Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How To Level Up Your Leadership with Chief of Navy Reserve - Vice Admiral John Mustin | Part 2

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

Welcome to PART TWO of our conversation with Vice Admiral John Mustin. If you missed part one of the conversation, I strongly recommend you go back and check that one out first. It’s the episode immediately preceding this one in your feed.Episode Description:What is it like to lead 59,000 people? What if those people are spread out all over the world? What does readiness as a leader look like? Chief of Navy Reserve (CNR), Vice Admiral John Mustin, knows exactly what it’s like and he leads with a singular, laser-guided priority in mind: warfighting readiness. When it comes to performing at the highest level, Vice Admiral Mustin is steadfast in his belief that individual performance is informed by both competence and character. We’ll find out how he helps instill these traits in his force and the challenges that come with it. Vice Admiral Mustin has an extraordinary grasp on leadership philosophy, communicating effectively across large organizations, and using his civilian experiences to inform strategy within his military career – and he’s generous enough to share some of his insights with us around both organizational and personal high performance. We covered so much ground in our conversation that we felt this episode was best shared in two parts. If you’d like access to the full conversation in one cohesive episode, you can view the episode in its entirety on YouTube right now. No matter when or where you tune in, we hope you enjoy this gem of a conversation with Vice Admiral John Mustin._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And welcome to part two of our conversation with Vice Admiral John Muston. If you missed part one of the conversation, I strongly recommend you go back and check that one out first. It's the episode immediately preceding this one in your feed.

And with that, let's jump right back into part two of our conversation with Vice Admiral John Muston, CNR Chief of Navy Reserve. Limitations. So what are some of the limits or limitations that you see that people bump into? And these are barriers, and I'm more interested in the internal barriers that people run up against that get in the way of them living their best life. Being able to really fill in or pour into the mission that they're working on. So what are some of those limitations? The older I've gotten, the more I've seen the importance for the balance between mental, physical and spiritual wellness. No question.

And what I used to be able to get away with as a younger man was to eat terribly, exercise vigorously and pull all nighters and, you know, celebrate with a cup of coffee in the morning for breakfast kind of thing. And, you know, my famous line was, I can sleep when I'm dead. And what I'm finding now, though, is I am not as cognitively sound if I don't get the right amount of sleep. I don't have the energy to perform like I know I need to if I don't exercise. And so as a result, you know, what I'm doing now is incorporating a far more rigorous and healthy approach to diet, to exercise. I mean, I look forward to exercising to the point where we were talking on the break. You know, I get up pretty early. I get up at 3.30 to meet a friend at 4 so we can exercise together.

We'll lift and do some cardio between 4 and 5.30, which then allows me to get a little bit of breakfast and then get myself to the office by about 7.30. And so when you say, what are the limitations? I'd say as I've aged, I've seen some differences there. Some of it is just how much energy do you have? You know, the energy management is critical. And then cognitive function is impacted by everything else I just described.

And then the spiritual piece, you know, everybody can interpret spirituality differently, but having some time to either meditate or breathe or think or, you know, atone is important because anything that I find allows your brain to kind of shift gears a little bit from rigorous analytical behavior to thoughtful, quiet thinking, you know, I think that's a great unlock. And so I don't know that I can apply that to 60,000 people necessarily, but, but I've sure seen it myself as I've aged over time. I love that. So if I, just to kind of play it back, the, the most significant limiter that you've experienced in your life is available energy, internal energy, like that volition, that kind of raw power to solve things, to do things, that if you don't take care of that, that there's just a limitation.

Absolutely. Another example, peripherally related but still germane, was I used to do a lot of running. And over the span of two years, I broke each of my ankles in almost the same place. What kind of running? I know. Yeah. I wish there was a good story. I mean, I was running along a river and the tiles shifted, which rolled my ankle.

So in one of my ankles, I've got a synthetic ligament now. But after a couple of surgeries, and I remember got a synthetic ligament now, but after a couple of surgeries and, you know, I remember saying to the doctor as I was coming out of surgery, how long before I can run again? And he said, oh, you know, you should take your time on this, probably take about eight weeks. And at eight weeks, I mean, I said, day one of week eight, I will be running. And it was excruciating. And I said, I'm not ready yet. But as a result, what I found was, I mean, it took me about six months before I could really run. And I went from 30 miles a week to five or something, which was not satisfying.

And at that point, I was doing a lot of cardio and not much else. So since then, I've learned, hey, at my age, I should be doing more strength and weight training too. So anyway, but it was really enlight or enlightening to me that I've recognized without being able to run, I don't feel the same. I'm, I'm not as energetic. I'm not as excited. I'm not as, it impacted my optimism. You know, I felt like damaged goods almost. Yeah. And I, I'm not going to let this slip with all the reverence I have for you. A 3.30 AM wake up, that's early. Yeah. Okay. And so that might fit your chronotype and the way that you're genetically wired for it to be an early riser. Tell me the amount of sleep

you get. Well, so when I started tracking it, it was abysmally bad. I mean, it was like between four and five. How were you tracking? Self-report or were you using a technology? Well, at first I had like a Fitbit and I was tracking that way. So now I don't wear a Fitbit. I just look at my clock and say, all right, I know this is going to be five hours. So I'm not looking at the quality of sleep necessarily. Although I had done that for a number of years. I just can't wear that now because of our job. We can't have a kind of Bluetooth things on us. So anyway, but I'm, I'm looking at at least the span of time. I'm trying to get to seven. You can't have Bluetooth because is that a cyber threat? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I got to know about this. Like, so is like, could I be hacked? Oh, if, if there's anything that you know of that's digital easily it can be hacked easily hacked yeah so if i'm wearing a ring that has like i mean i don't know what someone would do so that would get into necessarily i mean i'm not that interested but they could get into the phone and get into whatever yeah i mean the phone holds i'm not a hacker but i would say like for my for my kids um if you've got TikTok on your phone, your phone is on my network. And then what is available as things become vectors to other things. So anyway.

Okay. So go back to the sleep for you. Right, right. So I want to get to seven, which is my goal. I'm usually getting about six or five and a half, but I know that's bad. So before you chastise me, I will say, I know this- Before shame is now a new weapon in our soul. Huge strides with nutrition and exercise. So the sleep is the one where I'm saying I've

identified it as the laggard in this three-legged stool that I want to get better on. Are you using physical training for physical health and or mental health? Or which one would you, you're saying yes to both, right? And which one would you say is more interesting to you? The mental, psychological benefits or the physical? Mental first, but I have to admit, I mean, when I couldn't run, I gained weight and I thought to myself, I don't like being heavy or out of shape, but I love my workouts in the morning because that's when I can have some uninterrupted time. And that's just cool. Like I don't cognitive, I don't want to do what, um, Descartes did and try

to pull the mind and body apart. Like I'm not trying to do that, but I'm just trying to get a sense of like, is it more for the mental or, and our physical? And of course it's both. Okay. Both. But I would tell you the physical I value, but the mental, I couldn't live without. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple of sponsors that are making this show possible. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information

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for two full months for free. Terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day, certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why

I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good.

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And now back to the conversation. And when it comes to nutrition, it sounds like you're learned in all of these forms of wellbeing and taking care of yourself for longevity, for high performance, for lifespan, for high performance. Are you,

are you doing intermittent fasting? Are you not interested? You're not interested. I dabbled in it. It didn't, it didn't do anything for me. And, and then, okay. So you've upgraded on nutrition, you've upgraded on movement and you have not quite upgraded to the level, to the standard, let's say self-imposed standard of, would we call it eight hours? No, I'd love to. At some point. I'm like, I'm really good at like 7.45. It's kind of where I'm trending right now, where I'm getting that right ratio between deep and REM. And my game is not necessarily carving out. I am disciplined in competing my ass off to get somewhere between eight and seven hours

every night. Like I'm competing my ass off and my family is to do that. So it's a full-time job to try to figure this thing out. But I know if I don't do that and I don't play some of the right notes in the day, my deep sleep is like so suspect. And so I've got to play the right notes to get that right symphony at night. But so is your first priority to try to go from six to six and a half? Yes. In fact, I was even looking forward to this conversation, so I could ask you. Yeah, let's go. Because if I had to give up something, is it more valuable to sleep the extra two hours

or to get the workout in? Yeah, I don't know how to pull them apart either. I think that, um, if we played, if we did like a, uh, we're on a strike mission and we've got a, you know, a five day strike mission and it's on, I can go without sleep. Right. Right. Right. In a short duration, I'm okay, but I'm compromised. I'm compromised towards the end of that, but I need to come in fit. Right. So I've got it. My, my system has to be tuned well for me to drain it in that type of like compromised sleep state for, for a five week or five day period. Right. And when we go away now, let's extend it out to a handful of weeks and then I'll extend it out for like a lifetime. Okay. So if we're going to do, when we go away now, let's extend it out to a handful of weeks and then I'll extend it out for like a lifetime.

Okay. So if we're going to do, when we do a high performance camp at the Olympics or pro camp and like it's on for three weeks and we're in a different part of the world and we're eating food that's not normally our food. And maybe we're having to ship some of it in, or we've got a chef on board that's helping us dial in our nutrition or we're piecemealing it. If we're on a budget, a piecemealing it to our best abilities. So you've got sleep, physical movement, you've got nutrition, and then you've got psychological fitness, if you will. Okay. So let's think about those four. We'll put spiritual as an asterisk right now. It's actually more of a, it's an underpinning of the whole thing is spiritual. Okay. But let's just talk about those four dials for a minute is that I think we need to get two out of four, right?

Just to be included. Right. Three out of four, right? To be in striking distance of high performance. Four out of four, right? To be playful with your craft. Awesome. Okay.

So two is a baseline. three is what we're looking for and and you can play with it like it doesn't necessarily matter okay and we get four out of four we're winning like for sure all that being said if you were to press me now and say which one is most significant for you i go okay i got to do the complicated thing that they're all connected. And then I say, sleep, sleep is ground zero. And then I say, listen, if I'm sleeping right and I'm not fueling it properly, why would I do the movement on top of it? Because movement is a drain. So I'm sleeping right to fill up my bucket. And fitness is like I'm draining the bucket. And if I'm not feeding it properly, like now I'm in a compromised state. Yeah. Okay. Now all that being said is that when you get your thinking dialed in, and I don't mean like intelligence, I mean the ability

to be optimistic in a face of challenge, the ability to be calm and not burn through resources unnecessarily, the ability to be grounded and be burn through resources unnecessarily, the ability to be grounded and be where your feet are in any environment that is so less expensive when you operate from that type of position inside of yourself that now we're winning at another level because I don't maybe need as much sleep. Okay. So the sleep studies keep coming back seven to eight hours of sleep on average for the majority of people. And I think that that would also assume that the majority of

people are not getting psychological skills training. So they're expensive to operate because they're anxious, they're nervous, they're frustrated, they're fatigued. That's an expensive operating system. I think we could change that model. And I know that I'm dealing with millions of years old operating system, our brain, but I do think we could upgrade it in a way if the data pool in, let's call it 10 years or five years from now, of those people had a real investment in psychological skills, a small investment in nutrition, I don't think we need eight hours of sleep on average. I think we can get, and I know I'm being, I can hear all of my

research friends right now going, are you kidding me right now? You're not going to change the brain in that kind of short amount of time. But the subject pool was deft in like, it was wanting when it comes to psychological skills operations, which is an efficient way to go through the world. Yeah. No, thank you for that. And that is perfect context. I've wrestled with this one often saying, okay, I'm struggling to find the time because I don't want to go to bed at eight o'clock at night. You know, generally by the time I get home from work, that gives me enough time to have dinner and then work a little more before I go to bed. So this is a passion problem for you? Like you love what you're doing or is this like, you can't quite turn it down?

Well, I don't see you as being disorganized. I don't see you as being undisciplined. I'm pretty organized. Yeah. Pretty disciplined, I think. So it's interesting that in my case, I'm referred to as a geographic bachelor. Have you ever heard this term before? No. Okay. So my family's in New York City. Okay.

But I'm down in D.C. working at the Pentagon. So I try on weekends when I'm not traveling for work, I'll go home. And that's when I get to spend time with my wife and kids. You know, we FaceTime every night. But as a result of being down in D. in DC by myself, it just fuels my being a total workaholic. Oh my God. I so I've never heard this. I completely relate to this. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like when I'm away, what else am I doing? Right on. And so like, I kind of like it. I am amazingly effective. I mean, I said at one point to my staff, I was relatively new in the

job and I'll always take work home. I mean, the other thing one point to my staff, I was relatively new in the job and I'll always take work home. I mean, the other thing that I recognize is if I come in really early, they'll all come in earlier. And if I stay really late, they'll all stay. So even when I said, hey guys, I'm just going to stay here and do some reading. You all go home. No one wants to leave. They won't. Boss is here. So I try to leave at a decent hour between like five and six, I would say.

And then you send emails at 11 p.m. But I always say, tomorrow, please make sure you address this. I'm not trying to get people to work around the clock. Okay. And I will tell them just because I'm a workaholic doesn't mean that I'm encouraging that behavior in you. Do you want this pattern for if your child is passionate about something, would you want this behavior, this pattern of behavior? If it made them happy, absolutely. Are you happy? I am. You are happy. Are you living a good life? When I wake up every day, I couldn't be more thrilled. Is that the good life for you? It is. I mean, I can't believe I'm getting a paycheck to do this. I mean, honestly, it's, I mean, I am

so humbled and honored to do this job. I mean, it really is amazing to me. And I think I want to earn it. Are you saying that because really is amazing to me. And I think I want to earn it. Are you saying that because you're supposed to, or do you really feel it? I feel it actually, but I just want to make sure I'm not like, you're not selling me something here. No, no, no. Honestly. In fact, I love what I do. My wife is the hero in this story though, because when I was nominated to take this job, I said, honey, you're not going to believe this. I just got a call from the chief of naval operations and you're never going to guess what he said. He asked me if I wanted to take this job. And she goes, I think you're the only person who didn't know this call

was coming. But anyway, and I said, well, we should talk about this because it's a four-year job and it means that we're moving to DC. And she says, well, the kids are pretty happy in their school here. And my job is in Manhattan. So, you know, you can do this. Let me know what your hotel room or your apartment is. I have wonderful quarters that are part of the job. But anyway, I always say, she let me do this because this puts tremendous burden on her. I used to walk the kids to school. I would take them to sports. I would participate in all the PTA meetings, none of which I do now. Can we talk about that partnership for a minute?

Absolutely. Are you okay to talk about that? Yeah. Family is like, I didn't have this awareness maybe even like seven years ago. And I'll tell you why I'm marking that note or that year. But people would ask me my whole career, what are the most common traits of the best in the world? And scientifically, I would say we can't, we don't know. Right. And now like when I, I feel like maybe I'm an old person at the table, but I push my tape, my chair back and I can see the playing field easier.

Partnerships are a huge part of it. And the support that they have from that environment, and sometimes those environments are chaotic and sometimes they're loving and kind and they come in all different flavors. But there's something about that partnership at home outside of the operating environment that is foundational. Absolutely. And so like what, what is every, every relationship I've ever encountered has different flares and tones to it. Like what is yours like with your wife? Well, so we have our, we celebrate our 30th anniversary in three weeks. So, um, so we've been doing this for a while. Um, we have three kids. Oldest is 13. We have twins that are 11. So if you do that math, we obviously waited for a long time. Um, we have the same path. Yeah. Yeah. We have the same 35 years. So my wife's name is Kim. Kim has said to our friends, the most irresponsible thing we've ever done is have twins at 44. Um, so it, but it keeps us

young. Uh, there's no question. But anyway, so when you say, what does it look like? I mean, she is my best friend. You know, she is clearly someone who is my consigliere and confidant. You know, I don't go to her and say, you know, how do you think I should respond to what Russia just did? But, but I do certainly talk about, you know, we live and breathe in online calendars and, you know, I'm traveling 20 days a month and I'm trying to get to meet up with her and the kids wherever they may be, whether it's for soccer tournaments or basketball tournaments often. So, you know, we're, we're both busy, but, um, but I look forward to our, you know, 10 minute FaceTime every day that, that is

both a source of rejuvenation and, um, and encouragement. But, you know, I keep coming back to, if she said this is too hard, I would stop doing this immediately. How do you support her? Like, what are the ways, because I don't know what her profession is and she might be world's best in whatever she's doing. Wealth management. Is she? Okay. She is in wealth management. She is, which is world's best. Yeah, there you go. So like, so how do you support her in that?

I mean, right now I'm an absentee husband and father, so. Failing. Yeah. I mean, look, and there's, there's guilt there. Yeah. I, I, I see it and I feel it. So, so I'm in my own life. I would say the way that I support her is when I retire from this job, I will make it so worth her while. Oh yeah. I love hearing this because, you know, so just the other night we're at dinner with my, a couple of friends and they were, we're talking about our like next phases or whatever. And my son is 14 heading into high school. So we've got four years until like, he's, you know, he's got plans for college. And so we've got four years together as a unit. And, um, somebody asked like, so what's next? And I go, I flat out want to make sure that Lisa decides, my wife decides like the next phase. And I would bet that she wants to live in New York city in Manhattan. Yeah. How about it? Right. And that's where, that's where your wife is. Right. And that,

or where she's working. Yeah. And so I think in the future, that's where I'm operating from, which is going to be really hard for me. I love, I want to live by an ocean on a mountain or, um, uh, a running river. And so, and she's like, I want the concrete. I want big city. I want that energy. So, so now's my turn. By the time you move, uh, I will retire from this job and we're in Tribeca and, uh, that's where she wants to go. Okay. Yeah. Keep me on the speed. Yeah. Good. Okay. Good. I'll show you where I broke each of my ankles running down the Hudson River. That's so good. All right. Good. So, all right. So let's go, let's take a one extension. Um, or actually let's finish this up. Like what would you hope

young people listening, um, that are in their marriage right now, or maybe they're not even young that you would say, listen, I've learned about being a good partner. I hope that you will do A, B, and C to be a great partner. Are there any specific things that you're doing to be a great partner? I mean, absolutely. One is choose your battles. I mean, Kim and I determined early on. It's funny coming from you. It really is funny. But we said there are some things that she's going to own and I trust her. And there are some things that I'm going to own and she's going to trust me.

And the idea there is I don't need her telling me how to install the cable or get the network working. And I'm not going to give her critiques on the laundry. And so she says if it's mechanical or electrical or trash, it's you. If it's nesting home design decor or food, it's her. So, you know, dividing and conquering is something that we agreed to. If she were telling you the story, she would say that it was born from an occasion when she was working very hard and I was in grad school and she would come home after a hard day's work. And I would have been back from an early morning workout with a couple of SEAL buddies, a couple hours of class, 18 holes

of golf, four people at our house drinking a bunch of beer. And she'd come in saying, I'm exhausted. And we go, okay, well, what's for dinner? You know, and she's like, all right. Yeah. We got to have a talk here. That's a battle. Yes. So back to talking to young couples, I would say first, figure out what you both love, kind of de-conflict them. You know, each of you should own something. And maybe there are things you like doing together. If you like to cook together at the end of the day, that's great. It could be romantic. But still, figure out what you want to be responsible for so that you can lighten the load for the other person.

Check in, you know, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. You know, I've learned not to leap to solutions if and when I'm hearing of something that is either annoying or conflicting her. So, you know, being a good listener is great for men. And then at the end of the day, I would say we always viewed it as we're a team, even before we got married. You know, I remember saying to her, I feel so much better about myself when I'm with you. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday,

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resources, like uniquely everybody has constraints and resources. And I, I, I, I spent a lot of time thinking about teams as well. And I'm just in this place, like, you know, how like early, early on in some ideation or, or, um, maybe in your career, you're like, I get it. And then you get into that messy middle. You're like, I don't get it. And then it's supposed to get simple again. And I feel like, I don't know where exactly I am, but I'm tired of talking about teams right now. And, um, and because I'm much more interested in talking about team mating, being a teammate and like, I'm far more interested in that than this concept of what a great team is. Like, I want to know, how can people be great teammates? How can I be a great teammate? And how can they be great teammates? And now we have a team. It is like, I want to know about, yeah. How can people be great teammates? How can I be a

great teammate and how can they be great teammates? And now we have a team. It's like, can I throw some rummy your way? Cause this is the softball in the middle for you. So my 13 year old is, uh, is very athletic and she starts high school also. So she'll be in ninth grade next year, but, um, has always excelled in soccer and basketball. And one of her coaches said, she wants to be a D one player, she'll be a D1 player. The conversations I've had with her, though, and this is right up your alley. I'm eager to hear this feedback. I've said, her name is Morgan.

I hope I'm not embarrassing her here. What's up, Morgan? But I've said, Morgan, you're a gifted athlete. The difference between great athletes and others is there are many gifted athletes. But gifted athletes who train hard and commit to the sport are the ones that you hear about. And the reason I say that is because I question sometimes her commitment. She's always gotten away with it. She's always been the best one on the team.

And yet I'm saying you're getting to the age now where you're going to get left in the dust with people who are going to work harder than you. And so one other comment again, and this is all where I'm dying to hear your feedback, was you're also at the point where your individual contribution is less valuable than your ability to make the team better. So if you had 38 points, that's great, but you lost. I'd rather you score 20 and win. So trying to teach her again, how to be a leader on the course or on the court and off the court and to say your outcome driver, not, not your metric of success as points or minutes played. The outcome is, did you win or not? And that's the team contribution so anyway back to you julie fowdy three-time olympic medalist in women's soccer she says on the world stage everybody is working hard

that's a prerequisite but you're measured on how well you make others better when you're part of the system versus not part of the system matter of fact the one the the women's U S women's Olympic volleyball team, I was part of the team that went to Rio and we took a member, Courtney Thompson, who on paper technically maybe wasn't, wasn't going to make it. Okay. Her technical skill on paper, she was not going to be selected to make one of the 12 that we took. However, she made, and I'm going to, I'm going to butcher the exact number. She made everybody else when she was around two to 3% better. Yeah. Yeah. It's like points against replacement player, right? That's exactly it. Yeah. So, so I mean, it's a massive, like I'm so much more interested in how can I be a great

teammate? I want to be part of a team. I want to help other people have a great team. But the substrate of that is being a teammate. And if you're anxious, fatigued, frustrated, overwhelmed, you're going to try to take care of yourself. You can't give anything. What you're giving is that, as we mentioned earlier. So I'm so much more interested in like creating the psychological skills for people to be buoyant enough. They've got their life vest on so they can reach out and grab and help and support and challenge in the right way to meet that person in just the right way that they need it. So like what insights do you have about people being great teammates? Are there any practices that you help, you know, go through?

I mean, it's similar to your experiences and what you just described. I mean, I've always subscribed to the approach of, you know, I'm a Red Sox fan. So I always thought, look, the Yankees will buy all-stars in every position. Do you like being a Red Sox fan? I do. You do?

And Patriots. Yes. And Celtics. Oh my God. Go Seahawks. Yeah, you're right. Go Dodgers. Yeah, so my- Pete Carroll was a Patriot.

Yeah, he was. My grandfather, like I can see him, he served in the military as well, and he was just a Red Sox hat everywhere he went. So we've got the kinship there. Well, it's funny. Like our kids in our entryway, which I hope you see soon, we've got a photo of our kids just decked head to toe in socks gear. And so our friends walk in from Manhattan and go, what do you want your kids to get beaten up? Yeah. What are we doing? No, that's good. But

anyway, but back to the philosophy, you know, the idea was, Hey, do you want the, the 11 best players or do you want the best 11 players? And so, I mean, that's what you're getting at. And that's, that's what drives me too, is I always say, if I'm evaluating the productivity or the outcome, not output. I mean, I view output as activity metrics. I'm more about outcomes, like what difference does it make? And so I just evaluate this. I mean, there's not a framework for it, but I'm watching to see who's the all-star diva whose chemistry is terrible that degrades the performance of the team as opposed to the person, as you mentioned. I go, I feel like I can train anybody with the skills to be successful on a staff, but the chemistry check is the critical enabler. Like that's what I'm looking for. How do you hire for that? I mean, I'll tell

you, I mean, we just, I'm a staff member that I just finished interviews with. And I hired the person based on the quality of the interview. And our interviews are probably a little different than some of your interviews, but I've hired a lot of folks in my civilian job too. But, you know, I always say, I call it the chemistry check. I'm looking for enthusiasm, optimism. Do they look you in the eye? Do they speak with clarity? Do they have a sense of purpose? Not, hey, check out my resume. I did everything you're asking.

Of course I can do whatever it is. Like I'm a winner. Yeah. I mean, my, and the other thing that I do. Do they show up like that sometimes? Like that type of arrogant? But yeah. And the other thing that I will always do is in my front office staff, I'll have each of them weigh in on this because people come in and they're waiting. And then I'll say, Hey, did you talk to him? And what'd they say? And, and if they're either, you know, too busy looking down at their phone or they're not engaging with the people, you know, that's a, that's a message. The ones who say, I'm really thrilled to be here. Hey,

by the way, what should I know about the boss? Anything that he's going to ask me that I should know about? You know, I mean, that's a degree of interest that is an indicator for me too. So lots of tools, none of which are unique, but, but it's a whole person multiple there. So the insights that you've learned from military, both on leadership, building teams via team aiding, and that, that, that, how has that served you in your civilian life? Because you've built some companies. You've got an entrepreneurial background. And so how does, how does some of those skills translate over and also speak to like the reservist life a little bit? Oh yeah. Thanks for teeing that one up. So, so first the

military training was definitely applicable to leadership roles. I mean, I've been a C-suite executive in many occasions, CEO. I own a company that I founded. So the idea of establishing a vision, creating the enabling mechanisms to allow folks to perform, setting the expectations for performance. I mean, those are all standard kind of military approaches that are directly applicable in a civilian sector too. Doesn't matter if you're wearing a uniform or a suit. I would say going in the other direction has been more enlightening because most of my peers, particularly as a vice admiral, are not reserve officers. In fact, there's only one three-star reserve officer. That's me. So the rest are career naval officers.

My peers have all been in the Navy for 34 to 38 years, and that's what they do. So I'm not throwing shade on them, but they've never had to hire 24-year-olds that are choosing between you and Amazon and Google. They've not kept up with the pace of technology and some of the things that I walked in the door saying, why aren't we doing this? The rest of the world operates this way, and yet we're etching stuff on stone tablets and flying things with carrier pigeons. You know, it's 2023. We need to get with the program. And I wouldn't have been able to do that if I had been brought up using the tools that are available.

So in some ways, I've been an effective change agent via tasking. I mean, I had this conversation with my boss, the chief of naval operations saying, I'd like the opportunity to demonstrate this transformation. And you can view the Navy reserves as a black box. You know, this will be the pilot test. And if I'm confident that it's working, I'll enroll you in it. You can assess it. And then we can determine, is it worthy of rolling out at scale to the rest of the Navy? Oh, that's cool. Oh, so that's how you think about... Oh, absolutely. Oh, that's interesting. And we are on the leading edge of technology implementation. I mean, we're doing things now with remote access and what we call virtual desktop mechanisms and distributed people. Because, back to your question about the reserve force, I've got people in every state and territory. We are the prototypical distributed force. So for me to

allow my people to be productive without having to fly them to a fleet concentration area. If you live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I don't want to have to fly you to San Diego to do work. I want to give you the tools or the access so you can access the networks and the files and the training and the online learning management systems and things so you can be productive where you are, which saves time and money in transit. You know, I'm not suggesting there's not value in face-to-face interaction. But there are occasions where it is advantageous for us to leverage the technology so that we can keep people where they are and still be productive.

If you were running a 60,000 person org, not in the military, but in like enterprise business, how would you approach the hybrid workforce? Exactly as you described, it would be a hybrid workforce. You would do hybrid. Yeah. I would say- Would you have days where you wanted everybody in or like, how would you do- You know how it, I would talk to my COO and say, you're going to be tracking it. So I don't want to make a mandate that we can't enforce. So what do you recommend? And then let's talk about what we want to see.

I maintain that my people are evaluated on their outcomes and productivity, not necessarily where they do that. Part of that was born from my time at Wasabi because I dealt with so many creative folks who said, I came up with this idea in the shower or it was 12 o'clock at night. You know, I said, so, so certainly there's benefit in being around the water cooler together, but good ideas are, there's no monopoly of them in the office, you know? So anyway, and the other thing that I would offer on that front too is I don't think that you can develop culture via Zoom or Teams or online. I haven't figured it out.

That's hard. Yeah. As much as we are intentional about relationships, both at Finding Mastery and anywhere we go, we are helping others and we are ourselves a relationship-based organization that is developmentally minded. And we think people want to be in those environments and we have high standards. And we're as sloppy as it gets because we're trying to innovate. So our processes are not clean.

They're changing all the time. And so that's one of our great tensions. Yeah. We're trying to figure things out. But that being said, it's like, you know, if I, if I could wave a wand, I would want everybody kind of like geographically right around my house. And we all like, we all live like within like a three, five miles. I know we're back to the seventies. Like it feels that way. No, but like, like we're all kind of community minded. We're in the same place. We love that environment. We go to, we, we walk to work in a way that feels really good. And then we've got

this great culture inside where it's spacious and what I did. That's not how it's working now. No. And so, and I'm not naive. I mean, I understand some people, if you said we're doing this entirely remotely, some people will take advantage of it. I'm not one of them. My approach in general. I guess I actually do think sometimes about like, I don't expect people to, to grind the way I grind.

I don't think it's necessarily healthy. And like, I don't want to impose that on others, but I do, like, I want to be around people that are really passionate about the thing together. And if that's the case, we have to say, we have to watch another clock, which is that we have to make sure that they're punching out, quote unquote. Right. Not punching in. No, no, no. Exactly. Exactly. So I do, I, you know, like that is a little bit of a concern for the hybrid, but like, I don't know how to be sophisticated enough to measure output. Well, I mean, I just, I look at it from a cultural perspective as,

okay, let's start on a basis of trust. I trust everyone. Yeah. That's the right foundation. Yeah. The way I say it is- Wait, wait, hold on. Do you give trust or earn trust? I start from a basis of I assume that everyone is trustworthy. Assume best intent. Exactly. Yeah, positive intent.

And then I say, though, in fact, when everyone checks in to my staff, I give them a little sheet. It's basically what to know about working with John. Oh, you do? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's cool. And one of the things I say is we all start from a basis of trust. If you lose it, it will be very hard to get back. So my point is I will give you the benefit of the doubt,

but if you take advantage of that or you lose my trust, you probably need to go somewhere else. So you give trust, and then when trust is broken, the water table goes to negative or does it go to like so low that it's... I mean, it depends on the nature of the break. But the point being, we start from a foundation of we're all trustworthy, we're all working together, we assume positive intent. But as it relates to the telework thing, the reason I bring that up is I say, look, I trust you all. There are going to be times when your child has a bloody nose at school or needs to go to the doctor or you need to meet the cable guy or your car breaks down. Go take care of that.

I'm not worried about you being productive and I'm not worried about you being gone. You know the work that you're responsible for and you're accountable for. And as long as you can do it, I don't care where you do it. It's like you're treating them like adults. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. On the trust thing for one more bit, I think we all have this water table of trust and it's based on our genetic predisposition. It's based on how we're raised. It's based on the neighborhood we grew up in, the geographic location. And I think we have this water table

of trust that we come into relationships with. And we've got this idea, and this goes back all the way to Aristotle, like long time ago, there's three legs to trust, ability, benevolence, and authenticity. So if you can walk the walk and talk the walk, like she probably trusts you. Like you can get, you can get kind of get it done. Are you in it for me as well as you are for you? The benevolence. Are we in this together? Or are you trying to take all the chips off the table?

Is this just for your gain? Or am I involved in your success as well? That's benevolence. And authenticity, are you going to show up consistently across conditions, being your very best? You can wobble on any of these, but if there's enough consistency across those three, I think trust has to be earned. So it's interesting that you want to give it. I think I'm more afraid of being burned than maybe you are. And that probably

has to speak to my childhood. And so, and I want to earn other people. I'm not saying that I shouldn't earn, you should give it to me, but you got to earn it. I'm not saying it that way. Let's, let's, let's get in the mud together and let's see if those three hang up, uh, hang together even when it's messy. Yeah. It's, it's interesting because one thing that we didn't talk about with my approach and the nature of the transformation we're taking is really comfort with risk or risk tolerance. And I, as an entrepreneur, have been very comfortable with the fact that, hey, we're going to try some things that are not all going to work perfectly. And so even as it relates to the nature of trust, I will say I will start. It is probably born with confidence that even if it goes south, I can solve it or

I'm okay with it, you know? And so I have that actually, I have a high level of self-trust, right? Like if it goes sideways, I have a deep, like deep roots that I'll sort that out too. So that way, like, I feel like you can bet on me. I'm going to bet on me that, and I don't say this arrogantly, like, I feel like there's a privilege and an honor to be able to be in service in that way for, for people I care about. And so you can bet on me because I got these deep roots of we'll, we'll keep going like relentlessly, uncommonly, you know, like we'll keep, so you have a high self-trust. So how does that relate to, to your teammates? I think the sense is that it allows me to transfer that risk. Well, the way I describe it to them is I'm comfortable delegating to you and I will accept the risk. I want you to feel comfortable trying it and I'll provide the air cover. Like if this doesn't work, I'm the one who's going to say, Hey boss, we tried it. It didn't work. You know, but I don't, I don't want you all to artificially filter things out that I might say, great idea. Try it. So, so by saying,

look, I'll transfer the risk to me. You try it. I'll accept the risk. That's cool. That's, I like that a lot. Yeah. Okay. So when you think about building teams, you're giving trust. I want to say that. And you're taking the responsibility for the risk. Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, especially as a leader, I would say, you know, the risk is resident with me. We always say, if it works beautifully, the credit goes to them. Yeah. This is like 101. Exactly. If a microphone's ever in front of you and the credit goes to them. Yeah. This is like one-on-one. If a microphone's ever in front of you and there's ever a moment. Exactly. And we fail miserably. It was my fault. I didn't resource them properly or train them properly. I should have known better. But it's true. I mean, that's how you get teams to trust you too, is to say your failure is, you're never going to be critiqued for trying. What is the hardest thing to be a leader? What is

the hardest thing for you in your position as a leader? It's probably the lack of downtime. I just feel like we're on all the time. Now, some of that is born by my own doing. I mean, I've said to my staff, this is a finite term for me. It's a four-year job. And I said, I can stand on my head for four years and I don't want to leave any stone unturned. I want to say yes to everything. I want to do everything. I want to be everywhere because my force, as I mentioned, is all over the world. I want to go thank them for what they're doing, where they are. And so the hard part though is, look, there are days when at hour 20, I'm exhausted and tired

and it's like, oh, I got this phone call. I forgot. I got to congratulate this person for being selected for promotion or something. And I want to do that because those kinds of things are really energizing and fun. Like the one-to-one mentoring piece, I sprinkle throughout the day. And it literally is someone every day, either just a short email or a phone call or something, which is atypical, I think, for people in my rank. That's a practice for you. Absolutely. Yeah. And now one final word from our sponsors.

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keeping with the reservist, and then I want to go to your family. Sure. Um, if it's a full circle here, I have a, um, I had a moment, this was maybe about a year ago and somebody I really trust in business that's been helping me out a bunch. He's inside of finding mastery. And he says, I got someone I want you to meet. And I trust his, I trust his judgment in, in, um, in so many ways. And, and I said, okay, great. And I'm excited. And he says, um, he's going to be ideal for everything we're trying to solve together. I said, great. He says, but there's a little thing that I want you just to know about. He can't be with you for about 40 days a year. I go, what?

He goes, yeah, like he's great. But about a month plus, he can't be with you. I go, hold on. We're losing one twelfth of the time together. Like, well, does that come off the salary? Like, how does this work? He goes, no, uh-uh. He's a high performer. You'll see. I go, okay. So I had the meeting. I was like, oh,

is he in this room right now? He's actually in the room. Yeah. And so, um, so I met him and I was like, um, yeah, there's something different about what he brings to the dance than somebody that is not a reservist. And I wonder if you could, without talking about him like he's in the room, make it more awkward for him as he's heating up and blushing, wondering what is going to happen next. So he's all in. It was, I think, one of the great decisions we've made for our company to hit the ground running and to kind of take us into a direction that I didn't even know was quite available so soon, meaning that he works with speed and accuracy in really cool ways. So what would you say reservists offer employers? Well, I'll tell you what. Because that's a burden now. One twelfth of their time is like as an entrepreneur. Do you hire reservists? Oh, you better believe it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, good. That's my post. But let me reframe it too. So the weekend a month and two weeks a year, you know, again,

unless you guys are working weekends, he's not really gone 30 days. I mean, he's gone for two weeks. Well, you know, he has to like pack his bags on a Friday and he's got to like, you know, like he's got to take a nap on Mondays. I'm totally joking. So, but the thought that it's a 12th is probably a little high for the average. I mean, the minimum requirement is a weekend a month and two weeks a year. But, but I gave a talk at South by Southwest about this. I mean, long before I was even a flag officer, because I felt very passionate about veteran hiring. And the idea was, you know, we have pretty lofty terms that we talk about our core values in the Navy. It's, you know, honor, courage, and commitment. And in the Army, you may have heard,

you know, duty, honor, country. And you may hear those and go, yeah, okay, puffery words. I've heard them all before. My comment to you is they mean something and they mean something to everyone who wears the uniform. So not only is there an appreciation for some of the soft skills, they're going to have good hygiene and show up on time and be responsible and accountable. And, you know, what I learned by hiring a bunch of folks who were young, younger people straight out of college or second jobs out of college was developing culture is very hard. We take it for granted in the military because it's baked into what we do. Replicating that is really hard. When you hire veterans, they know that too, and they're the ones that are going

to make it happen. Oh, that's a cool, right? They're the ones that are going to bring it. And culture eats strategy for lunch. Absolutely. Right. If you follow that insight. Yeah. You know, like that's a cool statement alone. I think you could almost stop there. I don't, I don't know if you're going to, but I think you could almost stop there. My mind is like the first time I read this one research article that said those that practice mindfulness have an increased frequency and flow state, which is the most optimal state we can be. I'm not going to stop there, but it's like one of those moments where it's like, Whoa, is that, can that be replicated? If so, like that's a significant finding.

So what I just heard you say is those that come from cultures or organizations that value culture, you're going to get somebody in your organization that understands the value of culture. As I say, do you want to be a consumer of culture or a creator of culture? Oh, how about it? Yeah. So those folks are going to come in and say, hey, I couldn be a consumer of culture or a creator of culture? Oh, how about it? Yeah. So those folks are going to come in and say, Hey, I couldn't help but notice we never do ball games together. Why don't we get together once a month and do something outside? You know, what's a consumer? Yeah. Consumers like, Hey, I'm sitting here and we never do anything fun.

You know, Hey, are you a baby bird waiting for stuff to fall in your mouth? You know, or yeah. Or are you going to be someone, you know, I always say create the culture you want to be a part of. We can't have baby birds. We can't. Oh my God. All right. All right. So if there was a, uh, an equally weighted fast follow on creators of culture, what would be a second fast follow for why hire a reservist? Uh, look, education, training, certification. The Navy is a very technical service. I mean, in all likelihood, whether you're talking officer and enlisted, you're going to get someone with some pretty incredible competency that walks in the door. So, you know, you are looking for something specific.

This is an example where I would say I hire based on potential, not on experience entirely. Yeah. And that's one of those things where I would say you have demonstrated teamwork. You've been part of either a mission or a unit that has a function. Where did you fit in? What was your role? And what does that look like as you need it? I mean, there's a million ways that I think you benefit. And some of it is just soft skills. Again, accountability and responsibility. It's hard to teach that to young kids. It's easy if someone walks in the door saying, I was a platoon sergeant and I was responsible for folks on missions in Afghanistan. Now, not everyone's going to be a bronze star

wearing a war hero, but even in peacetime, the responsibilities for safety and training are pretty onerous. So anyway, those things translate, I think. Okay. Awesome. Now, if we kind of fold back around before we get to family is command and control this idea of like top-down leadership. I don't want to build an organization that way. And that is the organizations that you all have found to be significant in, um, for all the reasons that the military and the Navy is, is what it is. Can you, can you help me think about, um, if we could wave a wand and we're a team of, let's say a couple hundred to a couple thousand, could you imagine a different way of doing it? Or does this seem like, listen, I've been swimming in this water for so long. I know the assets and the power of top down, and I don't even want to entertain another way. Well, first I would say the military has what we call Napoleonic organization codes.

So, you know, N for Navy, you know, N1 is manpower and personnel, N2 is intelligence, 3 is operations, you know, 4 is logistics, five is plans, et cetera, six communication, seven's training. So, and that's, they're called Napoleonic codes because he came up with it. So we're a couple hundred years in run on this stuff. And are we ready for evaluation? I think so. I mean, part of this is the way we really operate today is we have Napoleonic codes for administrative functions, but then we have matrix organizations for operational functions.

Because you need to know, if I need new yellow stickies, who do I go to? You know, you need a supply officer that's going to handle that for you. That's different than launch the alert five strike. So anyway, we see differences in the way we're organized. In many cases, we're dealing with joint task forces, which are multi-service and multi-nation. So it's not enough for us to roll in and go, hey, here's how the US Navy operates, because the Italians and the French and the Germans and the Brits are going to say, we do it differently. So we all take a little bit from one another, particularly in NATO and joint environments too. Back to your real question, I've always looked at how many direct reports am I comfortable with? And so I, as a civilian

C-suite executive, say I want as flat an organization as I can possibly manage. I couldn't do it with a couple thousand, but I would certainly say I want to have no more than 10 just because I don't feel that I could really give the attention to those 10 and the functions that I'm assigning to them that I want to be really engaged with. Do you feel like a teammate across those 10? Absolutely. Or do you feel like you do? Yeah. It's not like you're my team and like, I'm part of your team. I just have a different job. I have a different responsibility. I feel that way. I'm sure my staff would say, yeah, but he's not. I mean, I look, I want to be involved. I also recognize the need for my folks to, for them to spread their wings. If I'm

there, even when I say, okay, we're all, you know, parking rank at the door. This is a working session. Roll your sleeves up. I just know if I'm in the room that everyone defers to me and I don't want them to necessarily. So sometimes the best I can do is back to your question about style. We refer to something called mission command, which is a decentralized approach where we say, here's the mission we're trying to accomplish. If everybody's good with that, I'll get out of the way and you all figure it out and then tell me what you need for me to help. Meaning I'm not going to give you an instruction manual for every decision you're going to make.

I trust you and you're responsible for it. We all agree that we are laddering up to this mission and you each have a role and function. And I'm standing by to support. Next time you come back to me, tell me either what you need or that you're done. I love that. It fits so much more in an entrepreneurial approach for me. Yeah. And I understand. It's the antithesis of micromanagement. And again, it is predicated on a couple of things. One is absolute trust. You know, you have to be confident. I have to be, as a leader, confident that my people understand what, when we say the mission, do we all have a shared understanding of what it is we're trying to

accomplish? Two, do I have the trust that they can do it? Are they equipped? Are they capable? Are they trained? You know, is it possible for them to do what I'm asking of them? They may say, I got a boss. I'm good. Which may be false bravado if I go, really? How are you going to do that? You don't even have any of the equipment you need.

So the trust piece is important. And then the other thing that I like to do is take my subordinate commanders together frequently to have conversations almost like this off the record where, I mean, I have a monthly session with my, we call them Echelon 3 commanders, where we have an hour, just us, no one else on the line, where we talk about, hey, what's going on in your life? What's making your head hurt? What can I help you with? Anything I should know? And it's really for me to say, you guys haven't heard this yet, but this is coming down the pipe. I'm about to announce this new policy or something else that's going to impact you all.

Or if, hey, the three of us or the three of you talked about this and gave me a recommendation, I appreciate your input, but we're doing something different. I want you to know why. Because this originated with Horatio Nelson, Lord Nelson of the British Navy, so that his commanders could operate in his absence. I said, if we talk enough, then you know where my head is and you know how I'm going to talk. Is this where commanders' intent came from? Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Is your intent clear for your direct reports? I sure hope so. And I try very hard to make sure it is. How do you get to clarity? So we have a number of mechanisms where we release executive orders. They call it XORD. I've put out a number of directives that say, here's what we're doing. Here's what we need to be ready to do by 2025.

Here's what we have to be ready to do by 2025. Here's what we have to be ready to do by 2027. I published a document called Battle Orders 2032, which is assuming we do everything in the fighting instructions that I published, here's what the world will look like when it's all done. Whoa. You know, and the reason I did that was I got feedback. You know, we had 130 tasks that we were, you know, we were attacking with vigor. And folks said, I get the change. I just don't see how they all tie together. And I said, OK, so I'm going to write this separate document that says, here's the glimpse of the future that's in my head when we're doing all this stuff.

So commander's intent for me, I think about leader's, not obviously not commander's intent in the civilian world, but it feels like what you just outlined is here's the mission or here's the objectives that we're going after. I think there's another component that gets confusing for me, which is how to operate when things break down. So that, that type of intent on decision-making, choice-making, what is in and what is out for being able to accomplish it when the system goes sideways, we're in the messy middle. How do you get clarity on that? Because now you're outside of an SOP, a standard operating procedure. You're in the unfolding unknown. Yeah. So how do you get intent there?

There's so many potential variables that I could attack in the answer. But what I would say is, depending on the severity of the decision point, there are many things where I would say, you are authorized to make these decisions. In some cases, the way we work it is, you can say yes to everything, but only I can say no. So imagine if a four-star admiral comes to the reserve force and says, I need something. I don't want one of my lieutenant commanders to say, no, admiral. So I say, you want to say yes? No problem. I reserve the right to say no. I mean, that's one example. But if you're describing something that is operational mission and things are going sideways, that's a different story.

You know, in some cases, we're not subject to debate. We're kind of taking direction from the leader. And we'll talk about it when the mission's over. But right now, you need to move. You know, this isn't a good time for us to have a conversation about why. So you get through, you write. That's a forcing function for you to become clear and translate that those ideas writing is one of those right and then how do you get clarity like yourself um well i mean i have

the benefit of just uh drinking from a fire hose of policy documents and uh future state uh discussions and you know we're doing a forced design review for the Navy of 2045. And, you know, as we're reading all this stuff, my reaction, of course, is what's the reserve inject on this? And what do I need to be thinking today so that by 2045, we are ready to deliver what's being committed to? Why 2045? It's even mind-blowing. I don't think of those terms, which is really cool. No, no. Well, it's interesting. I mean, we do a 30-year shipbuilding plan. And that's because, one, like aircraft carriers, it takes between five and six years to build one.

So you need to commit early. How long does it take China to build one? Well, they're building their third. It will probably take them about five. So they bought one from Russia. And then they built one that was a copy of that. So the first two are kind of B-minus craft. The third one they're building is equivalent to our Nimitz class.

So that's a legit carrier. But it's still going to be a couple of years. Okay. But in general, they can produce faster than we can. Well, they've got more yards. So their capacity is greater. I mean, at some point, this is one of those things where I'd say, you can't put nine ladies in a room and make a baby in one month. So, so even if, um, you know, sorry. So

they have more shipyards, so they can build more ships simultaneously. It doesn't mean that they can build one ship faster. I see. Yeah. I see how that works. Okay. It's still important variable. Yeah. Oh yeah. Capacity. Okay. So family. Oh, yes. The Mustin family. Like we hinted on the legacy, the generational legacy that you have. When you were growing up and maybe even now, do you feel that there's a shadow or a spotlight that creates attention for you? Or is this the handoff that they've given to you is like, I'm running faster than I ever could on my own. And it's more generative in that way. I always thought, well, first as a young man, I mean, I was really fortunate that my

grandfather who was a career Naval officer, Naval Academy graduate, was still alive through my early entry into the Navy. So my high school, college, he was a World War II veteran. Yeah. And his stories were legendary. So part of what I remember was, you know, sitting around the table at Thanksgiving or cocktail parties. And his friends would come to these parties. And I was just a very eager listener when they were recounting these stories of heroism in World War II and the Pacific. And Granddad was telling the story of his ship in a night battle that sunk.

And, you know, General Condon, who was the guy that taught me how to play golf, who, you know, was a running mate of a guy named Pappy Boington. I don't know if you ever saw Baba Black Sheep, but legendary Marine aviator. And so these folks were talking about what they did. And I just always thought I would be honored to be a part of that kind of conversation. And then when I would talk to my friends or be at my friends' families and I didn't see conversations like that, you know. And so then I would notice my father and his friends who were Vietnam and Cold War era folks, same kind of stories. There we were in the Kola Peninsula looking down the throat of the Russians and, you know.

And I thought, this is some pretty heady real world stuff. And I'm just fortunate to be privy to this. I mean, one time when I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, and this is a funny story that the house I live in now is the house that my parents lived in. And so it's quarters at the Washington Navy yard, but it's the same quarters that I lived in when I was a midshipman. Um, but I came home unannounced one time and I walked in, basically opened up the door. I was like, hey, mom, dad, I'm home. And I look in the living room and my father is there in uniform standing with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and two folks with a big chart on our living room sofa pointing to something. And I walked in, I was like, am I interrupting?

As they kind of drop a curtain over the chart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get out of here right now. But so I saw this and on one hand kind of took it for granted. And I thought, hey, this is neat. Our parents, our grandparents, parents, uncle, great-grandparents, we serve. And that's what we do. But you're being humble. It's at the highest level.

I mean, it's a family of vice admirals. Right. So they were career officers. Right.'s at the highest level. I mean, it's a family of vice admirals. Right. So they were career officers. But at the highest level. Well, I mean, they were fortunate to continue to serve. I mean, they had some great jobs. Great grandfather was his tag. He passed away as a captain.

Yeah. So he was the one, yeah, they called him the father of naval aviation. So is this a spotlight or is this a shadow? I mean, I was always very proud. Yeah. So you didn't, you never felt, so it's not shadow. You weren't operating the shadows of legends. Well, I mean, I would, I don't typically volunteer this. I mean, you know, my sense was because of that, I don't know what everyone thinks, but my assumption is they're going to think this guy thinks he's got an in or he's not going to have to work as hard. You know, I went to the Naval Academy and as a plebe, as soon as people found out, oh, wait a minute, your dad's an admiral? Okay.

It's not good to be a plebe at the Naval Academy when your father's an admiral because everyone says. What is plebe? Freshman. Okay. Freshman. Okay. And so my view was always, you know what? I'm going to try that much harder and I'm just going to be the best. And then there won't be any discussion.

So no one will have to worry about, okay, you know, did someone cut him slack or not? My view was, let's just make it so apparent that, hey, I was selected based on performance. He gets after it. Right. End of sentence. Right. Yeah. So, okay. And you didn't feel the heat from that spotlight.

Like I have to be great because of the legacy. I may have felt some of that. I mean, let's put it this way. I want to earn it and I want to set a good example for my kids. Yeah. So that's what you did is like you, you took, you took back your control by saying, what, what can I do here? I can apply myself to my fullest. Right. And now I'm guiding the way I experienced me being me in this world of people that I don't care how they're thinking

about me as much as I care about how I'm applying myself. Absolutely. Maybe that's the clarity I was looking for. And, and honestly, I, I, I think there's going to be a time when I'm dead and buried and I would love for people to speak of me the same way they speak of my father and grandfather. That's cool. What do you hope they say? Made a difference. You know, I say like the greatest legacy we're going to leave is our children and the people that we trained.

You know, I'll have 20 years of officers and sailors that, uh, that have been part of my staffs and commands that will be doing great things way after I'm gone. And, and if they continue to do great things, then that's probably the best reflection of my contribution. Vice Admiral John Muston, thank you so much for like an absolute masterclass in leadership and thoughtfulness and clarity of idea and thinking about how to do it at scale. So thank you for coming through to the Mastery Lab today. It's my honor, and I'm so excited to have met you. And actually, as I said, for having been a year-long listener or years-long listener,

thrilled to be a part of this. Thanks so much. Thank you. All right. Thanks. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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