The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 363: Admiral William McRaven - The Bin Laden Raid, Saving Captain Phillips, & Leadership Lessons For Life

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sometimes just plain hard work will get you past the rough spot. Know that it's going to be challenging. You know, know that it will not be easy. But also recognize that all of us can overcome the failure. But a lot of it is, you know, put your head down, work hard, work through it, recognize where you made the mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and move on. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show, presented by Brexian Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Thank you so much for being here. Text, learners to 4-4-2-2-2 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive Mindful Monday Updates, what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also, give you more details about my book, Welcome to Management. Text, learners to 44222. Now, on tonight's featured leader, it's American hero, the great Admiral, William McCraven, retired U.S. Navy, four-star Admiral, as the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, he oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Starting point is 00:01:17 He also led the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, who was held hostage by Somali pirates in 2009. Additionally, he gave the now viral commencement speech at University of Texas called, If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. In addition to that, he's written multiple New York Times bestselling books. And the cool thing about this one is we gathered hundreds of our fellow learning leaders on Zoom and recorded this one with a live audience. It was fantastic to see your smiling faces, the engagement, the community being built with all of us striving to be learning leaders.

Starting point is 00:01:56 A few of the topics we discussed, the importance of coaching and why it's been vital to his success and can be for you. Everyone needs a coach. And then he was in charge of taking care of Saddam Hussein for 30 days after he was captured. Listen to the interesting story that Admiral McCraven tells about how they greeted each other when they first met. It blew my mind.

Starting point is 00:02:26 And then he took us inside the planning, preparation, and execution of the bin Laden raid. Everyone was on the edge of their seats. I was watching and you will be too as you're listening. This one is so good with Admiral William McRaven. First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone for joining. As I was telling Admiral McRaven, we have hundreds of people from all over the world,

Starting point is 00:02:56 random time zones, people waking up in the middle of the night because we have such a distinguished guest. And the one, the really cool aspect of this is the ability in the midst of some tough things we're going through to create connection and community. And that's one of my favorite aspects about doing what I do is having the platform and the opportunity to do that. So, one, thank you all for being here.

Starting point is 00:03:16 Our guest today, Admiral William McCraven, retired U.S. Navy four-star Admiral, commander U.S. Special Operations Command, led almost 70,000 men and women responsible for conducting counterterrorism operations worldwide. He oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that, killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. An incredible communicator, writer, speaker. I encourage you to read his books. If you haven't already watched the commencement speech at Texas. It's incredible. We're going to cover some of those topics. But please, let's give a warm kind of virtual. Welcome to Admiral William McRaven. Thanks for being here, Admiral.

Starting point is 00:03:59 That's right. Great to be with it. I know you probably heard that read a lot, but it's still pretty remarkable. but hear the accomplishments in your career. And one of the things I want that you've written about is the importance of surrounding yourself with exceptional people. Jim Collins might call that your who. And for me, I'm curious, Admiral, from your perspective, given the remarkable people that you've had the good fortune to work with, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among leaders and behaviors and traits who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time. Yeah, I think that the best leaders you find are the ones that listen.

Starting point is 00:04:41 And that's a hard thing to do as a leader. You know, you come in, you have a little bit of this ego that, you know, you're the leader because obviously you must be the smartest man or woman in the room. And that's why they made you the leader. And if you're really smart, you realize that now that's not necessarily why they made you the leader, that made you the leader because you were able to galvanize the team that works with you and get them to conduct a mission and do it successfully. And you do that by listening to the men and women that work for you.

Starting point is 00:05:12 Because most of them have got a wealth of information, wealth of knowledge. Now, at some point in time, of course, you've got to take the information they provide you and make a decision. So I would offer that listening is probably the best trait a leader can have. But then, you know, the next thing is you've got to be able to act decisively. Once you have that information, you've got to be able to make a decision. And you won't always make the right decision, but I've found that, you know, the troops, whether they are your employees at the University of Texas system or the troops that work for me in special operations, they want you to make a thoughtful decision, not waffle too long,

Starting point is 00:05:48 and then, you know, move out. And then be calm as you execute whatever mission you're in the midst of. I heard an interview with you at one point when I was prepping for this. And you've worked for multiple presidents, both Republicans and Democrats. So there's no political aspect to this question. But you mentioned that a common trait shared by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama was that, was their ability to listen to experts in the room. I'm curious, you've been in those rooms with the most powerful person in the world.

Starting point is 00:06:19 Can you share what it's like being inside the room with both of those guys and their ability to listen? lean on experts and then make decisive decisions. Yeah, well, I think you summed it up nicely right there. Interestingly enough, while President Obama and President Bush have different kind of external personalities, when they came into the situation room, which is where the big national security decisions are made, in both cases with President Bush and President Obama, you would find as they sat at the head of the table and they would go around the room and talk to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of the Joint Chiefs and the

Starting point is 00:06:54 Director of National Intelligence, that they were great at listening. They were great at taking the advice. And then, once they had all the input, then unfortunately, you know, this is the, fortunately or unfortunately, this is the role of the president, you've got to take all that input and you have to make the final decision. So in both cases, even though, again, both men are different in their kind of outward personalities, I found that inwardly the way that they collected information, assessed the information, and then made decisions was actually very similar. I want to, Admiral, I want to go a little bit earlier in your life. Actually, I find it fascinating to hear about the upbringing of exceptional leaders like yourself. Specifically, you've described your

Starting point is 00:07:38 dad as being an incredibly humble person, yet he's larger than life and a wonderful father that you said. And there are a lot of people watching now listening that are parents. And they're thinking, I want to be known as a wonderful mother or father. And they're curious about the actions, behaviors of your parents and how their child grew up to be you. And I'm curious, what were some of the greatest learnings from your parents? Yeah, well, I'll take it one step a little bit further. When I had my children, my first son, my mother gave me probably the best advice she could give me. When I asked her, you know, how do you raise a young boy in this case?

Starting point is 00:08:27 And she said, look, all you have to do is love them. And that really kind of encapsulated it all. You know, all you have to do is love them. And if you love them, they will know that. And so when times get tough and they have to, you know, punish you for something you did poorly, or they have to critique you or they have, whatever. it is, as long as you know that they love you and that, you know, what they're doing is in your best interests, then, frankly, it's easier to accept that criticism. It's easier to accept that

Starting point is 00:08:56 inspiration. It's just easier to be a child. So I think when I grew up, I never doubted for a second that my parents loved me. And that's not to say again that, you know, when I, when I messed up, which I did routinely as a young boy, you know, my parents didn't hold me accountable. And that was not always fun, but it was, I think, always necessary to make me understand that you do things. And there's an accountability to be had if you do them poorly or wrong. But I never doubted that they loved me. So that really, I think, is probably the key to raising successful children. In addition to that, I think this relates to people in general.

Starting point is 00:09:33 But you've also had the good fortune of being surrounded by great coaches. And I am a firm believer that everybody. needs a coach, regardless of your age, regardless of your experience, regardless of what you do. My background's in athletics. I know your background's also in athletics prior to your military career. And other than my direct family, my immediate family, the people who have impacted me the most are my coaches. And so I've learned the value of them.

Starting point is 00:10:02 And you had one earlier in your life, specifically who was really good about pushing you. I believe his name is Jerry Turnbow. When it comes to, came to running the mind. And can you share more about the importance of why he was so impactful for you and then more zoomed out the importance of coaching for all of us? Yes. The fact of the matter is, I think, you know, Ryan, that, you know, aside from your parents or your guardians or whoever your closest relative might be, your teachers and your coaches probably have the most impact on you as a young man or woman. And coaches I would offer, at least for me, because, you know, when I was young boy, I had this aspiration. I wanted to be a gold medal winner at the Olympics, even though I had absolutely no talent to do that.

Starting point is 00:10:49 But, you know, you motivate yourself by setting this incredibly high goal, and you have to inspire yourself that this is what you're going to do. You're going to achieve this lofty goal of being a gold medal winner. And, of course, I was a miler. There's not even a mile in the Olympics, but that's an aside. So my senior year, I was trying to break the school record in the mile. And the second to the last race, I'd had an abysmal race. The school record in the mile had been four minutes and 32 seconds. And I'd run a 437, which is, you know, five seconds off.

Starting point is 00:11:24 That's an eternity in the mile. And so just a horrible race. And I thought, well, I'm never going to make this. Well, one more week I had before my final race. And the night before my final race, I was at home and I received this phone call. and my dad said, hey, your coach is on the line. And I thought, well, that's kind of strange. I mean, I just left track practice.

Starting point is 00:11:42 Coach didn't tell me anything. Well, I picked up the phone, and it wasn't my track coach. It was the assistant football coach, Jerry Turnbow. And I knew Jerry Turnbow, because, again, as a young kid, certainly in the state of Texas, you know, football is king. And when you're one of the head football coaches, you know, you're viewed as this kind of, you know, semi-god up there on Mount Olympus. and I thought, oh my gosh, it's Coach Turnbow, and he called me, and he said,

Starting point is 00:12:08 hey, Bill, I understand, you know, you've got your last mile run tomorrow. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, so you're trying to break the school record? I said, well, Bill, you can do this. You just run hard. You just run hard, and you can break the record. And I remember I was so, you know, I was so inspired by the fact that this coach would take, you know, a moment out of his time to call me from his home to my home.

Starting point is 00:12:32 and I didn't even think he knew who I was. Well, the next day I went out and I broke the record. And what I tell folks is, you know, one, it's a record that nobody cared about but me. In fact, the next year it was broken by a faster runner than I was. But what it did was it convinced me that if I set a goal, the goal of, in this case, breaking the mile record and I worked hard and I got a little inspiration, I could do anything. And, of course, so at the time I thought, well, I'm going to go be a Navy SEAL. had I not broken that record, I'm not sure I would have felt that was within my grasp.

Starting point is 00:13:06 And so I look at those events, and we all have those events in life that, you know, suddenly a phone call, a pat on the back, you know, you get a good grade on a test you worked hard on, and it inspires you, encourages you to do something else. And it potentially changes the entire trajectory of your life. Well, I think that's kind of what the phone call from Coach Turnbow did. it changed the entire trajectory of my life because I convinced myself that I could go off and be a Navy SEAL and I did and that changed everything for me. I feel like the lesson there for all of us who play a leadership role for people in our lives is when in doubt, make the call. Make a call. Send the note. Send the text, whatever, to whoever it is.

Starting point is 00:13:49 Send a note. Last night, my wife Miranda reminded me, she's like, you should reconnect with Coach George Ravelling. And Coach Ravling is one of my greatest mentors of all time. He's incredible. And I sent him this pretty, I think, heartfelt note to tell him I was thinking about him. And he immediately wrote me back and just said, like, this made my day. And I thought, what a lesson for all of us right now, Admiral, is make the call. You know, when we have these times, and I'm curious from your perspective as the leader for others who look up to you,

Starting point is 00:14:20 how do you work to implement that as the person who could be helpful for? others and inspire them to break the record, become a Navy SEAL, lead the Bin Laden raid, whatever it may be, I'm curious. Yeah, so, you know, the lesson of Coach Turnbow was kind of reinforced several years later. My next door neighbor growing up in San Antonio, he was an Air Force officer. He was several years older than I was, probably 10, 12 years older than I was. And I was a young, I think, lieutenant junior grade or maybe Navy lieutenant. and he had bumped into somebody and saw me and heard that I was doing a good job.

Starting point is 00:14:57 And he called or he wrote, I think he wrote my parents a letter. He wrote my parents a letter and said, hey, I just want you to know, I heard Bill's doing a great job and, you know, and said a lot of good things. And, of course, to my parents, I mean, that was, you know, that was the most important thing they could have received. And his writing the letter to his parents became something I did over the years. I realized that if I wrote a letter to one of my soldiers or sailors and said, hey, you're doing a great job. Yes, they appreciated that. But let me tell you, you write it to their parents or their guardian or their wife or whoever, their wife or their husband.

Starting point is 00:15:38 And you say, let me tell you, this person is exceptional. That means more to them than a letter to themselves. And so back to the issue of inspiration. Yeah, I tell folks, look, most people are never going to have a chance to, you know, lead the raid to get bin Laden or rescue a Captain Phillips or capture a Saddam Hussein. But we will all have the opportunity to inspire some young man or woman at some point in time in our life. And we should never, ever pass up that moment. A good lesson I've learned earlier is love the people who love the person that you're trying to lift up. Show love on them.

Starting point is 00:16:12 And so that kind of exercise of writing a note to the same. spouse or to the parents or even to the kids. I mean, I'm a parent, you're a parent. What's better than having your kids think you're cool, even for just five minutes? You know, it's very rare in my life, but even for just five minutes, if they think I'm cool, like, it really means a lot to me. Exactly. I want to go, you mentioned becoming a Navy SEAL and the training. And part of the training is the fact that you're going to experience failure. And that's just a part of becoming a seal. I'm not one and never been through any of that, but I read a ton about it. Like, again, my background's in sports, and we had some military coaches, people with military

Starting point is 00:16:53 backgrounds. So they put us through probably many versions of things you've gone through. But there is a thing called being assigned to the circus. And you've spoken about this, you've written about this. And I think maybe we can share broader what you learned from being in the circus and how that could apply to other people's lives as they hit points of, failure and how to bounce back from it. Yeah, so the circus and seal training, everything was measured. You know, your run times were measured, your swims were measured, your tests you took, they were all, everything had a standard you had to meet.

Starting point is 00:17:30 And if you failed to meet the runtime in the course of the day or the swim time, then at the end of the day, so after a full day of constantly, you know, being harassed by the instructors and being cold, wet, and miserable and doing hours of calisthenics, at the end of the day, At the end of the day, you got another two hours of calisthenics. And so this was the circus. And for a lot of people, the circus was a bit of a death spiral. So if you went into the circus and you were tired on a Monday,

Starting point is 00:17:56 then you were probably going to make the circus again on Tuesday. And then if you made the circus on Tuesday, you were going to be tired again comes Wednesday, and you were going to fail again. And so a lot of folks, when they got on the circus list on a Monday, they just quit because they thought they weren't going to have the ability to make it through the week in the circus. Well, unfortunately, I made the circus quite a bit in my time.

Starting point is 00:18:19 And what you find with the circus, one, it is a recognition that you failed. So mentally, you have to be able to deal with the fact that, okay, I failed an event. But now I'm going to be held accountable for that failure, which means I've got another two hours of calisthenics. They're going to try to break me in this case. Can you withstand the failure? And then the next morning you wake up and you're tired. But what you find, I think, in dealing with the failure of the,

Starting point is 00:18:44 the circus or any other failure is, you know, sometimes just plain hard work will get you past the rough spot. Know that it's going to be challenging. You know, know that it will not be easy, but also recognize that all of us can overcome the failure. But a lot of it is, you know, put your head down, work hard, work through it, recognize where you made the mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and move on. And then try not to look back on the failures too often.

Starting point is 00:19:10 The, and not to harp too much on this, but just one more thing, because I think it, it shows there are people who are facing tough times. They're either got laid off. They're laying people off. They're going through a tough stretch right now. And in July 1983, you were fired. You were relieved of your SEAL squadron, which is, which is not good at the SEAL. And part of it, part of the reason was you were trying to change the way the squadron was organized, trained, and conducted missions. And I'm curious, so how did that, that firing alter your trajectory and how did you respond from it? Yeah, so to your point, Ryan, I mean, it's never good to get fired.

Starting point is 00:19:48 It's really bad to get fired in the Navy. It's particularly bad to get fired in the SEAL teams because it's such a small unit. Everybody knows you have been fired. So, you know, you have a big brand on you and everybody you meet. You know, sometimes they'll come up to you and they'll pat you on the back and they'll say, hey, Bill, good to see you. How are you doing? You know, how things going?

Starting point is 00:20:05 But you realize and you know what they're thinking, which is, you were fired. Are you good enough to be one of my officers? Are you good enough to lead me in? combat, should you still be here? So you have to deal with the self-doubt. But for me, I was married, had two kids at the time. And I remember going home thinking, wow, I don't know if I have a career left. So I went home to my wife the day I was fired. And frankly, had it not been for her, I probably wouldn't be here right now. Because I said, look, I, like I said, I'm not sure I've got a career left. You know, it's not good to get fired. And she said, look, you've never quit

Starting point is 00:20:38 at anything in your life. Don't start now. And, you know, And that ability to have someone, and we all need a swim buddy. We all need somebody that can kind of pick us up off the ground, dust us off, and say, look, it's going to be okay. Double down, work hard, and you'll overcome this. So one, you have to be able to deal with a failure. You have to figure out again what you did wrong, but you don't quit. I mean, that's the last thing that you want to do.

Starting point is 00:21:06 The people that are having to deal with this today, I mean, these are tough, tough circumstances. And my heart goes out to all these folks that are unemployed because sometimes you just can't work through it. I mean, this is not a time they can double down and work hard because there's no work to be had. But I would tell them to just kind of keep the faith, you know, know that there are a lot of people that are prepared to pick them up and dust them off and tell them it's going to be

Starting point is 00:21:29 okay. We'll get through this. And I'm confident that we will. So you've written that you've always had great respects for the British special air service, the famed S-A-S. And their motto was, who dares wins. And so I want to get to the Bin Laden raid. And you said this is even a quote or a motto that was repeated as you guys were going

Starting point is 00:21:56 in for this raid by Sergeant Major Chris Ferris, I believe his name is, quoted that to the SEALs preparing for the mission. And so that was kind of the motto for you is for how special forces operated. and it's how each of us should approach our lives. And so first, I love to get to, if you, being the person who spearheaded this mission to go get the most wanted person on the planet, there's a lot to get to here. But first and foremost, I love that if you could take us share at least what you're allowed from a strategy perspective.

Starting point is 00:22:29 I know there was a lot of collaboration with the CIA and Leon Panetta. And you've spoken very highly of him and how his involvement, as well as the guts it took to make the decision. Can you take us inside what was going through your mind as you're building the strategy, as you're working with the CIA and the president and everybody involved, and then maybe we can dive a little bit deeper until the actual night?

Starting point is 00:22:53 Yeah, so I became aware of this in December of 2010 when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullin, came out to Afghanistan, and told me that the CIA may be contacting me. They had lead on bin Laden, and they might ask me to come back to Landon, to Langley and talk to him about it. Candidly, I was probably a little dismissive because we'd had a lot of leads on Bin Laden.

Starting point is 00:23:15 But obviously I said, yes, sir, if I get a call, I'm happy to go back. About three weeks later, I got a call to come back to Langley, and I sat down with the deputy director, Michael Morel, and we went over the compound that was there in Abadabad. And, you know, it was a, you know, he said, how would you do this? I said, look, this is what we do. You know, we were doing about 20 to 25 missions a night in Iraq. We were doing about 10 to 12 missions a night in Afghanistan. You know, the average mission, you'd get, you know, 50 or 60 operators, Rangers, seals, Army Special Forces, put them on a bunch helicopters, flying from a Ford operating base, land about 10 kilometers from a target, patrol to the target, surround the target.

Starting point is 00:23:55 Rangers will put up blocking forces so the target couldn't be reinforced. Snoppers get up on the wall. You get the target sealed off, and then you ask the bad guy to come out. Believe it or not, we actually did that, call a call out. You get on a bullhorn and say, come out with your hands up. It didn't always work. I was going to say, does that work? Sometimes it did.

Starting point is 00:24:12 They just come out and that's that? Well, when they know they're surrounded and there's no place to go, yeah, sometimes they think through this, but not always. And then, you know, things would get sporty. We'd get the guy, put him back on a helicopter and come back home. So, you know, we were used to doing that. So when I looked at the compound, I said, it's compound. It's bigger than the ones we're used to, but, you know, basically the same approach. But as time went on, I started coming back from Afghanistan to Langley to build the plan.

Starting point is 00:24:40 And over the course of the next January, February, March, April, the next four months, I was in probably six or seven meetings with the president. And every time we were in one of the meetings, the president would ask Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, well, do you think it's bin Laden? And while director Panetta was confident that it was, there were a lot of people in the CIA that weren't so sure. And so you had this really kind of mixed bag of, yeah, we think it's him, but we're not certain. And this will go down as one of the great intelligence operations in the history of the CIA, and rightfully so.

Starting point is 00:25:13 But it was just hard, even with the technical intelligence and the overhead intelligence and the human intelligence, to determine whether or not the man that was walking around the inside of the compound, who we referred to as the pacer, whether that was truly bin Laden. And so this became, I think, one of the reasons that I've said that I thought it was one of the decisions in modern history was because the president, President Obama, we just didn't know. And so on the last meeting I had with the president, which was the Wednesday, so late April, maybe April 30th or something like that, you know, the president had asked the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Mike Leiter, to review CIA's intelligence and give him an

Starting point is 00:25:53 assessment of whether or not what the National Counterterrorism Center thought it was, it was bin Laden. And as the meeting started, he turned to lighter and lighter said, well, Mr. President, we've reviewed CIA's intelligence. And we think the chance that it's bin Laden is anywhere between 60 percent and 40 percent. And when he said 40 percent, I'm thinking, well, this mission's off. I mean, who in the world would authorize a bunch of seals to fly 162 miles into Pakistan, where they have an integrated air defense? This compound was about three or four miles from their west point. It was about three or four miles from a major infantry battalion. It was a mile from a police station.

Starting point is 00:26:30 Oh, by the way, the Pakistanis have nuclear weapons. I mean, who would make that call? But I told the president, I said, sir, I'm going to head to Afghanistan. I'll make sure the boys are ready to go. If you decide to go, then we'll go do the mission. If you decide not to, no problem. I got bad guys in Afghanistan. We'll just go back to work.

Starting point is 00:26:47 So I left Wednesday evening and got there, and on Friday, Leon Panetta called and said, hey, the president's made the decision to go. And I've told folks, I said, look, irrespective of, you know, what side of the aisle you're on, this was an incredibly bold decision on the part of the president. Again, he must have known, although we never talked about it, but he must have thought about Jimmy Carter and the decision, you know, 40 years ago this week to try to rescue the American hostages out of Iran. That did not go well for Carter, and he became a one-term president. If this didn't go well for Obama, he would be a one-term president.

Starting point is 00:27:22 And again, while we never talked about that, I'm sure that must have gone through his mind. Well, a Saturday the president called me and said, well, Bill, what do you think? And I said, well, Mr. President, I said, if he's there, we'll get him. If not, we'll come home. The problem with a come home scenario, which I had briefed him before, was if the seals land on target and a guy comes out with a gun, it's not going to go too well for that guy. If somebody else comes out with a gun, they will go down as well. And as the seals start to sweep through the target from the first floor to the second floor to the third floor, you know, killing guys on their way up to the third floor where we thought bin Laden was. and then we get up there and it turns out the guy we thought was bin Laden

Starting point is 00:27:58 there's nothing but a tall Pakistani. Well, then this will be, you know, a mistake of epic proportions. Now, I didn't tell the president out on the phone, but I know he understood that. But again, he still made the decision to go. What was it like with the guys? And we've seen the most of us probably seen the movies if there was a woman or I heard it was a team of women who helped identify him. and you see the dramatic moment.

Starting point is 00:28:28 It's 100. It's 100. I'm sure he's there from the Zero Dark 30 movie. But what was it like once the mission was over and the team was back? Were you physically with them at that time? Was it celebratory? Was it business as usual? What was it like?

Starting point is 00:28:47 Yeah. So, yeah, I was with him at the time, obviously. The president had asked me, you know, once we had gotten the, the call from the ground force commander, Geronimo, for God, and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. And that was about 15 minutes or so into the mission. We were on the ground about 48 minutes. Took about an hour and a half or so to fly back. And as they were on their way back, the president asked me, well, do you know for certain whether it's bin Laden? And I said, no, sir, I need to go visually ID the remains. And the airfield was just a minute or two

Starting point is 00:29:19 from my little makeshift command center. So I drove over there right about time the seals were landing. And yeah, they were happy. I wouldn't call it overly celebratory, but, you know, they were back from a mission where I think every person that got on that helicopter realized that they could have been shot down, that this could have been a disaster. If things had gone south, the building could have been booby trapped. Bin Laden could have been booby trapped. And fortunately, they all made it back alive.

Starting point is 00:29:44 So, yeah, you're going to be pretty damn happy about that. And, of course, the fact that they got bin Laden, yeah, so it wasn't business as usual. They understood the nature of the mission and what they had just accomplished. But we brought the remains back in. I unzipped the body bag, took a look at the body. He obviously didn't look too good. He had a couple rounds in his head. But pretty certain it was Ben Laden.

Starting point is 00:30:09 We took some measurements and made sure that we got the information back to the agency. They did facial recognition and a number of other things. We also did forensics. We did a DNA swab on him and all those sorts of things. For me, though, I was not necessarily in a celebratory mood. We still had to get bin Laden's body out to the Carl Vincent, which was out in the Gulf. So we put the remains back on two Marine Corps CV-22s, and they flew back into Pakistan, actually, back down the air corridor, back out to the Carl Vincent. But frankly, I also had 10 other missions going on that night in Afghanistan.

Starting point is 00:30:49 Wow, really? Yeah. So, you know, you just, you realize that, you know, we still had things to do. And yeah, so it didn't really hit me candidly, the magnitude of the mission until many, many months later when I was actually in New York City. And that's when I think I really began to realize the impact of the mission on the American people. What do you draw from it now that you've, there's been plenty of time to reflect, to analyze, to be thoughtful about. that night and the preparation and the decision-making and the successful mission, what do you draw from that now as you look to other aspects of leadership in your life? You certainly had, you remained a seal and a leader after that. You went on to work for the University of Texas as leading that organization. What do you draw from specific big inflection point moments like that that has helped you?

Starting point is 00:31:46 And the reason I ask is I feel like this type of advice is what can help all. all the people watching and listening from around the world. Yeah, so let me start with the CIA and Leon Panetta. So Leon Panetta won one of the most gregarious guys you'll ever meet, the consummate team player. So, you know, the CIA had all the intelligence, you know, I mean, it was their intelligence. They had a force that probably could have, you know, done this or done some aspect of this. But Panetta very quickly realized that, look, it's not about the CIO. CIA, I knew right from the beginning.

Starting point is 00:32:22 It wasn't about special operations. This was about doing what was right for the nation. And so Panetta, instead of making this an entirely CIA run operation, you know, calls in the military and says, look, I need the guys that do this for a living. So when you look at, you know, how great leaders work, great leaders recognize it's never about them. If it ever becomes about you, you're probably not a very good leader. The fact of the matter is it's about accomplishing the mission. It's about bringing in whoever you need to help you accomplish the mission.

Starting point is 00:32:54 It's about recognizing that you know, you, your organization, you know, your staff, or maybe some shortfalls and how do you shore up those shortfalls in order to accomplish the mission. So that would be part one. And again, I look back and think that the whole success of this really rested on two people, Leon Panetta, who made the decision initially to bring us in. And then, of course, the President of the United States. And as I said, the President would come into the situation room and he would listen to all aspects, all concerns from all parties around. But at the end of the day, it was the President's decision to conduct the mission. And so, as I said early on, you have to listen, but a great leader recognizes that sooner or later the responsibility falls to them. And it fell to the President of the United States.

Starting point is 00:33:42 He made the hard decision, recognizing all the risks that went with that. decision, the professional risk, the personal risks, and he made the decision anyway. And then finally, of course, it was the magnificent seals and Task Force 160 Army aviators that conducted the mission. They were incredibly professional. They rehearsed, rehearsed. They worked all the risk out of the mission. And then they had the courage to get on those helicopters and go do the mission. So when you look at what shows great leadership, it is the same. ability to be a team player and recognize it's not about you it's about making the hard decisions when you need to and then it's about being courageous and leading from the front which is again

Starting point is 00:34:26 what the great seal and army aviators did and i the the part about rehearsing and practicing we all have big moments certainly most of us or none of us uh of what those guys did that night but the the the fact that these these professionals who had done this all the time yet still rehearsed and rehearsed and practice. And then a helicopter goes down. And, and, you know, and they're all like, okay, you know, like business as usual, when a copter, one went down and they were able to not let it deter or change the mission and they kept moving forward because they were so overly prepared. I think we can all draw from that because for whatever the big moments are in our lives, a big interview, a job that we're going for, or we have a town hall meeting that we're leading.

Starting point is 00:35:10 How many times have you practiced the speech? How many times have you practiced and prepared yourself to get ready. I think that's the key learning we can draw is that these guys are the best of the best who've been doing it for years and yet they're still practicing over and over and over and are prepared for when things were to go wrong like a helicopter going down. It's amazing. Yeah, it is about no matter how good you get, if you ever get to the point where you think you can wing something, again, you're probably not in the right position to be leading the mission. The fact of the matter is, you know, the enemy always gets a vote. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, that's what we say in the military, meaning the things are going to go wrong. It's Murphy's law. So you better have plan A, plan B, plan B,

Starting point is 00:35:54 plan C, and plan D, which is what we did on the bin Laden raid. And then again, you rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. You work as hard as you need to to take all the risk out of the mission. And the mission can be, as you said, you're about to go do a town hall meeting. You're going to check the audio visual. You're going to make sure that when you get up there and if you're going to do a PowerPoint brief, that you have looked at that brief and that if that doesn't work, that you've got handouts, you can provide to people.

Starting point is 00:36:17 Whatever it happens to be, you better think through the worst case scenarios and have a plan to deal with them. Exactly. None of us are too big or too busy to not rehearse and practice. If you're a leader and you're running bad meetings, it's your fault.

Starting point is 00:36:30 It's your fault. It's on you then to make those better. So you've lived quite a life just within the military, including spending 30 days with Saddam Hussein. And one of the parts that you've written about when it comes to courage,

Starting point is 00:36:48 and I think courage is such an awesome quality in leaders, but without courage, men will be ruled by tyrants and despots. Without courage, no great society can flourish. Without courage, the bullies of the world rise up. And I want you to tell the story about when you first went in to see Saddam Hussein about the fact that he would rise to meet you and you would motion to him to say,

Starting point is 00:37:17 sit down, right? Sit down. You're not important anymore. And I would love for you to share your mindset as you stood up to one of the ultimate bullies. Yeah, I don't know. It was so much me standing up to him. But the fact of the matter is what was apparent to me when we captured Saddam was that for the first couple of days, he was as arrogant and as pompous as ever.

Starting point is 00:37:40 He was still, you know, the president of Iraq in his mind, and he treated people the way, you know, you would expect a tyrant to treat people around him. But as the days went on, and he no longer had his palaces and he no longer had his generals and he no longer had all the trappings of power, he really just became a pathetic old man. And I always tell people, contrast that with a Nelson Mandela who spent almost 30 years incarcerated. And because Mandela had this great strength of character, this great integrity, after 30 years, Mandela comes out as strong, maybe stronger than when he went in. Saddam Hussein, because he was an evil, corrupt person, collapses in a couple of days and really just becomes pathetic. But to your point about every day I would come in to check on him, and I always had a medic or a doctor and a ranger security guard in the room with him. and it was just a small room, but he was an old man, and the last thing I wanted him to do was to die on my watch.

Starting point is 00:38:41 So, you know, we treated him very well. I mean, he got, you know, four meals a day, and we gave him bookstery. We treated him appropriately. But I told the guys, I said, do not engage in conversation with him. You know, I want to make sure that he understands that he may not be in a cell and he may, you know, this may be better living than he would have assumed, but we're not going to engage in conversation with him.

Starting point is 00:39:04 So they would go in. They were kind of like four on, four off sort of thing. But every day I would come in to check on him. And every day, if you're a point, Ryan, he would rise and try to engage me in conversation. And I'd say, you know, with my hands, I'd go, you know, I'm just, I'm not talking to you. Have a seat. And part of this, of course, was to let him know that he was no longer in charge. And that wasn't trying to stand up to the bully.

Starting point is 00:39:28 It was just to make sure that at the end of the day, he understood that, you know, that he was no longer the president of Iraq and Iraq was going to move forward without him. Fascinating story. This may be kind of a left term, but I think it's important because I, I mean, I personally value this. You're a journalism major in college, and you're an excellent writer and storyteller. You've written multiple books. You've written and delivered one of the greatest commencement speeches of all time. and I am a firm believer that excellent leaders must be great writers.

Starting point is 00:40:07 And if you're not, it's a skill you should invest time in yourself to become a better writer, a better communicator as a whole. And I think a great way to become a better speaker is to be a better writer. Can you share about your process and why you value the craft of writing and how that has made you a better communicator and leader? Well, fortunately, I was a journalism major in college. And now, I was journalism major because I couldn't do math. I couldn't do science.

Starting point is 00:40:36 I couldn't do accounting. And it turns out I could write a little bit. So I transitioned over in my junior year to become a journalist. And to your point, Ryan, you know, people used to always laugh and say, well, what good did that do you in the military? And the answer was, it was a fabulous skill to have. Because at the end of the day, a leader has to be able to convey his or her. thoughts clearly, concisely, so that whoever the audience is, the troops, the employees, they understand your message. And so being able to write, being able to articulate complex

Starting point is 00:41:10 ideas into something simple so that it is easy to communicate is critical. In fact, I just had a young lady write me the other day. She's in my graduate school class and she said, hey, you know, love the class. What other classes can I take? And I told her, go to the school of journalism, school of communications at the university and take a writing class. Learn to write. Nowadays, engineers tend to rule the world, particularly with the tech world being what it is. But at the end of the day, I continue to think the pen is mightier than the electron and people being able to write is still going to be a great skill to have. And again, I think also to speak in public as well. Speaking of that, what was the process like for you to prepare to deliver the commencement speech at Texas that is now viral, which also the offshoot of that was your New York Times bestselling book titled Make Your Bed, encourage everyone to buy that and to read it. It is a quick read, but it's very useful and practical. But I'm fascinated by the prep process and then how it was delivered because I would imagine given a guy like you, you probably read that thing like a thousand times before you actually delivered. But I'm, but I

Starting point is 00:42:21 But take me inside. What was it like? The writing and then the prep right before you delivered it. Yeah. So I'm going to disappoint you a little bit because I would tell you that normally you are right. Normally I write a speech and you bet. I rehearse it and rehearse and rehearse it even if it's going to be right in front of me because recognizing when you're going to emphasize things and when you're not.

Starting point is 00:42:45 But in this case, what happened was I had been writing a speech that the president of the University of Texas had called me, I don't know, six months ahead of time and said, we'd like to be the commencement speaker. I said, of course, I'd be honored to do so, but I didn't really start writing the speech until about a month out. And I was had a day job, so, you know, I'd write a little bit here and write a little bit there. And as I was starting to complete the speech on the Wednesday of the week I was supposed to give it on a Saturday, on Wednesday, I started reading my speech and I realized it didn't work. You know, a good speech has got to have a beginning, the middle and end. It's got to have a theme. It's

Starting point is 00:43:19 got to all come together, and it didn't. And so now I'm in a bit of a panic mode going, oh, my gosh, I'm about to give this on Saturday. I don't have a good speech here. So I came down to my wife, and I said, she's always my first reader on things. And I said, this isn't any good. And she said, look, why don't you write about something you know? And I thought, well, there's a novel idea. But so I said, look, the only thing I know is being a Navy SEAL. She said, well, then write about being a Navy SEAL. And I said, look, I'm about to talk to, you know, 30,000 people, 8,000 students and their parents and everything. I said, I don't know if they want to hear a speech. I mean, this is a university environment. I don't know if they want to hear a speech from a guy in

Starting point is 00:44:01 uniform about being a Navy SEAL. But she convinced me that it was probably the right thing to do. So I started writing it, I think, Thursday. I didn't actually finish writing the speech until about an hour before I gave it. No way. In fact, yeah, the University of Texas called over to my aid, my military aide to camp and said, hey, we need the admiral speech. And the aide said, he's still writing it. And the woman said, he's giving it in an hour. He said, yeah, yeah, I know. But so I finished it up, made sure I knew what it said, I rehearsed it as many times as I could before I hopped in the car to go over to the university.

Starting point is 00:44:39 But it was written in a little bit. I mean, again, a couple of days, it doesn't take me long. write a speech. But it was probably better that I didn't spend, you know, six months writing the thing. It worked out, worked out okay. Do you write it by yourself and then your wife looks at it? That's it. Oh, yeah. And actually, rarely do I let my wife read my speeches. I did on this one because I was floundering with it. I actually, uh, that's probably about the only speech she's ever seen. She reads all the stuff that I write like for Make Your Bed or for C stories. She's my first reader on those. But on the speeches, it's just kind of one of these.

Starting point is 00:45:13 superstitions I have, it may not be a good one because, you know, the next speech you give could be horrible and she may have able to walk me away from that minefield. I don't know. Wow. Well, it's well done. I can talk about it. I do want to open it up, though, because we do have, we do have a few people who have requested to speak directly with you, Admiral. And so I want to go first to Dave Matthews. And I'm going to unmute here, Dave. Okay, we got you going. And by the way, I emailed with Dave. I'm a huge Dave Matthews fan, a different. Dave Matthews and I found out that this Dave Matthews is as well but he he wants to ask the first question put yourself on video so we can see you Dave and fire away man great thanks Ryan yeah definitely

Starting point is 00:45:54 a big Dave Matthews fan unfortunately not the not the famous one um but you know Admiral first and foremost I have so much admiration and respect for anyone that has served our country especially someone that's made the profound impact through their service such as yourself so thank you very much thank you very much um the company I work for foreign, like global, we hire entry level, we promote from within. So it's super powerful for our company,

Starting point is 00:46:20 but we have to be very patient to allow for our people to fail, to learn, and to grow. So every leader we have is literally, they're in their first leadership role. I know earlier Ryan touched on just how,

Starting point is 00:46:35 what you learned as a youthful leader, but as you see things today, what would your advice be to a brand new leader, someone that has went from a producer to suddenly leading those producers. Yeah. Yeah. Great question.

Starting point is 00:46:51 You know, one of the best bits of advice I got as a young junior officer was, you know, when you went into a new position, find the chief petty officer. In other words, the senior enlisted guy there, find the chief petty officer and sit down with them and get their advice. It does a couple things. One, it immediately, you know, gives that individual this sense that you're prepared to listen. And two, the advice they have is probably going to be pretty solid. So if you're coming into a situation as you're new in a leadership position, find out who's been there for a while.

Starting point is 00:47:25 You'll find out who the, you know, between, again, I'm not exactly sure what your organization would look like. But find out who that senior person is, the old hand there, sit down with them, listen to them, find out what they think a good leader should look like, how a good leader should act, and that'll give you some initial, you know, initial step on the ladder to start to move up. It's always good to listen. You know, listen to the people around you, you know, make a good decision. Make sure you also have a sense of humor. I think sometimes that is, that's lost, but all good leaders I've known, I've got a great sense of humor. They can take self-criticism. They can kind of laugh about their own shortcomings. So, yeah, these are these are good stuff, but listen first and then make the decisions you need to make.

Starting point is 00:48:13 Great question, Dave. I remember, I believe he's on here. He's listening. I don't think he's watching. As Rex Caswell, my first ever VP, he gave me advice when I was brand new. I'd finished playing football after college and I had no idea what I was doing. And luckily, he took a chance on me and I'll forever be grateful. And he said, keep a notebook and study the leaders within the business and write down,

Starting point is 00:48:36 I have two columns on one column, write down, all the things that were effective for you, that made you better. And then also write down on the right-hand column, all the things that were not effective, that were not useful, that weren't good. And always hold on to that notebook and never forget what it's like to be in the position of an individual contributor and regularly update that. Now it's shifted to a Google Doc, but I think that's a good practice and just the act of always documenting what excellent looks like in your mind, coupled with, I think,

Starting point is 00:49:08 think what I may call like an interview your heroes type exercise, which is regularly interview people who have sustained excellence. You might have an understanding of why I love doing this podcast. That's how I do it for myself. But others can do it as well. Don't have to be recorded. That process can then you can be documenting what looks good, what doesn't as well as regularly asking questions from those who have come before you, I think is helpful. Great advice. Yeah. I want to go. Let's go to John Perry, who John is a high school. football coach. We've communicated via Twitter a little bit, and I'm excited, John. I have unmuted you. I believe you're on video. Ask away. Admiral, I want to thank you for doing what you're doing,

Starting point is 00:49:50 man, absolutely awesome, giving us a chance to listen and learn. Ryan stole my first question, the behavior traits of some of the most successful people that you've been around, which you've answered. My second question is this, from a leadership standpoint, could you give us two or three of your favorite books that you've ever read or made the most impact on you. Yeah. You know, one of the books that I really like, two of them. One is called The Speed of Trust, the Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey. And it's a business book, but the leadership implications of it are pretty strong.

Starting point is 00:50:28 And it is about how do you build trust? And, you know, the point that Covey makes in this book is that it takes two things. to build trust. One, you have to have a personal relationship. You've got to develop a relationship with a person. But number two, you have to deliver on your promises. So, you know, you can have a brother-in-law and you say, hey, I really trust my brother-in-law. He's a good guy. But if every time you get involved in a business venture with him, he doesn't come through, then you no longer trust it. So you build trust based on a personal relationship and the ability of somebody to deliver on their promises, whatever those happen to be. So I think the overall book is really good.

Starting point is 00:51:06 The other one I would offer is called It's Your Ship. It's Your Ship. And it's written by a Navy captain about how he was one of the best leaders in the Navy. And Michael, and I'm sure I'm going to butcher his last name, Abrasimov, I think. And it is just a fabulous book. In fact, I liked it so much that I gave copies to all of my staff at the University of Texas and said, look, if you want to know how I think, and what I think is important, read this book because all the things that the captain brings out in the book are the sort of tools and traits and qualities that I like to think that

Starting point is 00:51:47 I had as a leader. Thank you much. You bet. Very good. Next up, let's go to Gary Blackard, Gary, unmuted you. You're ready to rock man. Go for it. Hey, thanks, Ryan. Admiral, first of all, again, thank you for your service. Absolutely phenomenal to be with you today. I want to go to topic of preparation. I want to get back to that a little bit. I'm the CEO for an addiction recovery organization. We have 266 locations around the United States. Because of the current pandemic, in the future, there's prediction, and it's based on previous data, there's prediction that addiction and substance abuse disorders will rise over the next 18 to 24 months. And as a result of that, I am in the midst of a preparation activity, a strategy to prepare

Starting point is 00:52:36 my organization to be ready for this surge, if you would. How would you, or how have you motivated your troops or how have you gotten your troops prepared for perhaps something, they're not, they know something is coming, but they're not exactly aware of it. What's the best motivation that you've done as a leader? Yeah, you got to get them involved. So, you know, whenever we're looking at building a strategy. So when I took over U.S. Special Operations Command, in my mind, I had a vision of where I wanted to go. But what I ended up doing was I took a number of the thought leaders from across the command, some of the junior enlisted guys, some of the more senior guys, and everybody in between. And I brought them into the room and I said, okay, look, here's what I think we need to do or here's what we need to be prepared for. I want you guys to come together and build a strategy for me. Now, one, that gives them buy-in at all levels of your chain of command, so to speak, because, you know, the young private or the young petty officer had an opportunity to be part of the grand plan. And so once you get that plan, of course, then you're in a position to say, hey, this is great. I'll take parts of this and parts of this.

Starting point is 00:53:54 And you can, of course, use your vision to help craft that plan. But by giving them some ownership of the plan, let me tell you, when you roll it out, whatever it happens to be, then you're going to find you. universal buy them. They will be a little bit of your, you know, your disciples on the ground saying, hey, you know, this is what we're doing. This is where we think addiction is going to be in five years, 10 years. This is how we're going to scale it, have to scale up the company in order to address it. And oh, by the way, I had a role in kind of looking at that. It wasn't just the CEO. It was us in the organization being part of it. That's great. I love it. I want to do one more. This is Ed, Arnston. He is currently serving.

Starting point is 00:54:34 and we've had great communication for some time now. Ed, I didn't give him a heads up. I was going to ask him to ask a question, but given that he is currently serving our country, there you are in uniform. I'd love for you to fire away and ask a question for Admiral McRaven. Sir, good morning. My question is about perhaps the greatest leadership challenge that you face

Starting point is 00:54:59 when you were a commander or a captain, you know, 05-06. And it could have been when you were, when you were relieved, sir. And just to talk a little bit about how you got through that, because that's not an easy, you know, one week, one month process. If you could just talk a little bit about that, sir, I would really appreciate it. Yeah, Ed, you know, at the end of the day, you've got to have a battle buddy. You know, the deal. You know, when you get, you know, kicked in the groin and you're doubled over from pain

Starting point is 00:55:33 for whatever the issue happens to be, you're really. do need somebody by your side, you know, and Ryan mentioned early on, Sergeant Major Chris Ferris, he was my command Sergeant Major, both of my time at J-Socke and then at Socom, I can't tell you the number of times that, you know, the Sergeant Major kind of pulled me aside in the office and said, hey, boss, it's going to be okay, you know, or, you know, it's time for you to buck up, you know, we need you to kind of be the leader that we need, you know. So having a battle buddy like that when, you know, because all leaders, as you know, every once in a while, we all stumble, we all have our weak moments.

Starting point is 00:56:07 And so, you know, if you're at home, that's great. And your spouse can help you or, you know, somebody can help you through those tough times. But when you're deployed, as you well know, you better have a friend. It doesn't have to be, you know, the sergeant major, but it can be, you know, a fellow officer or somebody that you trust that can help you through those rough moments. And, you know, in the course of my career, there were probably two or three times, you know, I thought about, you know, calling it a day. And each time, you know, my wife said kind of the same thing. you've never quit. Don't start now. When I was a one star, I almost decided that, you know, it was time to retire. I was having a bad day in Afghanistan. Things weren't going well. You know,

Starting point is 00:56:48 we'd lost some troops in combat. It was just, you know, the pressure of it. You just thought, man, you know, how long can I continue this? And she brought me back from the ledge. So you have to have that. I don't care how good leader you are. I don't care how tough you are. You know, as you well know, Ed, you know, when you get in front of the troops, I tell folks as a leader, you can't have a bad day. You are not allowed to get up in front of the troops as a leader and show weakness, you know, whine about something, look forlorned. That's not what the leaders need. That's not what the troops need in a leader. They need you to walk into the room with your head held high, knowing that you've got a plan, that you're calm under fire, that you're going to be courageous when you need to be courageous.

Starting point is 00:57:29 That's what they need and that's what you have to be. but none of us are that way all the time. And so when you go back to your B hut or you go back to wherever you're going to go every once in a while and you're having a rough day, you better have somebody you can call on to give you a hand. I want to end with one. Great, Ed. Thank you so much. And thank you for your service as well.

Starting point is 00:57:50 Yeah, thanks. I appreciate what you're doing. And I want to close with one question or one comment about a particular character or person you know that you've written about. Because there are going to be moments when all of us are what you deem sugar cookies. And you can describe what being a sugar cookie is. I've never actually been that exact thing, but I've had moments where obviously I've messed up or been down. And one of the one of the things that you talk about, though,

Starting point is 00:58:15 is is don't ever blame others or say that's not fair or life's not fair. It's all about how we choose to respond. And the story that you've written about is I may be mispronouncing its name. Is it Moki Martin? And his, his outlook. on life, considering all the things that he has gone through. Maybe you could close with the story of him and why we all as leaders should never have that life's not fair outlook. Yeah, thanks. A great way to end it. So when you go through seal training, you know, the instructors

Starting point is 00:58:50 are king and whatever they say, you got to do. And if they don't like you, you know, if you're a Lakers fan and they're a Celtics fan, if you went to Texas and they went to OU, no matter what it is, if they don't like you, they can just tell you to kind of hit it. You run fully clothed over the sand dunes. You jump in the Pacific Ocean. You come back. You roll around in the sand. You throw sand down your shorts, down your shirt.

Starting point is 00:59:11 You are completely covered in sand, and the effect is called a sugar cooking. Well, one of the instructors that used to harass me unmercifully was a Navy lieutenant named Moki Martin. And Moki Martin was a former enlisted, had become a warrant officer, and then what we call a limited duty officer. a just a remarkable seal Vietnam vet highly decorated in Vietnam just incredibly capable very professional he could do everything well but every time Moki would see me in seal training he'd point me out and yell Mr. Mack hit it gosh so when training was over interestingly enough he and I end up in the same team and we became very good friends and in the early 80s 1981 he was out riding his bicycle he was a hell of an athlete and he was prepping for a triathlon and

Starting point is 00:59:57 This was the beginning of the triathlon craids. And he's riding his bike in Coronado going from Coronado down to Imperial Beach. And he has a head-on bicycle accident, runs head-on to a guy, another guy in a bicycle. And the other guy gets up, kind of dust himself off. He's a little achy. And Mokie was paralyzed from the chest down and has been for the last 37 years. And never once in those 37 years, have I ever heard Mokie Martin say, why me? you know, never once as he said, you know, gee, life's not fair.

Starting point is 01:00:28 Because the lesson of the sugar cookie going through seal training was just that. It was a recognition that life's not fair. There were some guys who went through training and thought that if they finished first on the run, somebody ought to pat them on the back and tell them how great they were. If they finished first on the swim, somebody was going to applaud their efforts. And when that didn't happen, they didn't understand. But that was the lesson. Hey, life's not fair.

Starting point is 01:00:51 Get over it. And Moki Martin, to this day, he never. wine once, never said why me. He went on to be an accomplished painter. A fathered a child. And today, he supervises the UDT seal triathlon that they do every year in Coronado. I saw him about six, eight months ago. He's as effervescent and as charismatic and as fired up as ever. And it is just a wonderful story. Wow. Thank you so much. What a perfect way to close. This has been just incredible. What an hour. And thank you all for being here. both people listening to the recording of this as well as here live from all over the world.

Starting point is 01:01:28 I love this connection in the community we can build to try to get better together for an hour. It's just fantastic. And Admiral McRaven, you're the reason that it happened. So thank you so much for being here. Where would you send our viewers and listeners to learn more about you online? Yeah. I have no idea. Go to Amazon and just search McRaven and buy.

Starting point is 01:01:53 I'd say go to, you really don't actually. I was doing research. You have very little online presence, but go to Amazon. No Facebook, no Twitter, no. Yeah, I would honestly encourage you to get the books. There's multiple books, but get them and read them. They're very well done, as you can imagine, how well-spoken, Admiral Cravenous.

Starting point is 01:02:10 But once again, thank you so much for your service to our country, for those of us who are Americans. I'm indebted to you and thank you for all the work that you've done. And then for investing your time with, with us here today. This was just a fantastic. I was happy to do it. Right. Thanks very much. Love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. You're bad. Y'all take care out there.

Starting point is 01:02:30 All right. Thank you. See, everyone. Wow, what a moment. What an hour. Absolutely was blown away by Admiral McRaven's ability to tell stories and then tie them back to life lessons. That was just fantastic. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. A few of the key takeaways I wanted to highlight. Great leaders recognize.

Starting point is 01:02:53 it's never about them. It's about their team and accomplishing the mission. Then the difference between Saddam Hussein and Nelson Mandela, one got stronger the longer he was in captivity, the other crumbled. Think about that as you face adverse situations. And then, the night of the bin Laden raid, he had 10 other missions going on at the exact same time that blew me away

Starting point is 01:03:26 it's amazing to hear the magnitude of all that admiral McRaven had to do on a daily basis again I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did we did it live with a fantastic audience it really was cool to see the community come together I plan to do more of those in the future if you did get value out of this one I'd love it if you would tell a friend or two perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leaders Show and share why this one with the great Admiral McRaven could be helpful. Because you continue to do that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you soon. Can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 363: Admiral William McRaven - The Bin Laden Raid, Saving Captain Phillips, & Leadership Lessons For Life

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.