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00:01:34.640 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading

00:01:42.000 | your life, money, and travel.

00:01:43.760 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am excited you're joining me today for a

00:01:47.080 | conversation with Mike Hayes, who happens to have one of the most impressive

00:01:51.200 | resumes I have ever seen.

00:01:53.360 | He spent 20 years in the US Navy SEALs serving around the world, including the

00:01:58.440 | conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

00:02:02.760 | His last job in the Navy was the commanding officer of SEAL Team 2, overseeing a

00:02:08.360 | 2,000-person special operations task force in southeastern Afghanistan.

00:02:13.280 | Before that, he was a White House fellow and served as director of defense policy

00:02:18.600 | and strategy at the National Security Council.

00:02:21.520 | And after his military career, Mike spent four years at the investment firm

00:02:25.520 | Bridgewater before moving into the tech sector, where he's now the chief digital

00:02:30.000 | transformation officer at VMware.

00:02:32.160 | And just last year, he published his first book, Never Enough, which is about

00:02:37.280 | living a life of excellence, agility, and meaning.

00:02:40.360 | Oh, and if that's not enough, he's also fluent in German and Spanish.

00:02:44.960 | In our conversation, I want to unpack everything he's learned about leadership,

00:02:50.080 | decision-making, handling difficult situations, manufacturing discomfort, and

00:02:55.480 | what it takes to embrace the principles of excellence, agility, and meaning.

00:02:59.560 | I am so excited for this conversation, so let's jump in.

00:03:03.280 | Mike, thank you for being here.

00:03:06.520 | It's an honor to speak with you.

00:03:08.080 | Thank you for your service.

00:03:09.400 | Chris, the honor's mine.

00:03:10.720 | It's so awesome to be around people who have made this great nation greater.

00:03:14.440 | Thanks for having me here today.

00:03:15.640 | I'm just going to jump in.

00:03:17.440 | In the intro to your book, you laid out these three principles, excellence, agility,

00:03:21.400 | and meaning, and you say they cover the spectrum of what we need to aim for in

00:03:26.280 | everything we do.

00:03:27.320 | So first off, thanks for boiling the entire ocean of life down to three

00:03:31.480 | principles.

00:03:32.200 | But more importantly, what led you narrow the world of potential principles down to

00:03:37.600 | these three?

00:03:38.320 | Well, man alive, I think if you understand me, the famous words of a

00:03:42.240 | pictatist, the Stoic philosopher, he said, when somebody criticizes you, the only

00:03:46.600 | correct answer is to say, clearly you don't know me well enough, or if you knew

00:03:49.800 | me better, you would criticize me for my far greater faults.

00:03:53.040 | So anyways, the three things, excellence, agility, and meaning, I have to start

00:03:56.840 | with the last one.

00:03:57.520 | I've recently gone over the half century mark, and all that does is means that I've

00:04:01.160 | messed some things up in life and got wisdom from things that I could have done

00:04:03.920 | better.

00:04:04.280 | One thing I'm very confident in though, that is the world is about meaning.

00:04:08.280 | It's how do you find purpose?

00:04:09.640 | How do you have impact?

00:04:10.680 | How do you make a difference?

00:04:12.080 | I've been very, very fortunate in my life to be around a bunch of people who the

00:04:15.720 | world would deem and define as ultra successful.

00:04:18.200 | And from all of these conversations, I will tell you that every single person

00:04:22.560 | will, no matter how much money or how rich and famous they are, they will tell

00:04:26.440 | you that their life is the richest when they're giving back and they're making a

00:04:29.240 | difference for others.

00:04:30.120 | And the seals are in two white houses.

00:04:32.080 | I've been very privileged to be able to give back.

00:04:33.960 | I've been through some hard days also, many hard days, like every seal of my era

00:04:37.760 | has, but I have to start with the meaning aspect of that because everybody has to

00:04:42.760 | find their own reason for being here.

00:04:45.000 | That's number one.

00:04:45.640 | And then you say, how do you do that?

00:04:47.040 | So meaning is kind of the what, the how is really focusing on excellence and

00:04:51.240 | agility.

00:04:51.800 | The excellence, I've often said, we're only excellent if we know we're never

00:04:56.320 | excellent enough.

00:04:57.240 | And please don't mishear me.

00:04:59.280 | It's like the title of the book, Never Enough can get interpreted as not

00:05:02.440 | positive enough or not good enough.

00:05:04.400 | And no, no, no, no, no.

00:05:05.240 | It's about always striving to be a little bit better, but at the same time being

00:05:09.640 | satisfied with who we are.

00:05:11.040 | I know that sounds a little bit paradoxical, but really the point is

00:05:14.920 | excellence is about drive and determination to continue to get better.

00:05:19.040 | I spent a whole third of the book on that.

00:05:20.600 | The third one, I would say agility, look, that's about dropping into a situation

00:05:24.160 | and understanding that you need to be different things and have different tools

00:05:28.320 | in the toolkit and be able to approach life different ways in order to, to

00:05:32.720 | create that meaning and impact.

00:05:34.240 | So the first is the what and the other two are the how, Chris.

00:05:37.120 | That makes so much sense.

00:05:38.640 | I've been fortunate to read the book.

00:05:40.200 | Got it right here.

00:05:40.960 | Thank you for sending me a copy.

00:05:42.520 | What I will say is.

00:05:44.240 | Now that I've read it, I understand it, but I think some people might read the

00:05:49.560 | intro, read the beginning and think, wow, so many of these principles that you

00:05:52.680 | share involve these wild life and death situations, and they might not feel

00:05:58.000 | relatable.

00:05:58.680 | Do you think that those lessons can still be taken in and used when stakes aren't

00:06:03.600 | as high?

00:06:04.080 | A hundred percent.

00:06:05.720 | Yes.

00:06:06.000 | If there's any way to judge whether the book has been successful or not, it is

00:06:09.680 | the question of relatability, because look, we all choose different paths in

00:06:13.720 | life.

00:06:14.040 | I've gone to seals and worked in white houses, and now I'm a senior executive

00:06:17.720 | in a public company.

00:06:18.600 | And so that doesn't mean my path is the right path.

00:06:21.240 | Everybody's got different passions and abilities and interests.

00:06:24.320 | And if I wrote something that only pertained to people who have followed

00:06:28.080 | similar paths to mine, then I wouldn't be achieving the goal of the book, which

00:06:32.120 | is to try to make as positive of an impact in as many people as possible lives.

00:06:37.600 | So that's really what I've aspired to do.

00:06:39.440 | I think that no matter where you are, the principles that engender and cause the

00:06:44.680 | success in the seals or the white houses or wherever you are, are really the same

00:06:49.440 | thing.

00:06:49.600 | No matter what somebody chooses to do in life, whether you're being a better

00:06:53.160 | father or a husband or a better neighbor or a better person on your town board or

00:06:58.320 | a nonprofit board, like it just doesn't matter what path people choose.

00:07:02.240 | In fact, it's very important.

00:07:03.760 | And what I write about this is to celebrate that we all are motivated by

00:07:07.440 | different things.

00:07:08.200 | We all have different passions and interests and abilities, and people who

00:07:12.200 | choose different paths than us should be celebrated because that's what takes the

00:07:15.280 | world to go around.

00:07:16.120 | And so I've really aspired.

00:07:17.680 | I leave it to the readers.

00:07:18.640 | You can skim through the Amazon reviews, but I think you'd come to the conclusion

00:07:21.840 | that there's a lot of positivity around making the book relatable.

00:07:25.240 | So I do hope people find it that way.

00:07:26.640 | Before we jump in, maybe let's just take an example of your first life and death

00:07:31.960 | experience in Peru and what that taught you about doing the right thing and what

00:07:36.640 | people can take away from that.

00:07:37.600 | Absolutely.

00:07:38.560 | So, like I said, I'm, I'm 51 years old when I was 26 or so, 25, 1996.

00:07:44.200 | So I was 23 years old.

00:07:45.040 | I was leading a group of seals on my first overseas assignment in Peru.

00:07:50.160 | There were six or eight of us.

00:07:51.480 | And honestly, it was just an evening where six of my teammates had flown

00:07:55.040 | forward.

00:07:55.600 | They were out in a Quito's actually, which is an offshoot of the river Nanai,

00:07:59.400 | which feeds into the Amazon in the rainforest and myself and a friend of

00:08:03.440 | mine, Ken, we're just getting a meal together.

00:08:06.000 | And when we were driving back home, these two police cars pinned us in six

00:08:11.040 | guys jumped out heavily armed right away.

00:08:13.320 | And Ken and I were like, okay, these cops, they just have us mistaken for

00:08:16.720 | somebody else.

00:08:17.400 | But we were wrong.

00:08:18.960 | They were either heavy criminals or terrorists.

00:08:21.560 | We still, to this day, don't know which they were, but they drove us around.

00:08:24.520 | They threatened me with execution and torture and really bad things.

00:08:27.640 | And fortunately I'm fluent in Spanish and I was able to communicate and just

00:08:31.480 | say, Hey, look, we're just desk workers.

00:08:32.960 | We're economists.

00:08:33.760 | Your brain in these life and death situations becomes a supercomputer.

00:08:37.480 | Everything just slows down.

00:08:39.320 | And you're just thinking, okay, how do I maximize the probability of living

00:08:42.880 | through this situation?

00:08:43.960 | We weren't armed, et cetera.

00:08:46.080 | I could have jumped out of the car and saved my life.

00:08:48.120 | But I remember very vividly, Chris thinking, if I jump out of this car and

00:08:52.320 | save my life, they're probably going to shoot Ken.

00:08:54.600 | And I could never, ever live my life knowing that I caused harm to a teammate

00:08:59.040 | like that.

00:08:59.440 | So we stuck it out, ultimately lived through it.

00:09:01.880 | I learned a couple of things.

00:09:03.200 | Number one is when I was very near death, all I did was think about the time, my

00:09:06.960 | fiance, now wife of 25 years.

00:09:08.760 | And you just think about the people who you care about in life.

00:09:11.640 | And honestly, this will sound weird, but like death for yourself isn't that hard.

00:09:16.840 | I have had several near death experiences.

00:09:20.000 | And what I have found is that you think about the people who you are closest to.

00:09:24.040 | So number one is first and foremost, it's cliche for a reason, but live every day

00:09:27.760 | like it's your last.

00:09:28.560 | Leave nothing unsaid.

00:09:29.560 | Make sure you never miss an opportunity to tell people how important they are to

00:09:32.960 | you and to be the best person you can be.

00:09:35.520 | Quick to forgive, patience.

00:09:37.280 | Look, I'm imperfect like we all are, but aspire to be as least imperfect as we can

00:09:41.440 | be every day.

00:09:42.120 | That's one set of learnings.

00:09:43.640 | The other is more, I'll say tactical, if you will.

00:09:46.600 | Like in these situations, how do you very simply think, okay, what's the outcome

00:09:51.400 | that you want, what's the strategy that's going to get you there, and then how do

00:09:54.720 | you perform in the moment?

00:09:55.760 | And that's very simply what life as a SEAL is, and that was foreshadowing for

00:10:01.080 | decades of conflict.

00:10:02.240 | When things get really hard, how do you stay extremely calm and see the outcomes

00:10:08.080 | and say, what needs to happen here in this hard moment in order to maximize the

00:10:11.960 | safety and success of my teammates and myself?

00:10:15.040 | So lots of learning from a very hard situation at a young age, Chris.

00:10:19.080 | Wow.

00:10:19.580 | Is there any training you got for slowing down in those moments that you could

00:10:23.920 | share that might be helpful to people?

00:10:25.360 | I know some people get a little anxious when things are distraught.

00:10:29.480 | It takes practice.

00:10:30.440 | There's another question behind your question, which is people can hear me

00:10:33.480 | sometimes and think, wow, this guy's really got it together.

00:10:35.840 | He knows how the world works.

00:10:37.080 | I'd say look false.

00:10:38.360 | I'm figuring it out just like everybody else.

00:10:40.760 | But what I would say is that the nature versus nurture question, how much of

00:10:44.840 | ability is nature and just, hey, you were born with a certain ability, and

00:10:48.960 | how much of it is nurture, how much is trained and learned and improved.

00:10:52.160 | And look, I think that way more of life is the nurture, the training than the

00:10:56.680 | nature aspect, because it's just a matter of how good do you want to get at

00:11:00.240 | something and then what's the work that it takes to get there and are you willing

00:11:03.720 | to pay the cost of that work to get there?

00:11:05.560 | In SEAL training, my class started with 120 guys, 19 graduated.

00:11:10.280 | Now all 220 who came in the front door had the physical ability to be a SEAL.

00:11:15.160 | And the 19 who graduated also had the mental ability to be a SEAL.

00:11:18.760 | The mental aspect of these situations is really what determines the

00:11:22.800 | great outcomes and the success, Chris.

00:11:24.560 | What you need to do is put yourself in hard situations, ideally in training,

00:11:29.400 | and then afterward, don't spend time talking about what went well.

00:11:33.760 | Spend time talking about what didn't go well enough, because the next

00:11:37.640 | time you do something, inertia will keep that goodness remaining good.

00:11:42.000 | What you need to do is arrest or change the direction around the things

00:11:45.200 | that aren't going well enough.

00:11:46.400 | Let me use an example, a SEAL platoon in the States training

00:11:50.160 | to go overseas and deploy.

00:11:51.560 | It's not training if we're just go out every night and we succeed

00:11:54.760 | and do everything perfectly.

00:11:55.840 | As a commanding officer of a SEAL team, if I just see people succeeding

00:11:59.320 | night after night after night, I'll say, "Hey, your training's not hard enough."

00:12:02.480 | So that failure and the coming up short is where all the learning comes from.

00:12:07.320 | So then in that, and I'm sorry, this is a long answer, but I'm

00:12:10.040 | passionate about this topic, Chris.

00:12:11.840 | The learning comes from the after action review or the hot wash or the debrief,

00:12:16.920 | we call it, where we go around and say, "What could have been done better?"

00:12:20.160 | And what's really important, and I wrote about this in the book, is you

00:12:23.440 | don't teach people what to learn.

00:12:24.920 | You teach people how to learn, not what to think, how to think.

00:12:28.960 | The how is what's replicable.

00:12:31.240 | You know, when you're in a village in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan,

00:12:34.440 | which I and many SEALs have been in the dark of the night many, many times,

00:12:37.600 | you're never going to see the exact same situation twice.

00:12:40.800 | So to say that you came out of a building and turned left and say, "Oh,

00:12:44.720 | you should have turned right," and think that that's the debrief, false.

00:12:47.760 | What you want to do is get the logic underneath it and say, "Why did you turn

00:12:51.160 | left? What did you see?

00:12:52.120 | What was going through your head?"

00:12:53.360 | And unpack that because that lesson at that level, at that deeper why, will

00:12:59.160 | absolutely be used again on an operation in the future, and that's where you can

00:13:02.840 | say, "Hey, you know, you turned left and here's why, but did you think about the

00:13:06.480 | other side and maybe you should have thought about it a different way, or

00:13:09.320 | maybe I should have thought about it a different way?" And being in a culture

00:13:12.480 | where that behavior is celebrated as trying to make each other better, not

00:13:16.800 | tearing each other down, but making the team stronger is really the reason that

00:13:21.480 | all of the greatness happens.

00:13:22.920 | You're now working in a technology industry that I've spent a lot of time

00:13:27.360 | in. Have you used that same principle to the way you debrief situations there?

00:13:32.000 | And is there a similar example using what you learned in a different

00:13:35.880 | professional environment?

00:13:37.440 | Absolutely. I will say that the corporate environment, the delivery of the

00:13:41.640 | feedback has to be rangier, if you will.

00:13:44.240 | We've got a wider variety of backgrounds and people in the real world.

00:13:49.240 | And I don't mean that just from your classic dichotomies that we have in the

00:13:52.680 | world. The corporate environment, what we think about is how do we deliver the

00:13:57.560 | message so that it is the maximum probability of growth happens?

00:14:01.360 | And that really is one thing.

00:14:02.840 | It's do you care about the person you're giving the feedback to?

00:14:06.920 | All of us, whether it's you or me or anybody listening, if we get criticized,

00:14:10.960 | well, let me not even use the word criticized.

00:14:12.720 | If we get feedback, we have a really good radar and a detector to be able to tell

00:14:18.400 | whether the person delivering the feedback is coming from a space of make me

00:14:22.640 | better or tear me down.

00:14:24.120 | And we tend to respond really well when we genuinely feel like somebody is trying

00:14:28.040 | to make us better. We don't respond well when somebody is just trying to tear us

00:14:31.520 | down. So if you think about that, on how do you deliver feedback, it has to come

00:14:35.480 | from the space of caring and helping the team.

00:14:38.720 | And look, I haven't found many people in the corporate world who don't want to be

00:14:41.920 | better. Nobody wakes up and says, what can I screw up today as a society become a

00:14:45.640 | little bit better with a lifelong of learning?

00:14:48.000 | Absolutely. In the book, you talked about an experience where how to think

00:14:52.440 | actually was all that mattered.

00:14:54.280 | And you kind of had to, in a more professional environment, use only how to

00:14:59.720 | think because you didn't really have much context on what was happening.

00:15:02.360 | Is that fair?

00:15:03.600 | That's fair. I was privileged to be selected as a White House fellow.

00:15:07.240 | I served the last six months of the Bush administration and then served into the

00:15:12.160 | Obama administration and as the director for defense policy and strategy.

00:15:16.280 | So I reported to the National Security Advisor and I've either run or attended

00:15:20.360 | hundreds of meetings in the White House Situation Room.

00:15:22.440 | And I've seen the best our nation has, the brightest minds solving the hardest of

00:15:26.800 | problems. But, Chris, there's an inverse of that, which is also egos and desire for

00:15:31.640 | credit, lack of humility or having the meeting after the meeting, you know, those

00:15:35.640 | kinds of cultures getting in the way of progress.

00:15:38.080 | And so on day seven, I wrote about this in the book, a little bit of spoiler alert.

00:15:41.640 | But day seven or 10 or something like that in the White House, I had to unstick the

00:15:45.720 | START treaty that the interagency could not agree on.

00:15:48.520 | So Department of Defense and Department of State and Energy and the intelligence

00:15:52.200 | community, they all want a different language in our text for the treaty.

00:15:56.320 | And all I had to do was get everybody in the sit room and say, all right, we got to

00:15:59.440 | come to an agreement here. And that's the how that you just described.

00:16:02.880 | Like I stood in front of the room and I said, look, there's 15 minutes of Washington,

00:16:06.160 | D.C. standing in front of you running this meeting.

00:16:08.280 | And there's 150 plus years of Washington, D.C.

00:16:11.200 | experience in this room.

00:16:12.280 | And what I can tell you is that I'm really good at keeping these doors shut until we

00:16:16.160 | figure this out. And my other observation is that everybody in D.C.

00:16:19.960 | wants to play the my dad can beat up your dad game.

00:16:22.360 | Let's not agree at the table here.

00:16:23.720 | We go back to our home organizations.

00:16:25.440 | We tell our boss that nobody wants to agree with us and we think somebody else is

00:16:28.840 | going to sort out our problems.

00:16:30.000 | And so my response was simple.

00:16:32.960 | I said, hey, if you think your boss is smarter than you on this topic right now,

00:16:37.840 | please raise your hand.

00:16:39.360 | And of course, nobody raised their hand.

00:16:41.480 | A little bit of a logic trap there.

00:16:42.680 | Right, Chris? I said, OK, great.

00:16:44.080 | So we've got the smartest people in Washington, D.C.

00:16:46.040 | in this room to go solve this issue.

00:16:47.800 | It's our responsibility as a nation to go solve it.

00:16:50.560 | And so on, I don't know, day 20 or something, I was privileged to fly overseas with

00:16:55.160 | White House delegation and be part of the leadership negotiating across the table from

00:16:58.760 | the Russians in 2008.

00:17:00.640 | So the how they're like you said, matters way more than the what.

00:17:03.760 | Absolutely. You just talked about the Situation Room, and I think it's something that

00:17:08.040 | everyone has seen in a show, in a movie.

00:17:10.560 | Any fun tidbits of information you can share of what's it actually like to be in that

00:17:15.240 | room? Is it what we all expect from watching whatever TV show we've seen?

00:17:19.080 | On the one hand, the electronics and the communications is always state of the art.

00:17:24.720 | I haven't been in that room in a couple of years, but it's always getting better.

00:17:28.000 | And just even from when I was in there, I've let a couple of things in there where we

00:17:31.200 | had different places from around the globe plugged in.

00:17:34.040 | And you've got people on the nerve center, if you will, of the nation.

00:17:37.040 | And it's super cool. In fact, actually, here's a good way to say it.

00:17:39.760 | My swim buddy from SEAL training later became an astronaut, Chris Cassidy.

00:17:43.240 | He's one of my greatest friends on the planet.

00:17:44.880 | Chris flew the second to last shuttle mission and then also did two deployments to the

00:17:49.560 | International Space Station.

00:17:50.760 | When Chris went on his first shuttle mission, I flew down with my family to go watch it

00:17:54.920 | launch live. It was delayed a couple of times.

00:17:57.000 | And we couldn't stay down in Cape Canaveral any longer.

00:17:59.600 | I went back to D.C.

00:18:01.280 | His blast off was during the workday.

00:18:03.240 | There was not a meeting in the room.

00:18:04.520 | And I talked to the people on watch.

00:18:06.280 | We call it and I said, hey, can we just get the launch up on one of the screens?

00:18:09.480 | And they were like, absolutely, sir.

00:18:11.080 | Once the shuttle's up and in orbit, would you like us to patch a call into your friend,

00:18:14.680 | Chris? And I was just like, oh, my God, this is incredible.

00:18:18.920 | No way would I possibly do that.

00:18:20.760 | That'll be like some national story of a misappropriation or misuse of authority or

00:18:24.880 | abilities. But the ability to go from White House sit room to space shuttle with two SEAL

00:18:29.000 | training friends from age 21 would have been super cool.

00:18:31.840 | Wow, that's great.

00:18:33.440 | I want to go back to what you were talking about earlier, about trying to put yourself

00:18:38.760 | in training. Now, I would argue that maybe the SEALs Buds training is one of the

00:18:44.000 | hardest, if not the hardest training programs that exists on the Earth.

00:18:47.280 | How do you think mere mortals like me can, without enlisting in the SEALs, create some

00:18:52.800 | of that training and kind of bring on this practice you described as like manufacturing

00:18:57.400 | discomfort in their lives for people who've grown up in really hard situations?

00:19:01.520 | They know it for people who maybe have grown up a little bit more privileged.

00:19:04.720 | Maybe they haven't had that discomfort and want to, but maybe don't want to go run

00:19:09.600 | through Buds. I think it starts with being really clear what your goals are in life.

00:19:13.560 | You know, a lot of us just kind of tend to drift a little bit and say, I'm just going to

00:19:17.800 | go do these things to step back from time to time and say, why am I doing what I'm

00:19:22.200 | doing? And what is the impact that I want to have going back to that meaning

00:19:25.240 | conversation we had at the beginning?

00:19:26.760 | So then you say, OK, I want to achieve a certain thing.

00:19:30.440 | What's the work that it takes to go do that?

00:19:32.360 | And a lot of times we don't try the harder things because we have this subconscious

00:19:37.560 | like fear of failure or, hey, I might look bad if I try something really hard and fail.

00:19:42.240 | Chris, I think the reframing in the brain that has to happen and to some degree

00:19:46.160 | cultures in an organization has to say, if you fail and learn, you have just succeeded.

00:19:52.520 | If you fail and don't learn, you've totally failed.

00:19:54.680 | And so it's easy to celebrate what is clearly success.

00:19:58.200 | But do we celebrate failure and learning enough in society?

00:20:01.520 | That's where I think that we as humans who don't try the hard things tend to not

00:20:06.120 | recognize that if we try really hard things, the people who are around are probably

00:20:11.480 | going to celebrate the fact that we tried something really hard and we learned.

00:20:15.200 | If they don't, then we're around the wrong people.

00:20:18.320 | So thinking forward in a hard situation and saying, OK, really, no kidding.

00:20:23.280 | What are the people who actually matter to me going to think if I try this and it

00:20:27.280 | doesn't go well? Like, do spend that mental energy and you'll find out that, oh, my

00:20:31.840 | gosh, you know what? My family and friends are going to think less of me.

00:20:34.160 | Great. Let me go try to build a podcast with a million or 10 million followers or

00:20:38.640 | whatever it is that people choose to do.

00:20:40.520 | So that I think is really important is to be comfortable.

00:20:43.680 | I also wrote about the concepts of confidence and humility.

00:20:47.760 | A lot of people see those as a point on a single line when in reality you have

00:20:52.040 | confidence and humility are two different axes and you have to try to aspire to live

00:20:56.600 | in that highly confident and highly humble quadrant because those can simultaneously

00:21:01.760 | coexist. I believe ultimately, Chris, it's about not being worried about fear of

00:21:06.280 | failure and leaning into the harder path.

00:21:08.440 | On an episode recently, we were talking about health, completely different

00:21:12.520 | conversation, but Liz Moody, who I interviewed, said she liked manufacturing

00:21:17.160 | discomfort in her life.

00:21:18.240 | And so for her, every day before she gets out of the shower, she just throws it on

00:21:22.680 | the coldest it gets and stands there for 60 seconds because it makes her feel like

00:21:26.280 | she did something hard and she thinks that's a good skill to have.

00:21:29.280 | Is there anything you think in your experience that you could tell someone

00:21:34.000 | listening that they could try today or tomorrow in their life to manufacture just

00:21:39.160 | a little bit of discomfort, maybe that isn't a cold shower, to try to just build

00:21:43.080 | that tolerance for it?

00:21:44.560 | Awesome. Yes. And I've got a couple of things to throw at you.

00:21:47.040 | Some things are super simple.

00:21:48.520 | How long can you do a plank for?

00:21:50.680 | Just think whatever that number is.

00:21:52.200 | I don't care if it's one second or a minute or 10 minutes.

00:21:54.840 | Go do it for 10 percent longer or 5 percent longer than you think you can.

00:21:59.080 | And live in that struggle.

00:22:01.280 | It's funny because in SEAL training, one of the parts of the physical fitness test

00:22:05.360 | are how many pushups can you do in two minutes?

00:22:07.040 | And most SEALs do about 120 pushups in two minutes on average for these tests.

00:22:12.600 | The thing is, I see some people get to 120 and then be like, OK, I'm fine and

00:22:17.560 | kind of like mail it in.

00:22:18.720 | But I also see people get to 100 and struggle super hard.

00:22:22.360 | What I will tell you is that I learn more about the person in the way that they do

00:22:27.200 | their last pushup than you'd ever imagine.

00:22:30.120 | You know, whether your last pushup is your 80th or your 100th or your 120th or

00:22:34.720 | your first or your fifth, for that matter, think about the struggle when you can't

00:22:39.480 | do any more.

00:22:41.520 | Whatever that is, push harder.

00:22:43.800 | I often say like, you know, SEALs, when we give us a backpack, we'll fill it and

00:22:47.920 | then take 10 percent more than it's supposed to take.

00:22:49.880 | Fill your life up with 5 percent more weight than you can carry.

00:22:53.520 | So whether it's a plank and doing more minutes, meditate for 10 minutes.

00:22:57.240 | I find myself thinking 17 things at once.

00:22:59.800 | I've got my Headspace app like we all do or Calm.

00:23:02.880 | And for me to try to create the solace and the focus is super hard, super hard.

00:23:08.640 | That's my equivalent.

00:23:10.240 | How do you plank or you meditate or your thing?

00:23:12.840 | Pick something and do it beyond exhaustion.

00:23:15.240 | I like that. I have a Peloton bike and it's funny.

00:23:18.200 | I had this DIY version of it, which was like build your own bike, get an iPad,

00:23:22.880 | mount it, put some sensors.

00:23:24.120 | And then I got the real one.

00:23:25.400 | And the difference between the real one and not was very subtle.

00:23:28.520 | And it was just tracking how much you were doing on the bike in the app.

00:23:33.640 | And that subtle difference was what made me go and say, I can do a little bit more

00:23:38.280 | the next time. And I can't tell you the number of times that because of that

00:23:41.920 | one difference in feature that unfortunately costs like $1,000.

00:23:46.120 | I get to the end and I'm like, oh, I'm within spitting distance of what I did last time.

00:23:50.600 | And this is probably oversharing.

00:23:53.840 | But and then I get to the point that I'm like almost going to throw up to try to beat

00:23:57.320 | my last record, which I'm sure a health expert out there will say that's maybe not the

00:24:01.000 | best thing. But I like being in that discomfort.

00:24:03.640 | And that's the only thing in my life that really makes it forceful to do is trying to

00:24:08.840 | beat a record in some sort of physical activity.

00:24:11.040 | Chris, I love what you're saying.

00:24:13.080 | And let me bring this to life in a different way.

00:24:15.320 | In SEAL training, you heard me a couple of minutes ago, if I haven't lost you already in

00:24:19.120 | this, 120 people start, 19 finish.

00:24:21.600 | What we do in training is we stretch young trainees beyond what they perceive as their

00:24:26.720 | limit. And then we let them get comfortable again.

00:24:30.040 | And then the next day or the next hour, we stretch them even further and then we get

00:24:34.520 | them comfortable again. And we keep doing that over and over and over.

00:24:37.760 | And it sounds like an exercise in stretching your limits, in learning that the human can

00:24:42.520 | do more and more and more. That is true, but it's also not the biggest lesson from that.

00:24:47.720 | The biggest lesson from that is when you're repetitively stretched beyond what you

00:24:51.760 | perceive as your limits, what you realize is that they actually are not your limits.

00:24:56.800 | And so a common trait that SEALs have is this high confidence that I described before,

00:25:01.640 | which is every single SEAL has been in many situations where they think it's going to

00:25:06.640 | be beyond a limit and you realize it's not.

00:25:09.040 | And then what you do is you unlock the brain in a way that lets you realize there is no

00:25:14.800 | such thing as a limit in life unless you place that limit on yourself.

00:25:18.280 | So we go into situations actually literally unbound in our thinking.

00:25:24.040 | So I am quite comfortable right now, which is actually true almost every day.

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00:26:31.800 | show notes. Again, go to allthehacks.com/viore and get yourself some of the most

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00:27:57.360 | Is there maybe an activity or an exercise you put SEALs through in that training that

00:28:03.080 | someone could do at home or test out and try to build that themselves?

00:28:06.360 | It's the push-ups, sit-ups.

00:28:08.360 | It's what we described before, just pushing yourself beyond the limit.

00:28:11.760 | Sure, there's a lot of crazy things in SEAL training.

00:28:13.560 | You get pushed in the deep end of the pool, 14 feet deep.

00:28:15.800 | You have your ankles and your wrists tied, your wrists are behind the back and you've

00:28:19.280 | got to survive for an hour.

00:28:20.600 | There's a lot of stuff that don't try at home.

00:28:22.320 | But honestly, Chris, the great majority of SEAL training is no secret.

00:28:26.400 | It is like just as simple as a human and his or her body weight to take yourself beyond

00:28:33.440 | that limit. If you can't manufacture that on your own, then just get your favorite

00:28:37.240 | fitness app and whatever it says to do, do it.

00:28:39.400 | Don't hurt yourself, but take it to that point that you're describing.

00:28:43.280 | I like it. I think a lot of people in the workplace, and I've put myself in this

00:28:47.840 | situation many times, get in trouble for kind of not following the rules.

00:28:51.960 | But you talk a little bit about how to use your instincts and how to think about rules

00:28:56.920 | and making a practical sense of that hard choice where there's rules and you think

00:29:02.040 | there might be consequences, but you know what's right.

00:29:04.000 | How do you make those decisions and hone those instincts and feel free to give an

00:29:08.080 | example of it as well?

00:29:09.680 | Absolutely. So look, if the whole world were just rule followers, we'd never advance

00:29:14.280 | anything. You know, we would just all go follow the rules and we wouldn't have the

00:29:19.000 | innovation and the entrepreneurship that the world needs.

00:29:22.160 | That said, as a society, we are more productive when we together do harmonize and

00:29:28.680 | live with laws and customs that help us build each other up and help us respect the

00:29:33.760 | fact that we're all different. And so that's a balance that has to happen in the

00:29:37.640 | world. First of all, what's the intention?

00:29:39.600 | Is the intention good?

00:29:41.600 | And then what's the likely cost or harm of the action, the rule that you're going to

00:29:46.440 | break? And then you just think it's really not more complicated than a simple cost

00:29:51.080 | benefit analysis.

00:29:52.160 | Do the overall benefits outweigh the costs?

00:29:55.320 | If they do, go do the thing.

00:29:57.280 | Don't cross any red lines of morals and ethics in the law.

00:30:01.120 | As long as you're on the right side of morals and ethics in the law, go push, go

00:30:05.600 | push. Don't be afraid to push, make great things happen.

00:30:08.360 | It takes energy and momentum in new directions to try new things.

00:30:11.880 | How many of us in 2000 thought we'd need to walk around with one of these smartphones

00:30:16.160 | either, you know, pegged to our ear or being stared at 20 hours a day in our hands?

00:30:20.640 | We couldn't imagine a world with an ecosystem of the application development that we

00:30:25.360 | hold in the power of our hands.

00:30:26.680 | Now, what's that going to be in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years?

00:30:29.800 | We don't know right now, but the only way we're going to figure that out is by people

00:30:33.880 | continuing to have vision and then go after the things that pursue the dreams and the

00:30:37.920 | visions that they have.

00:30:39.400 | It takes a combination of smart rule breaking is the way I would phrase it.

00:30:43.840 | As a manager, I am really frustrated when people just completely ignore what, you

00:30:50.960 | know, you ask them to do.

00:30:52.120 | But I'm actually not frustrated when they come back and say, "Hey, actually, I heard

00:30:55.880 | what you said, but this insight led me to think that this might be a better path."

00:31:00.800 | Maybe it's good to flag that as early as is possible, but I do think that what you

00:31:05.160 | said, I've seen play out in the workplace well, but it's when you don't have that

00:31:09.400 | intention behind your deviation from the task that I think things really fall apart.

00:31:13.960 | Totally agree with you.

00:31:16.160 | I've never met somebody who wakes up and says, "I'm going to go screw something up at

00:31:19.320 | work today." You know, it's really ultimately about that drive and that determination to

00:31:23.880 | go make positive change.

00:31:25.640 | So I net out the same as you do.

00:31:28.160 | That's great. You've said that asking for help is actually a sign of strength, not

00:31:32.120 | weakness. I think that's, you know, a big shift in the military in recent years.

00:31:36.880 | I know maybe 20, 30 years ago, that wouldn't have been the way people think about it.

00:31:40.960 | You think that's a good shift?

00:31:43.360 | How did that come about and how can we use that in our own lives?

00:31:46.400 | Yeah, look, it's a necessary shift.

00:31:48.840 | I, like every SEAL of my era, have buried way too many friends.

00:31:51.760 | I've got about 70 friends killed in action or perished during the last decades of

00:31:55.600 | conflict. And ultimately, that's why I wrote my book.

00:31:57.600 | I forgot to mention in the beginning that I donate every penny from Never Enough to a

00:32:02.440 | 501(c)(3) I started that pays off mortgages for Gold Star families.

00:32:05.800 | And I think the most important thing to recognize is that when you're doing things for

00:32:09.680 | others and you're connecting back to that mission and the meaning and the purpose, then

00:32:13.400 | it makes it very, very much easier.

00:32:15.720 | But you have to start with the outcome based thinking.

00:32:18.000 | At the end of a six month deployment overseas, you get somebody who says, "Hey, I

00:32:21.920 | wrote 3,000 intelligence reports." And I'm like, "That's an output." What did those

00:32:27.160 | intelligence reports do?

00:32:28.640 | What did they lead to?

00:32:30.200 | Or you get your logistics teams that say, "Hey, we spent 1.1 million dollars on this

00:32:36.200 | thing." And like, "OK, great, but what did we get for that 1.1 million dollars?" The

00:32:40.520 | number of missions that you go on are irrelevant.

00:32:44.120 | What's relevant is the outcomes from those missions.

00:32:47.120 | And so, Chris, I think that what we need to think about in life, and this is what I

00:32:50.320 | think about in business, is we have a certain amount of investment dollars that we can

00:32:55.000 | make choices with on how we spend them within our firm.

00:32:57.720 | Where do we invest and where do we work to take the business?

00:33:00.400 | Do we invest in new capability?

00:33:02.240 | Do we try to open new markets?

00:33:04.200 | What do we do? How do we think about that?

00:33:05.680 | You have to think about what's the outcome that you're after and then what's the

00:33:10.280 | efficiency, the most efficient way to go achieve the outcome.

00:33:13.280 | So you have to look at like a return on invested capital or an IRR, internal rate of

00:33:19.160 | return. Not to sound too mathy, but if I have a dollar and I can turn it into a dollar

00:33:24.080 | ten doing one thing and a dollar eleven doing another thing, go do the thing that's

00:33:28.480 | going to make you a dollar eleven.

00:33:29.680 | Think about the path of least resistance there.

00:33:32.160 | I want the person that didn't write 3,000 intelligence reports.

00:33:35.680 | I want the person that wrote one and that one intelligence report led to the biggest

00:33:41.320 | success ever. I joke around.

00:33:42.840 | The L in SEAL stands for lazy.

00:33:44.760 | We find the easiest path to the goal because then after that, we have more time, more

00:33:51.040 | effort and energy so we can go either do more missions or rest more for the next

00:33:55.360 | mission and whatever's around the corner.

00:33:56.880 | But in all cases, we're always better off being as efficient as we humanly can.

00:34:00.880 | And that's why bringing it back to the business world, when we're in a meeting, the

00:34:05.680 | first thing that I do is say, what do we want out of this meeting?

00:34:08.560 | We're only doing one of a couple of elemental verbs in a meeting.

00:34:12.320 | We're either deciding something, we're teaching about something, we're informing and

00:34:17.360 | giving people information, or we're brainstorming a problem and trying to think about

00:34:21.640 | creatively come up with a set of solutions.

00:34:23.880 | Maybe there's another verb or two, but those four verbs are basically the reason to

00:34:28.200 | have a meeting. If you are not doing that, then what are you doing and why?

00:34:32.480 | If we're just hearing people talk to hear people talk, we are wasting the company's

00:34:37.360 | resources because we can be letting people go do work on different things.

00:34:41.680 | So at the end of the meeting, the acid test for me, Chris, is to ask who is going to go

00:34:46.840 | do what differently after the meeting?

00:34:48.880 | If we leave a meeting and nobody can answer that question, we didn't just need to have

00:34:52.640 | that meeting. It's funny, I look back at all the episodes I've done.

00:34:55.800 | I have a lot of personal beliefs about meetings.

00:34:57.600 | And David Marquet is another former submarine commander who wrote a book.

00:35:01.720 | We talked about meetings.

00:35:02.920 | And now I think my answer is if you're running a meeting in your company, the best

00:35:07.280 | thing you can do is find anyone that's been in the military and have them run the

00:35:10.080 | meeting, because I feel like the best meeting advice I've gotten is from people in the

00:35:15.160 | military. So I think that's great advice.

00:35:17.160 | We really waste a lot of times with meetings.

00:35:19.360 | Can I say make one more point on this, which is a culture point, Chris, which is if we're

00:35:24.120 | running a meeting, say you and I are in a meeting with 10 other people and somebody

00:35:27.680 | starts talking and creating an avenue in the meeting that is not productive to the main

00:35:33.320 | goal of the meeting, what do you do?

00:35:34.600 | Do you cut the person off or do you let them keep going?

00:35:38.080 | The polite thing, the easy thing is let them keep going and be like, OK, they'll be done

00:35:41.720 | in four minutes. It'll be done in six minutes.

00:35:44.000 | Six minutes is 10 percent of a 60 minute meeting.

00:35:46.320 | Like, do you want to lose 10 percent of a meeting letting somebody ramble?

00:35:49.640 | No. Like you want to cut that person off politely, of course, but that takes a certain

00:35:54.960 | culture where that's OK.

00:35:57.160 | Do you have an example of how you would cut someone off politely in a meeting?

00:35:59.920 | I think anyone listening might have that question.

00:36:01.760 | Well, yeah, when somebody gets the real answer, let me know.

00:36:06.960 | I've been trying to politely cut people off for years and often people, there's no way

00:36:10.560 | around it. People are going to feel slightly overcorrected when you do that.

00:36:14.120 | Just tackle everything head on.

00:36:15.640 | You talked a minute ago about, in essence, passive aggressive versus direct.

00:36:20.480 | There's no room for passive aggressivity.

00:36:22.720 | Just say what you're thinking, but do it in a respectful way.

00:36:26.000 | I talked in Washington, D.C., when we were doing the START treaty.

00:36:29.200 | You get all these people who, after the meeting, start wanting to grab another person

00:36:33.480 | and do the whisper campaign.

00:36:35.240 | And, oh, what about this? What about that?

00:36:36.560 | No, if we have something to say, let's do it at the table and out in the open because

00:36:40.920 | it's just way more efficient.

00:36:42.320 | It's way more productive.

00:36:43.720 | I think it takes a little bit of practice.

00:36:45.160 | It's making people feel safe.

00:36:46.600 | It's making people feel like if we do cut them off, they know it's because we're trying

00:36:50.520 | to be the best group that we can be and have the best meeting we can.

00:36:53.200 | My mom's a psychologist, social worker, and used the famous sandwich technique.

00:36:57.520 | Compliment, cut off, and then compliment.

00:36:59.720 | The best answer I have is from Andy Ratcliffe, who I've had on the podcast.

00:37:03.200 | He's run the company I work at now because I got into a lot of these situations myself

00:37:07.720 | and people would say, "Ah, Chris is like trying to derail this thing.

00:37:10.560 | It's kind of frustrating."

00:37:11.440 | And his advice to me was, "You need to make sure you state your intentions more."

00:37:15.480 | So instead of interrupting someone and saying, "Hey, you're going on a little long.

00:37:19.760 | We got a purpose here.

00:37:21.280 | Let's move on."

00:37:22.000 | You say, "Hey, I just want to interrupt quick.

00:37:24.200 | I really want to make sure that this meeting can be the most productive use of

00:37:28.080 | everyone's time.

00:37:28.840 | We came here for this reason.

00:37:30.640 | And so maybe we should get back on topic."

00:37:32.600 | For me, it's shown up a lot where I say, "Look, I really want to see us go big.

00:37:37.200 | So when I criticize this thing, it's not because I think it's bad.

00:37:40.320 | It's because I think we can do better."

00:37:41.440 | So I didn't do that for a lot of time in my role in a few jobs.

00:37:45.600 | And it caused a lot of friction with people because they thought, "Oh, he just

00:37:50.440 | doesn't care.

00:37:51.000 | He's just on his own mission.

00:37:52.560 | He has his own accord."

00:37:53.560 | And the reality was I needed to make sure people knew that I'm only here to build the

00:37:57.520 | best thing we can at this company.

00:37:58.760 | That's all I care about.

00:38:00.080 | And stating that puts everything else you say in context and saves a lot of back

00:38:05.640 | channel criticism of you.

00:38:07.240 | Love that.

00:38:08.960 | Presume positive intent is what you're saying.

00:38:10.640 | Super quick story.

00:38:11.640 | One of my classmates from grad school is now a leadership professor at Harvard

00:38:14.920 | Business School.

00:38:15.520 | I go back and guest in his class every year, have for the last six or seven years

00:38:20.760 | for there's a specific case that I help with.

00:38:22.360 | And it's a ton of fun.

00:38:23.680 | I see one of my best friends on the planet be an incredible professor and see him in

00:38:27.240 | action.

00:38:27.640 | And it's just really special.

00:38:28.640 | But there was one year where this grad school student was sitting in the back of

00:38:32.000 | the room and asked the proverbial three minute wind up of a question.

00:38:35.720 | You all know the type.

00:38:37.000 | It's the, I want to tell you how smart I am, but really kind of pretend it's a

00:38:40.760 | question.

00:38:41.320 | And, and so the tail end of it was some thinly veiled question.

00:38:46.760 | And I said, you know, rather than me answering that, let me take this a

00:38:49.480 | different direction.

00:38:50.200 | I said, honestly, I experienced you as a very bad question asker.

00:38:54.760 | And so let me tell you why it wasn't succinct enough.

00:38:59.760 | It wasn't, you know, X, Y, Z gave constructive feedback.

00:39:01.760 | And I said, look, right now you're probably not feeling great.

00:39:04.400 | You're probably shrinking in your chair a little bit, or you're frustrated with me

00:39:07.600 | or some combination of negative emotions.

00:39:10.000 | But let me ask you this, would you rather me share this feedback with you?

00:39:15.200 | And then have you ask yourself like, Hey, maybe there's some something in there

00:39:18.360 | where I can learn and grow from, or would you rather have me not say what I just

00:39:21.840 | said and let you keep going through life as a terrible question asker?

00:39:25.120 | Theoretically, it's really easy to understand.

00:39:28.080 | No, I want to be a great question asker.

00:39:29.600 | Okay, great.

00:39:30.200 | But how do you feel right now?

00:39:31.280 | And so you have to get over that negative feeling when somebody is

00:39:34.040 | trying to help build you up.

00:39:36.080 | Now you could argue that it's maybe publicly in 110 person classroom or

00:39:39.320 | whatever is not the place to do that.

00:39:40.560 | But I was making a point for a reason.

00:39:43.240 | I was trying to make a metaphorical point to 110 students in the classroom is go

00:39:47.280 | through life, presuming positive intent from others, but when something goes

00:39:51.040 | sideways, like no matter if you're one or 99% wrong or 100% wrong, start with

00:39:56.600 | yourself and say, what could I have done better?

00:39:58.600 | And then you won't miss that opportunity for growth and the principle of

00:40:01.320 | excellence, which we talked about at the beginning.

00:40:03.800 | Yeah.

00:40:04.800 | I mean, you could have followed up with said, and I could have said this to you

00:40:07.720 | privately.

00:40:08.240 | You could have learned well, but aren't you glad that 109 other people get to

00:40:11.440 | also learn that lesson?

00:40:12.400 | Oh, dude, I wish I would have thought of that in the moment.

00:40:14.120 | This is a great opportunity to use your own feedback.

00:40:16.280 | Earlier, I asked a question about asking for help.

00:40:18.520 | We took a little bit of a detour.

00:40:20.000 | So you got to work a little bit, Mike, on your skills, listening to the question

00:40:24.600 | being asked, but I was trying to get at whether asking for help is a sign of

00:40:29.760 | strength or weakness.

00:40:30.840 | It seems like something that shifted in the military.

00:40:33.240 | Can you talk about your perspective and, and why asking for help might be

00:40:37.360 | something we should do more of?

00:40:38.520 | Yeah.

00:40:39.080 | First of all, your, your feedback is spot on.

00:40:41.920 | You're absolutely correct.

00:40:43.040 | And I already was like, gosh, how did I miss answering that?

00:40:45.440 | You totally asked it and I didn't answer it.

00:40:47.080 | My brain was in a million different spots and I simply wasn't good enough to

00:40:50.240 | remember what you said and to answer your question directly.

00:40:52.520 | So that's my response.

00:40:54.080 | Now, hopefully in there, people can hear the modeling for like the giving and

00:40:58.280 | receiving and feedback back and forth.

00:41:00.280 | There's a meta point in there, but to answer directly now, it is a very serious

00:41:04.440 | topic.

00:41:04.920 | I grew up in the SEALs in an era where you only showed strength or perceived

00:41:09.720 | strength.

00:41:10.280 | You did not show weakness and that is not healthy.

00:41:13.240 | After the stress of decades plus of combat to buried about 70 different

00:41:18.800 | friends over time and everybody who's served knows somebody who has paid the

00:41:23.560 | ultimate sacrifice.

00:41:24.720 | So the question right now is when somebody needs something, how do you make

00:41:30.600 | them feel when they ask, do you make them feel taller or smaller?

00:41:34.520 | We have to build up people who ask for help.

00:41:37.000 | If you just look at the number of people now who have died by suicide, it has

00:41:41.560 | risen astronomically on Thursday, a couple of days ago before recording five

00:41:45.240 | days before right now, I had a really good friend who I looked up to who was a

00:41:49.360 | BUD/S instructor, a SEAL instructor of mine who was an incredible human being.

00:41:54.960 | I deployed with him to Iraq.

00:41:56.680 | We did a bunch of missions together.

00:41:58.840 | He took his own life and it really hit me hard.

00:42:01.200 | I don't know the details.

00:42:02.320 | He's a friend who I haven't talked to in a couple of years and unfortunately

00:42:06.320 | stories like this are way too common and I beat myself up over the weekend and

00:42:10.280 | saying, gosh, I haven't reached out to him lately.

00:42:12.080 | Did I come up short?

00:42:13.160 | You know, and I had a tough weekend.

00:42:14.960 | I'll just say that.

00:42:16.040 | I think, why was my friend not able to ask for help?

00:42:19.480 | I don't know the answer to that question.

00:42:20.960 | I really don't.

00:42:21.720 | But I also will say the flip side of this is that to let asking the hard

00:42:27.480 | questions be okay, I'm going to ask the hard intrusive questions from now on.

00:42:31.880 | I've said this because I've learned from people that I haven't helped well

00:42:35.720 | enough and now I go through life pretty comfortable saying, hey, have you ever

00:42:41.000 | considered harm to self or how are you really doing and most Americans or

00:42:45.840 | people when they say, how are you doing?

00:42:47.160 | We don't really want the answer.

00:42:48.240 | That's just a little quick little, hey, how's it going?

00:42:50.280 | How are you doing?

00:42:50.880 | Okay, great.

00:42:51.440 | You're good.

00:42:51.880 | Okay, good.

00:42:52.560 | No, no, no.

00:42:53.240 | Like when, when we're really intrusive in people's lives, we are actually

00:42:57.400 | listening to what we can do to make sure that their life is as good as it can be.

00:43:02.040 | And so we have to be, celebrate being intrusive in people's lives as positive.

00:43:07.120 | So asking for help on one side is a positive thing and being intrusive in

00:43:13.240 | people's lives is positive 99 times out of a hundred when I say to a friend of

00:43:17.040 | mine, have you ever considered harm to self?

00:43:18.800 | It can be awkward.

00:43:20.080 | It's like, no, man, what are you asking me that for a defensive or whatever.

00:43:23.600 | But for the one time out of a hundred, when the person says, yes, I'll take the

00:43:28.160 | 99 awkwards for the one yes, because that is a way to make sure that you get

00:43:33.120 | people the help that they need.

00:43:34.320 | It has to be okay to ask for help.

00:43:36.120 | I'm droning on and trying to, because I'm emphasizing the fact that the culture

00:43:40.240 | really had to change and it has changed, but it's still not where it needs to be,

00:43:44.560 | not just in the seals, but in the military writ large and in society writ large.

00:43:48.040 | Life is hard in this pandemic.

00:43:49.800 | How do we make sure that people are as strong as they can?

00:43:53.040 | One more thing I'll say on this is that a trick I've learned in this is to not

00:43:59.120 | think about absolutes, think about relative in a team.

00:44:02.720 | And I, when I say team, a team is family.

00:44:04.800 | It's your neighbors.

00:44:05.400 | It's your friends.

00:44:05.960 | It's your colleagues.

00:44:06.680 | It's people in your civic organizations.

00:44:08.960 | In a team, there are people who are always relatively up and relatively down.

00:44:13.320 | So the people who are relatively up have to help the people who are relatively

00:44:17.640 | down because tomorrow the roles will be reversed.

00:44:20.800 | And so if the people who are always relatively up are helping the people

00:44:24.200 | who are relatively down, that's how you make a team as strong as you humanly can.

00:44:29.160 | Well, first off, I'm really sorry for your loss.

00:44:32.440 | And I appreciate you being open and sharing like that on the show.

00:44:37.520 | What's a way to ask those questions at work to find out where people are

00:44:40.840 | down and try to help build them up?

00:44:43.080 | Are there questions you ask or things you bring to a meeting to try to bring

00:44:47.480 | people together towards that medium?

00:44:49.280 | If you're having a day where you're on the top.

00:44:51.680 | It's creating comfort.

00:44:53.680 | You're absolutely.

00:44:54.520 | And so this is a situation where it's not in the 110 person

00:44:57.480 | classroom or conference room.

00:44:58.680 | This is truly a one-on-one conversation.

00:45:01.320 | And so look, I'm in an organization of 40,000 people.

00:45:04.320 | Now I run global operations for VMware, a massively awesome

00:45:08.160 | software company based in Palo Alto.

00:45:09.800 | And look, I can't help 40,000 people.

00:45:12.480 | Right.

00:45:13.160 | And so how do I help as many people as I can?

00:45:16.240 | Well, it's simple.

00:45:17.320 | How do I take my seven or eight direct reports and do that with those seven

00:45:21.520 | and eight people, and then help make sure that they're doing it with their seven

00:45:24.880 | or eight direct reports, and then that it cascades through an organization.

00:45:28.320 | So leadership has to model the behaviors that we want.

00:45:32.920 | Now it doesn't have to be prescriptive.

00:45:34.480 | You don't always have to do everything my way.

00:45:36.160 | That'll be unhealthy for an organization, but go achieve that goal.

00:45:39.600 | However, it makes the most sense, but really understand what is

00:45:43.680 | making someone either motivated or demotivated and help them have more

00:45:48.000 | of the good and less of the bad.

00:45:49.200 | One tactic I know you mentioned in the book was going to meet just one-on-one

00:45:55.040 | people, trying to have a conversation with people you don't know at work.

00:45:58.080 | Can you talk a little bit about why you started doing that and what it's brought

00:46:01.520 | to organizations you've been a part of?

00:46:03.280 | Yes, specifically when I was in the White House, both

00:46:07.400 | administrations, Bush and Obama.

00:46:08.640 | People work super hard in the White House.

00:46:11.080 | We can always make fun of whatever party's in or out of favor.

00:46:14.040 | There's a lot of really great public servants who are working long, long days

00:46:17.400 | to try to make this great nation greater.

00:46:19.560 | What I have found is that it's hard to slow down when you're

00:46:22.280 | in those very visible roles.

00:46:24.040 | And I made a point to just go get a lunch with somebody three times a week.

00:46:29.440 | And it's a costly hour in the middle of the day.

00:46:32.040 | And inevitably, Chris, when I had to peel myself away from my desk and I have a

00:46:35.720 | million things that are needing to be done, I'd be scratching my head saying,

00:46:39.640 | gosh, why did I just do this?

00:46:41.040 | Honestly, 15 minutes into that lunch, I was not thinking about

00:46:44.600 | all the things I needed to do.

00:46:45.760 | I was locked in with somebody else.

00:46:47.480 | And usually from either another part of the White House or an organization that

00:46:51.600 | had something to do loosely with whatever professional goals that I

00:46:55.280 | and we were trying to achieve.

00:46:57.200 | And what you realize is at the end of the day, when you go home at 10 o'clock,

00:47:00.000 | you're not remembering that hour that you didn't spend at your

00:47:03.320 | desk in the middle of the day.

00:47:04.600 | But what you do remember is the relationship and the person and what you

00:47:08.760 | learned from the hour in that lunch.

00:47:10.600 | And then not ironically, over time, you develop an ecosystem of people that you

00:47:16.880 | can call on and help make great things happen.

00:47:19.160 | A lot of times people ask me how to think about networking.

00:47:22.600 | My advice is that a network is not a group of people who you get something from.

00:47:28.720 | A network is a group of people who you give something to.

00:47:31.840 | Then in the few times in life when we really do critically need help, that

00:47:36.760 | group of people that we've invested in, not surprisingly, is the group where we

00:47:40.840 | get energy back from and we get help back from.

00:47:43.320 | So a network is a group of people we invest in.

00:47:45.640 | By investing in other people and understanding what is this colleague in

00:47:49.040 | the other wing of the White House or the other part of my company organization

00:47:52.720 | structure trying to achieve, well, I might be able to connect dots that that

00:47:56.880 | person may not be able to connect him or herself.

00:48:00.000 | And so if I can create value for somebody else in very easy ways by

00:48:03.560 | connecting dots, then you're making your organization and then frankly, the

00:48:08.320 | nation, if you extract it out, a lot stronger.

00:48:10.520 | I love that lesson.

00:48:12.600 | I've used it a lot in a virtual world.

00:48:14.640 | I think it's been harder, but one tactic I'll share is that it can be so hard

00:48:19.600 | when you're on your computer working and then you have a meeting and you

00:48:22.680 | mentioned, "Gosh, in the moment, I just have all this stuff to do.

00:48:25.240 | I have to step away."

00:48:26.120 | Well, when you're doing a video call, sometimes it's really hard to step away.

00:48:29.920 | Right?

00:48:30.080 | You've got your other tab open.

00:48:31.520 | So what I try to do myself is I try to force myself to put the meeting in full

00:48:36.800 | screen and slide back from my desk a little bit.

00:48:40.000 | So the keyboard's not quite in reach and I'm not distracted.

00:48:43.000 | And I try to treat it more like that.

00:48:44.720 | It's difficult.

00:48:45.960 | I've actually started pushing away the virtual meeting and just saying, "Can

00:48:49.520 | we just do a phone call and go on a walk?"

00:48:50.880 | Because when I'm walking, I'm not distracted by work and I'm more engaged

00:48:55.120 | in the conversation and it seems counterintuitive to me to think, "Wow,

00:48:59.240 | if I don't see you, I might be more engaged."

00:49:01.440 | But when I see you, I see the alert popping up on my email.

00:49:04.760 | I see the chat popping up on Slack or something.

00:49:07.080 | I've been struggling with the lack of in-person meetings.

00:49:10.000 | And I do genuinely believe those in-person meetings can be more valuable

00:49:13.840 | than their virtual counterparts.

00:49:15.160 | But I think there are a few tactics you can use to try to make those

00:49:17.680 | virtual conversations better.

00:49:18.800 | Oh, man, I still agree.

00:49:20.440 | And I'm not good enough at it myself.

00:49:22.560 | I get distracted too easily.

00:49:23.800 | There were two tricks that somebody told me and I did a little bit of live TV.

00:49:27.200 | You know, I was on a bunch of different channels when my book first

00:49:29.600 | came out about a year ago.

00:49:30.600 | And I just took a little yellow sticky and I drew an arrow to right where I

00:49:36.040 | needed to look for the, where the pinhole is on your camera, whatever

00:49:39.000 | camera you use, your eye then goes like right into the camera.

00:49:42.560 | That way you're not checking your stock prices or Instagram or

00:49:45.520 | whatever the case may be.

00:49:47.160 | And then Chris, I've never said this to anybody, but I've got this

00:49:50.080 | little sticky that says, "Be present in the meeting."

00:49:52.320 | And I stick this right on my desk here.

00:49:54.120 | So as I sometimes start to reach for something else, I'm like, "No,

00:49:57.080 | wait a minute, lock in, lock in."

00:49:58.520 | Because we're recording a conversation where I feel like

00:50:01.880 | presence is the most important thing.

00:50:03.320 | If I were writing my email, this would be a terrible interview, I assume.

00:50:06.040 | I actually invested and it wasn't that expensive.

00:50:08.560 | It was maybe a hundred dollars in a teleprompter and I have

00:50:13.360 | an iPad that sits under it.

00:50:14.760 | So I joined this meeting from an iPad that projects your face onto a mirrored

00:50:18.560 | screen with a camera behind it.

00:50:20.040 | So I'm not actually looking at my computer right now.

00:50:23.440 | I'm looking at a piece of glass in front of a camera and it's allowed

00:50:27.720 | me to really be looking at you, having a conversation, feel like it's

00:50:31.720 | working, not feel like the, "Okay, do I look at the camera?

00:50:34.560 | Do I look at Mike's face?"

00:50:35.680 | It got stressful.

00:50:36.720 | So that $100 purchase has made the presence I have in these

00:50:40.040 | conversations a lot better.

00:50:41.400 | And it might seem like overkill, but if delivering meetings is part of

00:50:46.080 | your job, things like that, things like even just buying a decent microphone.

00:50:49.960 | I noticed a side effect of this podcast was when I went to work

00:50:52.880 | meetings with the podcast microphone.

00:50:55.000 | People are like, "Wow, you sound so crisp."

00:50:56.960 | Two people in my core team went and bought a microphone after that

00:51:00.320 | because they were like, "Look, I want to sound present.

00:51:02.880 | I want to be there.

00:51:03.880 | I don't want to sound like I'm distracted.

00:51:05.400 | Dishes clinking in the background or whatever."

00:51:07.240 | So there are a few tactics you can use there as well.

00:51:10.040 | So hopefully this is all helpful.

00:51:11.880 | I hope we get more opportunities to spend time in person.

00:51:15.160 | And I already, at my company, see them happening right now.

00:51:17.720 | Absolutely.

00:51:18.960 | Well, Chris, I take the opposite.

00:51:20.240 | I'm a lot smarter when I'm on mute and I look better when the video is off.

00:51:23.080 | You've been in a lot of situations and you talk about them in your book

00:51:28.120 | where you're at life or death, shoot or don't shoot.

00:51:31.240 | And I want to come back to that before we wrap and just talk about how some

00:51:35.800 | of those really high stakes decisions you've been in, where you had to make

00:51:39.200 | a decision in a moment, can be a lesson for people listening.

00:51:42.520 | 100%.

00:51:43.680 | The most important thing in these situations, again, is figuring

00:51:48.200 | out what do you want out of it?

00:51:49.600 | Another spoiler alert, but there's enough good stuff in the book

00:51:52.760 | where nothing I've said should dissuade you from picking up Never Enough.

00:51:56.760 | The way I open Never Enough is actually a situation in

00:52:00.120 | 2007 on the streets of Iraq.

00:52:01.920 | There was a sealed platoon that was clearing houses and the job is very simple.

00:52:07.480 | How do you stop bad people from doing bad things to good people?

00:52:10.600 | Well, this particular night, myself and a teammate of mine named Josh were

00:52:14.200 | actually holding security outside the building and a man at two in the morning

00:52:18.600 | stepped out of his house on the other side of the street and he very quickly

00:52:22.880 | started to reach into his garb and it looked like he was potentially pulling a

00:52:27.600 | weapon out.

00:52:28.240 | Now, Josh and I both instantly aimed at the guy because we're not

00:52:32.440 | going to let him shoot at us, but we were both so highly trained that we

00:52:36.080 | were able to wait for it and pause and let life slow down.

00:52:39.320 | And actually what he did was he pulled out an ID card to show

00:52:42.240 | that he was not a bad person.

00:52:44.080 | And that could have been a deadly decision to reach quickly for an ID card.

00:52:48.280 | But fortunately, Josh and I were trained well enough where we could slow down

00:52:52.920 | and have that confidence where we could wait a couple milliseconds to see what

00:52:56.680 | does this guy actually pull out of his garb.

00:52:58.520 | And thank God we did because, Chris, we don't want to harm anybody that we

00:53:02.560 | don't have to harm.

00:53:03.480 | Like, that's terrible.

00:53:04.800 | The story, seals that didn't kill someone, that's a celebration for us.

00:53:09.080 | You know, so we're trying to make the world a better place and that's the

00:53:12.560 | mission of the community, really.

00:53:13.880 | And how does that happen?

00:53:15.160 | Again, we talked earlier in this conversation about training and about

00:53:18.760 | how do you get the world to slow down.

00:53:20.760 | But in these life and death situations, it really is about remaining extremely

00:53:26.160 | calm, not letting the distracting thoughts get in your head.

00:53:30.440 | Fear or any other negative emotions will only reduce the probability of a great

00:53:36.280 | outcome, the best possible outcome for you and your team or your organizations.

00:53:40.440 | It's a hard thing to do, but you can get better and better at it.

00:53:43.480 | Ideally in training situations where it's safe, but then on game day, when you

00:53:47.720 | really need to perform or in this particular two in the morning in the

00:53:51.000 | streets of Fallujah in 2007, then you can perform when you have to.

00:53:54.960 | Thanks for sharing.

00:53:56.080 | I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.

00:54:00.560 | Your support is what keeps this show going.

00:54:03.400 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you

00:54:08.280 | can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:54:11.360 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:54:14.760 | I'm curious how you see the principles from Never Enough changing in a person's

00:54:19.360 | life and do some of them become more or less important at different stages?

00:54:23.680 | It's a great question.

00:54:25.280 | I would say that the most important thing is that principle around

00:54:28.600 | agility is exactly what you're describing.

00:54:30.760 | Everybody's heard the battlefield comment where no plan survives

00:54:35.120 | first contact with the enemy.

00:54:36.840 | I'll tell you in my mind, my plan is already for the plan to change.

00:54:41.160 | When you go into a situation, knowing that it's going to be dynamic,

00:54:44.800 | you're already a step ahead.

00:54:46.320 | So in my real job now at VMware, my job is to not help transform

00:54:51.800 | VMware and our customers.

00:54:53.560 | My job is to transform our ability to transform.

00:54:57.080 | Building that ultra agility into the organization, because none of

00:55:01.520 | us know where markets are going.

00:55:02.960 | Nobody can foresee the future.

00:55:04.920 | We can make smart guesses, but how do we improve our ability to

00:55:08.920 | react quickly and as well as possible?

00:55:11.000 | So I think that what I've written in Never Enough is an elastic set

00:55:14.880 | of principles that can apply not just today, but set you up for

00:55:18.800 | the unforeseen tomorrow.

00:55:19.960 | Now, I'm very thankful you wrote the book because it's actually the

00:55:24.440 | kind of book where I've both read and referenced and taken some notes in.

00:55:28.160 | But I actually heard you say in an interview that you wanted to not be

00:55:32.120 | Googleable, you didn't want to be found and that writing it was out of

00:55:34.720 | your comfort zone.

00:55:35.760 | And I thank you for making the change.

00:55:37.600 | But what happened and how did you make that kind of large change to

00:55:40.200 | start writing this book?

00:55:41.120 | You're the first person who's asked that question that way.

00:55:43.600 | First of all, what you said is right on just I will emphasize, I tried

00:55:48.360 | to stay off of not Googleable forever.

00:55:51.120 | And it was a different moment for me.

00:55:53.280 | I'm probably like the one of the last comers to social media, if you

00:55:56.080 | will, I got on Instagram because of the book.

00:55:58.760 | And I said to myself, if I'm going to write a book, I want it to be

00:56:01.880 | successful.

00:56:02.640 | And what is success?

00:56:03.920 | It's not about me.

00:56:04.880 | Never enough isn't about my case.

00:56:06.520 | I could care less about that.

00:56:07.880 | What I care about is elevating the conversation for people.

00:56:11.720 | And then literally the profits go to the 501(c)(3) that pay off mortgages

00:56:15.800 | for gold star families.

00:56:16.680 | I've personally, with my foundation, paid off six mortgages for widows and

00:56:21.320 | children whose fathers paid the ultimate sacrifice.

00:56:24.440 | And for me, that's what it's about.

00:56:26.360 | I can't sit still, Chris.

00:56:27.680 | I'm never able to rest.

00:56:29.440 | And so for me, that mission to go continue to do great things for

00:56:32.920 | others is predicated on frankly, even doing this podcast, I love talking

00:56:37.960 | to you, but in the spirit of what we said earlier, asking for help is a

00:56:40.800 | sign of strength.

00:56:41.520 | It isn't easy for me to go out there and say, Hey, well, everybody listening,

00:56:44.760 | please jump on Amazon or wherever you get buy books, go buy Never Enough.

00:56:48.280 | It's all of about 15 bucks or it's on Audible.

00:56:50.560 | And I read the book and like asking for that kind of help is really hard for

00:56:54.720 | me, but I've gotten used to it and out of my comfort zone.

00:56:57.600 | The way I personally am able to square the circle there is because

00:57:01.120 | I'm not doing it for me.

00:57:02.160 | I'm doing it to try to make a positive impact for others.

00:57:04.840 | I've been asked for life advice so many different times that I just don't have

00:57:08.560 | the capacity to do it for everybody.

00:57:10.080 | Now I can hand them my best effort at a combination of stories

00:57:13.680 | and advice and insights.

00:57:14.920 | If you're listening, you're actually helping people buying this book.

00:57:18.600 | Mike's not making a profit here.

00:57:19.960 | I thought it was fantastic.

00:57:21.240 | I can highly recommend it.

00:57:22.440 | My wife borrowed it over the holiday a little bit ago and she enjoyed it.

00:57:25.600 | So definitely check out the book.

00:57:27.920 | I have one other random question, which didn't fall into the narrative of the book.

00:57:31.640 | But you talk a lot about how when you're a SEAL, you don't sleep a lot.

00:57:36.240 | Sometimes you might stay up for five days straight.

00:57:38.400 | Are there any tactics that you took away from that

00:57:41.480 | that have been helpful in life after SEALs?

00:57:44.000 | Well, Chris, I just want to first a little bit challenge

00:57:47.480 | the premise of what you said.

00:57:48.880 | Being able to operate on a little bit of sleep is essential, but it's also dumb.

00:57:54.400 | And so what we always try to do is be as rested and as strong as we possibly can.

00:57:59.920 | We only build that skill or the ability to do that because we have to at times.

00:58:04.360 | And as a leader in the SEALs, what you're constantly thinking about

00:58:07.760 | is just very simple physical performance.

00:58:10.880 | It's scientifically proven, like as we diminish in our sleep,

00:58:14.200 | our performance does degrade.

00:58:15.720 | And so in SEAL training, we're up for a week straight.

00:58:17.840 | We're up from a Sunday morning to a Friday afternoon in what's called hell week.

00:58:21.400 | You learn that you really can keep moving for literally a week straight.

00:58:24.760 | Yes, you get like 20 minutes of sleep on like the Wednesday.

00:58:27.600 | The instructors are like, oh, you're the best class we've ever seen.

00:58:30.160 | We're actually going to get you let you rest for a little bit.

00:58:32.280 | You lay down and then 20 minutes later, they wake you up with bullhorns

00:58:35.160 | and yelling at you to go jump in the Pacific Ocean at 62 degrees or whatever it is.

00:58:38.600 | Like these are things that you do stretch like we talked about before.

00:58:42.000 | So we all know that we can stay up for a week straight if we have to.

00:58:45.160 | But I don't think that operating on less sleep is something that you actually

00:58:50.320 | reap that many benefits from.

00:58:51.920 | I would encourage people to sleep as much as they humanly can.

00:58:54.400 | We're about to have baby number two, so I might have to take some of the lessons

00:58:58.360 | of knowing I can get by, but I agree.

00:59:00.200 | I think sleep's important, but appreciate you sharing.

00:59:03.240 | Before we wrap question, I like to ask everyone is to pick a place

00:59:07.560 | that you're familiar with and share to anyone who might end up in that city,

00:59:11.320 | a place you think they should go, grab a meal, grab a drink

00:59:14.880 | and an activity that they might want to do.

00:59:16.920 | That's that's not the most obvious thing to do.

00:59:19.240 | My happy place is Sonopee, New Hampshire, Lake Sonopee.

00:59:22.400 | It's fresh air.

00:59:23.920 | I'm in Westport, Connecticut right now.

00:59:25.680 | But we've got a place up in Sonopee, New Hampshire.

00:59:28.280 | That's where we really go when we want to get away.

00:59:30.360 | Beautiful little small town harbor in the fall.

00:59:34.520 | It's the leaves in the summer.

00:59:35.840 | It's the incredible swimming and harbor for seasons of fun there.

00:59:39.400 | It's a hidden gem.

00:59:40.400 | It's actually a little known fact that Steven Tyler is actually from Sonopee,

00:59:43.720 | New Hampshire. He lives down the road a bit.

00:59:45.400 | But other than Steven Tyler, there's not a lot of glitz and glam

00:59:48.800 | to Lake Sonopee.

00:59:49.880 | It's just a wonderful hidden gem.

00:59:51.520 | Chris, any place you'd say if someone's up there to.

00:59:54.640 | Is there a place to eat something to do?

00:59:56.720 | The Anchorage is a great place right in the harbor.

00:59:59.320 | The atmosphere could not be better.

01:00:01.440 | That sounds great.

01:00:02.200 | Mike, I really enjoyed the book.

01:00:04.360 | What is next for you?

01:00:06.200 | Where can people stay in touch with everything you're working on

01:00:08.880 | and how can they support you?

01:00:10.520 | First and foremost, I'm loving helping transform VMware.

01:00:13.440 | But like many of us, we have a million things that we're doing in life.

01:00:16.920 | And one of mine is being on the board of the National Medal of Honor Museum,

01:00:21.120 | where we're on a mission to inspire America.

01:00:24.080 | We're building a new museum outside of AT&T and Stadium and in Dallas, Texas.

01:00:27.920 | And one of the things that I will do in the coming

01:00:31.120 | couple of months is to start a podcast with a lifelong friend of mine

01:00:34.320 | who is one of the nation's 66 living Medal of Honor recipients.

01:00:38.120 | His name is Britt Slabinski, affectionately Slab.

01:00:40.760 | Slab and I are going to co-host a podcast.

01:00:42.880 | We've got incredible people, lots of ex-presidents on the advisory board

01:00:46.680 | for the museum, people that I just am super excited to bring to life

01:00:50.960 | via a podcast associated with the Medal of Honor Museum.

01:00:54.360 | So I'd say lock in on Instagram.

01:00:56.680 | This is dot Mike Hayes or on Twitter.

01:00:59.400 | This is Mike Hayes.

01:01:00.800 | In the coming months, be bringing more and more Medal of Honor Museum

01:01:04.000 | and leadership content out.

01:01:05.160 | So love for people to follow and start getting at the front of the line.

01:01:07.880 | We will link to both those in the show notes.

01:01:10.240 | You mentioned the foundation you set up.

01:01:11.800 | Is that something people can read more about or is it kind of a private foundation?

01:01:15.600 | It's a 501 C three.

01:01:16.880 | It is Googleable.

01:01:17.760 | But I will tell you, we have no full time employees.

01:01:20.000 | We're all volunteers.

01:01:21.200 | And the best help that people can give is help.

01:01:23.400 | Never enough.

01:01:23.960 | Get out there in the world more.

01:01:25.120 | Help elevate the conversation.

01:01:26.920 | All of those profits are going to gold star families.

01:01:29.480 | So I think the easiest ask and the best way to help is to get a copy

01:01:33.400 | or a couple of copies of Never Enough for your family and friends

01:01:35.760 | and people whose lives you want to positively influence.

01:01:38.680 | Mike, that's such a great idea.

01:01:41.280 | Thank you for writing this book.

01:01:42.680 | Thank you for being here.

01:01:44.160 | Now, thank you, my friend, and appreciate all that you're doing

01:01:46.520 | to make this great nation greater.

01:01:47.840 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

01:01:52.080 | Thank you so much for listening.

01:01:53.840 | If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show

01:01:56.680 | in Apple podcasts or Spotify, I would really appreciate it.

01:02:00.120 | And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me or just want to say hi,

01:02:04.120 | I'm Chris at all the hacks dot com or at Hutchins on Twitter.

01:02:08.240 | That's it for this week.

01:02:09.600 | I'll see you next week.

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