Conquering Fear and Mediocrity

In this episode of the Navy SEAL Mindset, I had the privilege of joining Mark Silverman on his show to discuss the intricate dynamics of leadership, the profound lessons learned from my SEAL training, and the importance of overcoming mediocrity and fear. We explored how the principles I've honed through my military and post-military experiences can be applied to personal and professional growth, emphasizing the significance of facing and conquering one's fears.

Key Takeaways:

• Leadership is not just about being in charge; it's about being able to follow, adapt, and learn continuously.
• Overcoming fear and mediocrity is crucial for personal development and success. Engage in activities that push your boundaries and challenge your comfort zone.
• The concept of "never quitting" is fundamental, focusing on perpetual self-improvement and resilience.
• Embracing failure as a learning opportunity is essential for growth and development.
• The power of gratitude and competing against oneself in kindness and generosity can transform your life and mindset.

I shared personal anecdotes from my SEAL training and life after the military to illustrate these points vividly. My journey from the battlefield to the stage of public speaking, my venture into entrepreneurship with Naked Warrior Recovery, and the life-saving experiences in the Grand Canyon were all pivotal moments that shaped my understanding of leadership and the human spirit.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Navy SEAL Mindset. I am your host, William Branham, retired Navy SEAL, sniper, instructor, founder of Naked Warrior Recovery, executive coach, uh, men's program, whatever. I do a bunch of stuff. You know, you know what I do. Anyway, this episode, this is episode 024, and it is a previous podcast I recorded with a gentleman by the name of Mark Silverman.

Mark interviewed me a few months ago. Talking about leadership, and he really extracted a lot of my Five Seals Secrets of Leadership and he put them in his book, uh, his book is called The Rising Leader Handbook. Mark is also an executive coach, he's a very high level executive coach, and has been very successful in that world.

In this podcast you're gonna hear us talk a lot about leadership, a lot about some other things, two guys with ADHD trying to have a conversation, maybe somewhat entertaining. I hope you guys enjoy the show. Again, this is episode 024, and don't forget to get naked. Talk soon. 

And when you think that you can't go anymore, you find out that you can still keep going. You could continue to, you still got gas in the tank. I learned that in SEAL training. Oh, I'm so tired, but wait, I can still go. Wait, I still got more legs. Oh, I went another mile and I went five more miles and holy cow, how is this even happening?

Welcome to Podcast, where being a high achiever doesn't necessarily equate to being an effective leader. Let's check to see if you're in the right place. If you're rising through the ranks of your organization so fast that your leadership skills need to grow as fast as your responsibilities, you're in the right place.

If it seems you need different skills to lead your team or lead from within a group of talented competitive peers, you're in the right place. If you're looking to become a trusted advisor to the CEO, you are definitely in the right place. So now that we know that you're in the right place, enjoy today's conversation.

Before we begin, I have something for you. Have you not read OnlyTans 2. 0 yet? If you've been listening to the show, my guess is you have read it. Would you like to give away a copy to someone you care about? Someone who's struggling with time and energy management? Someone who needs to focus on the important things?

Well, if you go to MarkJSilverman. com, click on the red resource buttons. We have put a free copy of OnlyTens 2. 0 for you to download and you can upload it onto your electronic device of choice. I hope you enjoy. So I was, I was listening to my friend James Whittaker's Win the Day podcast and he had a guest on there who's a former Navy SEAL, William Branham.

And as I was listening, I was really struck one, you know, by, again, the, the really and hard won wisdom and advice that he brings to a conversation. But I was also struck by the vulnerability, that he was willing to share what it was like going on on the inside, going through Navy SEAL training. He's willing to share what's going on on the inside, leaving the military and figuring out what to do next.

And I thought he would be a great person to have on our podcast to talk about leadership and talk about a few other things. But formally, William Branham is the founder and CEO of Naked Warrior Recovery, a CBD company focused on the recovery of veterans and first responders. Something really near and dear to my heart.

He is a retired Navy SEAL with 26 years of service. He has served on both traditional SEAL teams, taught as a SEAL sniper instructor, and served on teams that specialize in undersea operations, whose missions must be approved by the President of the United States. He led major combat operations, Raging from protecting the interim Iraqi elected officials and direct action missions in Baghdad and across Anbar province.

He's retired in 2018 and now he's going around the world, going around the country and has been on 60 something, what, 400 podcasts talking about things. Interesting thing that you said on a couple of podcasts was you can go into combat but walking on a stage. was scary to you. 

Yep, that's, that is a fact.

And by the way, if you want to hear the entire story of his military experience and everything that I was just talking about, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to James Whitaker's Win the Day podcast in that episode so you can hear all of that background, but we're going to get to the meat here.

So, you know, I look at you, everybody else looks at you, and you know, you know what we project onto you. Big strong guy, nothing, you know, eats nails for breakfast. How could you be scared to walk on a stage? 

Some of it is engaging with the audience early so that they can actually relate to me. 

No, no, no. I'm not asking you what your fix is.

I'm asking why can you be scared? 

We all have fear. We all have fear. It's what do you do with it? And And for me, when I start talking on stage, I'm terrified. I'm much more comfortable in a gunfight than I am speaking to a crowd of people. And that's okay. But you have to face your fears. You have to figure out what those things are and you have to go attack the fear.

You can't let fear control you. And you know, I, I talk about fear a lot. You know, a lot of times it's the fear that, that lives in that deep, dark place in the back of your mind. I think about fear to be like a vampire. It lives in the darkness and it sucks the life out of you and fear does exactly the same thing and fear lives in that deep, dark place that you don't want to tell people about.

You don't want to talk to people about and it's sucking the life out of you. So you have to go out there. You have to go out and expose your fears to the world and and you And that's the best way to overcome them. You have to do the things that scare the shit out of you. 

You said it stopped me in my tracks.

You said asking for help and exposing your fears. The fact that you do that means you're killing mediocrity. What do you mean by that? 

Yeah, you did. You did do your research. I would argue that we're, we're surrounded by mediocrity every day. We're, we're at war with mediocrity every single day. We can order food from an Uber app.

I mean, once upon a time, Uber was cool because it was like this cool technology that helped us get a ride when there was no, you know, yellow taxi cabs around. Now, you know, it all, it empowered tons of people to get jobs and be self employed and cultivate this sort of entrepreneur. Mindset and, you know, lifestyle, so that they can create income on their own schedule.

And I'm grateful for those people at 2 in the morning when I'm on the road and I'm out with clients or whatever, and I'm like, dude, I gotta get back to the hotel. Super grateful for those people, because there's no taxis around. But now, but now you can just like, get a Uber app. You can, you can order food from the Uber app.

You can order, you know, what kind of bananas, like how ripe or whatever you want bananas. You never have to leave your house. We're not meant to be stuck in a box somewhere. We're meant to be out in the world and go out and hunt and explore and grow and be. Amazing human beings and technology, unfortunately, has made us, we're surrounded by technology.

We, it's stuck, stuck to our hand 24 seven and refuse to put it down. Mine is over in the corner here, recording me just in case I say something smart. But. Because life is getting so much easier, we find excuses to not attack our goals for the day, we find excuses to not work out, we find excuses to not do the things that we need to do, to not go out and explore, to not go out and hunt, and I don't mean necessarily, specifically like going out and killing an animal, but going out and hunting and gathering and doing the things that we're made to do, doing the work, we get stuck doing, scrolling, TikTok or Instagram or whatever.

And we, we find excuses to not, to not go work out, to not do the things that we need to do to make us better people, to make us a better civilization. And so what, you know, when I talk about killing mediocrity, I tell people to go start competing and I don't mean like compete in like. Major sporting events.

I mean, compete in small things, easy things, and you'll find out that competing in the easy things will actually change your life. Compete in kindness. Can you be the most kind person you've ever met? And you'll find out that's really hard! That's easy! It seems easy. Oh my god, I have to change the way that I think.

Compete in, in, in, in giving. Compete in gratitude. Can you be the most grateful person that you know? Can you take the things that have broken you down, or the things that hurt you, or the people that have hurt you, can you be grateful for those people, for the lessons that they taught you about yourself?

Go be grateful for things that, that are hard. Go be grateful for the loved ones in your life. Compete in gratitude. Can you be the most grateful person? I found that recently, I don't know, probably started really focusing on gratitude about a year ago, like write down the five things that you're grateful for.

And one of those things is always something that's really, really, really, really hard or something that has caused me great anguish in my life. I'm grateful for that because that made me the person that I am today. So go and compete and you're killing mediocrity when you do that. 

Yeah, getting in the arena.

It's interesting, Johan Hari wrote a book called Stolen Focus, and it is about the attention economy, and it's about the fact that billions and billions of dollars are being spent, psychiatrists are being employed, on how to keep our attention on that little red dot on our phone, right? Like lab rats. So it's, it's not even like we're lazy and we're bad.

It's that we are being attacked by people who make money off of us not exercising about us not creating things, about us not going out and competing in the world, except for who can make the best Instagram photo, right? It's not so much our fault, but it is our responsibility to break ourselves away so that we can create a life that's worth living.

Yeah, that's a great way to put it. It's not our fault, but it is our responsibility. 

So let's just dive right into the whole naked mindset. Why, why is this naked thing so important to you? I know it's an acronym for something, so I'm kind of leading you into. 

Sure. Well, so you mentioned before, you know, I, I was pretty open on, on James's podcast, but you know, I spent my entire adult life in the SEAL teams.

I've been surrounded by high performing individuals, I've led men in combat, I've done some pretty awesome things, some pretty hard things, and when I retired, and I use air quotes here, retired from the military, that was like really the hardest military mission I've ever been on. And quite honestly, I'm still on it.

I use the analogy that if you, if you think about the Avengers movie where Thanos like snapped his fingers and the whole world, like half the world's population vanished, that's the way I felt. Like people were like at their dinner table with their family and then their family was gone. I had like one day I had a mission, I had a team and I had a purpose.

And the next day I had no purpose. I had no mission and I had no team. And so that was, that really kind of broke me down psychologically. And so I had to. become brave enough to start asking for help. I had to become brave enough to take my ego off, to say, I can't figure this out on my own. I need help over here, which was really a hard thing to do.

I do overcome that, you know, because you think you don't have to be a Navy SEAL. I'm a coach. Like I do this for a living and I can't stand asking for help. Right. I have to force myself to ask for help. How do you overcome that? 

We're in the very, in a very similar occupation. I do that as well. It's hard. I was just on, and it, we'll call it a retreat.

I did an event with an organization called Man Made last week where we, we hiked the Grand Canyon. 

Something tells me your, your, your retreat is not a spot, not 

a treatment. Was not exactly. So we, we hiked the Grand Canyon. We did the rim to rim to rim. So we started on the South Rim, hike to the North Rim, turn around and hike back from the South Rim.

And it was 54 miles. It took us 25 and a half hours to do. The guide that was with us said this is the hardest, the worst conditions he's ever seen. There was another gentleman in the group that has done it before. And I said, how is this different from, you know, how you'd done it before? He's like, if those same weather conditions were happening when.

For me to hike it, I would have turned back and gone back home. That was not an option for us. We showed up, we flew into Arizona to hike this thing, and so we were going to do it. It was 13 of us. And it's awesome that we did because we saved young kids life. He was out there alone. He was soaking wet. He was on the far end of the canyon.

And, you know, we rolled in about 8 a. m. I think to that, that, that far in ranger station that no one was at, you know, we're like resting, getting some water, getting ready to. Hit the North Rim and, you know, this kid comes out of the bathroom, out of, not the bathroom, out of an outhouse. Then they're kind of nice outhouses, but still they're just plywood, plywood buildings.

And he was like, Hey, can you guys help me? I'm not doing so good. He's like in his underwear. It's like 45 mile per hour winds. It's raining. It's cold. And it's about 38 degrees. It's cold. And so we wrapped the kid up in space blankets. We had some camping stoves. We made him some hot chocolate. We got some food in him.

We eventually got the ranger station. building open. There was a heater in there. We put him in there. We had two guys that couldn't make it to the North Rim and then all the way back down and then all the way back back out of the canyon. And so we got this kid nutrition. We called the Rangers. We're like, Hey, we got this kid.

He's like, whatever. And they're like, you know what? We, we can't do anything about it. We're not going to do anything about it. When he's good enough to walk out himself, we'll come and we'll get him. So we, you know, we, we attacked the North rim. We turned back, you know, we, we came back down. There was another group at the bottom of the key, like at that Ranger station with a guide and the guide was like, not my responsibility.

Even though the guide works there all the time, he gets paid to like walk people in and out. He's like, Nope, not my responsibility. He got himself into it. He can get himself out. So I was just like, shocked at like how. cold and heartless people were. The dad 

in me is just losing his shit right now. Right.

Yeah. 

And so this kid would have died. He would have, he would be dead right now had we not shown up. And so the reason that we showed up and we started hiking in a fucking blizzard down the Grand Canyon across and then back up, the reason we were there was to save that kid's life and to make a impact on his life so that he can grow up and be a man.

He has no men in his life. And so he's trying to figure that out. And How did he get there? You know what? He's on a life adventure. He actually works at the Grand Canyon Hotel. And so he and a friend were going to do Rim to Rim and his friend turned back and then this kid was like, I'm going to do it. And Oh, okay.

So he kept going and going to the North Rim. Not very many people go to the North Rim, especially at this time of year. So it's not as improved of trails. Like some of the trails were kind of washed out and we had to navigate around that. There was eight feet of snow on the North Rim also. So trying to plow our way through that was not very easy.

So anyway, he, you have to walk under several waterfalls. So he was soaking wet. He couldn't figure out why his rain jacket wasn't keeping him dry. It was actually a wind jacket, windproof jacket. It wasn't a rain or waterproof jacket. So he, he had a lot of lessons learned and we got to pour into this kid and, and like teach him some, you know, things about being a man and being prepared and like, Having the right people surround you in life.

And so that was, that was a really awesome experience. 

What a gift to the men also who were with you. Oh, yeah. For them to be able to be in that role and to feel what that is. Because that's what you're trying to create, right? Is, is 

Right, a hundred percent. 

Masculine energy. And, you know, you can talk about it in a classroom.

But, you know, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is Until you get out there and 

do, do those hard things. And that really goes back to like, kind of fear. Like That event broke every single one of us down. I've done a lot of hard things in my life. There were guys that are like, you know, they've done multiple Ironman triathlons.

They were, you know, they made me look like. an amateur out there in the Grand Canyon. They were, they were in peak physical condition. And when we came out of that, they were all, even our guide, who has done this probably 40 times, he was like, dude, that's the hardest it's ever been. There's the worst conditions ever.

La la la, whatever. And I was like, dude, I don't feel so bad. Cause I would for sure had some pity parties trying to climb out of the Grand Canyon. And just like feeling sorry for myself and like four hours of just negative self talk, but like also trying to like incorporate the things that I teach other people about creating small victories, you know, it was top five hardest things that I've ever done in my life.

And I, and I don't remember the question you asked, but that was just, that was a, that was a retreat that I just went on and there was a ton of, right. A ton of lessons learned. Yeah. 

Trying to have a podcast. Man, I'm, you know, it sounded like you needed to eat your own dog food. So the question that's probably prompted that was talking about the naked concept.

You know, never quit, accept failure, kill mediocrity, expose your fears, and do your work. 

Yeah. Okay. I remember where I was going. So, Oftentimes, you gotta, you have to suffer and understand, like, what that get naked is really about. It's really about taking your ego off, taking that armor that you carry around off so you can find the, you know, expose yourself so you can find the healing that you actually need.

And so, I was drinking myself to sleep at night, pretty much every night, because I couldn't, like, turn off this noise in my head. And so I discovered CBD. CBD helped turn down the noise so I could have more positive self talk, and then through that positive self talk, I was like, What are the things that I learned in the SEAL teams that I can apply to my own life?

That to make my life better? What made me successful over here that can help make me successful over here? And so I already was already running with the kind of get naked mindset about like taking that ego off. But I was like, let's turn this into an acronym. Let's turn this into something that's valuable that I can share with other people.

So yeah, so you, you nailed it. So naked is an acronym. The N stands for Never Quit. I don't mean never quit smoking or drinking or porn or whatever your vice is. I mean, never quit trying to improve yourself. Never try, never quit. If you've thought about something, if you started to achieve some sort of goal, like continue that goal all the way to the end, whatever it looks like.

The A is Accept Failure. Failure's been the biggest teacher of my life. Failure, that kid had massive failure and he had learned. A shit ton about himself and about men and real men, not fake men. And so he will learn those lessons. He'll carry those lessons with him for the rest of his life. The chaos, kill mediocrity.

We've already talked about killing mediocrity, you know, technology and all sorts of other things, making excuses, compete in every aspect of your life, but start small. Become the best fucking competer in gratitude that you've ever met or kindness or whatever it is generosity The E is exposure fears and again, we've talked about fear a little bit But you know, I when you have fear, you know, people make fun of me.

They're like you're a Navy SEAL You don't like swimming. I fucking hate swimming. But you know what every year I go and I do this fundraiser swim across the Hudson River I have to train up for it also. 

That ain't Hawaii. That 

is not Hawaii. William lives in Hawaii, by the way, so the Hudson River 

is not what he's used to.

It is the farthest from Hawaii. But, you know, I have to train up for it. I can't just show up and, and, and fail and not do what I need to do. People are watching. So. 

Best motivator. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon because I collected money and told people I was going to do it. So that was the thing that got me past mile 15 is I fucking told people I was going to run that thing.

So I did. 

People are watching, you know, outsiders are watching. Your peers are watching. Like I don't be that guy. So, you know, we're always motivating one another in one way or another. So I have to train up for that. I love the ocean. I love surfing. There's still, you know, I still, when I swim, I'm like, there's a shark that's going to eat me any moment now.

And so I'm like, okay, well, if he bites me, I'm going to fight back. And that's just the way it is. So I have to like, get through those fears that I have in my mind. Like this, this, this Grand Canyon thing, fear, like it broke us down. One of the best guys, the strongest guys we had on the team. He was like, there's no way I'm going back down in that Canyon.

If someone needs my help, sorry. And And that scared him. It was interesting because we, we, we really talk about and dive deep into stuff on the backside of doing these really hard adventures. And he was like, dude, that scared the hell out of me. That broke me down. I have to go back and like fix my shit now.

You know, it's interesting that you talk about this stuff because on one hand, as a coach and who I am in the world, I'm the anti eat nails and, and hit things hard. Dave and Goggins type kind of thing. I don't believe in that. I don't believe in grinding yourself to a nub. On the flip side, I do things like run the Marine Corps marathon.

I do things like decide to double my business at 60 years old, right? I do things, you know, I get up at 5 or 15 in the morning to do my, my, you know, my stuff. So I, and I am competing in the world. The balance of that. of going on the playing field, seeing what you're made of, putting yourself in a situation where you're going to walk the Grand Canyon, to see what you're made of, so that you can bring it back to your life.

Right? You don't, like, I don't think you have to be David Goggins all day, every day, right, in, you know, for eternity, to be successful and to be happy. I believe that you have, you know, like, ingredients. And this is an ingredient to add to your world, right? So when I first met you, I had someone going, you know, I was coaching someone who was going through something really hard.

And we went through the piece of, all right, feel your feelings. Okay, be okay, be okay with being a victim for a little while, right? Lick your chops. And then your, your episode came just at the time where it was time to put a helmet on and go to fucking work, right? So he felt the feelings. He did, he did his victim business.

He was at that point. You showed up. We did it, right? So all of this stuff is where are you at your life in your life? Where is it going to fit in? And, you know, and then, you know, push yourself. I, you know, I, I talk about being gentle with yourself, but I fucking push myself, you know, like a Navy SEAL all the time.

You have to, you have to. I mean, that's, that's part of like killing mediocrity. That's like competing with yourself. You have to go to war with yourself every now and then. You don't have to do it every day. But you definitely have to go to war with yourself. Push yourself. Your body can do so much more than your mind is telling you.

You know, when we finished that hike, we had, uh, I should write his name down, because I keep talking about it. The guy who wrote The Comfort Crisis. He came out and talked I don't know his name, but I know the book. Ah, yeah. And so, he I should get some kickbacks because for sure I've said it on enough podcasts at this point.

I've promoted it enough. But one of the things that he said in his thing was fatigue is actually an emotion. Just like motivation is an emotion, fatigue is an emotion. And when you think that you can't go anymore, you find out that you can still keep going. You could continue to, you still got gas in the tank.

I learned that in SEAL training. Oh, I'm so tired. But wait, I can still go. Wait, I still got more legs. Oh, I went another mile, and I went five more miles, and holy cow! How is this even happening? Fatigue is an emotion, and once you realize that That's where discipline comes in. That's where doing the work comes in.

Just do it anyway, even when you don't feel like it, just keep doing it. And, and, and continue to push forward and push through, you know, all those things that you're, you're, you're struggling with fatigue wise. 

You, you and I were worried about our mutual ADHD and this podcast and getting it, getting you off in time for your next podcast.

So I'm going to point us to our next topic specifically and hard. So. In the Rising Leader Program, we talk about leading up, leading the people who you work for, leading your team, leading yourself. But the hardest thing that I've found for people to do is leading on a team of other leaders. Right, so if you're, if you're in the C suite, you know, you have your organization, but then you're on a team of leaders for the entire organization.

How do you compete? How do you support? How do you, like, how do you do your best and get your voice heard and listen to other people? How do you manage all that? You were on probably the most elite teams in the world and had to master that. 

So the key to being a leader is you have to be able to follow first.

You need to learn to follow. Some, there are leaders out there, we're going to call them leaders, have no idea how to follow. They only know how to tell people what to do, or how to build stuff, or how to whatever. They have no idea how to do the other thing, which is follow, which is equally as hard, especially if you're a type A personality.

And you know, there's this, you know, we'll just say, Alpha. I wrote a post one time and I was like, okay, are you an alpha or are you a beta? And then people are like, I'm an alpha when I'm in charge, but I'm a beta when not. I'm like, nope, that is incorrect. Oh, I'm a sigma. I'm a sigma. I'm not a alpha or a beta.

I'm like, nope, that's a beta. Next, what I would reply to people and say, okay, so do you think that a whole platoon of Navy SEALs going in to a target, do you think that even though one guy is in charge, that everyone else is beta right now? No fucking way. Every one of those dudes are alpha in their own way and they lead when they need to lead and they follow when they need to follow.

But it's something that we teach in the SEAL teams. Like, hey, this is your responsibility. When I'm doing this, I'm in charge. When you're doing that, you're in charge. And I listen to you. So it's, we have these very clear lanes and, and roles and responsibilities. If it's my response, but I also have someone that can, like, if I'm not doing the job or I need, I need help over here, I have someone else who can come in and like, cover my back.

And so that I can do the other thing that I need to do well. It doesn't take away my authority or my power when someone else comes in and, and I have to be okay with that. And I am okay with that. Awesome, thank you so much for, like, picking that up. It's like going into a building and clearing rooms. Well, if I drop a, you know, a threat area, I know that my buddy's gonna come behind me and pick it up.

Because that's the way that we're taught. That's the thing that we're supposed to do. If I'm out there leading, I might have to, like, I might be holding security on something and I have to wait for someone to come and like I can't just leave that responsibility because a bad guy could pop out and smoke us all and that's not okay.

So I have to do that, you know, sort of lower level responsibility until one of my guys comes in. And bumps me out so that I can start leading the train and start leading on that mission on that target. So it's, it's something that has to be taught. It's part of the, it has to be part of the culture of the organization.

And so one of the things I talk about with a lot of my coaching clients is if you're not driving as a leader, if you're not driving the culture in your organization, then someone else is, and that's just the bottom line. 

So let's go, let's go back to, let's go back to before you, before you guys go out on a mission.

When you're in Spain, probably starts, you know, the first day of training, but I'm curious. What are the agreements you have? between you that you know when you walk in, you know how to interact with each other in that manner. Because you have to set that up beforehand to trust that that's how things are going to work.

What are some of those agreements? 

Part of it is just the chain of command. Like, there's a clear, like, this is the person who's in charge, this is number 5, all the way down. And then under that, you know, sort of C suite, you have junior leaders in charge of each small team, and they all report up. But even amongst the C suite, even amongst that, that top level of leadership, sometimes we have to close the door and say, okay, here's the deal.

Yes, you're in charge, but I'm going to make the calls. A lot of times when I'm training a new leader, I'm the, you know, the senior guy on the ground And I know what the calls should be, like training for a gunfight or something. We're training for a gunfight on, like, they need to know how to do that. They need to learn those lessons that, you know, the most stressful leadership scenario, I think, on the planet is a gunfight.

And so my job is to train my replacement. And I think that's missing in a lot of corporate environments. Like, people are so busy, they're so, like, ego driven about their, what they think is right, or what they want to do, or their opinion or their job security or whatever it is. I don't care. Like I want, I want you to be able to do my job as well or better than me, even at the C suite level so that I can grow the company.

So I can grow as an individual. So I can. Set the company up for success and maybe even move it over to a bigger company. But that's, but most people have this sort of scarcity mindset like, Oh, I've got this job and I may or may not ever have this opportunity again. And, and so it's where you really have to break down the individual and really drive that, drive that culture.

That's the culture in the SEAL teams. Train your replacement. The end. Like you're not going to be in this position forever. If people think that they're going to be in this position for this company forever, they're, they're lying to themselves because companies move and they sell and they, they like, that's just reality.

That's the world that we live in. You have to adapt and overcome. If you are stuck in the old way where you think that you're going to get a pension after 30 years or something like that, we don't even do that in the military anymore. I was one of the last people to have that happen. You have to invest in a fund and all this other stuff.

Like, that's gone. That's never gonna happen. So the best thing that you can do when you're in a leadership position is train your replacement. Train people. The more that you train other people to do what you do, people will start respecting you even more. 

That's the thing, right? When you create another powerful leader, it is noticed that you did that.

Yes. 

And it, and it helps you out. What did you learn about healthy and unhealthy conflict between team members? 

When it's unhealthy, you need to nip it in the bud quickly. 

How did you guys figure out healthy conflict in something that's that, that it's life and death with cohesion. 

You know, it comes down to communication.

Sometimes you just don't get along with other people on the team. But when it comes to being in combat, when it really matters, it doesn't matter. But in the moment of combat is a very small part of it. So if you have someone that's toxic in the, in the organization, You need to address it immediately. And how do you address it?

Sometimes it's, you know, you sit out and you have a counseling session. Okay, what's the problem? What's going on here? And you kind of dig down if you can. Sometimes you can help them. Sometimes you can't. I mean, we've had guys where we've kicked them out of the SEAL teams because they just weren't coming around.

And that's okay. They, they didn't belong. They're a great operator, but operating is 1%, 2 percent of break glass in case of war. Well, we don't have a lot of war going on right now. We have some conflict going on, but we don't have Even then, you know, you can't have it in any organization. You can't have that toxicity.

If it's there and they won't fix themselves, you have to get rid of it. The end. It's, it's not, it's not negotiable. It's that whole like 80%, 80 20 rule. You're going to spend 80 percent of your time on 20 percent of the People. Yeah, right? It's generally the problem people. So let's mitigate that as much as possible.

I understand that people need a job and whatever and whatever. Get rid of it. Maybe they're the best person that can do that role in your organization. You know what? There's another person that can do that role. If their toxicity is creating chaos in your environment, then you have to get rid of it. It's like whatever, you have a cancer in your body.

You're going to do everything you can to get rid of that because it's going to eat the rest of your body. Why would you let that happen to your organization? Get rid of the cancer. 

Agreed. Last question. So you were in leadership positions. You were in positions where you had to follow when it was life and death, whether you agreed or not.

And then you, then you were training and teaching these, these skills. What from your CLT training translates to the business world? What, you know, what are you thinking the main points that you learned from your military training that translate out to business? 

Alright, I'm going to try to do this one really quickly.

I like, I like to call it five SEAL secrets of leadership, and maybe we only go through three of them. So number one is, is to multitask like a Navy SEAL. So if you're in a gunfight, you have to be able to do three things really well. You have to be able to shoot, you have to move, and you have to communicate.

Nothing else matters. So when you're shooting, you're delivering your product, you're delivering your service, you're delivering whatever that is, right? If you're, you're maneuvering, if you're moving, you're maneuvering about around the battlefield, you move left, right, back, forward, whatever. And every time you maneuver, you change your perspective of the battlefield.

Same thing happens in business. You sell something, you buy something, you, you make a decision in the organization. The perspective of what's happening in the organization changes. You, you hire someone, you fire someone, you whatever. The perspective of what's happening in the organization changes.

Communication. Communication is two way 100 percent of the time. Even if it's a billboard out there for marketing, it only works if someone makes that phone call and calls you. For your service or your product or whatever. So the secret here is you can only do one thing at a time. You can only shoot while you're shooting.

You can only move. You can't be shooting while you're moving. You can't effectively shoot while you're move. Uh, and you can't effectively communicate. When you're moving or shooting, you can kind of, you can be like, break, right? But you have to really stop shooting. And you can't, you have to stop. 

You just gave us an oxymoron.

You need to test all these things, but you can't really, 

there's really no such thing as multitask. And that's, and that's. And that's the truth. So I'll just give you one more. So leadership lesson number two is leaders get no bullets. And I get a lot of pushback on this until people really understand it.

So going back to training young, young leaders in a gunfight. They're, they finally made it. They're in the SEAL teams. They're like, we're, we're practicing these gunfight scenarios where their job is to maneuver the team around. The target and take out the target or whatever. So we're walking through the woods, we're walking through the desert and these targets pop up and they start shooting at us and we start engaging the target and those young leaders, a hundred percent of the time, they start engaging the target, ba bam, ba bam, ba bam, ba bam, ba bam, and start knocking things down and they're doing a great job, except they're not leading.

Their job is not to look down the sights of their weapon in and engage the target. Their job is to look at the enemy, look at the, the friendly forces, look at the terrain and make a decision. So after two or three runs, like I told you, like I, my, my job is to train my replacement. So I'll position myself next to that brand new leader and let them.

Fail. Let them do the thing that they're doing and just watch. And me as a senior guy, I don't get to shoot that much. So now this is my opportunity to shoot and engage the targets and do the fun stuff. And so I'll say, Hey, what's the call? Hey, what's the call? Hey, what's the call? And so they're like, they're still shooting.

And then they're like, I don't know. And then they keep shooting. So eventually I take their bike. Two or three runs later, I'm like, I take their bullets away. I'm like, you get to go out there, but you get no, you get no bullets. And they feel absolutely neutered. They're, I've taken their manhood away and they hate me.

And that's okay. Because now when the contact happens, when we start getting in the gunfight, they can't shoot because they don't have any bullets. So now they have to do their job. So now they're like, okay, what's the enemy situation? Okay, what's the friendly situation? What's the terrain? Okay, and if they get a kind of get stuck, I might pimp them like, hey, what about that hillside over there?

And I'm still shooting because I know the call. I know what needs to happen because I've done it a thousand times. And then they start making the right calls. And then eventually I'll give them their bullets back. But in the beginning, You get, you get no bullets. Your job, if you're, if you're looking down the sights of your weapon, and you're engaging the target, there's zero, there's zero chance that you can actually lead.

You need to step back, detach yourself from, from the gunfight, look around, what do we need to do? Now! Make that call, and we move, now! My perspective has changed. Now I make a new call and continue. So if you're looking down the barrel of your weapon, you're not, and you're shooting the target, you're not leading the end.

So leaders get no bullets. 

That's such a, that's such a visceral example. And I have, I have a coaching exercise now that I'm dying to try with one of my clients. Okay. You need to get this thing done and you have to delegate everything. You are not allowed to do a thing, but you still need to accomplish the goals.

I can't do a thing. Nothing. You cannot do a thing. You must sit on your hands. And I could, so I could watch, it's not life and death like what you're talking about, but I could watch them, their eyes popping out of their heads. What if someone does something wrong? That's amazing. Oh my God, William, this is, this is so cool.

Just quickly, just tell me a little bit about what you're doing for veterans and what, you know, and how other people can actually help. 

So, so again, CBD was a modality that helped me. And so a portion of our, The profits from Naked Warrior Recovery go to veteran services, go to non profits that help veterans either transition from the military, help them with, you know, things like PTSD.

I have a friend who has a non profit who pays for Gold Star Family Homes, so I'm actually I don't run, I hate running, so I'm gonna do, because, because I hate running, I'm gonna do a, an ultramarathon in June, I believe. I don't 

run and I'm gonna do an ultramarathon, that's great, that's great. I 

hate running, I'm, I'm terrified of running.

It's a 1. 1 mile loop, it's a last man standing event. And I'm looking to use it as a fundraiser. I'm not trying to win the race. I'll go as many laps as I can. You have 20 minutes to finish your 1. 1 mile loop. I'm going to use that as a, as a fundraiser to, to donate profits to, to my friend's charity for paying off gold star family homes.

That's incredible. You know, you and I were talking before the mics went on about 22 veterans a day take their lives, right? So anything that we can do to support any facet of people leaving the military and coming back to civilian life, I think is just essential. 

We just lost a guy two days ago, uh, and he was shot 24 times in Iraq.

Survived that, he got up, he killed all the bad guys around him. Like he was, he was shot up and he just took his life two days ago. So that's, it's, it's, it's a mission that we're on to eliminate veteran suicide. My dad was one of those 22. So it's a, it's a very heartfelt, true, real mission for us. So we're doing everything we can to, to try and eliminate it.

So that's our mission. 

Thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your brilliant insights that you brought to the conversation. If people want to find you, where can they find you? And it'll be in the show notes, but tell people where they can find you. 

I would say, if you want to learn more about the Get Naked mindset, go to the number five, fivesteelsecrets.

com. For CBD, go to nw recovery. com or naked warrior recovery. I changed it to nw recovery because maybe people don't want to write naked in their search engine. I don't know why. I just, it just goes in and you're just going to the wrong place at work. Right. I have no idea why, but it was just a thing, a thing that popped into my mind one day.

Or, I'm on Instagram, william. r. brannum. I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn and I think all the, all the socials. I'm not very good on Twitter yet, but I'll, I'll work on it. 

You're great on, you're great on Instagram. You just, Thank you. You rock Instagram. All those, all those links are going to be in the show notes.

The Five Secrets is a really great document that you can download immediately. William, thank you for being on the show. Thank you. To everybody else, I really appreciate your time and attention. Hope you got something out of this. If there was something in particular, let me know. I love you a ton. Have a great rest of the day.

Thank you for joining today's conversation. If you got value, please share the episode, give us a thumbs up, write us a review. And if there's a topic you'd like us to cover or a question that you have, send them my way. Look forward to connecting on the next episode of the Rising Leader Podcast.