High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 393: Unbreakable with Thom Shea, Retired Navy Seal, Author and Trainer at Unbreakable Leadership

Episode Date: December 13, 2020

Retired Navy SEAL Thom Shea served with the U.S. Navy for 23 years with distinguished valor before writing his bestselling book, “Unbreakable: A Navy Seal’s Way of Life” and his latest release, “Three Simple Things: Leading During Chaos.” As founder of Unbreakable Leadership, Thom has trained thousands of people around the world to overcome chaos by applying the rule of Three Simple Things to their lives and businesses. Thom developed his leadership process and methods during his military career where he served in three wars, ultimately leading a team of SEALs into Afghanistan in 2009. There he earned a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Valor, Army Commendation with Valor and his second Combat Action Medal. He was later hand-selected to serve as Officer In Charge of the famed SEAL Sniper course.  In his downtime, Thom competes in numerous ultra marathons and alongside his wife Stacy has volunteered countless hours to charity, raising funds through his athletic events for organizations like Special Operations Warrior Foundation and the Chris Kyle Memorial Trust. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ball State University and a Master Training Specialist certification from the Naval Special Warfare Center. Thom and Stacy live in Greenville, South Carolina with their three children.  and their four children In this episode, Thom and Cindra talk about: How leaders can gain influence with those they serve How to develop caring, connection, courage and collaboration in your leadership The CRAP acronym and why it is essential to leadership 3 Powerful questions to develop trust What it means to be a people-focused leader HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/393 HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH: www.drcindra.com/giveaway FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2599776723457390/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong VISIT THOM’S WEBSITE: https://www.thomshea.com/ and https://www.unbreakableleadership.com/ Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Welcome to episode 393 with Tom Shea. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm grateful that you're back for another episode of the High Performance Mindset Podcast, and you are in for a treat today. Today, I have interviewed Tom Shea, who's a retired Navy SEAL and an author of the books Unbreakable and Three Simple Things. Now, if you know that mindset is essential for your success, then you're in the right place.

Because every week we talk about various topics related to mindset. And today we talk about how to be unbreakable. Now, Tom Shea is a retired Navy SEAL who served with the U.S. Navy for 23 years with distinguished valor before writing his best-selling book, Unbreakable, A Navy SEAL's way of life, and his latest release, Three Simple Things Leading During Chaos. As the founder of Unbreakable Leadership, Thomas trained thousands of people around the world to overcome chaos by applying the rule of three simple things to their lives and businesses.

Thomas developed his leadership process and methods during his military career, where he served in three wars, ultimately leading a team of SEALs into Afghanistan in 2009, where he earned a silver star, a bronze star with valor, and his second combat action medal. He was later hand-selected to serve as officer in charge of the famed SEAL sniper course. Now, in his downtime, Tom competes in numerous ultra marathons alongside his wife, Stacy, and has volunteered countless hours to charity, raising funds through his athletic events for organizations like the Special Operations Warriors Foundation. He holds a Bachelor's of Arts from Ball State University and a Master's Training Special Certificate from the Navy Special Warfare Center. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina with their three children and his wife, Stacey. And Tom and I talk about in this

episode, the training of a Navy SEAL, including what surf torture is all about. The mindset we need to overcome chaos as a leader. What prevents people from being the best version of themselves. Four primary excuses and how to address each excuse. This was my favorite part of the podcast, by the way. We also talk about why we need to avoid the being verbs in our vocabulary. How to control fear with your inner dialogue, and how he trains leaders with his 24-hour leadership

events. Now, I know you're going to enjoy today's episode. We'd love for you to share it with a friend. Whoever you're thinking about today as you're listening, take a screenshot, send them a text message or an email letting them know that need to listen to Tom Shea's episode today. And we'd love to hear what your thoughts were on this podcast. What stood out to you?

What did you find was important? You can share that with Tom and I on social media. You can search Cinder Camp off anywhere. You're on social media and Tom Shea as well. And if you haven't already, if you enjoyed the episode and if you find value in the content provided in this podcast, we'd love for you to provide a rating and review. This just leads us to reaching more and more people each week. And you can do that wherever you're listening to this podcast.

For example, if you're an iPhone, just scroll up and you can leave us a rating and a review wherever you're listening. All right, let's bring on Tom. Tom, thank you so much for joining us here on the High Performance Mindset Podcast today. I'm really looking forward to talking to you. How is your week going? Week is wonderful. And thank you so much for letting me come into your space. And we'll drive each other crazy for about an hour. So thank you for that. That sounds good to me. Anytime I can talk about mindset and just, I think your experience is so unique.

I absolutely love your books. Read Unbreakable again last night and I read it a while ago. So it was really fun to look at it again. And I love the lessons that you provided. Just actually how you came to write the book that it was really for I love the lessons that you provided, just actually the, how you came to write the book that it was really for your kids. Is that correct? Yeah. I, so I was in Afghanistan in 2009 as a SEAL platoon chief and in war. So at that point,

I was at the edge of my career and had the honor to lead men in combat. And before I went out the door, we knew it was going to be rough. Like our chances of not getting injured were zero, literally. And so Stacy, my wife said, Hey, I would like you to write down before you go out on every mission, something you want us to know about you that the kids can do in case you die. And that was literally the task. And I'm like, oh my God, honey, don't make it so serious. She goes, honey, we know what you do. And so in six months I had come up with 13 lessons. I wanted the kids to know. And, uh, but then I survived. So it's sat on the shelf for five years. Thank you. Yeah. Well, and I think that's what made the book really powerful is because it was

written for those that you love and for that purpose. So Tom, maybe just kind of, as we get started, we're going to talk more about some of your lessons and your new book. But tell us a little bit about what you're passionate about right now and just what you've been up to since you retired. I think I've been up to it before retirement. So what's really a value to me is what I call the human equation. Like humans make shit good or they make it bad. And that is a great phenomenon. And I'd learned that in the SEAL teams is that the SEAL teams are only concerned with each other. They don't care about weapons. They don't care about situations. They don't care about the weather. How do you and I as a, as a team get through hell? And so I'm really interested in the human side of everything, how humans deal with everything. Tell us a little bit about just what it's like to

go through SEAL training. I was reading this really cool research study recently about those who actually become Navy SEALs and those that don't. And one of their biggest factors was their perception of stress. When they saw stress as like performance enhancing, they did better and they were more likely to become a SEAL versus those that were not and saw it as like a threat. So I'd love to hear about just, you know, paint us a picture of what that's like and the mental toughness it takes to even become a Navy SEAL? I was more interested in what you were reading there. I can find the citation if you'd like. It's really, it was really fascinating. It was all like

her perception of stress. Yeah, there's so, since World War II, when the precursor to SEALs started training, and that training was much shorter than it was only three weeks. The first week was a condition called Hell Week. So everybody looks at SEAL training as that dominant one week period of time. It's actually not. But what happens there is what everybody thinks is cool. And hell week begins at on Sunday, right after dark and goes to Friday and you don't get sleep. As a student, you don't get sleep. As a staff member, you give them three hours spread out. So they'll get five minutes. Good. I get the tick

off. They got five minutes, but as an, as an instructor, you have to account for three hours of sleep. The students have no idea they were supposed to sleep. So they don't get sleep. So what happens there as a student, it's different than as an instructor, like you and I would observe it and go, okay, this is what's going on. And with your expertise, you would be okay, their amygdala is going off, or it's not going off and blah, blah, blah. So as a student, there's no way to win. They don't ever let you do well, ever. Wow. So there's very few people in the world can handle that level of attention or not attention so you never can feel good about anything that you do especially you know in today's

society less so when i went through because nobody gave a shit then they're worried about everything now and so that being the case, uh, what happens in hell week, you have to get through that to be a seal. And the only way to get through that is to what the, what you were talking about, how you deal with stress, how you perceive everything that's going on around you. And they weed people out systematically. The first way to weed somebody out is to give them something that they can't figure out. So the first part of hell week is, uh, you can't figure this out, put sand in your mouth and sing a song. What? Like your brain goes, Hey, you can't sing. Go hit the, go get in the, go get in the water. So that was stupid.

Now I get punished for stupidity and people quit because most humans want to have clarity and then they want to be able to get feedback. So what happens if you never have anything clear and your feedback's always punishment. So you weed out those people who can't deal with that level of stress. And then the second part of hell week, which I put into training for, for corporations and clients this differently, but I'm describing what happens in hell week, uh, is non-winnable situation. They put you in the cold water. They call it surf torture.

Surf torture. Surf torture. They just put you in the water and it's nighttime. They turn the lights off of the trucks and nobody talks to you and you're looking out to sea. And, you know, everybody's like, Hey, I love San Diego. It's nice. And the beaches are cool. No, it's not. The water's freezing cold and the sand gets in every orifice that you have, you know? And so they, they, the deal is to put people into, I can't fight this. I have to just sit here and I can't beat it. And I'm getting colder and I'm getting really cold. And so they put, sometimes it's five hours long when it's really cold, it's only an hour and a half. So they put people in for three different passes.

And the first pass is to get them cold and you bring them out of the water and nobody usually quits in the first pass because they think, Hey, I can do this. And then you turn around, go back in the water. And you're like, here's the deal. As a staff member, you make it stressful. We're going to do this until half the class quits. Oh my goodness. And you're like, Whoa, what are you talking about? And you know, the instructors, if they say something, they're going to do it. So you're sitting there in the water going, I can't make this. I could be here all day. And the first person to quit is who? The toughest dude always quits always because he can always win. He's always wanted everything. When he quits is a mass exodus, like 20 guys will quit with him.

Then after that mass exodus, you pull them out of the water again. And you know, all the women love this part of the story is you make them take their clothes off and they go back in. So take everything off as if it mattered. You're submersed in cold water. It really doesn't matter. Right. So you take everything off and it's that last mental layer of safety and protection that you have. And you go back in the water and it gets cold. Like you can't talk, you can't close your fist. You can't stand up. Your eyes don't want to focus forward. And then they pull you out of the water and they make you run four miles in less than 30 minutes or you're out of training. You can't even stand up. And people, because that's a lot of stress. If I don't, man, I can't even do, I can't even think about running and how those kids process stress.

If they can't process, just get to it. Who cares? Just try. They quit. So it's just a weeding process of who can't deal with this, who can't deal with everything we're giving them, but it's all mental. Yeah. who can't deal with everything we're giving them, but it's all mental. Yeah. And I hear that. And I'm thinking about just, you know, why this is important. And I think,

you know, it's like, in your opinion, how does that prepare them then to go to war and whatever they might experience there? It's simple that what the only way that you get through hell week is take another step don't worry about anything anymore don't look at yourself and evaluate yourself because when you look down your knees are swollen if you look in the mirror you look like you know a swollen face your eyes are terrible your nose is broken your fingers are you know don't have any fingernails left so don't evaluate anything just keep going take one more step take one more step don't look too far ahead that's that's what is the only thing that happens in combat that is of relevance to the business world or every human being is don't give up just keep doing something if you If you lay there, you're going to die. In business,

if you stop, you're going to die. In relationship, if you stop, it's over. So just keep moving the needle as much as you can in the next step. And that's what makes you SEALs different than every other military force is the only thing that they have that's common is they're going to not quit no matter what. Yeah. That's a very powerful thing to have. It is. And, you know, I also think like that's something that we can train. And I'm curious about just as you became a SEAL, but also now, you know, as you taught within the program, tell us about a little bit more about what kind of mental toughness training there is within the program to become a Navy SEAL, because I think people are interested in that. Like how did they train for anything that could happen? And how can

I train my mind similarly? Within the SEAL teams, there's every program director from any civilian, you know, big week thing comes and tries to test something on the SEAL teams. Like they're a guinea pig. Like Rand Corporation was there a bunch of times. Like we were test vehicles for everything. It never worked like you know the positive mental attitude sure that that works until you're until you're negative right you're positive until you're but i still have to operate whether i'm positive or negative right so what they do in the SEAL teams that is a pull from all the different mindset,

curriculum, and years and years and years of combat experience passed down by the men who were there is in training, never let yourself win. Never let yourself, while you're practicing, have a victory. Oh, my God. In business, they cannot do that. Well, you have to have positive feedback. No, you don't. You have to push until things break to figure out what you're not good at. So in the SEAL program, it's a constant exposure to all your weaknesses that you get better at. Okay. And that is, anybody can do that. It's just emotionally difficult. Right. And, uh, so that's one of the primary factors that I've pulled forward into the

civilian world is we're going to talk about emotion and we're going to talk about it quickly because you can't get off the ground if the emotional responses that you have as a man or a woman predetermine your outcome because in combat i don't want to do it i didn't want to fight sure i didn't want to die but you went anyway and your guys were scared right so what who cares keep moving anyway yeah Get better at your craft, whatever that craft is. I think about this phrase, like, you know, even though I'm feeling the certain way, doesn't mean that I can, I need to act that way, right? This idea that I can act independent of how I feel. So I think that's kind of really what you're saying is, you know, I don't feel very

confident, but I can act it or I'm feeling overwhelmed with fear, but I, I don't feel very confident, but I can act it or I'm feeling overwhelmed with fear, but I, I don't need to act that way. Yeah. So an added bonus, I'm glad you asked that emotions are tools, but nobody learned that they're actually tool sets. Like every, every emotion that we experience literally, and I had to go talk to experts like you to figure this out. Uh, every emotion has a predetermined outcome. If you are reacting with fear, you hormonally shut down your heart rate shuts down or gets to your blood pressure gets crazy. If your response is fear, you will get stuck. Like it's an, it's an immobilizing emotion. Fear actually doesn't

cause you to run faster. It causes you to go slower. Yeah. Happiness is everybody wants to feel happy, but happiness applied at the wrong time is very inadequate. Happy with a situation causes you not to want to better it. So, hey, feel happy with your day. Don't feel happy with your day while you're doing it because you won't better your day. Happiness is during celebration. Like, hey, let's sit and drink a beer together and go, man, I'm really happy with what you did. And then you can't. So that's a weird thing. anger like anger is bad no the first part of anger is wonderful anger will produce action immediately get pissed watch what will happen

but anger over time causes rage yes you don't want rage because it's uncontrollable but anger extended over time causes you to break the thing that you're angry with happiness causes no momentum fear causes no action so if you i had to begin to flesh out and teach everybody how every emotion is used and supposed to be used and when you teach leaders how emotions are used, they're lethal. I could imagine. Well, it's a wonderful process, but I get a lot of emotional outbursts like crying and carrying on. Well, and I'm also thinking about, right, like as when you're in war, how do you teach yourself or what tools do you use so that, okay, I know that fear makes me slower.

And so I'm going to, you know, I want to feel less of that right now. Tell us a bit about that process of how did you teach yourself? Yeah, everything you do in the SEAL teams is guided. very accomplished, like literally master, not masters, triple PhD level warriors teaching you. Yeah. And so in the, they know they're going to put it, put something together. So what they're going to do is they're going to get you into a scenario that's going to fall apart. They know the emotional responses that are going to come up then. Angry at your men, locked up in fear. So you'll have key instructors following key people that they want to teach something to. So now this key leader falls apart and the instructor will go, all right, slow down.

Take a look around. Remember what you're committed to. Now, what do you see? I see two guys possibly dead over there and the enemies in the building. Okay. Slow your brain down a little bit. Don't worry about your wife right now. Right. You know what I mean? Don't worry about those things. Yeah. They have to teach you that because unless you're taught that you just start spinning out and then you can't function. So you have a lot of guided leadership at the moment of breakdown that is so crucial. And those guys have been there. They've wanted to quit. They've been in hell before. And they want to be there to teach and pass on to all the other operators. Those lethal shooting is the least important thing to do. It's how you interact with yourself and your environment that makes you what I call the an operator seal is the seal is very focused and the bullets don't bother the seal. Cause now I know where the guy shot from he's dead, you know, but it takes, gosh, it probably takes four years of constant training to be competent. I could see that those scenarios are so powerful, Tom.

And it makes me think about there's a section in your book that I want to read for those listeners. And I'm thinking about how this relates to exactly what you said. And you said, you can control fear if you can control the words in your thoughts, your internal dialogue, what you tell yourself every conscious moment is the power or the source of power when properly controlled. But it's also the source of weakness. If you lose control, tell us a little bit about like how you see the power of your thoughts and, you know, how you have worked to change those over time. I had it actually taught to me a lot and language,

powerful language has structure and in the, in the, you know, in war, you gotta be careful. And as a leader, you gotta be careful. So I'm just prefacing it so I can let everybody understand what I'm about ready to say. So the structure of powerful language, you're not even hurt. You don't even hear it in school be very careful not what you think about about but what you say if you ever use the word the being verbs i am is r b and the being verbs okay if you use them in a sentence they they make sure that they find the world. They become real. If I say I am broken, if I say I am done, I cannot be convinced otherwise.

If I'm in a marriage and I say I am out, I can't come back. As long as I say that I cannot come back in war. The moment you acknowledge that you're done, you're done. But if you don't acknowledge it, you find avenues to succeed. Okay. And athletics. Yes. In athletics, the one who says I'm the best will find a way to be the best. The one who questions it may do well, but the one who says, you know, I'm not really good at this. I am not comes out of their mouth.

They will find a way to prove that they're not going to win. And when you begin to consciously look at the words that you use on a daily basis and look at when you use the being verbs, it scares you. That's something you're like, oh my God, I just destroyed it right there. I was also thinking, Tom, I was recently talking with a pro basketball player. We were talking about LeBron James and how LeBron well, that's why he acts like the chosen one, because he believes he's the chosen one. Right. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. If you acknowledge it, you know, then you become it. And so in your opinion, like I'm thinking about in a war, right. If, do you mean by like, if they say it out loud, then they're done. But if we say it out loud, they are done. Yeah. But if they say it internally, they're also done. Sorry. Say that one more time, Tom. If they say it internally,

like under their voice, they're also done. Yeah. And, uh, you know, the, the Muhammad Ali phenomenon, my, and the best, I went and interviewed, uh, um, the runner, the sprinter, uh, who's saying bolts coach. Yeah. Uh, other than learning that if you want to be a good runner, you actually got to practice like crazy. It's never a gift. You know what I mean? And, uh, but, uh, his coaches, I only work on him, uh, mentally because he gets down on himself. Oh, wow. Back hurts all the time. He's constantly spinning out of, Hey, this isn't going to work. I'm not a good runner anymore. I'm too old. And so his coach is like, Hey, you are the fastest runner in the world. I'm going old. And so his coach is like, Hey, you are the fastest runner in the world. I'm going to hear you say it and get him to say it. And then, but that's a, it's a human phenomenon

that changes everything about you. It's neither right or wrong, but when you begin to look at on a daily basis, how many times you use the being verbs and how detrimental that is. And what would it be like to say, you know, oddly, I'm in love with my wife. Why don't you just say it in the middle of an argument? Watch what happens. But you can't. So humans acknowledge their experience and can't transform it with language but we have the ability to do that i'm going to make it through this and there's a thousand people trying to kill me that's the only way to do it right i'm we're outnumbered and we're going to die yep you are you're done yeah well and I also think like you're acknowledging the

facts of the situation as well, right? You're not ignoring things that might be happening, but you're talking to yourself in a lot more powerful way. I like the idea of the being verbs and just paying attention to how we use those. Yeah. No, no frill, no excitement, very boring. They're not exciting to say it's not sexy. It's fact is this is it's cold outside. My God, I can do something with that. It is cold. Okay. I can put on something.

It's a hundred miles. Okay. I can run one mile. I just got to do it a hundred times. So acknowledge it's the only way to acknowledge fact is the being verbs. Excellent. So Tom, one of the things I want to ask you about is some of the lessons in your book unbreakable.

And I think each of those lessons are just powerful in itself. And I could read a few of them for people who aren't familiar with the book, but need to go get it, is the first one is keeping your word, facing your fear, pushing beyond your comfort zone. A few others are living in the moment, your contribution to others for them. Tell us a little bit about which of these are your favorite and which of these would you like to kind of dive into a little bit more for those that are listening? They're actually linear. My favorite one, even though it's the most difficult.

Favorite ones are lesson one and lesson three. Honor your word. It's the hardest for humans to do, but it's the most important. Oddly, nobody can do it. I've trained 480 people in seven years through a long eight iteration process. And that's the hardest one. Make a promise and keep it for 21 days. So that's the lesson. It's a three-week assignment. Do simple shit, and it's simple, but I can't get anybody to do it because people don't honor their word. They are not living in a space called I am my word. If I make a promise, that defines me, it could be anything. I've made it somewhat simple. 10 pushups, 10 sit-ups, 10 squats every morning, right after you get out of bed and right before you go to bed for 21 days. Very difficult.

So what do you think gets in people's way of like committing to what they said they were going to excuses excuses so what happens is we have social media and life has created a condition called you're excused from being great we we live our excuses hey i can't do that. It hurts. My wife doesn't support me. The biggest excuse that kills success. It sounds like this in everybody's brain and it happens towards the end of success, like in the fourth quarter of a game. And especially in the 21 day assignment, it only happens in the last week is it sounds like this in everybody's head. This is stupid. This is stupid. I don't, this stupid. I don't have to do this anymore. I've done it first. It's stupid. It's not that it hurts. It's just stupid. It's stupid to get up in the morning

and then do pushups, sit ups and squats. And right before I go to bed. This is stupid. It's also stupid to tell your wife you love her. They use it the same excuse when things get rough is the excuse called this is stupid. And those, the four primary excuses are burned out of seals. They don't give a, they don't give a shit if you're in pain. This hurts. I don't care. Yeah. So you said you would do this. I don't care if you blow your feet off. You better make it.

The second one that's burned out is support. Okay. So your team's not supportive. Your leader doesn't support you. Your family doesn't support you. So what? Yeah. Do it anyway. The fourth one is, uh, um, the, what I said, or the third one, this is stupid. Oh, sure. And the, the final one, the fourth of the primary excuses that literally prevents everybody from being

successful. And you're going to laugh. I forgot. I forgot. Oh my God. People use that all the time. It's like, Oh dude, I forgot to do this podcast. I forgot to write the check. I forgot to check this. I forgot to call Bill. Millions are lost because of that excuse. You forgot, get some help then. Have a reminder, get your phone to do it. Get 15 people to remind you to do things that are valuable. But we've allowed that to be a predicate to our success. We've allowed excuses to prevail everywhere. Well, I think just naming those as like five or four primary excuses, Tom, like also helps us recognize when we're using them

and when we're kind of sabotaging our own success. So this hurts. I don't have support. This is stupid. I forgot. Yep. What would you tell people who are listening who might be saying to themselves yeah I you know that I use that excuse a lot if it's I heard you know this hurts or I don't have the support or this is stupid or I forgot what do we do with that each one is coached differently. So if pain is always there for you, you need somebody to help you. You're not able to do. So if you're an athlete, you have to have a coach. Emotional pain is still pain. So if you're having some interpretation that this hurts,

this conversation with my wife hurts or my kids go get support. So pain requires coaching or support or a physical therapist. Uh, uh, so the, I forgot excuse requires accountability. So if you use the excuse a lot, you're somebody who doesn't allow people to help them. Like you don't have a team that accounts for each other's actions. Uh, the, this is stupid. The only way to deal with this is stupid is don't listen to it, but it's so seductive. Like I was out. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm too tired for this. I don't really need to do it. This is, this is dumb. Why am I doing this? That's entirely up to you. You got to get over that hurdle. Uh, and then the other one was, uh, I don't have support. So if you use this, if you feel like, or in your interpretation is that you don't have

support, there's two alternatives. One is get rid of everybody and get people who support you or find a way to re-engage your people who don't support you, like your wife or your husband or your lover or your boss. Be very clear that you require their support. And come to find out the most important one is the one at home. If you don't have a 100% committed spouse, you're stuck. You are stuck. Yeah, I can see that. Well, I really appreciate that going through each of these four excuses and then how to address them. I'm thinking about some of the people I work with who might get me, you know, say those

excuses either to me or in their mind and just like how to combat them. So that was about lesson one, keeping your word. Tell us a little bit about lesson three, pushing beyond your comfort zone. And the way I think about that is, you know, the only way that you continue to grow is if you push past your comfort zone. But, you know, our brain wants to keep us safe. It doesn't want to help us choose courage or to grow and change. So tell us a bit about how you've learned to push past your comfort zone over the years. So there's probably a million stories, but the one I wanted to relate to the kids that's in the book

is, you know, some point in time in your life, you have to do something all day. Be that three percentile person that can stay awake for a day doing something important. So we, in the book and what we do as a, as a business now is we hold these 24 hour leadership events. And I kind of regret putting it in the book because we've done 33 of them now. Okay. And, uh, but here's the deal for a day for 24 hours, you're going to walk and you're going to deal with your demons. You have to deal with them. You can't get to the end quicker than a day. You just have to walk. Your feet are going to hurt. You're going to not enjoy the process. You're going to get nauseated at night. You're going to get scared. And as we began to put these events together and guide

people through that, the question that we start out with that we resolve at three o'clock in the morning, we start at nine on Saturday and then three o'clock in the morning. We start at nine on Saturday and then three o'clock Sunday morning, this question gets resolved. Why are you not the best version of yourself? And it's a scary question. You imagine going around 50 other people and somebody asks that question to you, you'd be like, dude, I don't know any of these people. I'm not going to share any of this. but it happens it's so profound now in the first two hours everybody comes this is what is stopping me in my life and they come out with all these things these stories and all this stuff that three o'clock in the morning they become quiet and the only thing that matters is I'm going to make it to the next tree. And that level of

resolve, it's fun to see in people's eyes and their demeanor. Is there like, you know what, I was going to get divorced. I was going to quit my job. I have cancer, whatever that, all that goes away. And they're just going to that next tree. And they then go, man, this would have been a lot easier in life had I learned this as a kid. I'm like, I agree. It's a lot easier in life to not have all that story that prevents you from being the best version of yourself. And now what's funny is half the people that come bring their wife or husband the second time. And that's a big returning event now.

So tell us a bit about how do you see people grow in those kind of 24 hour events? So do they grow in their like self-awareness or do you think it's just their understanding of themselves, their ability to push beyond the obstacles? What do you see? Well, the thing that prevents everybody from pushing beyond stuff is one is excuses. So we talk about that. We talk about the storyline that you have in your life. Like what's the story of your life? By the way, it ain't helpful. Most people's stories suck. It's not what happened to them.

Their story about it is so debilitating. So change your story. And then as the, you know, as you get, you know, emotionally exhausted and physically exhausted and then hormonally, you know, the, the testosterone is dying off and the, the estrogen is dying off at like three o'clock in the morning and people are, everything's on the sleeve. So why are you not the best version of yourself at three o'clock in the morning is what's the answer? Me. You're the reason. Yep. You, and you can do anything. You can't anything you want to do why don't you do it and they're like you know what oh my god i don't know why i don't do that

well that's what we're here to help why don't you just commit to doing that we had a couple that was on their fourth time wow and uh i can't remember what predicated this conversation, but at the end of it, as I was listening to him, uh, they'd been married like 28 years. I said, and you probably know this, uh, every seven years, neurologically, you're a new human being. I don't know if you've ever heard that. I have not. Neurologically, every seven years when your neurons change, they'll grow around a problem. And so neurologically and brain centered wise, their brain cells replenish every seven years. I said, you know what would be awesome? Instead of thinking that you have been married for so long, why don't you guys get remarried?

And seeing their eyes go, oh my gosh, we could get remarried. We don't have to have the baggage of the 20 plus years of stuff that we have. We could get remarried. And as they started talking, I'm looking at everybody that was there and all the women were like, oh my God, I'm crying. But to see that transformative event happen where people get very basic, very simple. Powerful. So I'm sure you can find information about those events at unbreakableleadership.com, right? Do you have any coming up soon? Yeah, we have a leadership summit in January. And then we have what I call level one and level two beginning and we have an event. We have training in Texas and training here in Greenville.

And the level one events are weekend long and they're very profound. And we've now limited it to 50 people because there's only two of us that teach it. And I want everybody to get all the attention that they can get. We could go to 100, but it gets lost. Yeah. So it's like half filled in both places now. And we limit it because we want the people that are committed to being the best version of themselves to show up and get the training. So level one training is about self-awareness.

And level two training is about designing a team. And they're separated by six weeks because the homework in the in-between trainings is so freaking hard that I'm not going to let you get a team until you can actually see the work involved in your life. And your wife or husband has to call me and say the shit works. Otherwise, otherwise it doesn't work. Your opinion doesn't matter. And, and, uh, and you have to hit four different goals in six weeks. And if you don't hit them, then you can't do the level two training. So there's a lot of accountability in that. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah. Terrible amount of accountability. And I, you know, that's it. The only way to accomplish anything is to have the people that are there committed to what you're committed to. And every single day there's

accountability and it ends up driving people crazy. They're like, man, I don't, you committed to it. Let's do something that you want to do. Not what I want to it. Let's do something that you want to do, not what I want to do. Let's do something that you're wild about. I don't care if it's underwater welding in a bikini. I don't care what it is. As long as you're going to put your effort into it, inadvertently, what I call 2X your life. Whatever you're capable of doing in 90 days, both programs together, you will accomplish two times more, especially in business because business is where everybody's very lethargic. Yes. Cool. Thanks for describing

those events and just a little bit more about how you run those and the outcome. So one of the things I wanted to make sure I asked you, Tom, is about your new book, Three Simple Things. And you can just kind of maybe just describe to us a little bit about what the book is. But I was thinking about this question related to the book. And I think right now there's so much change and uncertainty with COVID in the last eight months or so. Why do you think this book is really important now? Seven of us SEALs who are retired were sitting around a table two years ago.

And a lot of our brothers and sisters in the military are committing suicide. Not to draw on anybody's emotion, but I was not privy to it because I was working. And I'm like, oh my God, what would, so if you died, John, what would be left? And so the question was, if you died tomorrow, what would you have not expressed or done that you've always wanted to do. So when it came around to me, I'm like, man, I've created this awesome training and, uh, but it's secret sauce, man. Don't make me expose that. And, uh, one of them, it's like, Hey, if you die, it's, it dies, it dies with you. I'm like, so the, the book, three Things, is the method and process that my partners and I have created to train people to be literally the best version of themselves. And why is it important now?

Here's the deal. This crisis is just because people are spinning out of control yeah the facts behind it are less scary than the rhetoric yes and that's a lot of what i learned in combat there's always crisis 2000 gosh what was it maybe it was 1990 a million people were killed in chad which is a north african state nobody cared because there was no rhetoric behind it yeah so there's always death there's always misery crisis there's people doing bad things all over the world all the time it's just now with social media, it seems new. Oh my God, there's a virus out.

Okay. The flu factually is more deadly. But we now are believers. Like we use the being verbs. We're all going to die. We are going to die. This is the worst thing in the world. And we're believers. So what I know to be true is what I put in the book is not negotiable.

Live a non-negotiable life. So don't let the environment convince you to drop yourself. And having trained so many people to not negotiate with themselves, like be healthy every day. So the three simple things categorically are there are five categories, but you do three simple things per five categories. Every day you can't negotiate. It doesn't matter. Remember, it doesn't matter how you feel.

Yes. It doesn't matter how you feel. It doesn't matter if you don't have support. Get support. So do these things that are important for you as a human being. Spiritual time is needed. Relational time is needed. Athletic, physical time is needed.

Obviously, value or business time is needed. Athletic physical time is needed. Obviously value or business time is needed and learning those five categories spelled out, which I think pretty well, because I had somebody help me write this one this time and you know, how to be the best version of yourself and literally stop excusing yourself from being that version. And you're like your gift, your gift to people. So be it. Don't be this miserable, cowering in the corner person, worrying about a virus that you have to get this virus. Everybody has to get, by the way, you have to. Tom, thank you so much for your time and for your wisdom today. I think when I look back at the things that I really enjoyed most from just listening to you, and first of all, I didn't realize it was called

the training for the 24 hours surf torture. So, so that I had read about it, but that the title didn't stick with me. So I think just like describing what happens in Navy SEAL training is really powerful. I loved the four primary excuses and the things to do to address those. I thought that was really powerful and helpful for everybody. This being words and verbs and making sure we're careful about what we say to ourselves, particularly out loud or whispering it like you mentioned. And I just really enjoyed hearing more about how you do your training and telling us a little bit about that. So tell us how people can reach out to you, buy your two books, and learn

more about the training that you provide. Amazon is the best place to buy the books i think it's the the most organized book selling mechanism now because uh you don't have to go to a bookstore so it's on amazon under unbreakable a navy seals way of life and three simple things leading during chaos on amazon uh we're very active on facebook under tom shea and on instagram, I think under Tom Shea. I don't know how they run that and, uh, love it. Come to the 24 hour. It doesn't matter if you're ready. It sounds like you grow a ton. I'd love to see you there. Please come. Like you, you will learn something about yourself that will translate to everybody you interact with. I could imagine.

I'll talk to my husband about it tonight. Awesome. And he can come too. Yeah, I'd probably bring him. Well, Tom, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. And I'm so grateful for what you shared with us today. Thank you so much. I appreciate you as well.

Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes. And to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.