In this episode, I'm joined by Captain L. David Marquet who is a class of 1981 graduate from the United States Naval Academy. Captain Marquet was a Physics major at the academy and a member of the Fencing Team and 27th Company.
In this episode, we discuss leadership through the lens of his time at the academy, his time in the fleet and his subsequent career as a New York Times best selling author, keynote speaker, and leadership consultant.
He has just released his new book Leadership is Language which is currently #1 in its category on Amazon. Marquet outlines a set of principles and tools that help leaders inspire their people to take responsibility and address challenges without waiting to be told what to do, highlighting how small changes in language can lead to dramatic changes in a team's success and happiness.
I read Captain Marquet's first book Turn The Ship Around and became a big fan. I feel so very privileged to sit down and talk with an author I admire so much.
He is highly intelligent, provocative and entertaining. He shares great stories from his time at the academy and the fleet to illustrate the lessons he shares with us.
In 1981, David graduated top of his class from the U.S. Naval Academy—an institute renowned for developing “leaders to serve the nation.” Thereafter, he joined the submarine force.
Captain Marquet began treating his crew as leaders, not followers, and giving control, not taking control. It wasn’t long before operations took a dramatic turn. Santa Fe went from “worst to first,” achieving the highest retention and operational standings in the Navy.
When Stephen R. Covey spent time aboard the Santa Fe, he referred to it as the most empowering organization he’d ever seen. He wrote about Captain Marquet’s leadership practices in his book, The 8th Habit.
After Captain Marquet’s departure from the USS Santa Fe, it continued to win awards and promote more offic
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
Connect with Grant on Linkedin
Academy Insider Website
Academy Insider Facebook Page
If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, have an idea, question or topic you would like to see covered, reach out: podcast@academyinsider.com.
In this episode, I'm joined by Captain L. David Marquet who is a class of 1981 graduate from the United States Naval Academy. Captain Marquet was a Physics major at the academy and a member of the Fencing Team and 27th Company.
In this episode, we discuss leadership through the lens of his time at the academy, his time in the fleet and his subsequent career as a New York Times best selling author, keynote speaker, and leadership consultant.
He has just released his new book Leadership is Language which is currently #1 in its category on Amazon. Marquet outlines a set of principles and tools that help leaders inspire their people to take responsibility and address challenges without waiting to be told what to do, highlighting how small changes in language can lead to dramatic changes in a team's success and happiness.
I read Captain Marquet's first book Turn The Ship Around and became a big fan. I feel so very privileged to sit down and talk with an author I admire so much.
He is highly intelligent, provocative and entertaining. He shares great stories from his time at the academy and the fleet to illustrate the lessons he shares with us.
In 1981, David graduated top of his class from the U.S. Naval Academy—an institute renowned for developing “leaders to serve the nation.” Thereafter, he joined the submarine force.
Captain Marquet began treating his crew as leaders, not followers, and giving control, not taking control. It wasn’t long before operations took a dramatic turn. Santa Fe went from “worst to first,” achieving the highest retention and operational standings in the Navy.
When Stephen R. Covey spent time aboard the Santa Fe, he referred to it as the most empowering organization he’d ever seen. He wrote about Captain Marquet’s leadership practices in his book, The 8th Habit.
After Captain Marquet’s departure from the USS Santa Fe, it continued to win awards and promote more offic
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
Connect with Grant on Linkedin
Academy Insider Website
Academy Insider Facebook Page
If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, have an idea, question or topic you would like to see covered, reach out: podcast@academyinsider.com.
Grant Vermeer: 0:03
This is your host Grant Vermeer Naval Academy class of 2017 and I'm your academy insider. It's my goal to be your guide through the Naval Academy experience. By sharing my stories and providing you inside information into the life of a shipment. Academy insider is in no way officially affiliated with the United States Naval Academy. All over the content on Academy Insider is my own and does not reflect the views of the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy nor the Department of Defense. Everyone and welcome to the Academy insider podcast. For those of you who don't know this about me, I am a huge reading fan, and I love books about leadership. It's just one of the things that I do. I'm a really exciting person. So in my free time, I spent a lot of time reading leadership books. Both fiction, nonfiction, all the above and one of my personal favorites is turned the Ship Around by David Marquet. And it's just ah, phenomenal book documenting his time as a commanding officer of the USS Santa Fe, all the leadership lessons he learned in what he did to turn the U. S. s Santa Fe from one of the worst performing ships with the lowest retention rate in the fleet to the highest performing ship with the largest retention rate in the fleet. There's a ton of really awesome lessons, and so as a result, you know, I just decided to send out an email to see if he'd be interested to come on the economy. Insider podcast Talk about his book as well. Share some stories from his time at the Naval Academy. So I'm really grateful. I think you guys will really enjoy his podcast is he gives some insight into his Naval Academy experience some of the things he appreciated and wished for a little bit different at the Naval Academy and then how we took those leadership lessons and turned it into his style when he was a commanding officer of a U. S. Submarine. With all that being said, he's also dropping a new book called Leadership Is Language here really soon. So he takes the time to describe what that's gonna be all about. You guys are really gonna enjoy this episode, so make sure to tune in and let me know what you think, Lever of you. Thanks. All right. Hey, sir. Thank you so much for joining us on the academy insider podcast. Really appreciate having you on.
L. David Marquet: 2:02
Yeah, thanks for having me. And welcome to all the listeners out there.
Grant Vermeer: 2:07
Thank you. Absolutely. Before we get started, if you don't mind just telling the audience a little bit about your mid shipment self. So what company you're in What, major? In a little background about you as a midshipman as well as how you ended up at the academy.
L. David Marquet: 2:21
Yeah, I was a little snot nose know it all mature? That mean 77 when I My birthday's in September. So I was 17 years old when I started at the table. Okay. Wow, 1977 was a different world than where we are today. And for those who were there that remember, we had the Cold War, and it's easy to forget that we didn't know who was gonna win. And I was a c e HQ in on the math team in the chess club. And that that kind of thing when I was in high school and we had this this conflict, the Soviet Union and I felt very passionately about Constitution of the United States that the United States that represented a better way of organizing human society. So what is a geeky, introverted kid to do? I'm gonna join the military, but I've read about these things called submarines. The job is to hide from people like That's exactly what I want. That's sort of the mental chess game that happens on under these. The ocean really appealed to me. So I have applied to the Naval Academy, and I got rejected from all the traditional nomination sources. Neither Massachusetts senator nor my local representative had me in the top 10. Jeez. What? So I went for the Hail Mary, which was president on both People. Don't know what The vice president actually gets one person every year. And so I applied to Nelson Rockefeller of the time. I I I was the guy that he picked that I thought that was really interesting. That Yeah, no, it couldn't make it past Pauls, armors and any man I was on the way and I was super excited. 17 years old. Think you know everything idealistic. You show up and I was assigned to 27th company. Okay, Ron, I think it was 51 Camera was 506 months hard. Hard to believe. I can remember that. But anyway, we're for or halfway back Bank brought fall and it was It was great. I got in trouble with my first E. That is really obnoxious. First E The technical term was asphalt, and this guy was terrible and I was smarter than this guy and better looking and more after, Of course, that was a bad place to be. And hey was trying to make my life is hardest bomb near the end of plea years. Eso no, it actually please. Sometimes it's the only other Please, somebody says so. What do you think? What do you think? And Midshipman Marquet and I Well, it and this thing popped into my head. Well, way we get up every morning and we do PT and then we do sailing. And then we we go to some a little bit of class, but not nothing really serious. And then we go on, do sports and then and then we get the eat all we want. And we had, like, lemon chiffon ice cream in the coming huge tubs And for some reason, for some reason, I said it's kind of like summer camp. It was not the right thing to say. Please, God, carry on with means that they basically got to be treated like human beings at that point. But not me, because I didn't I hadn't quite quite gotten the indoctrination for what I was supposed to say. That my house is so hard, unbearable and you, anyway, so that's because I had a bad habit of speaking, but I fell in the room. Which a serving? Well in life, but not always. Well, the Navy. Uh,
Grant Vermeer: 6:29
absolutely. And so after you finish that went to plead here, What did you actually study at the academy? What was your major
L. David Marquet: 6:36
under a physics major? My dad was a physicist, so this may number. Okay? Of course I didn't get a PhD. So it was that there was a little disappointment there as a major, and I was on this fencing team track. It did track fencing. You think this is it? Fencing was a lot of what I did.
Grant Vermeer: 7:00
Okay, Absolutely. And now that's Ah, You have time to look back on your type of the Naval Academy. When I talk to people there like who? If you ask me a question of how my Naval Academy experience was, you asked me right after graduation I'd have a very different answer then, as I do now. So kind of how do you feel about your naval Academy experience now, basically, being where you are today,
L. David Marquet: 7:24
Well, it allowed me to serve the country and to go into this amazing thing the submarine force, and to command a nuclear powered submarine and to contribute to winning the Cold War, which was an amazingly satisfying part of my life. But there was a lot of the Naval Academy experience that I felt waas misguided or unnecessary made. And one of these I remember, I hopefully we don't do this anymore. But when Europe leave and you have a different uniform and have this naked chief and you have you tuck it in when you sit at the table, untucked it when you get out, you're supposed to. If you forget the untucked, your naked shiv, then the upperclassmen would put you in this sort of bunny hop routine. You have to embarrass parallel. There are you still do this.
Grant Vermeer: 8:20
I have not seen that in my
L. David Marquet: 8:25
so. But basically it was education through humiliation. And so it was all That's how you learn, because you'd be so embarrassed. You'll never do this. But you never wanted. So you'll never forget to untucked your negative. And I was always the guy who So first of all, I'd be the first guy Forget proposal all these years playing on in my head I was always thinking about stop and typically had to do with, you know, five years in the future and not like stupid, right? And so I suffered to it. But there was that I said, Well, what is hopping like a bunny? Have anything do with I'm talking your negative and, Oh, by the way, I could kind of blame the table, because why did they let the guy go? Isn't that me? We keep talking of our teamwork, but that harness the individual and like, the first class way er and they give me, like, this weird, you know, uh, doe eyes. What was I talking about? And so I did have some experience, like like like that was like, I don't understand how bunny hopping makes you remember cold. You're negative. And so there were things like that, that stuff with you. But I don't want that to color the whole my impression. The value waas an intimate sense of history, legacy and the ability to contribute to defending the Constitution, which I believe is a very important document in human history.
Grant Vermeer: 10:00
Absolutely. And you kind of mentioned some of your a little bit of frustrations with the Naval Academy and that Were there any other either followership or leadership experiences you had at the Naval Academy that specifically influenced how you wanted to lead in the fleet?
L. David Marquet: 10:14
Yeah. So there was a book way. Get a book. Naval Leadership. You got one. I got one and four behind me. Look here, it ISS can see us in the practice, but I'm holding my from 19. Okay? Fundamentals of naval leadership. Mental leadership? Yeah, Page one. You could hear the pages say one leadership. A concept was the first error. Leadership is not a concept. Leadership is a practice. Okay? So leadership can be defined as the art science or gift by which a person has enabled in privilege to direct the pots. Landon actions of others in a manner so as to obtain and demand their obedience, their confidence, their respect and their loyal cooperation. Age one chapter war highlighted even I I highlight. And you because you know why. I said, get Misa. You had me some of that and I would go places. And for the next 15 years, I was really good. I would they would send me a place for someone they just accidentally sent me. Just started. Sent me these places that were broken, and I would fix them that. But my master had on my G cat, I would say. Okay, now stop this. Do there. You're screwed up. Don't do that. Leave the thinking to may Just do what you're told. Everything we find wrote her, and that worked really well. And 80 thought I was awesome. So they got promoted. You do such a good job telling people what to do. We're gonna make you a summary, captain. I was like, great hold submarines worth of people with today. Nothing about because it turns out that's actually that only gets one dimension. It gets the dude part and compliance part of human beings. But the most powerful part thinking part, that creative part, the proactive part, the full contribution part comes only when we stop telling them what to do it. Because I have B Thank all my leadership. And I created a summary where we I never gave an order. Is a captain Mmm, good that it needs to because they all came to me all day long. Here's what's happening here is what I intend to do that this was happening. But Anton, here's what's happened. No one said, Here's what I'd like permission to do this because that poaches ownership, we say you're have ownership. Okay, but then you gotta come check with me 47 times a day. These It's my job. I have ownership.
Grant Vermeer: 12:58
Yeah. And how did you foster that culture on the Santa Fe? Cause I mean, generally, this every force before that has operated so heavily on that top down leadership approach with the submarine Captain as the end all authority, how did you get your crew to trusted you into basically embrace that idea and start to think and kind of have that leader leader, model vice, Leah leader,
L. David Marquet: 13:22
follower model? Well, I changed my behavior in the past. I was with the leaders jobs to change other people's behavior. When I say you're in power, what I really mean is I need you to do something different than you've been doing. I want you to take initiative. I want you to be proactive. I want you to speak up. I want you to challenge my bad orders. You? You. You. So this is fly. So the correct approaches. What do I do? How I behave? How do How do I set a structure of communication? My favorite phrase, my favorite questions of my officers all day long was what words are gonna come out of your mouth to make that happen? Uh, you speak up. Okay. So what words are gonna come out of your mouth? Maybe No words. Maybe just go Look at it. They're gonna say we got a problem. Okay, we're gonna do about that. No. You're gonna tell us what to do. Not You're gonna tell me what you think you should do? Yeah. WeII had these conversations and and the sense it was frustrating. Well, first I was very good. E dispersion, See? Oh, I know that. What? Finally. Oh, darn I told you what to do once again. And so you have to kind of bite your tongue and you say, Oh, why go noodle on that? For who? Minutes? Sydney to be law. And then come tell me if I were here and you just have to do this on your own. I had a heart attack right now and he's got to make What would you do? There's no back The engineer on the weapons officer and they say, Okay, well, here's what we did Here is what we think we will be. Abie Cindy. Then my job was easy like OK, great. I will do that to do with one because that gives ownership. And that means the next time they come to you with an idea and they know you're gonna say yes. Hey, but the dream of my guys was if you come to work me with the word intent and you say I intend to of above a ba you already have permission to do love above of the only a few years, I get to ask questions, by the way. But only here No. Do you not do it already? Pre approving everything that you say if you attach the word intend to Here's what I'm planning on doing a little bit different and maybe have a conversation. But here's what I request permission. That's clearly I'm waiting for permission is if you say I intend to submerge the ship and you don't hear anything, then you order the ship to be some Earth. If you say I request permission, they subvert the chip and you won't hear anything that you wait in The whole organization
Grant Vermeer: 16:15
waits. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so you talk about this concept in your book, Turn the ship around. Kind of, if you don't mind just explaining a little bit about the book for people who are not familiar with the book. And then, too, if you talk a little bit about how you went and you talked about it a little bit already. But how you really built in the factors of control, competence and clarity and that leadership there, that leader, leader, model on board, and kind of the things that you had your command triad focus on and trying encourage your crew to d'oh!
L. David Marquet: 16:48
Yeah, we call, turn, turn, turn the ship around. It's a great book. It's a story, but it's also very detailed and practical. So I wanted to make sure that the reader knew what we did. So, for example, you know, every leadership book says something like, Well, take care of your people. Listen to your but they don't like That's it. Well, how what What do you mean by that? What does it sound like? An immediate Was it sound like in a one on one conversation? And so get the actual words that we used the things that we did on the ship, you know, one guy wrote it was It's Harvard Business School, me, Tom for Red October with 28 major obliteration there. So and it's the story of what happened on the summary, and the hook is we went from worst to first in terms of performance and retention. But the real story is that in the next 10 years, 10 of the officers became some reef manners. This is a hugely disproportionate number, and it shows the power of the approach because if you just tell people what to do, you're not building them in the leaders and I always had this. I always called it opposite day, and I would take some idea that said, Well, wherever there's something that we're thinking that we're not, it's so common. It's so taken for granted. We don't even realize that were thinking it. And what if What if the opposites actually true? And I would I play these mind games with myself? I have different just to amuse myself when I get bored. Typically, when the adults are speaking, I know there's a really smart guy that they're one of a moi ce. Why do we have leaders and followers? What if that's actually not a good structure? It's just Everyone assumes there's gonna be leaders and followers. Some people make decisions and the rest of people executed. Well, can we get the people execute the decision to also be the people who make the decision? Can we let the doers be the deciders playing with this in my head? And I kind of convinced myself that it was worth trying. That was a viable enough idea that was worth trying, and that's basically sir, was this genesis of the idea that I need the tea, plus the fact that when I came to the ship So at the other part of stories at the last minute was shifted to Santa Fe with the ship. I wasn't trained for it. I didn't know the specifics. I tried to give orders, Couldn't you were told anyway, dangerous. And therefore we had to come up with different approaching normal approaches. Well, I'll keep giving bad orders, and you guys fix him, and I'm gonna put the burden on you. But in this case, we tried something different, which is I'm gonna stop giving orders. And you guys had to come tell me what we need to do, So we're gonna flip it. And it was like it was brilliant and was was amazing. It's full of energy. Immediately. Things got better for me and everybody.
Grant Vermeer: 19:48
Yeah, and it truly is an amazing story. What prompted? You are inspired youto then share the story and actually write the book.
L. David Marquet: 19:56
Yeah, so that's a story, too. So what happened? I had this great experience, and then I went it up as another almost 10 years in the navy. A roast of the ranks and over the Pentagon got navy, was moping around the house, and then I get a call from one of my joo so to two things happen. You gotta You gotta go. Dude, I had a medical. I'd get out because of medical. And I was gonna say I was starting my own company, sort of as a consulting subject matter expert kind of deal. And I had ah, jail on My Joo is called Mei says happened. It's like to be submarine commander on the 10th 1 Well, can you guys like I knew there were really was and I told told my wife and she's like, Well, that's the store. Don't do this Other thing told story. I know I'm an engineer, not a word engineer on So here's a little secret. English is the only thing that the neighborhood can. I got a B, get everything else Every other thing. Super B. And no, it's not a good idea. It's not. But like any good engineer kind of stripped down the ground zero. I started reading a sops Babel's and I started the map out. What story structure with anyway, bra blast by integrating story. But what I wanted to do was I wanted to add a the voice what I thought was true voice of the leader who had fears who had uncertainty, didn't know whether it was gonna work. The loneliness, the anxiety of self doubt, vulnerability but also the idea that leadership is about making the lives of other human beings better, letting them being more than they think they could ever be. And if you do it right, you create 10 submarine commanders or 10 cheeses, a bow or 10 people who start their own company from your company and you're creating leaders, not just more followers who are simply extensions of your will. Because that is gonna be what robots do in the future.
Grant Vermeer: 22:20
Absolutely. And so the crazy thing is that I know now from firsthand experience that a lot of what you have written in this book the process is the language have been adopted by the submarine force
L. David Marquet: 22:33
that doesn't it make you feel well, it's awesome. It's It was myself because my 10 guys went out. They did it. It was like a virus rejected into the system. So and I don't think I was doing my son's ah submarine or now right? Is that steep? And, you know, I was doing it quite right. didn't really understand why Baba Blah, but it doesn't really matter. I think there's a lot of value on what happens and then you see, you know, sadly, the Navy of the Navy. The purpose Navy had these tragedies in the Pacific Ocean. But I was very happy to see a wasn't you? The submarine force hasn't had something that not you read those reports was like, Oh, my God, it's so how could it be so bad anyway? Yeah, it makes you feel is very gratifying because I can tell you on the Santa Fe went from three out of 33 people re enlisted the 12 months before I got there. Three out of 33 reenlisted and 30 people hated the Navy. So much state. They said, I'm out of here. Yeah, the next 12 months, 33 out of 33 people re enlisted. And so more importantly than the fact that that saves the taxpayer probably $45 million in training and recruiting fees that the lives of these people were simply better. And so we know that the lives of human beings are better. That's what leadership is about.
Grant Vermeer: 24:05
Yeah, absolutely. And so generally in the military, especially the submarine force. Ah, they always preached, and we always know that words matter. Like that is a big thing for us, how you speak, the words that you use, all of that matters. And I was very apparent by kind of like you're saying you're switched to encouraging and mandating that your officers and your crew used the word like I intend I intend to do something, and I know you playing to release a book here soon about that exact topic. Can you talk a little bit about
L. David Marquet: 24:37
your new book coming out? Thanks. So I see you've got your basketball jersey on the wall bottom line, and I will tell you that leadership is much more like a sport or language. Leadership is a language. In fact, that's named leadership is language because the way you if you want to talk about being a air conditioning technician or whatever the way you interact with the world, is with your hands and and that kind of you do stuff on your ship is the only way we interact with humans. Other humans is with language or something, sketching with language. And so the way we talk to each other is exactly where the leader should focus. And it turns out I was thinking about it. So again it was like, This is one of these opposite day. I kind of thought experiments, Woz, where does our language come from? And are we secretly being programmed to use an unhelpful language? And you know, the scene in The Matrix where there's just like a glitch in The Matrix, you see, just momentarily get this hand. Things might not be what they think they are happening to me, like seven times, and I felt when I was So someone comes up to you and says, Hey, I think I got a better idea. What if the next words that come out of your mouth language matters and most people the response is something from, Well, no, you're wrong. Let me explain why Who may be. Well, have you thought about this? You know that you think about safety. Oh, my God, I never did. I thank you so much for reminding, and that's on the line as well. And the think the most helpful response is to actually one of curiosity. I always say to myself. What is this person see that I don't see What do they know? That I don't know in my job as opposed to defending my position. But I always felt my first instinct is to defend my position. But then if I pause and think about it, I like, but wow. Hey, tell me more about that. I always felt like I was reprogrammed myself. So the book is called The Leadership. His language. And it's basically that we've been programmed by the industrial Age for a language that specifically about controlling and compliance and getting people to do stuff. The emphasis. So so are you in a can do organization? Oh, I was how many you want wannabe can't do, or it would raise her hand. How about can think organization that sounds were never heard. Okay, well, I I would have offices. Is that I think think things more important than doing. And if you thinking is the trigger too, getting better doing Yeah. Oh, but the fact that can't do is so prevalent and can think it's still rare in the language. Is this one sign that we've been programmed by the Industrial Revolution and our language comes from the past, you carry it with us. What we need to do is re program are landing. Since I'm an engineer, I'm like reengineering the language, You know that, and it gets to thinking what the language of sinking is. But it is different than the language of doing up, but it's different than there's. There's two different languages, so you're switching between like French and Spanish all day long. Language of thinking. The language do absolutely. I'm super excited comes out February Leadership is language
Grant Vermeer: 28:14
fantastic, and I know they're a ton of people who are listening to this podcast that want to learn more about you read books that you have watch your leadership nudges and all the different awesome things that you do to promote leadership advice. If they wanted to learn more about you, more about your books or basically kind of discover Maur the things that you have put out, where would you send them?
L. David Marquet: 28:36
So our program is called intent based leadership because it's weird intent to so important. For though the website is played for insect based leadership dot com, a website under my name but 10 paces and we have a thing called leadership nudges, which are little hints and things that you can do One minute videos. They come out every Wednesday we have. I've been doing this for over five years, and so there's a YouTube channel. You can drive on the website or enroll in these nudges. Or you can go to YouTube channel Leadership nudges you connect with me on lengthen Oh, David Mark a Twitter, Instagram, faithful, whatever, Whatever. Whatever.
Grant Vermeer: 29:30
Absolutely. And I would encourage all my listeners to subscribe to those nudges. I watch all of them. I have seen all of them gone through that panel and they're fantastic, like they're very easy to digest what you say in one minute videos. Just little things that you can think about how you can actually change your actual behavior to accomplish some of these things, not just provide this high level thought of, you know, take care of your people's. I will not go idea that. So, um, sir, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and discuss your different books and some of your your thought into all of this and leadership as well. But before we wrap up I do ask all former midshipman ah, lightning round of questions. So if you don't have anything else of the night, anything else you would like to say to the audience, we'll jump right into these
L. David Marquet: 30:15
questions there. Watch it. I have to say power.
Grant Vermeer: 30:20
Absolutely. If you want, you can
L. David Marquet: 30:21
ask me. Oh,
Grant Vermeer: 30:25
so the first question is, what is your favorite spot on the yard? Favorite place to be.
L. David Marquet: 30:31
I have to be the fencing Lodge Offense Defense Ing Shop, which is up in Nika Dog and Dahlgren Hall. Dogen at the Unique and Ron Smith Hans Mellie. But I don't know. I just you might
Grant Vermeer: 30:53
not compare to submarine food, but what's your favorite meal in King Hall? Mexican male. Who? Yeah, it's always a good one.
L. David Marquet: 31:02
Yeah, uh, one on ice cream already mentioned that
Grant Vermeer: 31:07
in regards to. So I did an episode back last fall about signature sheets at the academy. I don't know if they had signature sheets back when you were a midshipman, but was there anything you specifically did when trying to as an upperclassman would make your please do in order to get to know
L. David Marquet: 31:22
you? No. That what we're going to get to know May.
Grant Vermeer: 31:30
So now, today I mean more than, like, get to know you just actually know your name and learn your name and recognize face to name so they can address.
L. David Marquet: 31:41
That was not a problem.
Grant Vermeer: 31:42
That was not, um absolutely. All right, next question. So I
L. David Marquet: 31:50
really don't know what a signature. I don't know that. I've never heard of this. What are they? Yeah.
Grant Vermeer: 31:57
So now basically, it's literally a sheet of paper printed out with a roster of all the upperclassmen in your company.
L. David Marquet: 32:04
And you haven't signed,
Grant Vermeer: 32:07
Correct. Once they they could give you tasks or taken whatever it is. But in order to get to know them a little bit and recognize face to name, it's just a means of making sure that the please get around to learn all the people in their company.
L. David Marquet: 32:20
Yeah, that's probably good. I mean, something that creates a human connection is probably good idea.
Grant Vermeer: 32:25
Yeah. All right. Moving on. Next question. You're an author yourself. What is your favorite book that you've
L. David Marquet: 32:31
read? Uh, it depends like that for me in terms of leadership. Spain having habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey was heading a huge impact on me out of the crisis by damming the visual display of quantitative information. Tough come Twister by Edward Tough How to talk to kids Kids Listen. Listen so kids will talk. Bye. They were massless all hugely impactful books for me but but I love like my my I love history and a science fiction. So I was reading, like as Isaac as a Ma Robert Heinlein for three books. Walter Isaacson See behind me that history books uh, seven crickets comes to my great book about the building the Navy for the Revolutionary War. Basically, any book written by Churchill or about Churchill will go on my list along what? Lots of World War Two books. I am a lot of history books love this afternoon.
Grant Vermeer: 33:39
Absolutely. And then what is your greatest memory? Favorite moment? Whatever it is from your four years as a midshipman at the
L. David Marquet: 33:46
network. So 1980 we're getting a butt kick. We've had, uh, setbacks in the Cold War. We seem like we're losing to the Soviets with this funk of Vietnam. The Iranians took our hostages. We had Hayek usually left high levels of inflation and the price of gold with super high, and we had the gas and oil shock. And then we go to the Olympics and the Soviets are like nine feet tall and playing. U. S hockey team plays a Soviet hockey team in the 1980 Olympics, and you watch the movie, her book, The coach. I remember the name of the movie, but it's you gotta watch the movie. And so we're all sitting in our little company rooms. No one had ipads then. So every year to get together to watch TV together and no one had headphones or anything like that, we were all watching together. It's just unbelievable. The U. S is beating the Soviets and all of Bancroft. There's no air conditioning back on, either. The all the Windows open and all of Bancroft Hall was just erupting in This crazy copy annoys you could stick your head out the window into the interior sort of courtyard area. It was everyone was just screaming and going crazy. And it was just the first time, like I felt that night and we would like one organism and we were ready after that. We're gonna we need a sleep 40 days ass on anything wherever. And it was epic. And it was I can see the crabby brown couch is right now and I love him. I have a love for my wife hates because of this member. It was just so is about comrade or camaraderie and fellowship was just amazing for purposes and me. That's it, my man.
Grant Vermeer: 35:58
I love it. All right, Final question. What advice was that? My chop. We're good. That's great. All right, Well, sir, thank you so much for coming on the academy Insider podcast. Really, really appreciate you taking the time to be
L. David Marquet: 36:17
here. Yeah. And? And congratulations to the listeners that got enable Catomine. Sure you recognize this special place? That is, if you're thinking about going, it's amazing. You can do things with your life that you probably never even imagine you could do. And it all starts there.
Grant Vermeer: 36:33
Absolutely. Thank you so much. And for all the listeners out there Thank you for listening. I hope you have a great day. If you were screaming out Miracle. You are absolutely correct. That is the movie we were trying to reference in regards to the 1980 U s hockey team highly recommend you watch. It's fantastic film, but thank you so much for listening to the academy insider podcast. Really appreciate it. Please leave me a review and be sure to subscribe to the Academy Insider podcast. And if you want to learn more about the United States Naval Academy of the Mission experience, check out my Web site, www dot academy insider dot com or my Facebook Page Academy insider that you guys so much for tuning in today you can go to the show notes for links toe everything that we talked about today, all of the books, all of the courses, all of the videos, everything like that. So make sure to check out the show notes for all of that information. Otherwise, thank you guys so much for tuning in, and I really appreciating you, Letting me be your guide to the United States Naval Academy