn't matter. To understand themselves and to, like I said, celebrate themselves for all the achievements that they have done and to look back on the moments that they weren't all that great and figured out and understand how they got through them. I I think everyone will be a better person if they did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:00

I agree a hundred percent. Um, so two more questions for you. What projects are you currently working on right now? Do you have anything else that you're working on in the future?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:10

Yes. You know I have something else. I always have something else. There's always something in the works. And uh, you know, when I tell I tell this story uh several times, and you know, when I do, we talk about special agent work. One of the things people just are amazed with is that the environmental protection agency has special agents and we do undercover work and we do all these cool things that nobody ever knew about. And people were saying, Man, you gotta write a book just about that. So I've I've started to write my second book, and it's uh that's awesome. Uh right now the working title is um Toxic Justice, the St. Louis Fly.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:47

I love that title. Uh, that is genius. When when that book is done, let me know. I'll devour that one too, and we'll have you back on and we'll do a deep dive through your federal time. That'll be awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:59

Great.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:01

So, last question for you, brother. How can our listeners support you uh and how can they best find the book?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:10

Oh, you can certainly go, it's on Amazon, and the best way to look out on Amazon is Angoliath by David Brown, because Angoliath, there have been a number of books by David and Goliath. You can go to Amazon with Angoliath by David Brown, or you can go to my website, udtdave.com. Underwater demolition team, dave.com. Udt Dave. And you know what? The great thing about websites, you can put up pictures and tell stories and interact with people. It's it's a lot of fun. I've been I've been just I'm so lucky that you know I've been able to tell my story, and people are just loving it and uh and it inspires people. So I'm really happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:55

Yeah, Dave, this this has been an awesome opportunity to connect with you. And then too, like reading your book, reflected on some of the uh shared experiences that you and I both have, just two different stories. And it was a blessing from that standpoint. That's one of the that's one of the blessings of sitting down and slowing, um, stop, silence your mind, take a tactical pause, observe your surroundings, and pursue with purpose. So thank you for everything that you've done for this country, everything you continue to do, and it's an honor to get to know you.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:24

Thank you. It was such a wonderful time. Really had a great time. Great questions. It was just so easy. You're a great host. Thank you so much.

Next Book And Where To Find Him

After Action Review And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_01 1:20:33

Yeah, have a great night, Dave. Thank you. All right, team, phenomenal episode. I'm gonna keep it short for my after action review because I have to get up uh at four in the morning and it's uh nine o'clock now recording this, uh, just with my new job. The first key takeaway that I had was confidence. Confidence is two different sides. You can learn confidence through shared tasks that you do repetitively over time, and confidence then becomes inherent in what you do. Uh, but you're also born with a lot of innate uh characteristics that were gifted to you through your DNA, just like what uh David talked about. And I I genuinely believe that. And I come from a Scotch-Irish background, uh, and I have that sheepdog in me. Military service has been a part of my family. Uh blue-collar work has been a part of my family, uh, and confidence comes easy to me. Uh, some people it doesn't, but understand you don't have to be born with specific characteristics to be confident. If you find your passion and your purpose in life, you can build that confidence. And all it takes is just continuing to try and then master and then build that confidence. The second key takeaway. Stay with the pack. And I love this. This is one of the nuggets he had when he was going through SEAL training. He learned it at the beginning of BUDS for the first phase, and then it really stuck with the second one. And it was a life lesson in a way. Your job when you're going through hardships is it's almost like a herd mentality, uh if that makes sense. And I had a brigade commander tell me this one time you don't need to be the fastest runner, you don't need to be the best weightlifter, you need to outrun the lifter and outlift the runner. What does that mean? You need to be at the standard, the standard of an organization. And there is a clear standard. When you're going through buds, there's a much higher standard. But if you're falling out, you're bringing undue attention to yourself. And if you're a leader, you cannot do that. You have to understand. If you're a military officer or you're a non-commissioned officer, there's a standard. You should not be falling out of runs. But also, if you're in the civilian world, you should know your stuff. You should understand the standard within your organization, and then you should try to overcome that standard, be above the bar because that's what purposeful, accountable leaders do. They understand the standard, but then they try to improve themselves. And the last one I have is a family mindset. I love this. Admiral McCraven was one of his leaders, and the thing that stood Admiral Admiral McCraven apart was how he viewed and led people. And I and I I believe this because trust me, um, I've seen great and horrible leaders throughout my entire military career. And the one thing that separates them is how they talk and how they view people, it's emotional intelligence. View people as your family. And if people tell you that, hey, your family's your family, your work is work, you shouldn't be working for them. You shouldn't be working there in that company. You spend most of your time with people that you are physically at work with, they are part of your family. Uh, if you come home angry because of work, who takes the brunt of that? Your actual family. But view and lead people as if they were your actual family. You will care for them more, you'll understand them more, you'll know when they're out of sync, and you'll know when they're doing great. You'll understand what their strengths are, you understand how to leverage them within the organization to have a more multiplication effect and actually achieve more. So remember that. Lead with a family mindset. All right, team, do me a favor. If you like what you've heard, it would mean the world to me if you do these four things. Number one, like, share, and subscribe this podcast wherever you're listening. Number two, leave a review, give me feedback. I absolutely love hearing from you guys of how I can improve. Follow me on social media, number three, at tells the leadership. And finally, if you uh would and could, it would mean the world to me if you could support this show. Uh, and you can do that by going to tells the leadership.buzzsprout.com. All proceeds go back to this uh podcast so I can continue to make powerful content for you guys and be the best leader that you possibly can. As always, I am your host, Josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yourself. I'll see you next time.