281. Perspective of war

Stop watching other people.  You will never get good while watching because your perspective is different.  Get into living your life from your Point Of View.

280. What if you just stopped quitting when life gets hard?

Erik Weir and Thom Shea talk about Unbreakable and Three Simple Things.  And how to Transition from war to civilian life.

279. Warrior Wisdom: How to live "One more day"

Warrior Wisdom.  How would you live one more day?  What would you life be like if you didn't have to deal with your past or have to build toward your future?  What if you had just this day?

278. Disillusioned human condition

The disillusioned human condition of being told things are other than they are.  The constant deception of the people by the media and by many politicians has caused our youth to not be capable of simple things that matter.

277. Navy SEAL Independence Day: Earn Your Freedom

Few of us even know freedom anymore. Teach your kids to earn it.

freedom

frē′dəm

noun

1.  The condition of not being in prison or captivity.

2.  The condition of being free of restraints, especially the ability to act without control or interference by another or by circumstance.

3.  The condition of not being controlled by another nation or political power; political independence.

276. Three Points of Authentic Communications

We all misunderstand what happens during any type of communications.  The first misunderstanding is we always believe what we hear.  The ears are designed to only think what they hear are true.  However, you need to have another sense back up that notion.  

That is how media dupes us all.  Nothing in the media is actually true, if you research it for facts.

That is important to realize.

True authentic communication first requires you to 

1.  Listen without judgement (listen not believing in order to free them up from their past so they can be present)
2. Speak without drama (drama is uncommitted words that cause both people to lose interest and not be present)
3. Get clarity (that means interrupt if you don't know what they are saying and to ask them to repeat what you said)

Those three points are authentic communications

275. Navy SEAL on suffering or struggle

Suffering is when you think things should be different.  When you think the struggle isn't what you need to do.

274. How to have Spartan Relationships

The ability to build a strong relationship is simple but not easy.

All you need are three simple things:

Listen without judgement

Speak without drama

Intimacy

Learn how here

Spartan Training

273. What Makes Marriage Worth It?

Marriage to an alpha female makes the man stable and the family stable.  Marriage may be meant to build a stable environment so that each and grow and transform into their best selfs.  Submissive women never grow.

272. How to have a Power Relationship

Relationships don't have to be complex.  They just have to be all in.  Nothing held back and no way out.  

video can be seen on Youtube at @thomasshea

271. Erik Weir of TopGolf discuss SEAL training and success

There are similarities in all success.  Thom and Erik discuss hell week and combat and parallels in business and life.

https://www.thomshea.com/ 

270. Navy SEAl's demand for you being your best version

What would you life be like if you just went for it.

269. Navy SEAL asking for toxic masculinity, episode two

listening to Joe Rogan trying to find what is toxic about masculinity.

268. Navy SEAL searching for toxic masculinity, episode one

Trying to define what toxic masculinity is in a world searching for excuses and meaning has been difficult.   A little help here!

267. Andrew Tate's discussion on speed and happiness

Making complicated things simple in a complex social media world.

266. Jordan Peterson reaction. Confront your darkness

To thrive in each of our lives we need only be brave enough to confront our own darkness.  Running away from, medicating away from our darkness is the tragedy of our times.

265. Warrior's Discussion "Balance or Priority"

The real battle is to seek a priority off efforts and never balance one thing for the others.

Learn here

264. Identity: The core of all success and failure

When you are ready to own your life you must own the I AM conversation you have with yourself and you place on others

.Learn the way

Follow us on LinkedIn.  @frogmanout

263. Women in special forces

Forcing women into positions for political gain will be catastrophic both on women in the long term and the military in the short term.

www.thomshea.com

262. 7 things you didn't know about SEALs

Often what you don't know will change your mind about a group and a business.  

www.thomshea.com

261. Winning with Authentic Communication

There are four levels of communication.

Imagine a baseball diamond:

- first base is listening without judgement

- second base is speaking without drama

- third base is clarify and verify

- home plate is create action

This is truly Authentic Communication.  And I bet you cannot get on first base without help!

260. Running Full Sail on Veteran's day with Tim Dittlof

Joining forces with FullSail in Wisconsin to produce a leadership even and powerful presentation to support Veterans and their families.

Sign up with the link below.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leading-through-chaos-inspiration-and-learning-from-a-former-navy-seal-tickets-419235102477

259. How to Start over

How to Start over?

1.  Commit without knowing the solution

2.  Burn all bridges

3.  Be willing to learn and do whatever it takes

4.  Be willing to die doing it

5.  Never give up

258. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

Quite a remarkable process to look up and find the definition of various words in order to communicate better.  Would be nice to have an agreed to definition so that we all can communicate appropriately.  Wouldn’t it.

A man last named Cassette, said once, “As soon as certain words we all think are true are communicated the concrete melts into the abstract until none of us know what the hell we are talking about if we all do know the simple meaning of a word”

Diversity

the state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness:

Equity

the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality:

Inclusion

the act of including.

The fun part is that old dictionaries, hard bound ones, have simple definitions.  The internet (which we now all use) has very new ones. 

Wonder why they are new.  So I looked into the dates the words were redefined.

In 2009 -16, these three words were redefined 5 times, on the internet under the dictionary website.  In 2021 they were changed again.

If rules and definitions of exact terms can change without us noticing, without anyone calling bullshit or wanting to clarify the new meaning in day to day life we are all stuffed.

If someone changed the definition of a mile from 5280 feet to 5000 because the deem it better.  I want you to let that sink in.  if the masses or a leader can redefine basics without your consent or understanding than we are all stuffed.

If over night you lost 280 feet of your land and had to concede what would you do? 

257. 11 Lost Lessons from September 11, 2001

11 Lost Lessons worth remembering on September 11th

1. The enemy of a republic always is lurking
2. Better to stay up than to fight you way back up
3. The Love for family, country, and your swim buddy will ultimately defeat someone who hates you
4. Freedom earned through effort is always lost by the ones who live in it
5. Offense is always better that defense or kneeling in fear
6. No one ever said they practiced too much or trained too much before a life event, most say they could have done more to prepare
7. If you think being violent doesn’t solve problems you have only led a protected life
8. Elected officials left unattended always serve themselves, and should only serve limited years
9. There is divine hand but only when you have spent all your effort and are still trying. If you give up there is no divine hand.
10. You are always fighting you way home.
11. Live each day as if it matters, because it does.

256. Blind Spots and their impact

Blind Spots and their impact on our every day life is a determent to success.  We all have them and few of us confront them in any meaningful way.

What would you life be like if you over came your blind spots?

255. Inspiration beats Motivation

Motivation is the search for some external meaning or an external source to get you moving.  You know that source is rare and often doesn't last long.

Inspiration is your ability to breathe life into something.  Your ability to say something is possible and of value.  Notice that you can do that whenever and where ever you want to.  

When you practice inspiration you get better at taking action and better and better.

254. 5 ways to prepare for war

There are five ways to prepare for war.

Be resilient

Question the norm

Learn to lead by allowing others to win

At home listen, speak, and have intimacy

Build someone else up

www.unbreakableleadership.com

253. Isolation Kills. Warrior Rising Part Two

Army v Navy 2022 Challenge (Andy v Jon) - Warrior Rising

253. Isolation Kills. Warrior Rising Part Two

Army v Navy 2022 Challenge (Andy v Jon) - Warrior Rising

252. Navy SEAL vs Army: Warrior Rising Charity. Part 1

Andy v. Jon 1/2 Ironman

In honor of the 133rd Army-Navy football game to be played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this December, two of our supporters, both former military have thrown down the gauntlet to raise support for Warrior Rising in the time-honored tradition of the rivalry pitting America’s Elite Military Academies and service members against one another.  Andy Riise, West Point graduate and career Army officer vs. Jon Macaskill, retired Navy SEAL are training to compete in a Half Ironman 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run in Waco, TX this October 16 for the benefit of Warrior Rising. Support Warrior Rising and the entrepreneurs we serve by supporting Andy and Jon in their quest for Ironman supremacy.  (links below)

What is Warrior Rising primer:

Founded in 2015, Warrior Rising is a non-profit started by Veterans, for Veterans. The Warrior Rising team has a singular goal: transform Veterans into Vetrepreneurs. We have achieved this through carefully selecting strategic partners in business, and leveraging a vast network of young professionals and successful entrepreneurs from a wide variety of backgrounds. The organization hosts a robust team of professionals, business owners, and experts in their fields.

Since 2015 Warrior Rising has grown from a regional to a national organization with a robust outreach assisting more than 3000 veterans annually. Warrior Rising has developed sophisticated programs that leverage remote learning, built a network of mentors and coaches, and has awarded grants that will result in creating one hundred veteran-owned businesses valued at more than $1 million by 2024. The Warrior Rising team listens to veterans and provides them exactly what they need. As opposed to some non-profits, Warrior Rising doesn’t give a veteran one good day… we give veterans the opportunity to earn their success and have one good life!

https://www.warriorrising.org/armyvnavy2022/

252. Navy SEAL vs Army: Warrior Rising Charity. Part 1

Andy v. Jon 1/2 Ironman

In honor of the 133rd Army-Navy football game to be played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this December, two of our supporters, both former military have thrown down the gauntlet to raise support for Warrior Rising in the time-honored tradition of the rivalry pitting America’s Elite Military Academies and service members against one another.  Andy Riise, West Point graduate and career Army officer vs. Jon Macaskill, retired Navy SEAL are training to compete in a Half Ironman 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run in Waco, TX this October 16 for the benefit of Warrior Rising. Support Warrior Rising and the entrepreneurs we serve by supporting Andy and Jon in their quest for Ironman supremacy.  (links below)

What is Warrior Rising primer:

Founded in 2015, Warrior Rising is a non-profit started by Veterans, for Veterans. The Warrior Rising team has a singular goal: transform Veterans into Vetrepreneurs. We have achieved this through carefully selecting strategic partners in business, and leveraging a vast network of young professionals and successful entrepreneurs from a wide variety of backgrounds. The organization hosts a robust team of professionals, business owners, and experts in their fields.

Since 2015 Warrior Rising has grown from a regional to a national organization with a robust outreach assisting more than 3000 veterans annually. Warrior Rising has developed sophisticated programs that leverage remote learning, built a network of mentors and coaches, and has awarded grants that will result in creating one hundred veteran-owned businesses valued at more than $1 million by 2024. The Warrior Rising team listens to veterans and provides them exactly what they need. As opposed to some non-profits, Warrior Rising doesn’t give a veteran one good day… we give veterans the opportunity to earn their success and have one good life!

https://www.warriorrising.org/armyvnavy2022/

252. Navy SEAL vs Army: Warrior Rising Charity. Part 1

Andy v. Jon 1/2 Ironman

In honor of the 133rd Army-Navy football game to be played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this December, two of our supporters, both former military have thrown down the gauntlet to raise support for Warrior Rising in the time-honored tradition of the rivalry pitting America’s Elite Military Academies and service members against one another.  Andy Riise, West Point graduate and career Army officer vs. Jon Macaskill, retired Navy SEAL are training to compete in a Half Ironman 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run in Waco, TX this October 16 for the benefit of Warrior Rising. Support Warrior Rising and the entrepreneurs we serve by supporting Andy and Jon in their quest for Ironman supremacy.  (links below)

What is Warrior Rising primer:

Founded in 2015, Warrior Rising is a non-profit started by Veterans, for Veterans. The Warrior Rising team has a singular goal: transform Veterans into Vetrepreneurs. We have achieved this through carefully selecting strategic partners in business, and leveraging a vast network of young professionals and successful entrepreneurs from a wide variety of backgrounds. The organization hosts a robust team of professionals, business owners, and experts in their fields.

Since 2015 Warrior Rising has grown from a regional to a national organization with a robust outreach assisting more than 3000 veterans annually. Warrior Rising has developed sophisticated programs that leverage remote learning, built a network of mentors and coaches, and has awarded grants that will result in creating one hundred veteran-owned businesses valued at more than $1 million by 2024. The Warrior Rising team listens to veterans and provides them exactly what they need. As opposed to some non-profits, Warrior Rising doesn’t give a veteran one good day… we give veterans the opportunity to earn their success and have one good life!

https://www.warriorrising.org/armyvnavy2022/

251. Resiliency and the future

Resiliency is the key to building your future.  It can be learned and you will need it.

250. The Only Path to Success with Thom Shea

Take a moment and ask yourself if you really think success breeds success or does failure?

Make a list of everything  and every time you failed and what you learned from it and how you eventually succeeded.

If you want to learn the only path to success sign up for unbreakable leadership training Level one.

https://www.unbreakableleadership.com

249. Independence Day: Earned Freedom With John Doolittle

Independence Day is a time to break from tyranny and rekindle successes and friends who are the best people we know. John Doolittle and I served at SEAL Team Two before the war on terror and continue to earn our freedoms through effort and leadership. John, now, supports an organization that helps injured men and women to recover and continue with life. Check out and order a Kaatsu support system and keep in the fight. https://kaatsu.com/

248. Who benefits from Leadership Training

Unbreakable Leadership Training

Level One

Fundamentals of leadership (health, wealth, intellectual, relational, and spiritual outcomes)

Overview

Communication. (Listen, speak, clarity, action)

Unbreakable Formula (Human code that drives all actions, associations, and results)

Unbreakable Tools

• How to become efficient - Focus On or OFF (no partial involvement)
• How to solve problems - Ego and emotions as tools

Execution and the 21-day Challenge

Level Two : Building a Team (Team Centered/individual performance)

Level One : Fundamentals of leadership (Health, Wealth, intellectual, relational, spiritual)

Level Two

Building a team (Team centered individual performance)

Overview

Building a Team

6-Traits of leaders and teams

Unbreakable Tools

         -Fail to succeed

         -Inspired Mentorship

Expressed execution and the True Value of Life Formula

Level One – Fundamentals of leadership (health, wealth, intellectual, relational, and spiritual outcomes)

Who benefits from the training?

• Already successful leaders who want to create a legacy through their efforts to improve the lives of their teammates and their families
• Leaders who want to lead their best life
• Leaders who recognize the holistic nature of leading and teamwork
• Leaders must be willing to lead themselves in all areas of life

How the training works?

• Friday evening: The training starts at 6:30 pm and ends before 11:00 pm
• Saturday: The training continues at 8:00 am and concludes at midnight
• We engage in experiential learning and education through profound discussion and experiences that transform what was out of reach to what is now possible
• We teach fundamental skills and create a process to execute, ‘on a daily basis’, the three simple things method.

Execution and Follow-up!

• 21-day challenge to build a process to execute on your goals and learn skills to overcome the pitfalls of success
• The process of overcoming your excuses and inertia is profound and once complete will leave you inspired for more

Outcome and Skills acquired!

• Achieve health, wealth, and intellectual goals in 90 days
• Learn efficiency in your actions
• Learn how emotions work
• Learn how to make a promise and keep it
• Learn how to overcome your excuses
• Learn what it is like to lead yourself in order to lead others

Level Two – Building a team (Holistic team support and performance based)

Building a Team

6-Traits of leaders and teams

Unbreakable Tools

         -Fail to succeed

         -Inspired Mentorship

Expressed execution and the True Value of Life Formula

Who utilizes the training?

• Humble Leaders committed to the lives of their teammates and their families
• Already successful leaders willing to mentor the lives of their teammates
• Leaders committed to personal growth and leaving a legacy
• Leaders who continue to be goal oriented

How the training works?

• Friday evening: The training starts at 6:30 pm and ends before 11:00 pm
• Saturday: The training continues at 8:00 am and concludes at midnight
• We engage in the uncomfortable discussions of the 6 human traits of both leading a team and how the individuals on the team lead their own lives
• We engage and transform how to engage the primary relationships in our lives at home, in order to, ensure a legacy of support and values service to each other.
• We teach fundamental skills and create a process to execute, ‘on a daily basis’, the true value of actions in all aspects of your life

Execution and Follow-up!

• 21-day challenge to operate within a 6-hour baseline of actions
• You will learn failure and you will apply mentorship skills toward the success of others

Outcome and Skills acquired!

• Achieve health, wealth, intellectual, relational, and spiritual goals in 90 days
• Learn the design of how to fail to succeed
• Learn the process of inspired mentorship
• Learn how to lead others toward their expressed goals

247. Fathers Day: 13 Lessons to your kids

Lessons while in combat to my kids.

1.  Honor your word for 21 days

2.  Face your fears every week

3.  Walk for 24 hours

4.  Commit to a project with another human

5.  Kill Hope and Belief from your vocabulary

6.  Give up being Right

7.  Join a Team

8.  Mentor another human

9.  Embrace the grind

10.  Choice - pick one

11.  Overcome the Fear of dying

12.  Play big and Burn Bridges

13.  Embrace Failure as a means to succeed

www.unbreakablelessons.com

246. Unbreakable Leadership Training Explained

Owning what goes on inside of you and how you filter and process the world.

Internal dialogue drives every single action you do and every single decision you make even while sleeping.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): the Design of Human Performance

Unbreakable Leadership Training is the blueprint for results in the Five Pyramids of Human Performance®.  Our training is designed around a process formula and step-by-step methodology of linear progression ... there is no other way to take complete ownership of your life.  To achieve these five results, we find it necessary to demonstrate Five “Unbreakable Tools”:  Focused Effort, Emotional Mastery, Fail to Succeed, Inspired Mentorship, and Disruption and Innovation.  While linear progression is needed, the underlying cause of greatness in every human being anywhere is to first master the two foundational principles:

1.   Honor your word
2. Never giving up on honoring your word

Without the two foundational principles being deeply mastered and constantly applied the climb toward rapid and sustainable growth is doomed.  We will test these two aspects of human performance upfront and teach you to master them first.

We are going to achieve Five Measurable Goals together.  Goals that are built on Honor Your Word and Never Giving Up.

THE UNBREAKABLE LEADERSHIP SOLUTION:

Operating at 20% efficiency and capacity is both tiresome and emotionally draining.  Being out of sequence will leave you plateaued and unaware of your ultimate potential.  Not pursuing your ultimate potential every day will cause you to be unhealthy, stagnant, scarce, alone, and disconnected.  Our training will teach you to do three simple things every day in the five pyramids of performance® in order to operate at 100% capacity.

245. D-Day and The Long Grey Line

D-Day and The Long Grey Line symbolize our nations continued excellence in war and character and effecting the lives of all those who participate in your protection.

244. Memorial day from a warrior to the free

Memorial Day is to honor those not with us with our best lives.

243. Hell Week Lessons on quitting

discussion of what hell week teaches warriors regarding the impact of quitting.

242. No more tomorrows

1. Hyper focus and the off or rest button. If you do things half asses or just hammer without taking a break you have already failed
2. Learn to embrace discomfort and problems but letting go of your emotional reactions to them. You should be ok with every issue you face and solve each one.
3. Fail to succeed. Practice until you fail. Learn then practice until you fail again. Repeat until you arrive
4. The forth is you need to mentor other people to support their growth not your growth. The more people your help grow the more skills you acquire

241. The 6 leadership Traits

The Two branches of Trait Alignment

In each of us we carry 6 primary traits that when exhibited determine what we say, do and cause in the world around us.  The 6 traits are separated into two branches that further align our thoughts and actions. 

Your ability to know which trait is needed for various times and conditions in life will pre-determine the outcome and your ability to place the right trait into the right position in your family, you work, or on a team will also pre-determine the outcome you desire.

Not knowing the traits will cause you to faulter; cause business to die, and cause family to fall apart.

WHO

The Wolf Pack                                      The Shepherd’s Herd

The Alpha                                                The Shepherd

The Beta                                                  The Sheep dog

The Omega                                               The Sheep

GOAL

Growth of the individual                            Growth of the Shepherd’s herd

Growth of the pack                                    Acquiring land to produce more sheep

Allowing perfection in skills                       Maintaining the norm of the herd

Decentralized Authority                             Centralized Authority

Individual Responsibility                            Sheep Dog responsibility

Irreplaceable individuals                            All are replaceable except the Shepherd

All skills are shared up and down                Sheep dog is afforded skills

Mindset is build the pack                            Mindset is do what you are told

Philosophy is “Prove it/earn it”                   Philosophy is “moral high ground”

SUCCESS METRICS

Support the pack                                        Sheer the Sheep

Build your own pack                                  Eat the sheep

Earn and keep what you kill                        Build the shepherd’s empire

1. Alpha
   • Goal Driven in all five formula(s)
   • 6-hour nonnegotiable daily activity
   • Focus, let go, fail, mentors betas
   • Always building other alphas (replacing itself)
   • Embrace spartan woman (spousal goals realized)
   • Disruption and innovation on schedule
   • Builds a team of future alphas
2. Beta
   • Acquiring all five areas, may be good in only a few
   • Building toward a baseline and often sporadic
   • Learning to focus, still ego and self centered, seeks comfort often, being mentored
   • Functions well on the team
   • Testing powerful spartan women(plural)
   • Will change and start over if the pack does
   • Wants to be the alpha when ready
3. Omega
   • Expert in One Pyramid (top 1%) or not good at anything
   • Hyper base line in all areas or only in one and is consumed by the one
   • All or nothing with the four skills
   • A reject or has broken away to build own pack
   • If expert does the one thing with great excess
   • While an omega cannot mentor or have spartan woman dynamic
   • While an omega is constantly disruptive and destructive

4. Shepherd or Master
   • Only works for him or her self (always takes the moral high ground)
   • Expects others to follow a formula yet rarely does him or her self
   • Needs a sheep dog to achieve results
   • Needs a herd to direct
   • Un-intentionally disruptive
   • Hyper focused on empire
   • Emotionally convicted and unyielding
   • Developer not mentor
   • Will abandon the herd in a moments notice
5. The Sheep Dog
   • On formula only or does what is told
   • Subjugates goals for shepherd and sheep
   • Can be taught to develop another sheep dog
   • Do not embrace spartan woman (breads many)
   • Will disrupt if directed to
   • Doesn’t work well with other alphas nor other teams without the shepherd
6. The sheep
   • Follows trends never goal oriented
   • Goes with the heard or majority
   • Random, Decisions based entirely on emotions, fear based, never mentor
   • Dislikes the Sheep Dog and the Wolf
   • Often disobeys the shepherd

240. Mark Spicer Sniper and what happens after war

Sergeant Major (ret) Mark Spicer is a 25-year veteran of the British Army with a worldwide reputation in the sphere of Sniping and Counter terrorism, which led to his selection and use as the US Government's Expert witness ini the Washington DC Sniper trials. He has served worldwide with the British and UN forces on real world deployments, and has extensive experience of counter terrorist operations and terrorist methods of operation, having worked against the IRA in Northern Ireland and subsequent terrorist elements worldwide.

He's recently launched his latest book OUTDANCE THE DEVIL where he outlines his own experience of dealing with PTSD & overcoming the "darkness".

Post Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI)

...does not care if you've served. This book focuses on my life, and being a soldier for most of it, it’s going to have a part of my career attached by necessity. However, I ask from the first page that you understand that this book is for anyone who has suffered traumatic stress: police officers, firefighters, parents, medical professionals, and more. 

239. Kyle Dake, the greatest wrestler of our time

What does success look like from someone at the top of his game?

What it takes in all areas of life you can see in the life of someone at the top of the game?

238. Discipline of a hyper-focused Life

Hyperfocused life is a choice of to be intentional, or to be grey and random, or to not be on-point at all.

237. Be Agile or die Rigid!

The ability to make a the choice to be agile and flexible is the most difficult choice to make in life.  The choice takes skill.  Skill acquired through hardship and loss.  

Being rigid requires no skill and no experience.

Take Level One Training and learn.  Sign up

www.unbreakableleadership.com

236. Irish way: Own your life

Take control of the parts of life that matter and stop chasing things that don't matter.

235. The Spartan Woman

www.thespartanwoman.com

What does it mean to be a Spartan Woman™?

A spartan woman is the center of her family. She lives by four simple, yet absolutely essential principles, each with their own purpose. 

* The first makes her unbreakable under adversity.

* The second shows her how to bend or yield when it serves the good of her family.

* The third allows her to honor her role as the leader in her world. 

* The fourth makes her uncompromising when it comes to not accepting destructive behavior from her family, her community, or any outsiders.

Who can be a Spartan Woman?

Any woman who wants to live in integrity with strength, compassion, honor, and strategic decision making can, with training and a strong community, be a Spartan Woman. 

234. Born to thrive in adversity

We are all born to thrive in adversity.  

Honor your word

Never Quit

Speak your truth

Commit to the big things that scare you

Four unbreakable tools

6 people who count most

three simple things plan

Why

233. Theory Destroys Reality

Theory destroys reality

We are all literally beaten up so often by media and bad leaders and politicians, that we, me included, begin to think what we are told is real.

That is the nature of human life; the nature is to learn not to simply believe what one sense is telling you and learn to question everything in order to stay alive and to build.

I don’t say that tongue in cheek, I mean it to be a way to share how to navigate the mud pits and sand pits of our day to day lives.  Theory as stated is never real.  Reality is a contraction to theory.

Once a month, Stacy and I and sometimes other bad ass people come over and we have a one hour discussion about what is real and what is theory in order to not fall into a trap of theory.  It is an exercise I wish you all would do.

So here is the exercise: 

• there are five categories health, wealth, learning, relational, spiritual.
• Write down what 2 trends are being discussed in each
• Write down what 2 real things you can do in each
• Discuss what you would gain or lose if you added a theory to your real life

So here are mine

Theory and fantasy world

Health (cardio is bad,  lifting heavy will make women look bulky)

Wealth (side hustles are important,  follow your why)

Intellectual (a degree will get you a job,  professors know what they are talking about)

Relationship (real love lasts forever,  yelling means the other person doesn’t respect you)

Spiritual (god is coming to help you,  Since jesus died for you you can keep doing stupid shit)

Health (do something for an hour,  lift weights or do body weight but bulk comes from food not the work out)

Wealth (hustle at work first,  make a goal and fuck your why)

Intellectual (get a job period,  learn how to perfect something you are already doing from someone already doing it better)

Relationship (every week rebuild and prove love,  be real and authentic every day with the person you sleep with or your family, don’t hide your faults)

Spiritual (be self driven and self accountable,  Stop making the same mistakes over and over and praying for salvation)

232. Succeed or fail with Thom Shea

What does it take to succeed?

Let’s cut to the end credits and realize two truths,

1. You may never reach the goal you want to reach, 80% of the population never really get to it. That is a fact.
2. No one ever said they trained too hard. No one studied too much and dominated a test.  No one worked out too hard and dominated the field.

Don’t quit just because the two truths of success are now up front and in your face.  Stop being such a frail child when facing these truths.

Here are some things you can do and realize that get you as close as you possibly can be to succeeding at whatever you have in front of you:

Fact:

No one is coming to help you until it is completely broken, your mom, your dad, the cops, your professor, your boss, you lover, your wife or husband, no one.  Jesus or God, won’t make a special appearance for you.

Action:  since no one is coming, stop looking for a way out and keep hammering and evolving until you can begin to see improvement.

Fact:

If you are going to run a 100 mile race you have to run 100 miles a week.  Simple non emotional what you must do to succeed.

Action:  Literally don’t go to a race without preparing.  It may take you a year until you are ready.  Don’t show up half-baked.  Start out with 3 miles a day.  Then add miles.  It is that simple.

Fact:

School doesn’t mimic real life at all.  In real, life there is no answer key, there are few pre set answers.

Action:

Get out of the habit you learned in school to pre pare for a pre set answer test.  Stop putting off engaging in a solution in real life like you did prior to test time in school.  Real life is every day all the time.

Fact:

Nothing works until it does.  This fact pisses off most people.  Some may get a skill and win early, some late, some never.

Action:  do that action for 21 days straight, if you miss a day start over.  Once you have done something for 21 days straight you can adjust and make a decision.  1/10000 can do a simple task for 21 days, that is why most never experience success.

Fact:

If someone else has gone up the mountain you are going, ask them for help.  That fact of imitation is real and effective and few use it. 

Action:  Call up the person or read what that person suggests will work.  Integrate the exact details of how they solved it into your 21 day cycle.  At 21 days you can evolve and adapt but for gods sake you need to commit to something before you tuck tail and quit.

Fact:

Number one reason or excuse people use to not win or to stop is this hurts or will hurt.

Action:  birth hurts the baby and the mom.  Get over it.  Getting yelled at hurts emotionally.  Get over it.  Running so hard you puke hurts.  Get over it.  Studying until 4 am hurts. Get over it.  Losing 2 million dollars in a failed partnership hurts.  Get over it.

Fact:

You will lose more times that you will win.  The fundamental truth of every single thing you will try or any path leading anywhere.

Action:

Plan and embrace hard times and get good at things that suck.  Let the suck expose your weaknesses.

Fact:

Competition is hard.  There will always be one winner and the rest are not winners.  If you have that weak of an emotional disposition you will never win even if you get number one trophy.

Action:

Keep trying.  If people around you put down the people who win at the thing you are trying to win, kick those losers out of your life.  Win by winning

Fact:

Physical and emotional fights are supposed to happen.  The most pressure, the more strain the more fights happen.  You will be called names by loved ones, you will be punched and physically assaulted by friends and foes.  Bullying is always going to happen.  The space between control and lack of control is filled with things like bullying, punching, degrading, put-downs and all the other lack of control mechanisms.

Action:

Forgive yourself be fighting and being mean.  Forgive others for doing it to you.  Learn to notice lack of control quicker and help others gain some control.

Fact:

You will give up on yourself and so with people you count on.  Listen stop lying to yourself and others, stop thinking everything will go well.

Action:

Before you learn any other skill.  Learn how to heal and recover and start over.  No matter what sport or job or life you have spent 20% of the time while practicing starting over, or dealing with injury, or facing loss or facing never win situations.  Practice losing and then keeping in the game.

Fact:

Not every person you date or even marry is the right partner for you.  They just are not.  Our society has demolished the institution of marriage as a process and made it an event. 

Action:

Slow down.  Go on a camping vacation with them in a cold or rainy environment.  Go meet their parents. 

Fact:

9 to 5 jobs are no longer a way to live your life.  If you are working 5 days a week from 9 to 5 it is guaranteed you will not have that job for more that 6 years.

Action:

Get trained or train yourself to have a skill you can use and apply in a job and get paid for it.  A diploma is useless.  A skill is treasured. 

231. Do hard things.

Do hard things

The older I get, the further I get away from the day-to-day life in the SEAL teams, the clearer I become on a great many things. 

The older I get the clearer I see the importance of being a father, of staying alive and being attentive to my family.

The older I get the easier my reactions are to politics and threats of the end of the world and existential crisis like global warming trends trailing an ice age.

Yet something is not being made clear to our society and our youth today and social media is spanking the true hardness out of youth.  So, sit back and listen and watch or read what I am going to share.  If this pisses you off, good?  If this inspires you to act, even better? 

Let me first just come out and say it, 90% of the people listening to this have No fucking idea what Hard is.  You lead a protected life and the real predators are all but killed off.  And you can go to a store and buy food or even steel it.  You don’t understand hard.

Let me tell you some truths:

Marriage is hard                    

Divorce is hard                        avoiding either is weak

Being fat is really fucking hard           getting fit is hard as hell         avoiding both is weak

Losing a job and having debt is hard             

having financial discipline is really hard.           Taking a govt hand out is weak

Speaking plainly and clear is harder than you think

Deciding not to speak is also hard

                                                                        Blaming others for speaking out is weak

Being straight is hard              being gay is really hard     Not having intimacy at all is weak

Making and keeping a promise is hard          quitting is extremely hard on your life

                                    Never committing is weak

Learning to fight and face violence is hard                not learning to protect your self is rude and hard                                         giving up the right to protect yourself is weak

Being a republican is hard                  being a democrat is hard

                                                                                                Not taking a side is weak

School is hard

not going to school is hard

                                                Expecting a job because someone else is successful is weak

Being born male is hard                      being born female is hard

                                                                                                Not accepting either is weak

Waking up early because you want to is hard

Waking up early because you have to is hard

                                                                        Hitting the snooze 5 times is weak

Training for an ultra marathon is very hard

Not training for anything is even harder on your body

                                                                        Drinking beer watching a football game is weak

Being injured and watching others progress is hard

Helping others through injury is very hard

                                                            Having never been injured or helped another is weak

Being a dad is hard

Being a mom is hard

                                                Not trying to raise a family at all is weak

Killing is very hard

Watching someone be killed is hard

                                                            Never facing down an enemy at all is weak

If you are on the weak side, hard will find you and you will not be ready. 

As I close and trust me I could go on for days about the weak times I see and the hard men and challenges I have witnessed, yet let me say the hardest thing you will ever have to encounter is starting over with nothing. 

I wish everyone that level of hardness.  I wish you the hardness it takes to start over at the bottom with nothing.

230. Thom Shea you can motivational speech

Unbreakable Leadership Training is the blueprint for results in the Five Pyramids of Human Performance®.  Our training is designed around a formula and step-by-step methodology... there is no other way to take complete ownership of your life.  To achieve these five results, we find it necessary to demonstrate six “Unbreakable Tools”:  Focused Effort, Emotional Mastery, Modeling Failure, Inspired Mentorship, Spartan Woman, and Disruption and Innovation.  The underlying cause of greatness in every human being anywhere is to first master the two foundational principles:

1.   Honor your word
2. Never giving up on honoring your word

Without the two foundational principles being deeply mastered and constantly applied the climb toward rapid and sustainable growth is doomed.  We will test these two aspects of human performance upfront and teach you to master them first.

We are going to achieve Five Measurable Goals together.  Goals that are built on Honor Your Word and Never Giving Up.

229. Transformation and Kristin Rowell and Thom Shea

https://energeticallyefficient.com/

Founder and CEO of Energetically Efficient™. I am a former business litigator turned Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner. I help people lose weight and gain muscle and energy so that they are proud of the person they see when the look in the mirror. I speak to and consult for companies and organizations around the country on a variety of nutrition, lifestyle and wellness topics. I also coach a select number of individual clients one-on-one. Due to the demand for my services, and so that I can reach more people, I'm launching my first online course and would love to have you join me!! 

228. Parenting is the key to success

Parenting during COVID isn't different than any other time.  Except for the part you had to parent because the world wouldn't take up your slack.  

What are you waiting from.  Begin parenting now even if you have failed or given up.  Because the Government won't come to save you anymore.  

227. War and how to lose the end game

Gail and I discuss how leaders can snatch loss from the mouth of victory.  Winning every battle means nothing if the leader in the final quarter lets the other team have the trophy.

226. Failed leadership and Afghanistan

Never let the disasters of poor leaders convince you to stop being you.  

Sign up for Leading During Chaos Training

225. Afghanistan reflexions and Why I wrote Three Simple Things: Leading during chaos

Order your copy and share with your family.

Three Simple Things

224. Spartan Woman: Build the women in your life

Sign up to Spartan Woman Training

Spartan Woman (thespartanwoman.com)

What does it mean to be a Spartan Woman™?

A spartan woman is the center of her family. She lives by four simple, yet absolutely essential principles, each with their own purpose. 

* The first makes her unbreakable under adversity.

* The second shows her how to bend or yield when it serves the good of her family.

* The third allows her to honor her role as the leader in her world. 

* The fourth makes her uncompromising when it comes to not accepting destructive behavior from her family, her community, or any outsiders.

Who can be a Spartan Woman?

Any woman who wants to live in integrity with strength, compassion, honor, and strategic decision making can, with training and a strong community, be a Spartan Woman. 

223. DELTA Force Tom Satterly and wife Jen talk about memorial day

ALL SECURE FOUNDATION ASSISTS SPECIAL OPERATION ACTIVE DUTY AND COMBAT VETERANS, AND THEIR FAMILIES, HEAL FROM THE INVISIBLE WOUNDS OF WAR.

BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD: 

ALL SECURE FOUNDATION (ASF), Co-Founded by Tom and Jen Satterly, provides Workshop Retreats for Special Operations combat warriors and their significant others heal from the effects of combat with guided sessions, activities, and information with Tom and Jen Satterly, and trauma therapist Stacey Stone.

In addition to Warrior Couple Workshop Retreats, All Secure Foundation provides resources for SOF couples and their families healing from PTS and TBI.

222. Navy SEAL's view on Quitting

Quitting is the most inefficient way to live, to learn, and to grow.  Why is quitting the one skill that is being endorsed every where, all the time.  

We quit too early.  We quit and get a band or supporters.  We watch people on TV or social media quit and we feel sorry for them and make them our heros.  

Moms quit, dads quit, kids quit.  No wonder kids quit.

As we look at quitting we thank our sponsors Athletic Greens for not quitting. 

Buy some here and don't quit on yourself.  Athletic Greens

221. Complaining or commitment

Uncommitted conversation is complaining.  Complaining causes the thing you are complaining about to happen again and again.  Commitment is taking action no matter what.  Committed minds cannot complain.

Which side are you on?

Stop complaining and buy Athletic Greens

Buy Athletic Greens

220. Athletic Greens and Leadership Choices 101

The ability to make good choices starts with the first 7 days of overcoming you.  You!  that lazy, righteous person who is always judging and never doing or evolving.  you miss everything because you cannot integrate anything into your life for 7 days.

Buy Athletic Greens

219. Killing off other ways to succeed and picking one

The ability to make good choices and decisions is critical. 

If you want to learn how to make choices and the process to make choices in 21 days follow the link below:

Health is dynamic. So we created a comprehensive formula that helps you adapt as your daily needs change due to stress, sleep patterns, or an imperfect diet.

Buy Athletic Greens and join the 21 day challenge

218. Mindset-Abundance or Scarce

The difference in ultimate outcome is clearly mindset.  Mindset in the gap between thought and action. Many people have huge gaps between thoughts and actions.  An abundant mind quickly takes action on thoughts.  A scare mind often refuses to ever take action.

Learn what it takes to have an abundant mind no matter your circumstances. 

Join Unbreakable Leadership.

217. Stop Being Weak and Let's breakthrough together

The Unbreakable 48 hour challenge is for men and women in Canada and the United States, who want to have this spring be the time they start a new life.  We will do three simple things every for hours for 48 hours to reprogram your life and effort and build momentum this year. 

Sign up in The US Unbreakable 48

Sign up in Canada

216. Just stop QUITTING

There is a process and method I have learned of the past 30 years to act boldly when things are not going well, or to start over when life has turned out badly. 

Dan Dather and I worked on communicating the simple elements in chapter One and we hope you enjoy.

Buy Three Simple Things

215. How to Listen: Power Couples made simple

How to listen to your partner is the key to long term success in each of your lives.

Sign up here

214. Mrs America and Dr. Jaime Seeman

Those that don’t have time for wellness will eventually have to make time for illness. My name is Dr. Jaime Seeman, a board certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist with a background in Nutrition, Exercise and Health Science. I am also a current Fellow in Integrative Medicine and a Board Certified Ketogenic Nutrition Specialist. I am a wife and a mom to three little girls. I have a passion for preventative medicine. As a former college athlete I got away with poor nutrition most of my life, until the ultimate stress test of your health…PREGNANCY! Weight gain and fatigue became a constant battle. Low thyroid function, hormonal imbalance and pre-diabetes crept into my life.

Let's talk about being a badass woman and mother and spartan woman

213. Mike Lee and the warrior mind

The mind of a warrior is the most clear and precise mind in history.  It is myopic, driven, and focused. 

Mike Lee is the number 1 boxer in the world with a record of 21-1 and 11 knock outs.  And exited at the top of his game.

Learn about the fighter's mind and how to relentlessly pursue life.

212. Four choices of leadership

If you haven’t purchased Three Simple Things:  leading during chaos.  Please go to amazon and order a copy or if you like to listen order the audio version.  Read the pages and apply the work in your life and let’s all break out of this silly funk we are in.

2021

What will you do with your life in 2021?  Will you shelter in place?  Will you not open your business because someone whom you are paying to make leadership choices for you tell you to not open your business because it could make people sick?  Will you take so needed responsibility for your life and the future of those around you and make great, urgent, this is my life and my state and my country choices?

Odds are you have gotten too comfortable with waiting for someone to lead or too comfortable with doing what you are told even though those who tell you what to do don’t even practice what they suggest.  80% of every population from the beginning of written history are always going to do what others suggest.  So, don’t feel bad if you find it much easier to get into the long line that fights for scraps.

I pause a moment with writing and even presenting this podcast because of the resounding fear that speaking truth that counters the bad choices the 80% have made may get me in trouble.  I pause to take a moment to let it set in if you have listening to unbreakable podcasts over the two years we have been producing.  I finally, pause, because the past 10 days I have caught and suffered and passed through the Covid virus and been with my family as they got sick and recovered. 

I will no longer pause and wait and allow others to be afraid of the big bad wolf.  Waiting is for cowards and the longer you wait the harder it will be for you to lose that coward you are practicing in front of your family and your business.  Some now will only be viewed by others as cowards because they did nothing to make the situation better and allowed deception and lies to permeate every form of communication.

There are four choices every single human can make on a daily basis that will literally transform life immediately.  I want to share them with you because these choices make things real, they will move you when you are stuck, and make you listen when you feel lost.  They are simple choices but not easy.

The first choice you must make every day is when you will wake up in the morning and what is the first important thing for you to do upon waking.  You must dictate to your life when you wake.  This choice and skillset is completely lost in modern culture.  If you hit your snooze you are numb to the advantage gained by have this first choice each day be yours.  If you never know when you are going to wake and go to bed and toss and turn and sleep through the rising of you sun each morning you have lost this most important choice. 

You must make this choice yourself.  You must set your own alarm because finding the urgency to wake and prepare is more important to the rest of your day than you can imagine.  This is your life and you don’t lead yourself to this first objective.  It is time for you to lead yourself beginning tomorrow morning.  And once you start you can never stop until you die.  Because if you abdicate personal leadership of when you will wake you can never get it back later in the day.

Choice One:  pick a time of your choosing to wake each day.

Second choice and the one that will make you feel the best and make you notice the impact  most will also be the one you don’t do after the first 7 days. Make the choice to move your body for one hour each morning before work.  If you do this every day you will take charge of your own health to a point you will be able to through away every diet book, every 7-minute workout hack book you have, you will be able to delete every workout app on your phone.  This choice teachers took out of schools and the health of a society fell within a generation.  Simply because humans no longer have any level of ownership of moving their own bodies every single day for an hour.  This is your body, do you even know that it is capable of doing wonderful things and taking you places that will inspire you and make you cry.  You not making this choice every day must feel bad.  You chose fat, you chose to not own your body and what it can give you.  Take this choice back over any choice you can make in your life. 

Choice Two:  ensure you move your body for an hour every day until you die.

Third Choice and the one I love the most in my life is to only pursue the opportunities that scare the living hell out of you.  Chose to be scared, chose to not play safe in the pursuit of opportunities.  Make the choice to take risks that you feel like you are going to lose, and you feel inadequate and you feel like there isn’t enough time and you don’t know how to do it.  Risk albeit is a four-letter word most weak-minded people have put on the same level as the other four letter word That begins with F.  Many parents are so risk averse you can witness the fire in the child burning out.  Many teachers don’t overtly teach risk skills.  Leaders who were risk averse lost their minds during the covid shut down because all of a sudden: it was scary and there was no clear path and it was uncomfortable.  If you are not scared just a little bit every day you are doing yourself an injustice and you are doing your sons and daughters a massive disservice. If you are the leader and you are not intentionally risking or being a bit uncomfortable you will eventually fall and not recover.

Choice Three:  Pick opportunities and scare you every day

Number four is the most difficult decision you will ever make in your life and one you have to keep making.  The fourth choice of man is not being taught or not being made at all by a great many people.  This choice is who you love and or commit to everyday.  You don’t have to be married to make this choice.  You don’t have to be older either.  But you must make this choice yourself and no one else can force you or make it for you and you cannot abdicate making it.  This choice is so rare I have to admit it could be the most significant way to turn a business around by just ensuring the boss makes this choice every day.  This choice not made causes divorce and makes divorce inevitable.  This choice of who you commit to every day as a boss of a company will make the organization more money that any lean six sigma or BCG analysis ever.  Learn you have profound deep and meaning for relationships with fewer people as a leader.  Not more superficial ones.  The greatest amount of money you can ever hope to make centers solely on the depth of relationships you have with no more than five people in your inner circle.  If you don’t have these five committed relationships every day you are not a leader you are a manager.

This weekend we are having our second leadership summit here in Greenville.  One of my best marine warrior friends in my life is sharing leadership from the point of view of leading during chaos.  I know he doesn’t like it when I praise him but this man led marines in war and is going to receive the medal of honor for actions he never talks about.

The next six months we are going unbreakable leadership trainings in Lubbock and here in Greenville to train leaders to lead during chaos and make these four choices

Sign up at unbreakableleadership.com

211. Why I wrote Three Simple Things: Leading During Chaos

Business is messy. Life is unpredictable. Leading well during turbulent times is more important than ever.
 
Retired Navy SEAL, Thom Shea, served with the U.S. Navy for 23 years with distinguished valor. As a bestselling author and leadership consultant, he has trained thousands of people to overcome chaos by applying the rule of Three Simple Things to their lives and businesses.
 
Thom developed his leadership process during his military career where he served in three wars, ultimately leading a team of SEALs into Afghanistan in 2009. He earned a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Valor, Army Commendation with Valor, and his second Combat Action Medal. He was also hand-selected to serve as Officer In Charge of the famed SEAL Sniper course.
 
"Three Simple Things is a necessary guidebook to leading during chaos." - Eric Van Lustbader, New York Times bestselling author of The Bourne Legacy

In Three Simple Things, you will learn how to:
* Lead like a SEAL during any type of challenge
* Identify the powerful internal dialogue that makes or breaks your success
* Simplify complex problems into manageable solutions
* Understand how and why to lead a "non-negotiable" life
* Envision what life would be like if you never, ever quit
* Create peace and abundance in your health, business, and relationships

210. Three Simple Things Breakdown with Dan Dather

Order on Amazon today

Retiring from the SEAL teams was simple, but not easy. Leaving the world behind that I had made simple for the complex world of business, of family, of staying healthy was chaos.
I had written "Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life" for my family and for other men who wanted to pass on lessons to their kids in case they were not there to teach them, blew up in my face when my wife, Stacy, allowed the manuscript to be on Amazon for everyone to read. I was asked to then teach leaders the process and methods to lead during chaos.
"Three Simple Things: Leading during Chaos" is the culmination of my efforts to train leaders who wanted more out of life other than just grinding out business pursuits and nothing else. The process and methods described are written to be used by anyone willing to have more by establishing and maintaining a non-negotiable baseline of three simple things.
I personally thank you for being bold enough to break out of the grind and lead during chaos when those around you remain stuck in the grind! The methods are simple but not easy. The reward, however, is your clarity when others are remain in chaos.

Order here.  audio book

209. Sons of the Flag with Navy SEAL Ryan Parrott

Sons of the Flag

Ryan “Birdman” Parrott, Founder, President & CEO served eight years as a U.S. Navy SEAL, attached to Team SEVEN, completing three combat tours to Iraq. In 2005, Ryan was riding atop a Humvee manning the turret gun in enemy territory, when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive devise (IED), causing a flash fire and throwing him from the vehicle. Ryan regained composure with his face and arms on fire, and witnessed his fellow team members suffer devastating burn and blast injuries.

After completing his service, Ryan moved to Dallas. Meeting other Veterans in the area, some of whom suffered serious burn injuries, Ryan became discouraged that Veteran Burn Survivors were not benefitting form advancements in the area of burns in the same way that amputees benefit from incredible advancements in prosthetics.

Searching for better answers, Ryan realized that traumatic burns significantly impact not only the military community, but fire fighters, first-responders and civilians as well. Feeling called to help, Ryan established Sons of the Flag.

Sons of the Flag, a non-profit organization, founded in 2012, is vigilantly committed to supporting military and first responder survivors by providing funding for innovative research, Fellowships for doctors to further their training in treating burn survivors, and support for those impacted by a traumatic burn. To that end, Sons of the Flag brings together passionate community leaders, pioneering physicians, experienced military service members, dedicated first responders and purposeful civilians to complete the mission.

To date, Sons of the Flag has funded Medical Fellowships at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston and UT Southwestern in Dallas, supported Burn Units and the staff who work there all over the country, financially supported Pediatric Burn Camps all over the country, established a Fire-Fighter led National Task Force, and funded many individual Burn Survivor requests for help.

The need is immense, the injuries are life-long, and our commitment is unwavering.

208. Unbreakable Spartan Women with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Audio book purchase here

Dr. Lyon received her doctorate in osteopathic medicine from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine and is board-certified in family medicine.
She earned her undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she studied vitamin and mineral metabolism, chronic disease prevention and management and the physiological effects of diet composition.
She also completed a research/clinical fellowship in Nutritional Science and Geriatrics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Contact Gabrielle

Order Three Simple Things

207. Leadership in war

206. Stop making excuses and get to it with Ashley Hromyak

Audio book order here

Ashley leads a purpose driven life and consistently pursues being the best version of herself. 

We discuss pursuing a military life in the army and airborne training and staying mentally and physically health in combat.

Listen to Ashley discussing never apologizing for her relentless pursuit of health and fitness.

Follow Ashley on Instagram ashley_hromyak_ and sign up for her fitness coaching.

205. Be more Do more with Brian and Janet Smith

Everyone thinks they want to have a better life up until the point when they feel discomfort.  That discomfort is keeping you from that better life.

Brian and Janet discuss a long marriage, time spent raising kids to be warriors and a life as a fireman.

Learn about the 24 hour challenge and the Unbreakable Levels One and Two.

When you are ready sign up and let's begin.

Sign up for Unbreakable Leadership

204. Mental Endurance and the 24 Hour Challenge with Donna Scatchard

I am always fascinated with people who seek out challenges to better themselves and push their own limits.  The 24 hour challenge is both a physical and mental challenge.  Each person will most assuredly reach their limits in both areas.  That is why they come.

Donna is a mom, wife, and ultra endurance athlete who continues to join our Unbreakable team on the 24 hour challenge. 

Sign up for the next challenge in April https://www.unbreakableleadership.com/24hourunbreakablechallenge

203. Pandemic. Panic or Perseverance with Stacy Shea

When you panic you make very bad choices that always cost you dearly.  When you persevere you continue to make hard choices even though the trend is to panic. 

Buy Three Simple Things and learn which is best.

202. What is Unbreakable Training with Ashley Schwab

Our Promise

Unbreakable Leadership Training, ULT, level one and level two trainings create a non-negotiable baseline level of activities needed to produce sustainable growth in the Five Pyramids of Performance® - Physical, Intellectual, Wealth, Relationships, and Spiritual.

201. Disruption! Break things and move fast!

Disruption is the key to longevity in life.  Are you big enough to throw everything off the table of your life to see what is truly valuable?

Can you stop doing the complex things that others tell you are important to determine what are the simple things you can do to produce results?

If you want to learn how sign up for our wealth summit in Greenville on October 31st. 

https://www.unbreakableleadership.com/uws

197. Learn what emotions are actually designed to do.

Shifts in business practices have been happening faster with the growth of technology. During COVID-19, virtual meetings which were previously considered annoying became a necessity. Every day a new software comes out that allows people to do more with in less time. However, there seems to remain a struggle to advance training within companies.


In 2004, companies began outsourcing their training to save money. After paying for a training department, the initial numbers showed that they could pay a contractor less. However, like most things, they forgot to account for human error. The training agencies were not as familiar with the company and ended up costing more because of the lack of quality in training.


This is not to say that training agencies are bad, but they don’t have the level of knowledge about the specific company the employees will be working for. Unfortunately, so many analysts are high in IQ (Intelligence Quotient) but not in EQ (Emotional Quotient). It is very easy to crunch numbers and have a machine spit out a figure about budgeting. However, it is a much different skillset to know how future employees will react to training.


This is not to say that emotions in the workplace are good. Apart from grieving or encouragement, emotion is largely negative— resulting in excuses and inaction. Keeping emotions out of your goals is a very difficult process. In fact, society tell us how emotional we should be when it comes to our actions and goals. However, emotional reactions are then dependent on…more emotional reactions. The need for an emotional is a very addicting, cyclical process.


Another discussion about training is OJT (on-the-job training) versus process training. There are probably an equal number of practitioners on both sides of the fence with some using a combination of both. Most people may assume that if keeping training in house is a good practice then so should OJT, but that is not the case. Due to the demands it puts on company staff, whom are not experienced in training, this type of training can cause less efficiency for workers and doesn’t really give steps/guidelines for incoming employees. Processes, on the other hand, are constructed, or should be, when an effective system is created.


After reflecting on this, how does your company approach training?

Show Notes: 

1:29 - How do you hedge against emotion?

3:50 - People don't care how much you know till the know how much you care.

5:10 - Money doesn't buy culture.

7:00 - Why don't companies have training departments?

11:31 - Which is better: on the job training or process training?

14:58 - The history of military training

195. How Does Winning In Football Translate To Business? With Tajh Boyd (Part 3)

There are no good excuses. That is why they are called excuses. Unfortunately, most people don't even realize what false truths they are believing. Thom Shea, 23 year Navy SEAL vet and sniper, mentions that there are four main excuses we all have in our lives: I'm tired, I don't have support, pain, and the most common, I forgot.

How do you get rid of these? You have to want it more than you do now. Whatever you are trying to achieve needs to overcome the excuse, even "I forgot". Because of the difficulty of life and goals in general, these excuses tend to be subtle, seductive, and believable. Think about it: you are in pain, you're tired, no one believes in you and the real, tangible things are there.

Truly successful people silence those excuses and don't allow them to define the decisions they make. Your goals have to be more tempting than the opportunity to quit. Quitting sounds so good, right? No more pain. No more suffering. However, the regret will eat you alive. You can stay average or you can be great.

Another problem that a lot of people face is regret. When presented with two choices that aren't clear, you will most likely be sorry for not choosing the other. The very regret stops you from putting your entire mental focus into what you want to achieve. Make a decision and run with it. Don't look back.

Finally, the biggest obstacle that people face is the belief that your circumstances get to define who you are and what you are capable of. The problem with believing this is that you tie up your worth to those circumstances. If you truly believed that you are worth more than what are going through or have, you can change that. You can have whatever you want as long as you follow this principle: Honor your word and never give up.

Show notes:

2:20 - The dumbest excuse

14:10 - Equality vs. Opportunity

17:10 - How to transition

23:13 - What is Tajh Boyd doing right now?

29:59 - You need a goal

33:48 - Be obsessed or be average

38:30 - Make a decision and make it right

194. How Does Winning In Football Translate To Business? With Tajh Boyd (Part 2)

Take note of the people you surround yourself with. That's a litmus test for how successful you will become. In Episode 194, Can Football Translate to Business? (Part 2), Joseph and Thom sit down with Tajh Boyd and define what teamwork means. The similarities between football, business, and Navy SEALs show that certain principles exist across many organizations.

In fact, every Navy SEAL and high-performing football player always start at ground zero; they must prove themselves. One of the first things that tends to disappear, at least among successful teams, is ego. There is no room for illusions of grandeur when it comes to winning football games or defeating enemies. Ego is the enemy of success. The amount of training that is required for a group of individuals to act like a team equals hours and hours of repetition.

Having practiced simple steps and coordination, each member operates as one, without hesitation or worry. Often, the practice results in an automatic response from each teammate. At Clemson, this effort has resulted in Clemson winning two NCAA Division I Football National Championships over the past four years. For Navy SEALs, the endless years of training makes them one of the deadliest military groups in the world.

Whether it is in fitness, professional life, or sports, achieving the flow state has become one of the hottest topics around. To be able to get to a flow state requires complete immersion into the activity. The mind never wanders but rather, is focused completely on the task at hand. Both Tajh and Thom explain how the amount of work that gets put in before the mission or game results in the level of flow state achieved. It does not require a complex workaround of the mind but does require a focus on simple things.

Navy SEALs have gotten to such a high-performing state that their commands and actions are given without even speaking. The level of trust and lack of worry is beyond surreal when a team is on a mission. Movements and firefights are completed by just watching your teammates’ actions. Football is no different. All a quarterback must do is call a play and the team moves as one. The amount of practice results in teammates anticipating and trusting each other’s actions.

Can we apply these principles in business and everyday life? Absolutely. Trust and teamwork are not just for the football field or battleground. Spend time on simple things so they become second nature. Develop trust in your team. The amount of work will not be easy, but success never is. You owe it to those on your team to put ego aside and fully give them trust.

Show Notes:

0:50 - Never train to win

5:30 - The Warrior

13:00 - Looking Glass Self Theory

20:30 - In the moment

28:10 - Ultra-marathon mindset

34:02 - Navy SEAL Team basics

We hope you enjoy this podcast. If you want to subscribe to be notified of each new episode, subscribe on iTunes: https://apple.co/3fAdDRf.

193. How Does Winning In Football Translate To Business? With Tajh Boyd

When you think of football, business and military probably doesn't pop into mind. However, parallels always exist in successful people and entities. Thom and Joseph were able to sit down with Tajh Boyd, former Clemson football quarterback to discuss how principles from football culture translate to business.

In this episode, Tajh talks about the lessons that he learned from playing football through high school and college. Having gone through trials and chaos, his story resonates and draws similarities to Thom's time in the Navy SEALs along with both Thom and Joseph's lessons from business.

Clemson's success from 2011 til now can be attributed not only to the changes in staff, but also changes made to the program's culture. Tajh gives a deep dive into how Clemson focused on the character and accountability of each football player just as much as plays and workouts. Just as in business and life, one of the biggest drivers of success is not having a sense of privilege, but rather working for everything you get.

Show Notes:

4:00 - Common theme with successful people

5:10 - How Tajh Boyd deals with trials

9:43 - Military vs. Football vs. Industry

11:55 - Tajh Boyd's football journey

22:49 - You can only control your own actions

32:19 - How Tajh came to Clemson

51:15 - Recovering from losing

59:53 - Developing Culture We hope you enjoy this podcast. If you want to subscribe to be notified of each new episode, subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unbreakable-leadership-podcast/id1198039216

184. Success After the SEAL Teams with Dan Cerrillo Part 2

Dan Cerrillo is a veteran Navy SEAL and the Chief of Staff for American Addiction Centers. Having conquered brutally unforgiving battles in war and life, Dan's mission is to serve veterans coping with addictions and PTSD. His success has weaponized him with a unique insight into how we can drastically change our lives.

Show Notes:

0:40 - Creating company culture

6:40 - Doing the impossible

12:40 - What makes a good Navy SEAL?

17:40 - What makes people cowards and bad leaders?

23:00 - Stupid Human Tricks

27:30 - How Joseph hires

40:20 - Force yourself to be uncomfortable

42:20 - Taking responsibility

55:25 - Fixing addiction

1:15:00 - How Dan got his nickname

183. War is the greatest teacher with Navy SEAL Dan Cerrillo

Dan Cerrillo is a veteran Navy SEAL and the Chief of Staff for American Addiction Centers. Having conquered brutally unforgiving battles in war and life, Dan's mission is to serve veterans coping with addictions and PTSD. His success has weaponized him with a unique insight into how we can drastically change our lives.

Show Notes:

0:45 - How Thom Shea and Dan Cerrillo met at BUD/S

6:40 - Dan talks about fighting in Mosul

15:00 - Navy SEAL Tactics and Business

28:50 - 100 Meters

33:30 - Dan Cerrillo and addiction

48:50 - Embracing Failure

55:00 - Personal Development

182. War and Remembering the Fallen

Joe and I take off the gloves and talk about the war waging inside and the war we wage on the outside.  When war is mentioned, it’s typically thought of as being strictly on the battlefield. What’s often overlooked is the war that’s fought in a place we least expect it— our internal dialogue. As we look back at Memorial Day, we reflect on the mindset of those who have laid down their lives and how we can wage war to win in our own lives day-to-day.

Unbreakable 48

Show Notes:

1:00 - What does war mean to you?

4:30 - How Joseph sees war

11:15 - The internal war

19:00 - Discussing emotion

23: 54 - What to remember on Memorial Day

27:26 - The concept of war and freedom before World War 1

35:45 - Getting comfortable with the unknown

41:10 - How do you want to be remembered?

50:40 - How people respond to fear

181. Making Lethal Warriors and Snipers, Memorial Day

Memorial Day is also a time to acknowledge the ones who dedicate their lives to making lethal warriors.  Todd Hodnett of Accuracy First has trained more US military snipers than another other person outside of the military.  His lethal instruction has produced more successful interdictions down range than another other.

Follow Todd here.

180. The Unbreakable 48 Challenge, Three Simple Things every four hours

Doing simple things things teaches us real leadership, mental & physical toughness, discipline, and an overall deeper perspective into ourselves and how we lead during chaos. In this podcast, Thom Shea sits down with Joseph Caldwell and Tyler Harris to discuss the Unbreakable 48 challenge they are hosting on June 26-28th.

Show Notes:

0: 35 - The history of the 48 hour challenge

7:15 - Excuses leaders make

11:00 - Details of event

179. Killing Comfort with Jerred Moon

Comfort. It sounds like something we want, but is it really? Thom sits down with Jerred Moon, retired Air Force officer and author, to discuss the core principles of Jerred's book, "Killing Comfort". Order your copy of Jerred's new book via: https://bit.ly/KillingComfort.

1:00 - Who is Jerred Moon?

5:15 - What do you do when things fall apart?

10:00 - Why Jerred Moon decided to write a book.

13:00 - Defining "comfort"

18:30 - Intentional pursuit of discomfort

21:40 - Best area of life to start getting uncomfortable

28:30 - Subtle, seductive excuses

34:40 - Killing comfort in relationships

46:00 - Killing comfort in ideas

177. The best starting over story with Jamie Mocrazy

Skier Jamie Crane Mocrazy suffered a fall so brutal that it left her in a coma for eight days with doctors fearing for her life. Now, the first woman ever to complete a double backflip on skis in competition is back to the sport for the first time since her crash and slowly trying to get back to living a normal life after suffering a massive traumatic brain injury.

172. Disrupting the Model With Matt Mead

Matt Mead went from ‘entrepreneurial cowboy’ to multi-millionaire business tycoon within a decade defined by changing technology.

With scientific precision, Matt mastered the analog and digital data that drives business. Today, he is the leading authority on responsible entrepreneurship and digital fraud, providing mentorship and solutions to those who deserve a second chance at providing for their families through great businesses.

171. Lead by communicating with Howard Shore

During chaos leaders need to lead by communicating more.  Isolation kills business and the people who are isolated from leaders.

It is as simple as that.

Howard M. Shore has helped thousands of business executives and their teams reach their full potential with his unique approach to finding more profits, revenue, and freedom.

Order Three Simple Things, Today!

170. Professional Sports Ends and Leading During Chaos with Lance Tyson

Tyson Group provides the edge that B2B sales teams need to consistently succeed in today’s complex and volatile marketplace. This elite and qualified team offers expert sales development strategies tailored to companies’ individual needs, cultivating talent that yields measurable results. Their proven process guides leaders and their teams from initial assessment to training and long-term coaching, ensuring substantial and lasting benefits.

https://tysongroup.com/

Order Three Simple Things: Leading During Chaos

169. A Time To Serve

The human spirit can always overcome any obstacle if it learns not to give up on itself.  

After completing the Unbreakable 24 hour challenge, Jennifer committed to writing her book A Time To Serve.  

You too can accomplish great things when you learn to never give up.

168. Millionaire Underdog JT Foxx and Leading During Chaos

JT Foxx is the ultimate Millionaire Underdog. He is a successful serial entrepreneur with companies, brands and business interests spanning the globe. He is one of the top platform speakers in the world and has been deemed the World's #1 Wealth Coach as seen and heard on television, and in radio and print.
Unbreakable Podcast is for people who want to rediscover their edge. I believe in the human ability to get off the X and regain their edge. It doesn’t matter how old, how many times you have won or lost, or how low you have become. I am committed to you getting your edge.
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167. Three Critical Choices during Chaos

Not everyone has experience to draw upon during chaotic times.  Few people have lead others through times that are truly difficult both emotionally and physically.  Yet, we all now find ourselves faced with choices and chaos.

I would like to share with you the 3 critical choices you will have to make during these chaotic times with the COVID19 hysteria, travel restrictions, and the simple not knowing what will come next.  My personal experiences in chaos and leading during chaos are drawn for a life in the SEAL teams in war and the life as a SEAL trying to be a father and a husband during those difficult times. 

Throughout the history of mankind, war has been the most chaotic experiences.  Life threatening experiences tend to be chaotic.  Yet, in all the darkness of war and chaos, the existential threat is actually a great teacher of what to do and what to not do.  War is the greatest teacher and always will be.

The first thing existential threats teach and therefore your first choice you have to make is BE PPREPARED physically.  So the first choice you have to make is either run from the threat, ie put your head in the ground and hope and pray nothing happens.  Or prepare for the worst possible event.  In the SEAL teams, by the way I know most people don’t understand the SEAL Training methodology, we decided to prepare every day for bad shit happening.

How do you prepare for bad things.  First off you have to right now today begin to get your body in shape.  It is not too late you are not too old.  Start right now.  Keep it simple too.  For an hour work out either in your house or outside or wherever you find yourself.

Why, during a crisis is physical health the first choice.  Because if you are not constantly fit you have very little chance of enduring what will come.

The reason SEALs survive in the most chaotic life threatening dirty unhealthy environments is the constant level of physical fitness we chose to have everyday.  The body is a beautiful thing and is capable of dealing with dangers and viruses and chaos only when it is moving and fit and in action.  So get to it now.  Don’t wait.

The second choice during chaotic times of any sort it protect your family or team or company.  That is a hard choice to make for a great many people because chaos throws people into isolation.  I got mine mentality will always destroy the person who had chosen to abandon family and team and company and only protect one’s self. 

Get your family together and talk very openly about what WE will do together today to protect our home, our assets, our supplies.  Same goes for your team or company.  Get all assets under control and shore up all immediate issues that are being affected. Do it right now.

The SEAL team mentality is lethal during chaos.  There is a relevant mantra that works well here too.  Team first, gear second, and I am third.  That mindset will get you and your family and business through this chaos, but the leader has got to make it and demand others make it. 

The Third choice a leader must take during chaos is to keep all emotions in check.  Most people don’t have the ability any longer to control emotions because the society has moved completely 180 degrees away from emotional strength.  Yet emotional stability in a crisis has to be a choice you make every day and practice it every day.

Fear is a choice.  Fear if you choose it will cripple you.  That is what fear is designed to do.  Fear prevents action of any kind.  Panic is the first base hit of fear. 

How do you deal with emotions and fear during chaos?  Keep actions simple and keep in action.  If you want to learn the details of fear than reach out and my team will help you deal with making this choice.

If you are a leader, I recommend you getting of the phone or skype or any method to talk with each of your team or employees and find a way to help them be fit, protect their families and not overreact emotionally.  Keep communicating and leading this way until the crisis is over.  If that means calling them every day that is what you must do.  If you isolate now as a leader the team or company or even your family will be much harder to lead with each day of isolation.

166. Leading During Chaos

Difficult times require simple leadership.  Simple, not complex, not transformational, and not over reactive.  Simple!

All difficult times are the same.  They all seem complex, and life threatening with so many unknowns.  Difficult times without leadership on a personal level create chaos on all levels.

Chaos causes fear.  And fear is the absence of simple actions.  Without simple actions nothing can be accomplished.  Fear is the most devastating reaction to chaos.

It is time for personal leadership not national leadership.  You must lead yourself first by finding three simple things that produce immediate results to overcome this current chaos.  You must break through fear and the complexity of chaos and root your actions in three simple things. 

Take a step back.  Make a list of everything that you have been told will be an existential threat to mankind, your company, and your family.  Hurricanes, military combat, guns, racism, confederate flags, drugs, depression, viruses.  On that list try to write down the millions of dollars spend convincing you, you were going to die within the year.

Make another list on a work-out you can do outside, a sexy thing you can do with your wife or husband or lover, a way you can bring value to one person.  Make a list of three simple things you can do today to improve your conditions.  No matter where you are, who you are.

Now you have two choices one is not real and makes no difference and will never happen to the level they proport.  The other list will change world and stabilize all chaos.

The major problem is you have been convinced chaos is real and every crisis is an existential event.  And you have convinced yourself to not take simple actions. 

You must lead now.  You must break through the complexity and engage in spite of the chaos by actually doing simple things. 

165. SEAL Team leading during crisis

Interview with Thom Shea, Adam La Reau and Mike Rice.  Discussing leading during chaos, surviving isolation and building organizations based on health and fitness.

164. Diversity and inclusion equals unified action

Many companies and leaders get this equation completely wrong!

I have to acknowledge upfront many of you will get twisted while listening to this podcast about diversity and inclusion.  Clearly, not only the nation, but also the world misrepresents the true power of diversity and inclusion by no using the wording as an equation.  Diversity as a stand-alone notion is cool and politically charged.  But diversity is as nature as the air we breathe.  Diversity is everywhere in nature and signifies nothing of value.  Diversity happens without effort.

Inclusion is a hot topic everywhere across the planet and is both natural and exists in every species in every endeavor.  Alas inclusion is so politically charged we seemed to now consider it rare and impossible.  Inclusion is earned and often rewarded. 

Taken separately, as both are now, instead of as a systematic way to succeed, both terms and topics used in a political nature and hammered with reprisal on industry create the unintended consequence of angry, lazy, soft, dysfunctional individuals.  Individuals unable of calmly dealing with adversity.  People lethargically sputtering through all endeavors.  With age groups too vulnerable to quitting when they lose cellphone reception for 20 seconds.  Worse, every individual person seems to be unsuited to working with anyone else.  Diversity instead has created adverse conditions to thrive.

I get it, politicians and news media are trying to make a name for themselves and get caught up in trends and bend the trends into completely unusable items.  Inclusion is a normal process that is earned and the best way to discuss inclusion is “you will eventually earn it in time and effort”.  Truth be told unless you prove or earn your seat at the table where your ideas and efforts may be included in the solution, you literally will kill the solution.  Not everyone should be included just because. 

Like I said diversity is nature.  Put one person in a room and diversity doesn’t exist.  Put any two people in a room you have diversity of all kinds: background, education, ability, skills, capacity, and on and on.  Diversity doesn’t have to be forced, it happens.  However, forced diversity is pre-mediated destruction of a team or organization.  It never works it always implodes.  Forcing percentages of races or sexes into a team or organization kills the outcome.  Try putting a white male into a black female company and force them to integrate and see what happens.  Try forcing a 16 year old (male or female of any race) into a position they haven’t earned and force the team to work with them and see what happens.  Before you do either action, call me and I will get a line of betting in Vegas because I can make some real money shorting your effort. 

I have witnessed forced diversity for 30 years in the SEAL teams and in business and have never seen it work ever.  Not ever!

I have been on some of the best functional teams in the history of war and history of human kind.  None of them force diversity, but instead allow diversity to happen.  And trust me diversity in the SEAL teams is natural and necessary.  But is never forced.  Functional teams allow of any type of person to earn their way on the team.  Functional teams demand diverse ideas and diverse experiences and never force a diverse perspective or person into the team just because. 

One mind, one thought, one race, one species, one sex never lasts very long and is very destructive.  Forcing different minds is equally destructive.  Forcing me to think like you will cause me to have a bad day as it will you.  Forcing races together is horrific.  Forcing, for some political up-righteous idea, diversity at any level causes adversity.  Adversity is good for politics but bad for business and humans. 

However, let’s consider earning at seat at the table as the primary means to succeed and grow both as an individual or a company. 

Imagine 20 people at the decision table.  Let me tell you their backgrounds make no difference.  The only thing that matters is they earned the right to be there through actions and decisions made prior to being there.  The initial stage of decision making is diverse ideas.  Further imagine a topic or goal is put on the table and each person puts their idea or notion on the table.  Each person gets a chance, they are included.

Yet here lies the undiscovered truth many find hard to adapt to.  In high functioning teams everyone is included.  All ideas are allowed to be heard.  To leave the table and take action only one direction is chosen.  Your opinion, your diversity, your singularity does matter up until action is required.  Once you move you all must move together in one direction.  That is the major issue with the current politically charged diversity and inclusion … no one can unify and move forward as a team.  Johnny wants to go left and feels like no one listen.  Mary wants to wear something that is important to here but makes no difference or is of danger to the effort.  Or one group has decided the direction is good bad or against their upbringing and nothing gets moved down the road effectively.

Since the 1940s SEALs have allowed anyone in who could earn their way.  It works.  Every mission takes into account everyone’s ideas and the most effective one is selected.  And more to the point even when a bad choice is made or one that just doesn’t have enough details is made everyone unites and supports it with 100% of their commitment and skills.  No one goes off and does their own thing once a decision is made.  And everyone supports each other.  Diversity + Inclusion = Unified action.

You cannot force any of it.  You cannot even force unity you have to earn that too by failure to unite under one cause. 

Earning diversity is hard because success doesn’t care if you are white, black, brown or purple.  Just that you do what it takes to succeed.  Earning the right to be included is what causes success.  Your unearned opinion has no value.  Success cares nothing about your opinion just that you do what it takes often in spite of your point of view.  To really succeed you need harmonious, synchronized actions.  Even a single individually trying to synchronize his or her own activities is hard.  But success demands it.  Unifying a group of individuals is very hard and is not possible if everyone was forced there and every individual direction will be taken.

I feel sorry for the youth who are caught up in the politically charged diversity for diversity sake and the forced inclusion just because someone said it was a right.  Failure looks for forced, unearned righteous efforts.  Don’t you fall prey to forced diversity and force inclusion.  Earn your way to the table so that you unify your actions with a team. 

163. Complexity of Blockchain with Sam Rusani

Sam Rusani is the Chief Revenue Officer at
ShipChain, a blockchain based solution provider
for the transport and logistics industry. After a
successful $30 million raise in a week, they are
now building a platform that will disrupt the multi
trillion-dollar industry. As a serial entrepreneur,
blockchain advocate/investor, and talent
manager, Sam has worked with some of the
biggest brands in the world, such as Sony, Fender,
Virgin, Universal Music, Ogilvy, Heineken, VISA
and Mercedes.

162. Success begins after you fail. Three Rule of success.

The only differentiating factor of success is failure.  Wait what?  No one wants to fail.  It makes no sense at all to put failure and success in the same sentence.  No winning coach in any sports is willing to lose.  No business owner wants to lose money or go bankrupt or lose people.  No couple wants to get divorced, because that means failure.  Yet all these fears and points of failure happen all the time.  I can honestly tell you the truth, even though you will not want to hear it no matter your age…you will fail more than you will succeed. 

Sign up for Never give up training

That is downright depressing to hear and to consider but let me tell you a secret to success.  What you do after you fail makes you successful.  But you will fail none the less and a great many endeavors.  Harden yourself and your mind and your family to that fact of life.  Since that unalterable truth is the real constant of success, prepare to recover, prepare for multiple attempts, prepare for hard times.

Why do I lead off with such a low and depressing opening to the Unbreakable podcast?  Because after 30 years of being a SEAL, or training with the top athletes in endurance sports, and training leaders in many fortune 500 companies the straight up truth is not depressing at all.  The bottom produces more successful people than does avoiding failing altogether. 

I can also say with years of research and clarity to back up the statement that avoiding failure causes enduring stagnation and long term depression and loss.  And everyone knows that is true.  Avoid conflict and avoid authentic conversation at home and that relationship is over in less time than it took to get it going.  Risk averse businesses and leaders create terrible cultures to work within and summarily get less and less business.  Athletes who avoid pushing their particular limits don’t fail or lose like one would think, they just get bored and stop engaging in sport all together.  The bones of the ones who avoid failure are everywhere.

So why is failure a positive statement and not so terribly depressing.  Here is why?  Failure teaches you truth.  Truth is a good thing.  Failure shows you without emotion exactly what is wrong and will show you how to correct it.  Be eager to expose your weaknesses so that they can be solved and you can grow.

I knew that was the truth in the SEAL teams because the training is build on failure and pressure and risk and getting up again and again.  What I didn’t know until I was retired and training professional athletes and leaders in business is that each of them also based their own successes of failures and starting over and getting up one more time.  I find that trait to be the only universal truth to every successful person I have ever met. 

Let me be clear.  Desire and enthusiasm and clarity of vision and purpose last until the first attempt fails.  In the SEAL teams the saying was no plan last past first contact with the enemy or I would always say you can wipe your ass with the mission order because the enemy may have something to say about it.

Point being not to just wing it and forgo planning and practice and details, but instead keep planning keep adapting, keeping stumbling and getting back on track no matter how long or how much energy the loss sucks out of you. 

In the business space two phrases that showcase failure and starting over are “the culture of growth” and “the boss is a glorified janitor”.  The culture of growth means lead by example, specific target markets not generalized markets, always training and growing, and Lean systems.  The boss is a glorified janitor means a good boss is always cleaning up messes.  If the boss isn’t cleaning up failures and messes of employees than no one is pushing the limits.  A bored boss who thinks he or she has a great company because no one ever makes mistakes needs to take a hard look at what is really going on.

In health and sports there are two phrases that stand out:  Embrace the suck, and, pain is the friend to the victor and the enemy of the loser.  In the SEAL teams as you all have heard the phrase is “the only easy day was yesterday”.  It is easy because it is over and today and tomorrow will not be easy.  Embrace the suck means you understand that to win or to make it to the end many experiences will suck and be frustrating and you will be set back.  Embrace it and look forward to the suck is the key.  Pain is the friend to the victor means pain is inevitable therefore suffering is option.  Don’t opt for suffering that means you didn’t want to feel what you felt.  I want you to imagine getting punched in the face in the first round so hard your kids back home felt it, then I want you to imagine getting back up and fighting harder even when you jaw is broken.  Because that is what it takes.  I want you to imagine running 100 mile ultra marathon and feeling the pain in your feet or knees at level 11 on a 10 scale and puking for the last 10 miles because that is often what it takes.  Why fail to succeed?  Because what you want to happen can actually happen if you deal with the failures.

In relationships failure is common not because relationships are meant to be or the one you are with is the wrong one, but more to the point relationships are hard because two people are constantly changing and growing in life and that is the truth.  Every skin cells changes out in 24 hours.  Muscles cells change in about a month and oddly nerve cells change every 7 years.  There is a reality behind the 7 year itch people often speak of in relationships because no one is the same person they were 7 years ago.  Failure in relationship means never adapting and changing and evolving.  Expectations in relationship to be the same lead to divorce or separation or worse staying together on paper but never being new with that person.   I would never have thought that the one aspect in leadership training would be to ensure the leader has a great home life.  But the predominate point in leader development, which leads to business growth is the power and growth of the key relationship at home.  If you want to turn a company around train the leader to grow and secure the home front every week.  Fail at home and business gets so stale that a new leader can come in and turn around the failing business in one year.  Simply because the home life of the old leader was bad.  That bad home life is surrounded by fear of loss and fear of divorce and it happens anyway because people don’t start over at home where it counts.

Success then really isn’t that hard.  It starts with “honor your word” and “never give up”.  You can do that can’t you?  After that fun start you must realize it takes multiple times and countless iterations until you get on first base.  You have to embrace the notion you will fall many times.  You may break bones or go bankrupt or make a terrible mistake in a marriage or as a parent.  Stay with it one more time.  Learn from the failure and never do it again and start over. 

Fail to succeed

Rule number one:

• It takes 21 days straight to decide if something new has merit. Meaning never make a decision about something new until you have done that thing for 21 days straight.

Rule number two:

• It takes 10,000 iterations or practice events to ensure that thing is muscle memory or to call yourself good at it.  Meaning don’t expect results until you have checked the box 10,000 times.

Rule number three:

• I like this rule it is the simplest to understand yet the hardest to do. It is much easier to do 21 days and 10,000 tries.  The rule is:  take one more step or try again no matter what.

Success in everything follows those three rules.  Three simple things. 

Print out those rules put them in your office or on the refrigerator or in your team room. 

161. Respectiful Leadership with Gregg Ward

Gregg Ward has worked with numerous Fortune 100 and 500 organizations, using his talents as a business speaker and skilled communicator, utilizing his leadership skills, emotional intelligence, communication skills, diversity, and inclusion to give business owners the knowledge and tools they need to advance their business in today's challenging corporate world. He is a best-selling author and speaker who has a goal of transforming lives in creating respectful organizational cultures.

160. Chaos in Washington

159. Intro to Three Simple Things: Leading During Chaos

Three Simple Things is written in the manner of old story telling.  Real stories told around a campfire, where people gathered to learn from the warriors and leaders of the tribe or village.  The words are intended to be read as if you and I are next to each other talking frankly without political correctness.  The stories are also meant to feel urgent and necessary.  I ask you to integrate each chapter into your life.

We humans make our lives painfully complex.  Relationships, which are fundamentally simple, now swim with complexity.  The boring simplicity of being physically tough and in shape drowns in a swamp of exciting complex and lazy actions.  The pursuit of wealth evolved away from simple work and simple teamwork to a virtual devaluing of hard work into hacks and overindulging actions that have no value.  The simple act of learning is now mired in politics and debt.  Spiritually, we are void of meaning to the point a simple prayer or meditation signifies depression and loss of soul.

There are five areas in each of your lives that demand simplicity and abhor complexity:  Spiritual, Relationship, Wealth, Physical, and Intellectual.  To win, you need only do Three Simple Things in each.  Success is simple, but not easy!

Achieving a 6-hour baseline during our day-to-day lives may be the most important objective we have.  I have spent my adult life, as a Navy SEAL, developing and honing the only five measurable areas of life as the baseline for sustained growth:  physical health, structured learning, wealth creation, meaningful relationships, and spiritual connections.  Over the past 6 years, I have trained leaders and athletes and coaches in order to produce a baseline of three simple things in their lives, so that they lead teams or companies toward success.  The process is rather straightforward; the various methods are definable and clear.  The effort is simple, but not easy.  As you learn the process and method, you will achieve measurable outcomes by just maintaining the baseline.  The maintenance of the baseline is non-negotiable. 

Thom Shea, 207

To my children:

Three Simple Things is for you!  The older I get the more I realize the limited time I have to prepare you for life.  My deepest wish is to pass on everything I have learned in my life to add some measurable value to yours.  Many of my SEAL brothers did not return home from war.  Many who did return are injured, many have post-traumatic stress; many have brain injuries and cannot pass on to their families the vast knowledge and experiences acquired in their lives.  Read these reflections so all the combined knowledge will be useful to you.  I write this as if I was sitting and talking to you with no pretenses or formality, yet with urgency.

To the readers I have never met:

I am a fan of the human experience of growth and have spent 50 years thriving in the chaos of war and the chaos of everyday life.  We all have vast stores of experiences and knowledge we want to pass on to friends, family, and others.  Thank you for your willingness to absorb my experiences and your desire to breakthrough your own chaos to find “Three Simple Things” in your own life.

If you are interested in sustained, high level performance in the five measurable areas of your life, called pyramids, then the processes and methods I will describe are for you?  If you are only interested in comfort; only excited about one pyramid; or, only want to learn a short-term hack, then this is not for you?  We humans have arrived at the most abundant time for wealth creation; the deepest pools of opportunity to achieve physical goals; the furthest capacity to learn; the most profound ways to relate to each other; and the clearest sense of spiritual connections in our evolution.  When you are interested in tangible success, Three Simple Things is for you!

Any of us willing to put in to practice the fundamentals of learning, practicing, and maintaining a baseline will achieve levels of performance far beyond what we now think possible.  Like all great endeavors all you need do is commit.  Commit before you know the end result.  Commit without the notion that you can exit when it gets chaotic.  Commit because without commitment nothing measurable is possible.  Once you are committed, then there is just “work” to do.  During the process of working on the 6-hour baseline, don’t give up on yourself.  Quitting or giving up has no place in this life.  Quitting has killed more marriages, cut short more athletic endeavors, caused more business failures, and always separates each of us from divine access.

The baseline is not about balance.  For some strange reason there is a movement to balance life.  Balance in any sense literally means, taking bits from one and putting into another or even getting rid of those bits to have balance.  Time cannot be balanced, energy cannot be balanced, and, life or passion cannot be balanced.  The pursuit of balance always leads to the inevitable conclusion where you have to avoid one thing to have another; and at the extreme part of balance is the notion that stress is bad and to avoid stress.  The absence of stress will destroy you.  Embrace stress and stop negotiating with what matters and doesn’t matter.  Instead I offer a non-negotiable life!

You can live in a bubble with no gravity, with no negative stimuli, which is where the pursuit of balance will take you.  In the bubble after a short time your body will deteriorate and so will your ability to think.  You will never find balance; the notion is folly and simply a sales pitch from a scared child who has quit on their life. 

I offer a simple truth:  do three simple things in the five pyramids of performance and carve out six, non-negotiable, hours and activity a day as the foundation for truly living life.  You will not balance time to achieve the baseline; nor will you give up one category for another.  You will literally create a baseline to think and grow.  From the 6-hour baseline, I have seen men and women run ultra-marathons, grow their wealth by 2x in a year, turn around a failing marriage, and start a new life and thrive.

For the past 6 years of sustaining my own 6-hour baseline while training and witnessing my clients struggle through a life of not having the non-negotiable baseline, but instead overweighting one pyramid while destroying the other 4 areas of life, I am very clear the value of sharing the process and method with you.    I noticed businessmen and women work a 12-hour day and produce millions while neglecting family and health.  I witnessed great athletes training for 7 hours a day and produce number one status while excluding relationships and lacking the ability to find a dollar in a bank.  I have seen parents spend up to 6 hours a day shuttling kids around while giving up their own health and ambitions.  Negotiating with life, always adjusting to the changes without having a non-negotiable baseline causes epic long-term failures.  The baseline will allow you to achieve much more in each of the five pyramids.

Shocking as that may seem to you, the conditions I just described are found everywhere in our society.  The new norm as it seems always ends badly.  But everyone seems to be on this railroad leading to a cliff of destruction.  And, trust me, the cliff where the train falls off going full speed was happening for every successful executive, every top athlete, and seemingly every marriage.

The executives literally worked with the thought process to build a business to make money to support their family and lifestyle.  Twelve-hour workdays, as I began to notice, were killing the family because there was no family time or activity.  The extreme focus on work excluded health and created a horrible eating, sleeping, and activity cycles.  As I continued to notice over time what was occurring in this over weighted life paradigm, the inevitable outcomes of running the train off the cliff became predictable. 

At some point in time the leader would give up half of the income to the spouse. Divorce cuts income by half, let’s not quibble.  After all those hours, all those years, of working a 12-hour day the money would be cut in half not to mention the exhausting process of a divorce.  It was predictable.  After two years of seeing all the indicators and developing a series of questions, I began to realize I could even “short the market” and bet against the companies’ success simply because the boss’s, male or female, work to family life ratio was off.

The most disturbing aspect of the over worked leader became deadly clear looking at the lack of any tangible commitment to physical health.  I will describe later the details, however, neglect in physical health didn’t lead to going over a cliff, but it led straight into a brick wall.  The twelve-hour normal workday eventually kills the leader.  Yes, they die or get so sick they can no longer work, or, die within two years of retiring.  As it were, they were losing everything at the end.  Leaving a trust for the kids seemed to be the norm because most had a trust fund set up by 50 and knew they were sick and not doing well.  The scary part is everyone was doing this.  We all seemed to be in a rat race no one could avoid or get off of the flywheel.

The leaders and top performers had negotiated themselves out of sustainable performance in the five pyramids.  More of one pyramid is alluring.  Being number one is too.  Yet, without a baseline, without the rest of your life being on-point none of the accumulation of stuff is sustainable.  The 6-hour baseline of doing three simple, non-negotiable things in each of the five pyramids of life literally make success easier and much more sustainable.  The rest of the book is stories about the detailed processes and methods to follow in order to set up and maintain a 6-hour baseline.

158. Hire Slow, Fire Fast.

#1 Bestselling Author • International Speaker • Founder of The Hiring Academy & Interview Blueprint David Lee Jensen, Founder of The Hiring Academy and Interview Blueprint, is the Author of the #1 Bestselling book The Naked Interview: Hiring Without Regret and travels the world as a motivational keynote speaker focused on Team Building, Hiring, Leadership and Entrepreneurship. David shares his insight, inspiration and secrets to success, from growing a company to $2.5 billion in client sales. His analogies on happiness and his story of overcoming personal adversity to get there are riveting. His expertise in hiring the right person, the first time and every time is applicable in every arena as “The people you choose will change the trajectory of your business and your life.” His clients include Fortune 50 to industry associations, including Microsoft, NetApp, McDonald’s, Jamba Juice and Grant Cardone Enterprises. David will entertain, educate and engage your conference audience or workshop team with practical exercises to increase personal performance.

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157. A non-negotiable life with Jodi Barrett

At some point in all the chaos of life you have to go for it.  I am constantly searching for the people who go for it and set up a non-negotiable life.  Jodi Barrett goes for it and doesn't negotiate with failure or excuses.

Contact Jodi: [email protected] or on linkedIn at Jodi Barrett

Pre Order Three Simple Things: Leading During Chaos Now!

156. What are you waiting for?

The older I become the more I ask myself and others this question.  What are you waiting for? 

It is the beginning of the year and for god’s sake the year is 2020 and 2020 implies clear vision so let’s not waste it. 

I know, I know you are waiting for something but that something will never come.  School is in the way, injury is in the way, your spouse doesn’t support, you are too old or too young, you are too busy with a job or too busy finding a job.  It is too cold outside.  I get it. 

I was reading an article on American obesity this morning and it made me laugh.  The next article was on how fewer Americans than ever before can pass the physical screening test to enter the military; that made cry. 

So, are you telling me the American public with all the money and opportunity and free access to how to be healthy is worse than ever before?  Is that what you are telling me?

I hope that got your attention like it did mine.

Hey this is a new year so let’s all start where we are and get after health.  Here is why.  Because you can.  Because your body and your health are the only things that follow you to the grave and the only thing you personally have complete ownership of.

If you are a young kid between 13 and 18, here is what I suggest you can do every day, whether your school supports recess or gym or doesn’t for some odd reason, do 20 push-ups a day, 20 sit-ups, and 20 squats every single day.  You don’t need any money or equipment or support and can do these exercises in your room.  If you are really bold make sure you run, jog, or walk for 1 mile a day.  Stop eating refined sugar even though all your friends do it and it takes really good.  Point is that sugar makes you fat a lazy.  The choice is yours.  Make a good one.

Opposite end of the age spectrum where all the money is wasted due to neglect.  If you cannot stand for some reason due to bad knees or injured hips than put the remote in your hand and do as many bi-cep curls as you can, even if you can only do 10 your life will change if you do these every day.  If you cannot get up, then tighten and loosen your belly muscles until you are warm, and they are tired.  Move your shoulders around in circles until they are warm.  I know they are stiff, and you feel old and broken but get to it what are you waiting for.  Finally, drink more water even if you are on diuretics. Don’t waste away by none action and bad eats. 

The next group reflects the group in the obesity article.  Men and women between 35-60 are fatter and in worse health than ever before.  I don’t think that is true.  I actually think the author was trying the meet a deadline to get paid.  Yet, peeps, you all have nothing but excuses as to why you are not healthy.  You are the one buying food and have the job you chose.  If you are parents than you kids are watching and so are your grand kids.  Drink 10 glasses of water a day. I dare you to be that healthy.  I dare you.  I further dare you to go to the gym or outside and workout for an hour a day doing anything that raises your heart rate to 140 beats a minute.  Same as youth, do push-ups, sit-ups, and squats.  What are you waiting for?  Or sit there and get fat and do nothing.

The final group is the oddest group of all.  18-35 years old.  If you dedicated 90 minutes a day to your health and what you eat you would be responsible to changing the world.  Your health costs would disappear.  Insurance companies would hate you.  Doctors would lose money if you as a group just worked out 90 minutes a day.  It takes no money and little time to actually work out for 90 minutes and drink 10 glasses of water.  20% of this age group does this on a daily basis. 

So what are you really waiting for to be healthy?  Is an injury the invite you want?  Is the next size up the awakening?  If a heart attack is needed there is one coming your way.  Are you missing going on that adventure trip with kids or family because you just cannot anymore?  Is that the kick in the pants needed?

Take care of yourself every day.  Don’t want for this crap people call motivation.  Motivation is crap.  Just go do it.  Don’t wait for the pain to go away.  No professional athlete or in-shape person anywhere is without pain on a daily basis.  I cannot recall a day in the past 30 years when something didn’t hurt.  Just get to it even if you limp or go slow or look bad.  Do it.

The longer you wait the further you get away from your health and the person you could be so get to it now. 

Don’t make it complex or emotional or heavy or any non-sense.  Do whatever it takes to work out and stretch and drink fluid for at least 90 minutes a day.  You don’t even have to worry about diet just get to it.

155. Hard Lessons

Let’s all take a moment and look back at 2019.  Specifically let’s all look at the things we learned.  The older I get, and the more distance unfolds from my life in the SEAL teams the more humor I find in my day-to-day life.  As I look back at 2019, I cannot help but laugh.

I look at my life in five areas.  Obviously, health is a big area and as I get older big is the operative word.  The next area is work and accumulation of wealth.  Ironically, the older I get the wiser my choices and the more opportunities I see and can act on.  Another area of great value, at least to me, is the area of learning.  This area is filled with infinite possibilities to once again learn lessons I could have learned as a child.  Not so humorous realizing I am not as smart as I thought I was on a great many things.  The final two areas are relationships and spiritual discovery.  And you have to admit god has a sense of humor when you recognize “you get what you need and rarely what you want in either area”.

So let’s acknowledge the lessons from health we learned, or at least let me share what I learned so that you can laugh:

1. Ultra-marathon runners are not right in the head. They are excited to run a race even though they know they will throw up at least once.  They are thrilled to see others laying on the side of the trail at mile 89 and often try to tell you “you are doing great” as you lay there trying to die in peace.
2. At age 51 getting out of bed and walking to the kitchen could pass as a workout.
3. Yoga is a four-letter word. Not to be used in the presence of young children.
4. Be honest with yourself and recognize you will have to add two more months to the training plan that a 30 year old, highly ranked running coach gives you.
5. The key lesson, learned in the SEAL teams, is still in play. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. And fast is slow. 
6. No matter how prepared you are there is a 30 year old 20 miles ahead of you who isn’t intimated by you or even concerned you want to kill him because he isn’t even breaking a sweat.

The next series of lessons from 2019 is the acquisition of knowledge:

1. At 51 you have forgotten more than most people younger than you even realize.  The problem is you can no longer recall.
2. Key lesson from childhood still applies, say thank you and people will help. Be a angry bitch and you are on your own.
3. It is easier to learn something when you actually open the book and learn it, than it is to read the intro and suggest you got it.
4. No matter how great a shot you were, each time you shoot is a new lesson that you have forgotten. So shoot more and talk about the past less.
5. Dumb is a state of mind. You can learn anything if you are committed.
6. Ask for help from people who are better than you and you will learn lessons you have yet to learn. Ask for help from people who are less and watch the how fast you waste your time and energy.

This year in business has been tremendous.  Let me caveat, that statement with it has been painfully lucrative.  The lessons that were painful to learn are:

1. Hustle makes you excited and tired.  The wise business man hires a team of wolves.
2. Only spend an hour of your day with existing business clients or engaged in things you are comfortable doing.
3. If you aren’t fighting to get in front of 20 people a day than you may feel great but you are not going to win.
4. Surround yourself with 5 people every day who are committed to pushing you in spite of your attitude. You can actually measure success by determining who the 5 people you hang with.
5. Social media must be the only way to succeed? Texting is the only way to do deals.  And everyone on you tube must be rich and sexy, and happy.  Sadly, none of that is true and branding in social media is lucrative for the media company and pales in comparison to real human engagement.
6. Every minute and every person is an opportunity. Once you see that to be true money is easy.

Relationships are the fun area, and the lessons keep giving whether you are in the mood or not:

1. Spend time with your kids because if you don’t, no amount of money you make can buy them back.
2. The woman makes the man, the man protects the woman so she can keep giving.
3. Women raise boys to become men.
4. Men raise strong daughters, this is a truth lost in society these days.
5. If you don’t give your spouse 10 minutes a day they will demand 6 hours.
6. Listen before you speak, share what you are doing not your issues. And touch your family often. Intimacy solves more problems than you can imagine.

Alas, we end with spiritual discovery:

1. Your body is a temple, no amount of prayer or meditation will overcome a broken temple. 
2. Your eyes are a passage to your spirit. Your ears are a link to god so listen more.  Your sense of smell determines if you are a predator or a sheep…learn to smell better.  Your sense of taste determines your appetite.  And finally your spiritual soars with touch and intimacy.  Don’t squander touch. 
3. Speak about your goals and plans every day. If you don’t you will find darkness quickly.
4. Seek more silence because that is where greatness begins. Loud chaotic environments make for dark times.
5. Be completely tired at the end of each day. Hold nothing back.  Your spirit will thank you for it.
6. Start over more often than you like.

154. Start from Zero with Dane Maxwell

Dane Maxwell almost didn't think there was a place for him to belong anywhere, but business saved his life and gave him a sense of purpose and significance. That kind of belonging gave him endless fuel because he had never felt it before. He started 16 business and failed a lot - 11 times. Each time he learned, figured out what worked and what didn't and has started 5 successful profitable businesses including The Foundation that specializes in training people to start a business from scratch, ‍Swipe My Ideas gives away profitable business ideas, ‍Paperless Pipeline a real estate transaction management software, ‍My Agent Base a real estate intranet software and ‍Fear No Feeling sells unique shirts designs. 

He has gone on to create over 15 millionaires with his teachings. He specializes in helping underdogs start successful businesses. Dane also has a passion for singing and he is the author of the upcoming book Start From Zero which teaches entrepreneurs a new way to build businesses quickly, without the risk, from scratch.

153. Brotherhood of War with Monty Heath

Brotherhood of war exists between soldiers, sailors, airman, and marines throughout history.  Navy SEALs go through a forming experience that immediately connects them to each other no matter the length of time between meetings.  War and training for war would seem to be the defining connection, but the human experience is the real reason why SEALs always support each other.

Monty Heath achieved great success and operated  at SEAL Team Two and SEAL Team SIx. 

Follow Monty on instagram and facebook.

152. Forming a Team

Going it alone or forming a team. It often seems as if this decision is hard to make. The old adage regarding teams is real, “if you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far form a team”. On a daily basis those two choices are being made, often they are being made by default because few know the reasons or methods to make the choice. When that is the case everyone picks do it alone.

Whether you reference the five key areas of life: health, wealth, learning, relationships, or spiritual; these two choices are being made constantly. By default, go it alone represents 80% of the choices for some reason. Over the past 30 years I have taken note why alone seems to be default. Most go alone because they don’t have to explain themselves. Others go alone because it is easier and quicker to get to it in each of the areas. While many go alone because they fear failure.

Yet, there may be a method to use to look at and select a team in various endeavors and going alone when necessary. When writing the curriculum to train leaders to lead during chaos and succeed when times are tough, I interviewed 100s of leaders and teams and organizations. A pattern emerged.

Every successful team or even individual had 6 distinct team members; people the needed to help them succeed. When I saw that pattern, I was shocked. People who had fewer really struggled with success.

Even if you take a look at your life, rather when you look at your 5 areas of life you will immediately see the areas where you are successful you have 6 the areas where you struggle you will have much fewer.

Bottom Line Up Front is that you need 6 distinct partners or people on your team per area. If you want to win this is baseline and not negotiable. 6 people you select to help you win.

To further break it down you need two different types of people. The first type is you need 3 people who are sought out to teach you something and hold you accountable to doing it. The second group is 3 people who you seek to do some particular action for you.

Let me tell you selecting 6 people in two groups is a struggle for people. Maybe because we are so drawn to trying things by ourselves. Winning isn’t a personal struggle winning is a team dynamic. So get over this notion of doing at it alone.

So the first group of people, the group of three I call the accountability group. These three are sought out to over see you doing something. They oversee your actions. For example, if you are a runner, you seek out a coach to teach you form or some running method after being show you literally must go forth and do that method and they keep you accountable. Possibly in business you bring in a trainer to teach at new sales method then you must go sell that way with their follow up and over sight. You will need three different accountability partners.

Oddly enough most people will find three of these types. Accountability partners produce accelerated growth that is their job. If you want to learn something you need to have someone show you then follow up with you until you get it. Clearly just being shown or reading about a technique then trying to prove it out by yourself is a complete failure.

The second group is people you seek out that will do work for you and you keep them accountable. This is where sustainable growth comes from. Alas few people select this group well or even at all. It is a struggle but one worth having.

Here are some examples! In health, get a physical therapist or a massage therapist to give you therapy. They do work for you that helps you. In wealth, hire an accountant to do your books. Don’t you do it. Hire someone to do needed actions so that you can do other actions. It is that simple, yet few people have three team members solely responsible to doing activity that supports the over all mission.

You can only do so much yourself so get a team of six set up immediately: three to keep you on point, and three to do activities so that you can remain on point.

This is the baseline reason to have a team.

A CEO team structure looks like this. He or she has no more than three direct reports. They are the three people doing work for him: COO, CFO, Chief Admin. The CEO then finds three people to teach or keep him or her on point, these three may not be inside the organization.

Imagine if you had three people committed to helping you do difficult activities every single day? Imagine if you had three committed people to conduct activities in order to free you up to do the things you needed to do?

Over the holidays see if you can develop a list of 6. I would love to see that list and help you get 6. The amount of growth you can have in 2020 is real. The sustainability of that growth will only happen if you have 6.

151. Prime Leader Traits

1. If somehow you let others convince you that you are responsible for the actions of someone else. Then the next horrifying virtual reality gets conjured up: it is called blame. Blame is the first fall of humans who are convinced responsibility is one to the other.
2. The second terrifying fall is the mental condition you will convince yourself of when you screw up being responsible for your own actions. And that is entitlement or the condition it causes: lacking the deep knowledge that relentless practice is what you must do to better yourself.
3. The third ill fated twist is when leaders don’t account for the actions of others. When the team screws something up, the ill fated leader looks at the person not the action. The count the person as the problem not the action and never correct the action through research, training, and adjusting. Fire the person and guarantee the next person will slip on the banana peel again.

1. People make mistakes then the person who made it stands up and fesses up no matter how gross the mistake. They make a new agreement and adjust to deal with the issue. No one blames anyone else and the team consolidates around the person and the problem and get back on it.
2. Once you realize you are not entitled to anything at all, not even breathing or life then you get to work on bettering yourself and everything around you. You practice like it matters. You keep cleaning up spills, you keep adjusting you to the circumstance.
3. Leaders start planning and considering actions required to succeed not personalities. Begin training people to do actions that is the key aspect.

150. Disruption and Innovation

Disruption and Innovation

Unbreakable Podcast is for people who want to rediscover their edge. I believe in the human ability to get off the X and regain the edge. It doesn’t matter how old, how many times you have won or lost, or how low you have become. I am committed to you getting your edge.

Whether you are a leader, or on a team, or starting a business, or stuck after a success point there are two distinct efforts that will get you off the X again—disruption and innovation. Disruption and Innovation in a business environment always move you off the X; always move the needle.

I want to share three stories about the twins of success so you can see the advantage.

The first I find to be the most extraordinary and most common story in business. The story of how a new boss, either through a new equity purchase of the company and the injection of a new leader, or, a new leader rises up as the old one leaves. Experienced leaders, you know the ones who have turned bad situations around before, always cause disruption or innovate which causes disruptions. Innovation and disruption are twins you cannot have one without having the other.

The disruptive leader has no preconceived ideas about what works and what doesn’t work. The disruptive leader interviews everyone with two questions in mind: what they do and what difference it makes to the organization. The initial period of interviews causes emotional disruption to the group. This is intentional but painful. The analysis of the people and their effect is needed but often brutal to witness and go through.

The second is the analysis of the costs and revenue. I have to admit this effort over the past five years with organizations is truly an eye opener. Bleeding costs, hourly expenses that don’t directly cause increased revenue, and lack of simple activity to drive revenue are the most rampant gaps in most organizations. The gap analysis causes disruption due to exposing the truth. And, no one likes the truth for some reason.

The third aspect is the correction. The correction disrupts the people and changes the costs and gets rid of people and things that don’t impact the organization. The third effort sets a new baseline. From this new baseline of people, activity, costs, and revenue comes Innovation.

With a clean slate the new leader and the new culture can innovate processes, methods, technology. The process is simple but not easy.

The second story is what happens in the SEAL teams on a weekly basis. In the teams, both the operational platoons and the training cadre ask three questions: Who is one point; what is working and not working; how far can we push the men and systems before they break. In the teams you intentionally cause disruption in order to cause innovation in techniques and technology. There is no other way to create and sustain high levels of performance. Intentional disruption and innovation is the culture of growth.

When you look at people with the test of who is on or off, you only get one non-emotional answer. Performance is just what it is. You either can or you cannot demonstrate it. If you cannot you are not on point. If you can perform you stay if you cannot you go.

When you ask what is working and what is not working, again, you have a non-emotional answer. This techniques works in this situation and not in others; or that technology works in this or that environment and not in those others. Point of fact, clear and simple!

The disruption of pushing to limits is the way of life in the SEAL teams and very rare in business. I have yet to find the answer to why the disruptive life is not embraced in the business culture, when the clear outcome in the teams is so evident. At no point in time is there a training scenario that is winnable. No matter what happens things will fall apart or be pushed to breaking.

Why? Because, training within limits makes you lie to yourself and to your team. Pushing to exhaustion is a truth. Using a tactic until in proves it doesn’t work is a truth. Shooting on a static range and being proud of your shot group never holds up in the reality of war. The culture of the SEAL teams pushes to limits to expose what to work on and change.

The third story is mid life crisis of a leader. I find this story to be the most amazing to me, in a good way. For the sake of brevity I will define mid life crisis as someone between 35 and 50 years old who has done exceptionally well in business and life. The man or woman feels stale, feels like they are stuck in a rut, or just lack enthusiasm. They have actually won, or arrived at the tons of money, their kids are gone, and their business functions whether they are there or not.  

There is no next horizon, no hill to concur, and, no crisis to solve. The tragedy of going after the famed bucket list seems great until you travel and see that castle and drink that wine and shop in Paris only to find that too to be lack luster and brief. Most people get stuck on the X here and lose the urge of building; and extinguish the fire and passion of relationships; and worse they just eat and get fat.

What we do in my training is completely disrupt the entire system. We get back to the true value of life process by teaching a method and formula to always grow in five areas of life. We get health back as a foundation. We disrupt wealth so that abundance becomes the theme. We get excited again to learn. We innovate how relationships are set up and maintained. And, we unique ways to connect spiritually.

Break the mold, start over, get excited and lead a measurable life. Age is not a factor. I have trained non-runners over 55 to run ultra marathons. Having a million dollars in the bank is not a factor. I have trained both people with money and those without to use the process to start, grow and sell a business in two years. Pre-existing passion and looking sexy is not a factor. I have trained both men and women to disrupt the marriage in order to relate intimately to each other.

In closing I would like to share the periodicity of disruption and innovation with you so that you look at the five areas of life and apply the twins of success.

Physical or health disruption needs to occur every month. Innovation in your physical life needs to occur every week.

Wealth disruption needs to occur every six months. Innovation needs to occur every three months.

Relationship disruption and innovation, both, need to occur every three months.

Intellectual disruption and innovation need to occur daily.

Spiritual disruption and innovation need to occur every year.

If you are interested in disruption and innovation reach out to us at thomshea.com.

149. Solving the big problems of leadership

Solving the big problems.

Moving into the week where we celebrate Thanks Giving, or Harvest or changing of the seasons or maybe just a time to say thank you to loved ones or for life in general, I want to address many questions and insights from a life spent training for war and training others in business for war. Maybe the insight will give you some peace during this week of saying thank you.

I interview leaders every day either on the phone or in person, I also have spent the past 6 years training leaders to achieve results in areas they thought lost to them. These two questions illuminate a great deal of underlying issues that cripple progress:

• How do we ?
• Why is this ?

The fill in the blank part of those questions is irrelevant. Oddly enough the answers and the solutions are equally irrelevant because there are millions of usable answers.

How and why, when leaders or organizations are asking these two questions they are stuck on a plateau of success, or rather as the cliché says they have risen to their level of incompetence.

Problem solving is an art and science to be sure. The art is to resolve quickly what the real issues are. The science is the tactical processes and methods to fix the problem.

How when asked shows three problems. The first issue that asking How unravels is always a leadership issue. The second issue regarding How is a team structure or recruiting issue. The final issue surrounding asking How is a training issue.

Why when asked unravels a completely different set of circumstances. These circumstances take a rather mature mind to resolve and often few consultants want anything to do with it. The issue of Why is always emotional quotient. When you ask Why, you ask it from a place of already reacting emotionally to the problem and your emotion is now in the way of solving it.

The idea of the podcast is to impart some ways we have found to help teams and leaders solve some rather complicated problems. And the first issue with How, as pointed out, is a leadership issue. I didn’t use the word blame. Blame is for children and should always stay in a childish conversation. Or rather it is bomb in the world of politics to keep things unresolved. Blame will never resolve “how to” it will only make things worse. The fact that “How” is a leadership issue isn’t a blame point of view, it is a point of view to focus on the dynamic and foundation of the leader.

A very effective leadership structure is to have a clear articulate Vision Statement, and precise mission statement, and have no more than three direct reports empowered to make decisions and execute. The reason how to is being asking is always because the leader isn’t clear on these three parts of leadership.

And you can try this at home. Your vision statement needs to be 7 words or less. If it is longer than you will always be asking how the hell do we.

Your mission statement needs to answer these three questions: What we do, When we do it, and Where we do it. The more precise, the quicker the team can deal with solving how to. The more flowery the wording, the more you let a lawyer put in jargon the less likely you are to succeed. The 3 direct reports is always the clear point of failure and always the underlying issue of why you are asking How do we ? If you want to be a great leader you simply must not have more than 3 direct reports. Actually you always must have exactly three: an organizer, a sales leader, and a financial leader.

The second issue in Leaders asking how to is misalignment of teams and recruiting. Actually those two are the same bracket. Leaders who don’t form teams around specific markets who don’t know the advantage of target markets and teams always are faced with how do we grow or how do we solve the more problem. Recruiting is always tied to teaming and market teaming. Leaders must have it in their DNA to always be fighting to find the right person for their teams and markets. Always be recruiting and knowing what you are looking for within the market teams you have formed.

The third issue is a point of leadership. Training resolves How to. Training your people to be successful, function on teams, and adjust to the market is the definition of leadership. Training departments are the first things to dry up and suffer neglect. But they should be the primary expense of a business.

Do you as a leader have these issues? Then I bet you are asking How to quite often.

If you are not clear with your vision and don’t have a measurable mission statement and don’t have three committed direct reports then my question is how are you a leader?

If you don’t form teams around specific markets and are not recruiting every day than how are you leading?

If you are not training people to be successful in their jobs, then how are you leading them?

The why question is a challenge. I find it to be the most rewarding aspect of training teams to win or training leaders to win, because mastering emotional reactions is the key to thriving in chaotic environments. It occurred to be in the first year of retirement that few in the business world had any real training or understanding of their emotional quotient other than a book from a Phd. Knowledge and actionable understanding are rarely the same in any field. And where emotion exists knowledge has little value. Everyone knows when people are reacting emotionally, even the person throwing a tantrum or withdrawing due to sadness know they are reactive. But no one seems to be capable of dealing with the emotion.

But here is the point. As long as you are reactive emotionally you will never be capable of solving the problems you face. If losing money makes you frustrated, your emotional frustration will cause the same set of actions again and again. Hence frustration. If you are upset with someone, then being able to team up with them to solve a problem is not possible.

Imagine what would be possible when you get on point as a leader and you learn to master your emotional reactions?

Solving the big how to problems is rather simple. Solving the Why problems is mastery.

So give thanks this week for the struggle. The struggle is worth all the reward.

148. Success one mile at a time with Rob Steger

Ultra marathon running isn't hard if you are committed.  Just committing when you cannot run is what is hard.  Rob Steger committed to running ultra marathons before he could even run one mile without stopping.  In four years he has accomplished elite status as one of the few to run the triple crown of ultra:  three 200 mile races is 3 months.

Learn the simple processes listen here

147. 5 Million Dollar Solution: Think It, Be It with John Mitchell.

John Mitchell’s 12 minute a day Think It Be It technique is recognized today as the “Top Practical Application in the World” of the book Think and Grow Rich. When he applied his technique to his own life, he saw his income go to over $5 million a year. Previously, for 20 years as an entrepreneur, he earned low six figures a year. The 20 times difference happen because his daily technique significantly increased his control over himself, by probably double.

Learn More

It also made him laser focused every day on only the 2-3 things that move the needle in his business. Also allowed him to rapidly evolve his “Strategy for Success”. He was simply operating every day at a higher level than he ever had before, and it showed up in his income. The science behind his technique was profiled in a Time Magazine cover story.

146. Strengths vs Weaknesses

Unbreakable Podcast is for people who want to rediscover their edge. I believe in the human ability to get off the X and regain their edge. It doesn’t matter how old, how many times you have won or lost, or how low you have become. I am committed to you getting your edge.

Let’s talk about strengths and weaknesses.

There are tons of well meaning people distracting young people from success. With the volumes of data injected into our brains bypassing our senses, which were long ago designed to filter out stupid meaningless bits, the well meaning seemingly educated good doers are trending the nimble young minds into failed efforts.

You have to be careful when you are young or you are stuck on the X or you are wanting to get your edge. You have to learn to filter out stupid.

First I have to make a point of clarity about what doesn’t work. I want to make it early so if you are doing it you can stop doing it quickly so that later maybe the good things to do (the things that work) will be available to use. The old saying you cannot fill a cup full of water when it is full of crap, you have to dump the crap out first is a true statement.

So if you are on the X and having trouble getting after it; or if you are successful and lack interest; or if you are unsure what to do to become successful, the first truth is this: Life is supposed to be hard. I mean that. It is hard to get and stay in shape. It is hard to be a mom or dad raising a newborn. It is very hard taking an idea from your head and making money with it. So if you find yourself facing a hard uphill you are doing it right. Don’t back off, don’t walk away, keep getting up every time you get knocked down.

Next point is even simpler. Nothing works the first 100 times. You may have lost sight of that simple fact. You have forgotten as an infant you couldn’t swallow easily, it was painful and new and nothing worked. You tried and cried and got frustrated but you kept going. You have forgotten that standing and walking was very difficult. But you kept doing it even though you fell and got hurt and yelled at for breaking this or that. These young “try again” experiences were supposed to teach you do keep after it later in life but you have forgotten.

The final issue is be careful who you surround yourself with. The truth is most people around you don’t want you to win, I am not sure why this is the universal truth but alas be careful. Your parents may or may not be helpful. Your friends are more often than not going to be there when you fall and help you through it. Your spouse or lover may leave when you fall apart.

So now to the original point: which is more vital to your over all success in any endeavor in life? Are your strengths more important than your weaknesses?

Let me explain how the well meaning get this wrong. Many (very successful men and women) say double down on your strengths and don’t spend time on weaknesses. What they don’t explain in any detail is what they mean. To a great degree that notion that don’t waste time on weaknesses is completely absurd. Reality is no one has a real strength that they haven’t worked on honing through pain and breakdown and years of effort.

These well meaning good doers may mean is don’t be emotionally invested in utopia. I call this utopia because a 4 foot 11 kid may spend his or her whole life dreaming of playing pro basketball. Or a one legged combat vet may wish and dream for the leg to return. These sorts of nonsensical emotional issues may be what they mean, because the time wishing on utopia could be spent grinding out being the best 4 foot 11 person in the world or possibly learning to do incredible things on one leg.

So I have to define what I am meaning by both strength and weakness. A strength is simply something you do that comes easy and makes things happen in the real world. Some people are good at running the first time they try. Some are good at public speaking even as a kid. Some are built strong no matter what they do. Some long great without make up. You get the idea.

Weaknesses are simply things you do that are fumbles. Weaknesses are things that you struggle at doing or have a hard time even wanting to do. Here is the kicker so few people like to struggle, and fewer still even consider doing something they don’t want to do. Working on speaking when you stutter is very difficult, but those who do get better. Running when you are fat and overweight is a definite struggle, those who do lose weight and get better at running. Learning how to not spend yourself out of business is hard. It is hard to cut spending and do without until the business turns north again. Those who learn to deal with debt and curb spending have a great opportunity to win when the business cycle turns.

Strengths are a misconception because if you think you just doing what comes easy with make you better you will fail to the person who is working on their weaknesses. And you will lose every time if you just do easy and comfortable things.

I have never seen successful people in any field do what is comfortable and easy. They simply do not.   A master craftsman works on the details he screws up. I know a man who has played the violin for 80 years, he is 90 now. I hear him playing every morning. I found this odd, so I asked him why he plays. His answer floored me.

I am paraphrasing as best I can:

            I played in the New York symphony the San Diego and for may conductors    and in many operas. To the listeners and even to trained ears my music is        flawless. But it never has been. There are sounds I struggle to make and the           music struggles to come out. I keep working on each movement and sound     until it goes right. This morning I am working on a piece I have struggled      with since I was 13. I have never got it right.

As I listened I heard nothing. The sound was like butter. And it was moving to hear. He told me the name and it meant nothing to me but it was stunning to witness a master struggling with perfection. The piece was titled: JS Bach’s Chaconne from Partita in d minor. I hear it is a hard one to play but it looked effortless. I suppose after 70 years of practice it looks that way. But to him is was constant imperfection.

Personally, I have known many of the greatest athletes in running, football, swimming, ocr, adventure racing. And I can assure you these professionals spend 90% of their time working on imperfections and weaknesses. They embrace struggle.

I know the top ultra runners some are friends and some I know by watching them for years because I could never catch them. One would think ultra runners just run. That is their apparent strength. But let’s not lie to each other here. Ultra runners only feel their weaknesses so that is what they work on. They would rather just do a run on flat pavement in 7 degree tempts. Instead they do the opposite. They run uphill in the rain. They hate to feel the bonk of energy and dehydration so they push until the bonk to work on what to do if that happens. They learn to eat and run on a full stomach. They learn to run on bloody feet when others don’t want to. They go to yoga because running makes you stiff as a board. They get massages on the psoas muscle and it hurts like hell but it gets weak and tired so they do it.

I know business leaders who wake up early even though they are multi-millionaires. They wake up early to learn something they don’t know or to find some detail they may have missed. They look for gaps and weaknesses they can improve.

You know who works only on their strengths? I think you do, but let me just remind you. People who work on their strengths are those who are lazy. They do the same thing day after day. Same routine. Same every thing. They are stuck because breaking routine, breaking sameness is unsettling and they would have to face a weakness or a level of discomfort they no longer want. This only doing what they feel strong doing actually destroys them.

This week, do something to improve a weakness. Don’t do something arbitrary. Pick a weakness in an area of life that matters to you. If it is uncomfortable to fast for a day than do it. I promise your health will be more under your control. If it is uncomfortable then do it because it will make all the difference.

Share discomfort with the people who you want to get off the X or who you know are down and need a kick in the butt.

145. The four ways we limit our successes.

Thank you for listening and subscribing and thank you for sharing each episode with the people who matter to you. Many of you have reached out this past week and asked the same question. How do we limit ourselves? Probably, the most relevant question to be asked by anyone in any profession or any circumstance.

Bottom Line Up Front, the BLUF. We limit ourselves in 4 basic ways on a daily basis.

We start out skipping some wake up function to our body.

We rarely read out loud each morning what our goals are for that day.

We skip sharing our goals with our partners and family and often neglect listening to their goals.

We all respond emotionally to what the day brings.

Clearly there are secondary and tertiary ways and mechanisms that limit us. Yet without realizing the 4 basic ways have already set us up to be less the secondary and tertiary are irrelevant.

Before I share some examples and functional ways to effect the 4 basic ways to not limit yourself, let me explain why our world is constructed around few even realizing they skip the basic self limiting functions. It is much easier to be lazy. I think lazy is the worst four letter word known to man. Lazy destroys health rapidly. Lazy causes relationships of all types to dissolve. Lazy loses more money than a one day market crash. Yet, lazy is what happens to many on a daily basis. And the inertia on lazy is what we take into the hours we are awake trying to succeed.

But, that is the negative aspect of self-imposed limits. Negative reflections as you know aren’t helpful regarding success. Negative reflections are just facts with no clear way to deal with the facts. Tell someone they are lost, or out of shape, or dressed wrong, or Lazy is just fact. But knowing the fact doesn’t give anyone a new means of dealing with or adjusting. Maybe being negative and stating fact ensures the fact remains unchanged.

So, let’s deal with the each of the four is short order.

In the morning, right when you wake up, what do you do? Having trained thousands of leaders and teams over the past 29 years, I can tell you most people wake up silent and lethargic and stiff and sore. Many wake up next to some one and softly get out of bed, walk out of the room straight to the coffee pot or refrigerator. On the way they notice their feet hurt, or legs are stiff, or neck or back or shoulders are achy. Their eyes are tired. Their heart rate is low. These various limiting factors are real and consuming coffee or something from the refrigerator may seem like the best solution but let me tell you it is not. The rest of the day will be inundated with pain, stiffness, decreased mobility and lack of desire.

Instead, for the next week, try another method. Wake up and immediately, right in the bed room while seated in your bed move every single joint. Then get on the ground and do 10 push ups. Engage and demand your arms and shoulders and body turn on and move. Roll over and do 10 sit ups. Ask your core muscles turn on and begin to move your body. Then stand up and do 10 squats. Your legs and hips are yours so ask them to engage.

When you actually have a body moving and capable of doing what you ask it to do, you will have over come the first limiting factor. Your body will be engaged and responsive the rest of the day. Forgo this basic routine and you will have limited your health and capability.

The second basic limiting factor is to speak out loud. Literally tell yourself what you intend to accomplish that day. It doesn’t matter how small or big that goal is. You have to begin to use the spoken word to succeed. I want to work out, or I want to call one new client, or I want to go to the store. Forgo this basic routine and you will find achievement rather difficult.

The third basic limiting factor is often the hardest to do, it should be the easiest but alas I have found it rather hard to find one person that does it. Could be why marriage and intimacy is so hard to maintain? The third factor is to listen to the goals of your partners in the morning and to share your goals with them. Simple, but not easy! Forgo this basic routine and you will find increasing difficulty and meaning in the relationship you are in.

The final factor is our immediate emotional response to everything that happens from waking until sleep. Most don’t even realize we have already responded emotionally to how we our body feels, or what the day may bring, or worse how our partner and family is within 30 minutes of waking. We wake in pain and are frustrated. We don’t tell ourselves what we want to accomplish that do so we emote apathy and passionless. We don’t connect with family and we feel empty.

What if you learned to not respond this way, or rather what if you didn’t let your emotional Ego dictate how you feel? What if you weren’t so emotionally reactive to traffic, to rain, to delays at work? Your response emotionally so quickly and randomly is your limiting factor. Uncontrolled emotions are very limiting to every aspect of your life. And let me tell you, your emotional response is entirely up to you.

You are in charge of doing or not doing these four limiting factors. They don’t take skill, time, or money. Not doing them destroys your skills, your use of time, and your wealth.

Imagine what you would feel like and be capable of doing every day if your body could move well? What would you do if you could move more gracefully or more powerfully?

Imagine if you set and goal, big or small, and achieved it?

Imagine the relationships you could have if you were interested in what your lover, spouse or family was doing that day? What would life be like if someone in your family called you at noon and asked how did that meeting or deal turn out?

So, maybe this week, overcome these four self imposed limits, every day. Imagine if you were not so quick to feel frustrated with the way things are going? Imagine the life of not being so upset with the uncontrollable?

144. Will Power: Four Ways to Destroy

4 ways to Breaking Someone’s Will Power

I would like to share a fundamental truth about winning or achievement or even doing anything to the best of your ability. There seems to be a distinct difference between what some groups profess will accomplish excellence. The difference is so dramatic, so clearly off the mark I thought it an opportunity to shed some light here.

I know that every child is born wanting to explore, wanting to learn, and wanting to survive. The built in desire to survive, although many may not thing it important, is the key factor in success throughout life. Perhaps that is the real spark that when fed causes greatness.

The spark to survive obviously takes a different shape the older the child becomes. Once the child gets the basic needs met, all children immediate explore, want more, and want to get better.

Here is when and what I would like to share with you. I would like to show you how to break someone’s will power or crush someone’s ability to succeed. This works for kids, new hires, or even successful men and women. I want to show you the road map to destroying performance.

The reason is simple, so you can make the choice.

The first way to break someone’s will power or ability to win is to teach them to be a victim. We actually teach and reinforce the victim paradigm. Teach them that someone else did this to them or someone else is at fault. Teach them the reason they are slow is because of the parents or the coach. Teach them the reason they lost the game or got a bad grade is someone else’s fault. Teach them they are fat because of genetics or fat because they are a victim of where they were born. If they get in a fight or abused tell them they are the victims.

Later in life reinforce this victim ology, by telling them to not work hard because they will fail. Reinforce by showing them how other people like them never dig their way out.

The second way to crush someone’s spark is to teach them they are different than others. Teach them about sexism. Teach them about racism. Show them how others are treated poorly, never to trust another race or the opposite sex. Make them different and guarantee they will never realize their own potential.

The third way is to isolate them or allow them to isolate themselves from rough or hard times. The easiest way to make someone quit on themselves is to push them away after they fumble or to coddle them after they get bucked off the horse. Never let them try again, allow them to run away and you give them the most predictable outcome … failure for life. When you isolate them from hard times they will never recover.

The forth way is to string along the lie that they are entitled to anything. Tell them they deserve something they didn’t earn and bleed and work hard to get. Tell them they deserve health care and watch how poorly they take care of themselves. Tell them they are entitled to trophy in sports and watch how lazy they become. Tell them they should get what their neighbor has and watch them neglect their ability to do anything well.

Scary those four ways are all over social media, in the news, at school, in businesses. Entitlement causes neglect, forced diversity causes no unity of effort, Inclusion of everyone causes no one to perfect a skill set.

I have another way. But only pick this way if you want to win, or grow or perfect a skill set.

One, Realize you will be beaten up either physically or mentally or emotionally. Learn to bounce back. Learn to build yourself back up even if you get crushed. Start over. Get back on the horse. Don’t blame others and don’t blame yourself. Get back up every time you get beaten down. Watch what you will be capable of doing.

Two, Get off of the train called sexism and racism. Just get off that ride because it is going to kill you and make you less. Be yourself. Let others be themselves. No one cares if you are a color or sex or unique. Just be the best version of you that you can possibly be. People may not like you. Who cares. People may cut you down or not hire you cause you were male or white or black or whatever. Why would you want to work with them anyway. Find another job or way of life. The hell with them. Just be you and let others be themselves too.

Three, If you are going to do something hard, something that demands effort from you, you cannot accomplish it alone. No matter how rough it gets, no matter how many times you fail, don’t run away. Instead get a team of people around you who are relentless, who won’t let you run away. Get a team to pick you back up even if you are broken.

Finally, no one owes you anything. You parents don’t owe you anything. Your boss doesn’t owe you anything. The government doesn’t owe you health care or a place to live. You may never get a trophy ever in your life. But, you have to earn this life. You have to wake up early and train. You have to do what it will take for you to cross the line. Earn this life. Embed that way of looking at everything into your soul.

143. The legacy of war

In each word and section in this book I have been tasked with telling my story so that in case I die in combat my children get a sense of their father. Actually, Stacy pleaded with me for two years to put to words “Who I am and How I am”. Therefore, this project is not simply a day to day recount of what I did, but rather a recalling of what I faced and what I learned in order to teach my children how to Be the men and the woman that lives into the possibilities they create for themselves. Unbreakable simply put is creating and finding in you that which is indestructible. Finally, this project called Unbreakable is a way to make up for being gone 220 days per year for 23 years as a Navy SEAL.

This book contains no hidden secrets, rather it is a pain-staking study and practice of what makes for an effective and efficient pursuit of what is best in the human endeavor to transform the genetic traits and perform above and beyond what humans think possible. My children…when you are ready to read Unbreakable and ready to put it to use, you will recognize a pattern in each section. I wish I could tell you how you might know when you are ready, yet that would truly deny you the benefit you all will receive when you make the discovery in your own ways.

When you get discouraged, when you have difficulties overcoming the obstacles that drain your soul, when you try and fail, when you feel reduced by injuries use this book as a light in the forest for which you have been searching. A strange thing will happen when you acquire and apply the 13 lessons within…you will literally be propelled on to unfathomable successes. 

There is no way to achieve without enduring countless hours of practice. The single most important practice for you after reading is the use of Internal Dialogue to bridge the gap between your genetic gifts and your passions, your dreams. Every single successful human has Internal Dialogue they just don’t know they have it. I will show you even if I do not return to you. 

The gift and practice of Internal Dialogue cannot be had by anyone who is not committedly pursuing their passions. In other words, you must have something that you are wildly committed to Being or Doing with your life. The gift of mastering your Internal Dialogue cannot be given away for free, it will not be purchased with money, because there is no more dangerous and useless gift than one bought or given without earning it.

An Internal Dialogue to create an Unbreakable condition will serve each of you equally well when you are ready for it. Trust me on this…formal education has nothing to do with it. Formal education actually indoctrinates you to being less a man and very much so less a woman.

Who am I to say that in reading this book you will know, grasp solidly, the use of Internal Dialogue? I have spent 23 years living and researching what it takes to overcome any obstacle in the way of success. I have survived countless, overwhelming combat engagements and failures that tested and validated the use of my own Internal Dialogue to life an Unbreakable Life. I have personally taught 330 basic SEAL Students, and 112 SEAL Sniper Students, in order to test the use of Internal Dialogue to perform beyond what I thought possible.

I have never known a single person who used Internal Dialogue, who did not achieve remarkable successes. I have never known any persons to distinguish themselves, or to survive overwhelming battles, without possession of Internal Dialogue. For these reasons I conclude that the experience and education gained using Internal Dialogue is more important, as a part of the human paradigm to create a life better than the one before, than any which one receives through the standard education system. 

As you read, your own Internal Dialogue will jump from the pages and stand boldly in front of you, when you are ready to see it and use it. You will see it. When it pops out, I want you to stop and drink a Guinness for me, because it will signify the most important turning point in your life. 

Take note that I will be sharing my life for you: the facts, the failures, the Me; so to speak. Through my eyes, through my experiences I hope to convey the Who to Be and How to Be! 

142. Second Chances

Sustainability is hard at best. Longevity is rare. Yet many people set out even from a young age to win all the time, succeed at every endeavor, make more money in each year. I have sat in numerous business meetings where the marketing departments project a never ending growth curve. I have sat in more than enough college and pro football team meetings where every play scores and every game is a win.

I want to pull the ole cat out of the bag for a moment. Sustainability, longevity, win all the time is a fabrication of excitement. Those concepts are manufactured sales pitches for the young and amateur minds. Maybe they are well intended to motivate and encourage during pre-game shenanigans or when companies are stale and the market is seemingly out of control.

Encouragement is vital, that is a truth of human performance in every area of life. Looking on the bright side is wise, because darkness is a real event in every endeavor. Scoping out, or laying out, a series of actions that are needed to win or grow is a critical factor to winning and growth. Obviously, learning to take responsibility for the things you do that effect your environment will keep the environment healthy longer.

Yet, the older and wiser men and women who have seen the ups and downs of life never buy into the pitch of longevity or sustained performance. But what they do recognize will need to happen over time is the simple fact that they and their team will have to start over often. Master’s always reinforce the reality of second chances to the people they are training. Actually that is all they really do. The break down and rebuild and make second chances a way of living.

That is the question I ask in this podcast. Do you create second chances? Do you allow your team to have second chances and start overs? Do you allow the people in your family to have second chances?

You certainly don’t have to provide second chances. You can fire, or get rid of people who fail, you can get divorced and try to find someone perfect. But you will waste a lot of time and energy and money searching for perfection. It is far more effective to get extremely good at second chances and start overs.

Here is why. Humans, as in all of us living on this planet or have lived or will live, are really good a failing and falling apart. We are really brilliant at initially having no inherent skills or abilities. Further more we all learn really well from failures and are very resilient. These fundamental truths are paramount to success. In order to win we have to lose and fail and skin our knees rather often. Wise leaders understand that fundamental truth and allow for it and encourage second chances.

Plan for second chances every single day in everything you do. Plan for it. From the time you wake up until the time you wake up again the next morning actually plan and prepare for second chances or breakdowns that need rebuilds. If you are going to the gym or on a run or bike ride, know up front that your plan for the perfect workout will not last longer than a minute. Something will go wrong. So plan for a second chance or a re-adjustment. If you are a salesperson, every single engagement is a second chance. Every single person you meet is a second chance to sell. If you are a parent, your kids need you to give them multiple second chances, every day. And you need to give yourself a second chance raising your kids.

Organized sports like football are built on second chances. Coach each play as if it is new and a second chance to win. If you are a player don’t get stuck on the failures before and run this play as best as you can. Give your self a new chance to run like your being chased, or to catch the next pass like a boss. The other team may be stuck on their failures and the first one to create a second chance wins.

If you really want to learn the dynamic truth of second chances train to run an ultra marathon or go support an ultra marathon. There is no better venue to see the truth and power of second chances and do overs. I have never seen or witnessed any runner have a perfect ultra. Not even the top runners have one. Because in 50 or 100 miles, shit is going to go wrong and can go amazingly wrong. Many new runners quit once the first mistake is made or when they encounter the first breakdown. Quitting is not a way to create a second chance. Often the plan novice runners have in their minds that they made in the comfort of their homes completely unravels at the start line or in the first 13 miles. Amateurs plan for perfection and professionals plan for failure and train for failure so that start overs and second chances are their plan.

Go and watch this play out in real time. Watch the depth of breakdowns the pros can endure and create a second chance. Watch how quickly some runners kill off second chances. Professionals puke, bleed, get sick, fall down, break toes or fingers, and keep giving themselves second chances to run. Most of the field doesn’t meet some preconceived expectation or experience or time and literally quit, no second chance.

Successful business leaders literally get good at breaking shit and moving fast and adapting. Stale leaders coddle everything, move slow, and are rigid. Break shit and move fast mentality really is a deep understanding that shit is always broken and moving fast means accepting that fact and moving into a second chance. If you are going to lead your company don’t be so keen at creating the illusion of stability. Nothing is stable and never has been stable. Most employees want a stable salary but this mindset destroys second chances and start overs most often causing businesses to fail over time. Once a business fails that was based on stability, no one in the company is trained or good at start overs so the company is gone. Oddly that is why a new leader comes in and breaks everything and moves fast and the company gets a second chance.

Second chances are critical to a marriage or long term relationship with your partner or lover. People make mistakes either intentionally or un-intentionally. That is the way of things. If you don’t give your partner permission for a second chance or a mistake and a rebuild, than it ends right there. Quitting is always an option. Take it if you want. But in your next partner, the same thing will happen and you never got good at rebuilding or second chances so it will end there. Don’t laugh that pretty much describes most relationships. What would be possible if you got good at rebuilding after the mistake by giving it a second chance?

Give yourself a second chance today on your workout, or your job, or with your kids. Start over! Give your employee a second chance or your partner at home.

How many second chances or start overs will it take for you to succeed? The answer is one of life’s great mysteries.

141. The Discipline of Simplicity

The world around us can be chaotic. The older I become, the more I realize the beauty of simplicity.

Trillions of bits of information is piped to us from media outlets around the world as if all of it mattered and urgent. Equal numbers of choices in food, clothes, socks, people to date, jobs to look into, races to sign up for … total chaos. Each choice seems to lead to another set of equally chaotic outcomes and opinions from the uncommitted social media opinion world. I feel sorry for the youth who are inundated with so much chaos, they never get to see the beauty of simplicity.

Breaking through the chaos to carve out simplicity takes the one skill set that no longer is in favor. Schools do offer it as a subject; businesses don’t demand it; athletic teams can no longer hammer it into the athlete; and it is no longer the corner stone of marriage. Actually the opposite is now the norm. Hacking is taught at every school, test guides for dummies are even published. In businesses extended apprenticeships are taboo, everyone wants money and results and a salary without earning it. Athletic teams of all sports no longer preach grinding out and slower development of skills. Marriage, as an institution of simple steady growth, is replaced with fake everything in the first year.

The simple art and science of discipline as a baseline skillset and attitude is the most foreign practice of all. Without discipline there is only chaos.

Another way of saying that is chaos is the life you get until you learn discipline. Discipline is how you dissolve the million bits of chaos to simplicity. Until your day to day or moment to moment actions are simple you are stuffed.

Coaches make things simple. Good business leaders make things simple. Good athletes practice simple basic activities. Great sales people make one call, just one.  

Do you have a complex chaotic life? All you see are too many things to do and not enough money or time to get it all done? If you are a runner do you look at all the miles you need to put in to get ready for the race, or do you just see the next mile you have to run? If you are a student do you look at all the classes you have this week or do you focus on the next class?

I have a challenge for you to break through your chaos, and to see how disciplined you are this week.

Can you work out one hour a day for 7 days?

Can you wake up and for the first 10 minutes each morning do 10 pushups, then sit and write down your goals for the day?

At work, can you be disciplined enough to spend one hour making one new client call, call one old client, and make a written plan for the next 7 days?

Can you spend 30 minutes with your wife or husband or kids or lover, with no phone just listening and sharing?

It is simple but not easy, because it takes discipline. Few have the discipline to do that challenge. If you want a harder challenge I dare you to join our community of others seeking discipline by trying lesson one online.

I dare you to try because lesson one is hard on people who have no discipline.

Sign up here. https://www.unbreakablelessons.com/

140. An uncomfortable life

An Uncomfortable Life.

It is ok to be comfortable, it is ok to be uncomfortable. The outcome is very different.

Learn more

I personally question why people seek comfort so happily. What causes people to choose to watch TV for an hour when they could have worked out for at least 30 minutes instead? What makes people desire to sleep past dawn, instead of getting up and reading a book or writing a book?

The idea that is perpetuated these days that a great life is to sit in an expensive car, or on an expensive couch, in a million dollar house is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. You are killing your spirit to ask it to work hard to then measure the value of working hard by ultimately being lazy at the end. This notion is tragic.

What is so comfortable about working an 8 hour day making an hourly wage, to come home and pay taxes and save 10% and sit and watch tv and eventually gain weight, and argue with your kids or your spouse about doing something extraordinary because you are tired? Comfort is deceptive, because it is uncomfortable.

What if you discarded all notions of comfort and embraced the reality of an uncomfortable life?

It is a negative way to begin a podcast. I get it. But comfort kills everything. Comfort kills passion. Comfort kills health. Comfort drains income. Comfort causes divorce. Comfort destroys everything great in your life.

Where to begin to kill comfort and embrace being uncomfortable? Raise tough kids. Raise your kids to be tough. Raise your kids to do hard things. Raise your kids to face fear. Raise your kids to push the envelope in every endeavor. Teach your kids to go for it.

Let your kids get dirty. Let your kids get blisters. Let your kids fail. If your kid is bullied make them confront the bully. Let them take a punch and give one. You are crippling your kids by making them avoid discomfort. If you don’t show them and shape them as a parent, society will take advantage of them very quickly unbeknownst to you. Society will make them soft and they will struggle in every uncomfortable situation. And let me tell you, most great things are uncomfortable so your kids won’t be doing the uncomfortable things.

How do you do this as a parent? First, tell your kids you love them every single day even if you are poor, rich, angry, sad, divorced, lost your job, stubbed your toe…tell them. Because, it is very uncomfortable to express love and be loved. It is easier to be isolated.

Second, show them how to be excessive early in life. If you are throwing baseball with them throw the ball 100 times. If they are trying to learn a spelling word have them spell it 100 times or write it down 100 times. If they want to get strong have them do 100 pull ups before they decide if they like it or not.

Thirdly, demonstrate to the how to do something for 24 hours without sleeping.

If you don’t role model the value of being uncomfortable, or practicing 100 times, you guarantee their failure.

Because here is the reality of success throughout life. Success is very uncomfortable. Normally, success takes years and thousands if not millions of iterations to finally cross the line. Success takes so many failures and breakdowns and uncomfortable moments that if you don’t show them early and keep them accountable to getting back up every time, you literally make them fail.

It takes 2–3 years of running 5 miles a day, and tweaking your diet, and getting physical therapy or massages, and getting sick and turning your ankle and getting blisters, and getting up early, and running in the rain or cold or hot weather to complete an ultra marathon. Teach your kids that reality.

It may take 10 years in business to get out of debt, or make a profit, or buy the home you want, or make enough money to invest in a company. You will have to work late, work weekends, miss your kids dances or games, you will miss a birthday or anniversary. You will fire people or even be fired. You will get bad-mouthed, you will question yourself, you will lose money, worse you may make a lot of money, then get lazy and lose it. Show your kids that reality. Don’t hide it from them.

Success takes countless hours and years to be realized. That is the way of it. Every single sport demands the uncomfortable life long pursuit. The top shooters in the world shoot at least 2000 rounds a day or even worse they dry fire their guns 2000 times in their basement every day. Top golfers putt 100 balls a day, and chip 100, and drive 100 before they even go on the course…every day.

Top salespeople or top businesspeople practice and rehearse, and go over strategy and tactics so often it drives everyone crazy. If you want to sell something to someone, commit to getting 100 “nos” from them. It may take 5 years of living in your car to finally get that deal. If you don’t teach your kids this level of relentless discomfort you are instead ensuring they fail.

The irony of embracing being uncomfortable is that success comes. You find great comfort in practice because you know you are getting better even if there is pain. You find immense pleasure in difficult issues because you know you will eventually resolve them. Doing hard things makes you feel better. There is great relief when the thing you are working on finally turns. Comfortable things always leave you at a loss and with no way to win.

Love your kids enough to make them hard. Make them tough. Make them practice until they fail, then help them get back on the horse. Show them relentlessness and be the one who holds them accountable to keeping after it.

139. On Quitting

By Thom Shea

Author of “Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life.”

Each of us is interested in balance in our lives, either in balancing relationships with work, work with fitness, or all things and spirituality. How do we balance the multiple interests we have when we cannot even excel in the small things we do each day?

Please, let me share with you reflections of 23 years as a Navy SEAL and 6 years transitioning into the nebulous business world of training leaders to lead. The simple fact that only a few people master the self-defeating idiom called “Never quit” causes most to avoid tough times and to never go beyond the point where they wanted to quit. The thing about an idiom is that the meaning of the original expression has been lost over the ages. The real meaning of “Never Quit” is to actually embrace the moments when you want to quit and push beyond them. There is no real valid reason to quit.

So few companies, so few leaders, so few parents, and so few coaches these days actually use the dynamics of learning how not to quit as the foundation for success. So since the real foundation for success is gone we build everything on sand. We quit in school at early ages because parents are not clear that kids need the experience the gravity of learning and not being prepared and require the firm hand of strong parents to try again. Sports no longer allow or better yet force players to fail and experience loss so they learn to never quit, so they quit in the first half when they other team scores. Or the quit in the forth quarter when they think they have won.

That is the current foundation we then take into our adult lives.

One of the most unattended and at the same time highly recognizable conditions for every person anywhere is quitting. Now what I mean regarding quitting is that quitting is so pervasive in the world that few actually engage in mastering the benefits surrounding “quitting.” Since everyone quits now there is a reward for just showing up. Tragic! SEALs learned long ago that to be truly successful, you must face the depths of failure, and the cause of all failure is quitting. They make training so hard and so unwinnable and so painful quitting is the only solution. We weed out people who quit because in real life, in combat you cannot have people quit or everyone will die.

Make an honest list of your physical capacity, your intellectual facility, your wealth accomplishments, your relationship endeavors, and finally your spiritual life … notice both the small things you have quit on in each and the big things you have not been able to accomplish. Stop when you get to 5 things because honestly the list will go on and on and on.

I want to share with you the depth at which I have encountered quitting in my own life and the far reaches I have seen “quitting” show up in the lives of others. I held this section out of the manuscript when I presented it to my publisher of Unbreakable a navy SEALs way of life for one simple reason, because quitting is so brutal and seductive that I personally felt opening up the “Pandora’s Box” that surrounds quitting would turn off everyone who might read it. And, I didn’t want Stacy to know how many times I quit on my men, and on her, and on my self.

In reading “Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life,” you surely will have noticed some small elements of how you do give up and quit while you attempted to accomplish the 13 Unbreakable lessons, so you know that as I share this final lesson, the effect of quitting is real and pervasive. As you read these lost writings, my intent is that the reading will open up your own “Pandora’s Box” and you will encounter how frequently you quit in all aspects of your own life, or worse yet, quit before you even start.

What would your life actually be like if you mastered quitting?   I often wonder, because after encountering quitting in my own life and being pushed in SEAL training to just push beyond quitting, I see and interact with all aspects of life very differently than those around me who have not and will not encounter quitting. All of the 13 “Unbreakable Lessons” were written for my children to discover various wonderful tools they would need to grow in your life in case I died in combat. The 13 Unbreakable lessons (you must read Unbreakable and do the lessons first) are tools to this final lesson … “Just never quit on yourself.”

To master quitting, I ask you to stop avoiding the things you are afraid of doing, or simply to stop avoiding quitting. I want you to face a fear of anything you have and safely realize that fear- feel it in your soul. By safely I mean go through the process internally to the point where you are internally going through and feeling the fear. That is to say, if you are afraid of something because you fear dying/doing it. I ask you to go through the mental process of experiencing that exact thing.

Physical Quitting (example):

1. Identify something physically that you encounter that makes you want to quit or makes you afraid to encounter.
2. Internally I want you to imagine the whole thing unfolding as if you quit. I want you to imagine quitting in the middle of a run when you legs are hurting or you are out of breath and don’t want to continue. I ask you to put yourself there and actually experience the pain. Don’t run away from the pain. Feel it.
3. After having imagined it happening, I ask you to go on that exact run with the intent to quit at the exact spot you had imagined quitting.
4. Now that you are on the side of the road or trail feeling sorry for yourself and in pain. I want you to notice something. I want you to notice that you are feeling pain and you are out of breath, and at the same time you told yourself to quit. You used Internal Dialogue to talk yourself into stopping. No one else told you to quit, you did.
5. Now I want you to sit there and keep telling yourself to quit that you are a victim of bad genetics; that you are never going to be a successful runner, or any other victim of life language you can put there to ensure you will quit.
6. Tell yourself you are a quitter until you begin to laugh. Some of you may not get to laughter, simply because you have programmed yourself to believe you are a victim and not a winner. If you do start to laugh, you are seeing the power of Internal Dialogue in driving your performance. If you laugh then just replace I am a quitter with a new dialogue, that says to you get up and go two more steps.

You can do this same experiment with intellectual, with wealth, with relationship, and with spiritual mastery. Just quit on yourself in each until you begin to hear in your internal dialogue, the language that keeps you quitting and from quitting.

Imagine quitting on your husband or wife. Imagine any or every situation they could bring to you that would make you quit. They cheated, they called you a name, they stop saying I love you, they may even say they hate you. Keep quitting on them. Imagine quitting and getting a divorce, walking away from your family and kids. Quit because you are a victim and no one treats you right. Quit because raising kids is too hard. Go ahead quit. Surround yourself with everyone who agrees with you. The Quitters tribe.

Eventually quitters find them selves alone, and empty, and bitter, and even their quitter tribe quits on them because that my friends is what happens when you quit.

You will notice that you quit on studying with a very robust dialogue; you will notice that you quit on business and work using very believable dialogue; you will notice that you quit on your partners clearly because you say “they aren’t … whatever”; and you will notice that you quit on spiritual mastery for very earthly, and real reasons.

What would you life be like if you never quit?

In school when you feel like quitting because some bully punched you in the mouth, you instead learn how to protect yourself and face the bully down. Never giving up is the cure to bullying. So you are studying and you cannot figure it out. Take a break and ask for help and get to it again. Don’t listen to people who say you need sleep, freaking study until you pass out for god’s sake.

You young athletes and coaches, Practice hard. Practice until they get it wrong not until they get it right. Practice until they are discouraged so that you can teach them every single play matters. Once you do this then they simply try each new play with all they have, no matter what happened before or what the threat of the future may bring. Relentless players just don’t quit because they have already learned from coaches that feeling of loss and were able to get up and run the next play anyway.

Relationships seem to be the most prevalent place in the world today where quitting happens so rapidly and completely that life itself never seems to turn positive. First, for god’s sake, don’t hang with people who are naïve and think things are easy. They will leave you so fast you won’t remember the smell of their perfume. Second, don’t quit when either of you is emotional. Emotional decisions are complete shit, everyone knows this so why make a decision base on how you feel. Third, don’t quit when things are really bad such as loss of a kid, or death of a family member, or when either of you is sick or injured. Play the long game because there are things you just cannot control in the short game. Stick it out. Because if you don’t learn to stick it out with this person, you will be really trained and extremely efficient on quitting with the next person.

I personally never quit on five hell weeks. The first four I got injured, I had a concussion, I dislocated my shoulder, I got pneumonia twice, and the fifth one I just didn’t quit even though it made no sense to continue. I took that never quit mentality into my career and never quit during 2000 hours of combat during four combat tours and brought back every single guy in my platoon. I have trained 85 people in six years to create a foundation for not quitting in their lives and have seen marriages turn around, families come back together that were completely split up. I have trained 28 of my clients to run ultra marathons because once you learn how to not quit, everything becomes possible. I have seen businesses 2x profit in 9 months where were on the brink of bankruptcy.

Quitting is the most destructive force on the planet. Not quitting is the most learnable skill and only 20% of the people you know have learned it.

Learn how not to quit. Forego learning anything else.

138. Operation Valor with Sean Valigura

Operation Valor is a non-profit whose mission is to support veterans in need.  This year, we are once again going to kick off our celebration weekend with our huge charity benefit dinner and live auction!! Come out and join us Thursday, October 24th at 7:00pm at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, TX. The doors will open at 6:00 for VIP ticket holders to mingle with our speakers, celebrity guests and staff.

Operation Valor sign up

137. Valued Relationships with Tom Schwab

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Thom Shea is the best selling author of "Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life" and combat veteran. Thom shares interviews with extra-ordinary men and women who have push through their self-imposed limits. The Interviews and dialogues explore what it is like to have a goal driven, measurable life.
Take the challenge www.UnbreakableLessons.com
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Pick up your copy of Thom's book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

136. West Point Builds Leaders of Character

I have had the honor to speak at the academy several times during both my SEAL career and as a leadership coach. This weekend was another honor to witness something quite rare: the ring weekend where the seniors are presented with their class ring.
Unique in the sense that the ceremony is a celebration not of hey look at my ring but of the tradition of character. Of the long grey line of building and passing on the only true value of a leader: character.

And I had the honor to see my daughter receive her ring and receive her reminder of the long grey line of the character it represents to lead the nation wherever and whenever the nation calls.

And no I am not a trader, not a navy SEAL, abandoning the navy for the army. I am acknowledging the reality of the premier leadership institution in the world today. The place builds character and that is what leadership really is about.

The speaker of the evening was Eric Shinseki, a graduate who spent 38 years leading and was the army chief of staff before retiring. During his speech he said something that awoke something I had put down after my 23 years in the seal teams. He awoke the notion that there is always a storm facing the United States. He reminded me that no class has escaped the storm of conflict that sweeps over the nation.
As a SEAL, I liked the storm and signed up to confront it head on. Yet the stark reminder was that the storm is always coming. And without the character learned at West Point, the leaders may faulter.

As my family and I sat listening I had to look at my daughter and the other young cadets and wonder what storm they would face, whether it was foreign or domestic in nature. I wondered what they had learned here at West Point would possibly prepare them for war. I also cringed at the notion if they had the character to put down the storm of domestic upheaval.

What is the character traits they impart here? My father was class of 1959, I was the class of 1990, and my daughter the class of 2020. We each had gone through hardship in Beast Baracks. The difficulty of learning to speak clearly without drama to the cadet in the red sash. The long hours of drill and being tired and dealing with being yelled at. We learned to work through problems at Buckner ad a team and to be proficient in the field as an individual no matter the weather or conditions. We learned to not lie, not cheat, and not steel.

The underpinnings of character to be sure. Tough times are needed to instill character.

It does take a great deal of character to keep things centered during really tough times when the enemy is at the gate, when the storm is upon you.
A great deal of character is needed to keep the promise of west point (duty, honor, country) as a mind set when there is no storm, when there is just grinding out training when there is no end in sight. That type of character is the real character of leaders that makes West Point unique. They keep the cadets, the future leaders grinding out excellence when the future seems so far away when there is no storm. It takes character to overcome doubt, to be patient with the process when the end seems abstract when it is grey.

Character to weather the storm and endure the calm. I would say most leaders without character cannot endure the calm. They falter, they let standards slip, they stop earning it so to speak. Imagine the character to endure the calm, when no storm is coming when nothing makes sense and when no one seems to care to train for the storm.

The reminder that the storm is coming was brilliant and much needed. The reminder of the character instilled at West Point like no other place was a great gift to receive as a ring to be sure.

I want to remind you that it takes character even if you are not in the military to weather your storms and endure the calms. Build character through tough times. Don’t run away from tough times. Build character by not cheating to succeed, building character by not lying to get yourself out of responsibility for an action done poorly, build real character by not stealing by thinking you are entitled to something not earned.

I would love to hear what storms you have and what you think Character is. Follow us on Facebook at Unbreakable or on LinkedIn at Thom Shea.

135. Find purpose: Die or Live!

In each word and section in this book I have been tasked with telling my story so that in case I die in combat my children get a sense of their father. Actually, Stacy pleaded with me for two years to put to words “Who I am and How I am”. Therefore, this project is not simply a day to day recount of what I did, but rather a recalling of what I faced and what I learned in order to teach my children how to Be the men and the woman that lives into the possibilities they create for themselves. The Unbreakable project simply put is creating and finding in you that which is unbreakable. Finally, this project called Unbreakable is a way to make up for being gone 220 days per year for 25 years as a Navy SEAL.

 Order Unbreakable

This book contains no hidden secrets, rather it is a pain-staking study and practice of what makes for an effective and efficient pursuit of what is best in the human endeavor to transform the genetic traits and perform above and beyond what humans think possible. My children…when you are ready to read Unbreakable and ready to put it to use, you will recognize a pattern in each section. I wish I could tell you how you might know when you are ready, yet that would truly deny you the benefit you all will receive when you make the discovery in your own ways.

When you get discouraged, when you have difficulties overcoming the obstacles that drain your soul, when you try and fail, when you feel reduced by injuries use this book as a light in the forest for which you have been searching. A strange thing will happen when you acquire and apply the lessons of Unbreakable…you will literally be propelled on to unfathomable successes.

There is no way to achieve without enduring countless hours of practice. The single most important practice for you after reading Unbreakable is the use of Internal Dialogue to bridge the gap between your genetic gifts and your passions, your dreams. Every single successful human has Internal Dialogue they just don’t know they have it. I will show you even if I do not return to you.

The gift and practice of Internal Dialogue cannot be had by anyone who is not committedly pursuing their passions. In other words, you must have something that you are wildly committed to Being or Doing with your life. The gift of mastering your Internal Dialogue cannot be given away for free, it will not be purchased with money, because there is no more dangerous and useless gift than one bought or given without earning it.

An Internal Dialogue to create an Unbreakable condition will serve each of you equally well when you are ready for it. Trust me on this…education has nothing to do with it.

Who am I to say that in reading this book you will know, grasp solidly, the use of Internal Dialogue? I have spent 25 years living and researching what it takes to overcome any obstacle in the way of success. I have survived countless, overwhelming combat engagements and failures that tested and validated the use of my own Internal Dialogue to life an Unbreakable Life. I have personally taught 330 basic SEAL Students, and 112 SEAL Sniper Students, in order to test the use of an Unbreakable Internal Dialogue to perform beyond what I thought possible.

I have never known a single person who used Internal Dialogue who did not achieve remarkable successes. I have never known any persons to distinguish themselves, or to survive overwhelming battles, without possession of an Unbreakable Internal Dialogue. For these reasons I conclude that the experience and education gained using an Unbreakable Internal Dialogue is more important, as a part of the human paradigm to create a life better than the one before, than any such which one receives through the standard education system.

As you read, your own Unbreakable Internal Dialogue will jump from the pages and stand boldly in front of you, when you are ready to see it and use it. You will see it. When it pops out, I want you to stop and drink a Guinness for me, because it will signify the most important turning point in your life.

Take note that I will be sharing my life for you: the facts, the failures, the Me; so to speak. Through my eyes, through my experiences I hope to convey the Who to Be and How to Be!

134. Train your brain

When Dana Wilde began her direct-sales business, she realized that education for entrepreneurs typically consisted of endless “how-to” explanations: how to market, how to pick up the phone, how to manage your time, how to increase bookings or sales. There always seemed to be a new system to learn, a new surefire method or cutting-edge technique for entrepreneurs to master.

Get your free copy

In an effort to teach her team members a better and easier way, Dana Wilde created Train Your Brain, a tested and proven system combining elements of both mindset and action … or as Dana likes to call it, Intentional Action.

What Dana discovered by using Train Your Brain is that mindset can be “taught” and that learning simple mindset strategies not only allows you to understand how the brain works but also shows you how easy it is to change your thinking and, as a result, change your outcomes.

In Train Your Brain, Dana breaks down the Cycle of Perpetual Sameness—the number one reason why most people only experience incremental change in their lives. More importantly, she also provides the much-needed blueprint to help you get off this counterproductive cycle quickly.

Train Your Brain, with its twenty easy-to-implement “Mindware Experiments,” gives you all the necessary tools needed to get off … and stay off … the Cycle of Perpetual Sameness, so you can transform your life and grow your business in record time!

133. Killing Lazy

Killing Lazy

I have to admit Lazy is a bad word. Bad in the sense that everyone is incredibly lazy, yet few want to openly admit their first impulse, all the time, is to not get after it.

At first I made the mistake of thinking the bigger issue was work ethic. This nutty work ethic term seemed to overshadow every industry, even in the SEAL teams. From sales to marketing to operations to new hires and old hires I really thought I was looking at a work ethic problem.

Clearly the media pushes this notion that doubles as a work ethic/entitlement narrative. Good work ethic is a polar opposite to entitlement on the human level, because if I don’t have to work to survive or make a living the human won’t.

I literally have been looking at work ethic as the major cause of not only business failures or successes but also athletic and relationship ones. For gods sake few sales people want to make 50 calls a day to ask for business. Worse is the driver shortage in America, no one wants to work that hard even for a 130,000 a year starting salary. Few athletes seem to have the work ethic to put in the miles and miles or running or days and days of training to better themselves in sport. And, even worse, few married couples even want to spend an hour a day together after the first year. My mistake was thinking it is a work ethic issue.

I was wrong. Work ethic by definition is a learned skill acquired over years and years of observing parents and others working hard and trying to work hard or efficiently. But the predicate to acquired work ethic is simply the human factor of laziness. This involuntary pre eminent reaction to doing anything and everything is so pervasive it shapes the environment in every market.

What would life be like if you killed off your Lazy? What if your first response wasn’t always “it is too hard”, or “hell no it will take too long”?

In athletics good coaches or great athletes spend a lot of time killing lazy. Everyone hates the coach who says we are going to do this again and again until you get it right. People even scoff at the athlete who puts in another hour or gets up early and runs. Even parents yell at their kid saying don’t over do it junior.

If you killed off your Lazy you would run more. Hell you would prepare more nutritious meals if you ever killed off your lazy. You would do push ups until you bled then rest and repair and do it again. Because, the top athletes kill off their lazy, every single day.

Business is built around not owning lazy. An 8 hour work day is Lazy. What does time have anything to do with getting work done or rather doing what were hired to do? Sales people nation wide hide from mastering their own lazy and excuse themselves from getting in front of clients. It takes 60 minutes for build the narrative around an excuse to not meet a client. It takes 5.5 seconds to pick up a phone and dial a number and engage. That is lazy.

If you killed off your lazy in business, you would get on the phone, you would get to it. Maybe just maybe you could get it all done in three hours. Lazy takes 8, on point takes 3 hours to achieve the same results.

Sadly this lazy gets worse with success and money. Once the money gets to the level of comfort lazy dominates the choices. Comfort and lazy are the two heads of the do that guards hell. Those two mouths will eat you.

What would business, your business be like if you killed off your lazy?

The tragedy is really the laziness that happens in key relationships. Laziness causes resentment, bitterness, and divorce. Married couples grow apart because they are lazy with each other. “We have been married for 20 years,” I hear rather often. As if you think you know your spouse? Then all of a sudden after 20 years of lazy relationship work, they want out or you want out. Lazy caused it. Not lack of love, or growing a part. Lazy.

What would you do in a relationship if you weren’t Lazy? Everyday would be new. Everyday a discovery. Maybe just maybe, it is lazy for women to give up health for family. I know it is cause I have seen women stay fit and have a great family. Maybe if you weren’t lazy you would bring home your passion and create it at home, even after 20 years. Killing lazy off will solve the chasing the relationship you don’t have.

Lazy hits the snooze bar.

Lazy makes you wait for a plan to commit to the goal.

Lazy makes you expect something from nothing.

Lazy makes you short sighted.

Lazy blames others.

Lazy makes you buy the candy bar instead of keeping you on point.

Lazy makes you need 8 hours of rest.

Lazy makes you complain.

Lazy makes you in a hurry.

Lazy makes you run one mile instead of 10 miles.

Lazy makes you only do 8 reps and not 80.

Lazy makes you not go to see your 7 year olds piano recital.

Lazy makes you not go see your dying friend or parent.

Lazy makes you not save money.

Lazy makes you fat.

Lazy makes you poor.

Lazy destroys your soul.

Kill off your Lazy before it kills off you.

132. Waiting causes neglect

Why do you wait? Why do you wait for the right time to get healthy? Why do you wait for the right job to commit? Why do you wait for the right woman or man to get involved?

Waiting causes the worse kind of neglect. Waiting is not patience. Waiting is practiced disillusionment. Waiting causes you only to be half way committed. Waiting makes you weak mentally and physically. So why wait?

I can assure you that putting off until summer is over to starting to get in shape or putting off until next week eating healthy is futile. Every single day you wait is a day practicing not being committed. How many days have you logged practicing not being committed? That answer is frightening.

The right time and the right coach or the right training program will never arrive, and if it did you would miss it because of all the days practicing not just doing it.

Your knee pain isn’t a valid reason to wait. You being over weight isn’t a legit reason to wait to get into shape or start running. You are too old, you hate the gym, you don’t like a stationary bike, you are too busy are just societal reasons to fail.

Just commit in spite of any excuse you may have. Overcome the seemingly impossible excuses you have and start now. Get up early even though it makes no sense. Do one push up. Run one mile at 5 am. Drink one glass of water. Just start.

If you start today this is what will happen, you will beat just one of your dumb reasons. It may be painful yet you will have taken a huge step toward a vastly different life.

Oddly, more people wait to become wealthy than there do those who put of health. Let that sink in. Over the past 6 years I have interviewed and openly asked every CEO or president of 100s of companies in the United States and every single one has more jobs available than people looking for work. Now hiring should be always hiring.

For the past 12 months I have shifted my questions about opportunities from asking the bosses to asking the vast pool of unemployed or under employed. You can even watch Mike Rowe and see what I am talking about. We all seem to be waiting.

If you are in a job right now that you hate but are not doing anything to find one that wakes you up and interests you, than realize this fact. Every second you waste practicing being shitty at a shitty job costs you money. Every dollar you make at that job costs you 2 dollars. One dollar is wasted due to lack of interest. One dollar is spent doing the job at half effort.

If you don’t have a job than maybe, just maybe look deep inside that you could have any job you actually wanted but you have to want it. You have to want to work. If you want to work you can make a lot of money at any job. There are $100,000 a year truck driver jobs all over America. But some silly narrative keeps people from wanting to pick up furniture and deliver it to a family that needs it. Imagine getting paid to travel, meet people, help them build a home and get money to do it. Or just keep looking at your face book profile watching fake people and all the while not pursuing any form of money making.

If you have a job but aren’t making enough money, then commit to a side hustle on the internet or even cutting grass. Make something with your hands and sell it online. Buy things cheap and sell them online. Spend an hour a day three days a week cutting your neighbors grass. You surely would be ok with $12,000 extra dollars a year.

What is it like to not wait, that is the question really?

If you didn’t wait for the right whatever, you would maybe write a book? Write one page a day for a year. Don’t wait to be perfect, someone will edit it. After a year you get published.

What if you didn’t wait for whatever to run a marathon or hike a mountain peak? What if you ran one mile a day for a month? What if you did 20 push ups a day for a month? What if you just signed up for a half marathon and started running? What would your life be like if you just got to it? Here is what it would be like: you would run and your body would be fit and healthy.

It is actually always the right time to commit to something you really want to do. Even if it is raining outside it is the right time to go for a run. Even if the stock market is falling it is the right time to learn and engage in investing. Even if your kids are struggling with school or life it is the right time to support and be a parent.

Stop waiting it is killing off your spirit and killing off opportunities for you. Commit now to just one thing that excites you.

131. Legends and losers , break out from the pack with Chris Lockhead.

Why fit in, when you can stand out?

Follow authentic dialogues of people who embraced what makes them different and excelled. Because in a world of endless possibilities, YOU are what you have. Are you ready?

What separates the normal from the different?

Chris is a national best selling author and podcast host of Legends and Losers. Follow and subscribe.

130. Ordinary to extra ordinary with Erik Seversen

In Erik's book "Ordinary to Extraordinary" is the story of seeking more in life through adventures throughout the world.

The Mindset of mastering the basics and applying basics will make you extraordinary, too.

Follow Erik here.

Sign up for the Unbreakable Lessons.

129. Leadership Coaching, Mastering the Basics with Machen MacDonald

For almost a quarter century Machen MacDonald has dedicated himself to helping business owners, sales professionals, financial advisers, and financial services executives discover their purpose and help them align their focus to achieve dramatic and measurable improvements both in business and in life.

Master the Basics

His ability to develop systems, based on his clients’ mental and emotional foundation, for creating immediate and lasting change has made him a recognized expert in the world of coaching and peak performance.

As the consummate entrepreneur, Machen started five successful service companies and went on to succeed in financial services as an advisor working his way into award-winning field management and then into executive level management before founding The ProBrilliance Leadership Institute. He understands and can relate firsthand to the challenges small business owners, sales professionals, advisers, managers and corporate leaders all face.

Machen is a #1 best-selling author and creator of the highly successful Power of Coaching book series. He is a certified business coach and life coach, certified Master Coach and Certified MindScan Consultant.

Machen resides in Northern California with his wife of 23 years and their three children. He enjoys competitive running, snow and water skiing, and spending time with family.

128. True Warriors: The American experiment of independence.

The American Experiment to form a republic of states, not a democracy, where people are free to grow and have a say in Life, Liberty, and pursue happiness as long as the people can earn it.

That was the unique declaration of independence from English rule, which was simple someone else telling you what was right and wrong and their opinion didn’t have to be earned or proved effective.

Even then there was conflict in the struggle for power, the separation of that power, and the effort of the people to live up to the burden of maintaining a republic.

Some universal truths were known then and are still trying to wrestle with power and politicians seeking power for all the right reasons at the expense of the people. Leadership in a republic always struggle with power, struggle with the demands of people, and struggle with conflict with other nations. We have had every generation since independence go to war because politicians have an issue with power and people.

Families in a republic are always torn with right and wrong and surviving the rules that restrict rights in the name of rights. Oh the irony. The final truth is the citizen has to adjust and survive and pursue life, have liberty, and Be Happy.

Yet in America there exists a fundamental human phenomenon: from darkness comes light. In this country, light grows no matter how dark the times. Our early country, Light is fundamentally what the constitution sets up.

This reality of the American experiment was a revolution. The story is best told during one of the darkest times in American history. The battle of king’s mountain in the Carolinas is the story of a light out of darkness.

The light is the man of a republic building life, liberty, and pursuing happiness while often being called to serve his republic at the risk of life in order to cause liberty and happiness for the people. Maybe that is why our founding fathers set aside a guaranteed military, because they knew the darkness will always be at the gates.

What was written out of history was the warrior of the republic who rises during darkness to bring light. I like the battle of king’s mountain because it was really the story of a few warriors who rose and trained 900 others unconventional skills in a short time and kicked the British’s ass so soundly the whole nation rose up. The real genesis of unconventional warriors grew from that battle. And this has been systematically written out of history so that the people do realize the power a few can have over the many.

The first light of the American people is a life earned from hard work and useful skills. The second light of our republic is the liberty to make choices that are important to the individual not the leaders and tyrants. The third light is the willingness to pursue a meaningful life and willingness to give their life for others to have life. This light rare in the world and shown through during the darkest of times at king’s mountain.

These original small group of warriors had acquired a unique set of unconventional fighting skills during the French and Indian wars but had lost favor with the British and had taken the liberty to escape the tyranny and move over the mountains and away from rule and pursue a life for their families. These skills were and still are the most useful combat skills but never fall into rank and file of conventional military. Thus, the beginnings of Special Operations both in mindset and abilities.

The overthemountain boys were real americans. They were independent and different, fiercely loyal to friends and family; highly skilled in practical life skills; and well versed in unconventional combat skills. They dressed differently. They carried their muskets very differently but very practically: butt stock up. And the conventional units laughed at them. They carried their powder horn in the perfect tactical spot but opposite of the british way. They pre-wrapped the shot in cloth for rapid reloading. They practiced loading in a very different way than conventional forces and practice shooting and moving in pairs not in big groups and not to a leaders command.   They carried both a hatchet and knife on the same side due to necessity and convenience and were scoffed at by conventional forces. God I like them already.

They moved in pairs firing and reloading and firing in 5 seconds while coordinating with their shooting buddies. That is roughly a bullet every 2-3 seconds while able to move forward or backward or laterally a distance of 3-5 steps in between each shooting sequence and I can tell you this tactic is lethal on an enemy not in a fort or one that is in a huge group.

They were capable of moving long distances and live off the land and make their own gear. They also knew really well how to train others rather rapidly how to use their tactics effectively. And they brought this light into the darkness at king’s mountain.

 128. 

127. Success leaves clues with Stacy Shea

Success leaves clues everywhere.  Every successful event or person in history has left a clue for your to pick up if you are brave enough to pick it up.

Failure leaves a blood trail and is a paved road with bones and good intentions. 

The difference is the clues if you pick them up, even if they are small, will lead you to the end and success.  The easy blood trail will cut you up and spit you out and kill your success, even if you think you can tough it out.

Sign up for the challenge Unbreakable

126. Strong fathers make successful kids

Five traits of father hood

 Signup for the 13 lessons of fatherhood

Commitment to your wife.

• love her
• show affection
• listen and speak
• don’t let her get off track

Protect your house and family

• your job is to make a home for your family not for you
• show them how to be strong and not be bullied.
• Never allow anyone even your family to destroy the home and family you have built
• Show them that you and the home is always a safe place to land

Teach your kids skills

• how to cook and eat well
• how to make things with your hands
• how to build the body
• how to spend and make money
• how to pick friends and how to kick poisonous people out of your life

How to have resolve or emotional resolve

• never sugar coat things
• how to deal with physical pain
• how to deal with loss
• how to start over

Affection toward them

• kids need to be hugged and touched often by fathers(plain and simple)
• cry and laugh with your kids
• punish when needed and once complete hugging really works(maybe the lost art of fatherhood)

125. Navy SEAL No back up plan method with Thom Shea

No way out and no back-up plans in raising warrior children and warrior adults.

There is nothing new under the sun. Really, all the human issues we are experiencing today are still the same foundational issues we have faced since the first humans. Albeit, technology has been introduced our father’s and mother’s of 1,000,000 years ago could not even fathom as possible, the human condition remains the same. What remains the same is the fact that humans operate at their peak performance in all areas when they don’t have a back-up plan in their life.

In the world of excellence and achievement in any area around you, I ask you to find one person who achieved success by having a back-up plan? Find one. If you do contact me I want to bring you on and have you tell us the story of how someone succeeded by having a robust back-up plan while they were trying to win with the primary plan.

I have just spent the past 29 years working with high achievers from the SEAL Teams to business leaders to ultra marathon athletes and se the critical disparity when people have back up plans. Back up plans kill success. Back up plans cause a drain in energy that cripples the primary plan. Back up plans ensure that when the first things goes wrong with the primary plan and no effort is made to learn from the mistake and the back up plan gets engaged.

So let’s talk about his issue because literally nothing else matters more than understanding this dynamic. Let me weave in the current culture issues and maybe we will all arrive together at a place where you will get some momentum in your life.

The first big misunderstanding is the pursuit of passion and Your Big Why. Good Lord you cannot turn on a single podcast or read any article without the author tagging the Why or Passion utter BS. Let me, if I can, Unfold the Why sales pitch. When would you use why or ask why? That really is the question isn’t it. The sales pitch covers up this essential underlying question. What causes you to ask Why? The people selling the Why question twist this around into “you should have a Why”. So you immediately find yourself in the quicksand of despair because you notice you aren’t asking why.

Here is the deal with asking why, Why always arises from facing a problem or break-down. Another way of saying this is you really question why you are doing what you are doing when you are dealing with the breakdowns that come up.

I have not met anyone at the top who can articulate their Why, other than everyone of them literally saying, “I am doing this because I said I would do it.”

The best example I can give to show you how destructive forcing the why is when you have a back up plan. Take an ultra marathon. I use this reference because it is the same as making a million dollars. It is hard. No, it is damn right hard as hell to do both. In the first 10 miles everything could be going well or according to the plan. You have told yourself I will never DNF(or quit). You have prepared, hopefully, by putting in the miles for 9 months prior. You have a plan for eating and drinking and resting and dealing with pain. Then it goes bad. It starts to rain or you get lost, or you turn and ankle or even worse you fall and break your wrist. You know what you ask yourself in that moment “why the hell am I doing this?” The pain in your wrist is telling you you are going to die if you continue. So this is the difference with pros and what I call the Why generation. The Why generation has a back up plan or a pre conceived point to which they wont keep going. The Why generation “who is running for their mom or to prove themselves” immediately finds that this explanation to keep going is redonkulous. So the quit which is always the back up plan. By the way the pros just wrap the injury and keep going. They don’t pick the back up plan or quitting. They may not make the finish line but they don’t go to the quit plan.

Passion, too, is a disaster as a point of trying to be passionate upfront before you are completely committed and before you have done the work needed to actually do the thing well. Passion comes and goes. Let me say that again, passion comes and goes with the weather. There is a saying in the SEAL Teams, it is easy to be a SEAL on a sunny day, and it sucks being a SEAL when it is high surf and raining and you can no longer feel your feet and hands. Finding passion when you are frozen is impossible. Just do it anyway. Someone, not the pro, found out a way to talk about passion and use the passion conversation to sell people on them maybe. I don’t know. Passion is cool but passion may not be a thing needed to succeed. In the SEAL teams and in every business I have seen that works well over time, there is a saying “No one cares how you feel about it. Just get to it and keep doing it until it is complete.” That mindset allows for passion but doesn’t need to be the point of decision.

The best example I can come up with is marriage. Oh no, is he going to go there? Yes!   Marriage built on Passion lasts only as long as the passion is there. Which is about up to the point when you get in your first argument over taking out the trash or cleaning up the kitchen or bedroom. Or maybe you have lucked out and maintained passion for years, then you have a baby. The hormones actually fade for women and passion isn’t available. Passion ahaha. If you think passion is what is important on a daily basis and it isn’t there one day, you will get divorced which is your back up plan. What if you didn’t have the back up plan of quitting when passion isn’t there?

The other part of the human condition that is important to consider is the Time and Energy required to succeed on the primary plan itself. Using the making a million or ultra marathon analogy, it takes years to actually be or win at both, years. If you are prepping for an ultra your daily requirement of time and energy is 4-5 hours of running, stretching, and nutrition. And that is when everything is going well. Putting in the hours it takes to succeed takes focused commitment. If you have a back up plan you won’t stick with it. If you have problems, which I guarantee you will have problems, big problem, and you passion that you were sold as vital, fades, or if you question why you are doing this every day you will quit.   You don’t have enough time and energy to spread across two concurrent plans working at the same time, so drop the back up plan just drop it.

Let me ask you:

In your athletic world you live in, do you have a back up plan? Or are you already to the point in life you don’t even have a plan anymore because you have quit so often on your plan you see it not important?

At your job, are there so many choices you are afraid to commit to one? Or do you play it safe by having a plan that is just being stable this year?

In your relationship at home, do you even have a big hairy plan as a couple? Or do you just survive?

What is it like to always be on the back up plan and never solely on the primary plan?

124. Navy SEAL Hellweek with authors Bob Adams and Thom Shea

Navy SEAL Hell Week has never been described so effectively. Success has never seemed so difficult. Six days in Hell define every SEAL that moves past their mind's point-of-no-return.
This real life story is about the men of BUD/S Class 81. Robert Adams, MD brings the experiences of his class into view with real, bone chilling, difficult to believe, experiences.  This is described, in frightening detail, by the men that lived through the frigid cold, filthy muddy days, and body destroying events of a winter Hell Week.
Eleven of seventy men went on to serve over 40 years in almost every SEAL or UDT team, with honor. Read their real time stories and (most importantly) learn why these eleven men succeeded when so many others failed.  These lessons on success and failure are now yours to learn from and enjoy!

The brass bell on the cover lives in every SEAL's heart. It is rung three times by each man that leaves SEAL training, or once in celebration, at graduation! It follows the trainees around during Hell Week on a truck, taunting all that see it. Hot coffee, much needed sleep, and a warm bed are dangled before their shivering, sleep deprived, and mud caked faces. Do NOT ring the bell!

123. Navy SEAL, Memorial Day tribute to war and warriors.

Every generation will see war. Every mom and dad since 1776 wonders if their child will go to war or be killed by an enemy. History doesn’t lie nor do smart people forget this fact.

Maybe the idea of memorial day is the remember. We tend to only look at the grave and recall the dead. And I agree we must never forget the sacrifices of our brothers and sisters. Yet there is a deeper forgetting that is happening that scares me.

I walked up and down the streets of your country and the average person has forgotten our collective past. The books in school have no factual reflection on the past of the Unites States. Opinion and politics have rewritten the part of history that needs to be ingrained in every American. There is and always will be darkness and an enemy. There hasn’t been a gap more than 3 years since 1775 that we have not been in a conflict or battle. Right or wrong, believe it or not, war happens. So prepare yourself and your family and stop listening to the media or people who deny the realities.

Here is what you have forgotten and like most history it is factual and boring. Facts are boring, fantasy is exciting. Facts repeat themselves, fantasy never happens. 

American Revolution (1775-83) against Britain, France, Spain and the American natives. Cherokee wars were from (1775-1795) against the Cherokee. Northwest Indian wars (1785-93) against the Brits. Shay’s Rebellion (1786-87) against government protestors. Whiskey rebellion (1791-94) against frontier tax protestors. Quasi war (1798-1800) against French pirates.

First Barbary War (1801-05) against Islamic pirates in the Mediterranean. 1811 German Coast of Haiti against a slave uprising. Tecumseh’s war 1811 for land. War of 1812 against the Brits, spain and natives for land. Creek War (1813-14) against the natives for land. Second Barbary war in the med (1815) against Islamic pirates.

First Seminole War (1817-18) against Spain and the Seminoles for land. Texas Indian wars (1820-75) against the commache for land. Arikara War (1823) in Missouri against the natives for land). Aegean Sea pirate War (1825-28) against greek pirates. Winnebago war in Illinois (1827) against the natives for mineral and land rites. First Sumatran war (1832) against pirates). Black hawk war (1832) against the brits and natives over land. Second Seminole (1835-42) over land. Second sumartan (1838) against pirates and for shipping lanes). Aroostook War (1838) against the brits for the maine land. Ivory coast (1842) to prevent slave trading in Africa. Mexican war (1846-48) for texas and California. Cayuse indian war (1847-55) in Oregon for land. Appache Wars (1851-1900) for texas land. Puget Sound war (1855-56) against natives for land. First Fiji war (1855) for shipping and land. Rogue river war (1855-56) against natives for land. Third Seminole war (1855-58) against natives for land. Yakima war (1855-58) in Washington state for peace and land. Second opium war (1856-59) in china for trade and shipping and opium, and you forget the drug wars are not a new thing. Utah War (1857-58) against the mormones. Navajo wars (1858-66) in new mexico for land.

Second Fiji war (1859) to put down the Fiji rebellion.

Now all this was a part of the day to day life of us here in the new Americas. And we all have completely forgotten not only the life styles we led than but also the massive conflicts we were in.

John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry ( 1859) the beginnings of the American civil war which was initially a taxation issue for food and produce and cotton and then devolved into a human trafficking issue. First and second Cortina war (1859-61) in texas against bandits killing and steeling along the border. Paiute war (1860) in Nevada against the natives for land.

Then begins the American civil war (1861-1865) primary for who was in charge the govt or the states. The south made all the food and clothing and the north began to tax it and regulate the south.

The native indian wars in the Arizona (1861-1875)against the apache and yumas in the southwest, against the Sioux in the Dakota against the Cheyenne in Colorado for land and control.

The Shimonoseki war in 1863 in japan for control of trade routes through the Konmon straights.

Then back to indian wars with the snake river war against the bannock and the Shoshone in Oregon from (1864 -68), and the powder river wars from 1865-68 against the Sioux and red cloud and we actually lost and gave the land back.

1867 -1875 we fought the Comanche too.

1872 we defeated the moddoc tribe in California and finally beat the Cheyenne and Comanche and kiowa in texas and Colorado. From 1873 – 1923 we had native Americans and US soldiers in a battle every year.

In 1867 we had a little conflict with Formosa or Thailand due to piracy. And in 1871 we had our first battle with korea

In 1889 we pushed the germans our of Samoa and the Spanish our of cuba in the Spanish America war.

1900 we had a conflict and deployed troops to the Philippines. And at the turn of the century we deployed to china and the boxer rebellion insued.

Our southern boarder we a combat zone with four major military interventions from 1900 through 1914 from mexico, cuba, Haiti, Dominican republic and Nicaragua

In 1914-1918 the world went to war seemingly with itself in Europe. In 1918 russian civil war pushes all outsiders out.

In 1923 the Utes led the last indian uprising in the united states

1939-1945 we all took sides and fought for power and land and our men and women deployed into hell.

1953 we went to war with korea as china and Russia joined and wanted access and power along that region.

Also in 1953 we went into Loas and stayed until 1975.

1958 we fought in Lebanon. In 1961 the bay of pigs in cuba. In 1964 the simba rebellion in the congo.

1955-1975 we fought and died in Vietnam. 1965-1983 we fought against communism in Thailand. And against the Khmer in Cambodia.

1965-75 we fought in Bolivia, cuba, and the Dominican.

1978-1989 we fought zaire, libya, Lebanon, and against iran.

1989 we deployed to Panama.

Then begins my military career for fighting where ever you send me campaign.

In 1990 we invade Iraq. In 1992 we fight in Somalia. In 1992-95 we fight in bosnia.

In 94-95 we fight in Haiti. 98-99 we fight in the Kosovo war. In 1998 we engage Afghanistan. In 2001 we invade Afghanistan and are still there. 2003 we fight in Iraq and are still there. From 2003 until now we have pushed in somilia, Libya, Syria, Uganda, and Yemen.

Don’t just weep for the dead today. Weep for the people who have forgotten and never want to serve. For the darkness is coming whether you want it to or not. So prepare yourself by celebrating the dead by recalling the facts that lead us into each conflict.

122. Do more than your competition with Thom Shea

Over the past 30 years I have seen people do some extra-ordinary things. And I am not drawn to ordinary and average because average seems to drain the life and happiness and future out of people I see striving for it. So as a young man growing up I sought out the extra, the hard road, and the “that cannot be done” achievers. And that remains the biggest attraction to this day. I highly recommend pushing yourself and your team and even your children to next levels, for this one reason: Because when anyone pushes life beyond the comfortable average a whole new possibility arises.

For the sake of clarity let’s break down extra ordinary into five areas of life. The first area is capacity to learn, the second is physical ability, the third is being compensated for delivering value or wealth building, the forth in the ability to join up with someone else and form a team or relationships, and the final one is the capacity to connect the dots or spiritual capacity. Those five distinctions that must never be average and truly can be pushed beyond to extra ordinary.

Learning, wow, let’s just say this plainly. Normal learning is a battle. The battle in normal learning comes simply from skipping the first step in learning and going directly to studying something in the abstract. The first step for god’s sake is fire. The fire or burning desire to figure out something that you want to figure out has been entirely overlooked in modern education. Learning reading in the abstract is really the most inefficient way. Wanting to be able to plow the field like dad or wanting to be able to do something then realizing you can have to read words and write words in order to achieve your dream is the first step. Some one with fire will learn a skill rather quickly because learning than isn’t abstract.

Being hungry and realizing you need to learn to cook and clean up after yourself will immediately lead to learning. Not being hungry and someone telling you to cook makes little since. Stoking the fire and making people hungry for what they want is the primary key to not being average. Average people lack fire.

Normal in the category of physical ability is being fat and out of shape and having no real direction, and that is the statistical truth. In the land of plenty and the land of dial a meal and watch professional athletes at sporting events, personal physical ability as in the individual being capable physically is not possible it seems any longer. I find that to be tragic. The normal person in the United States cannot do fifty pushups on any given day. The normal person also cannot run for an hour or swim for an hour, or bike for an hour. The normal person has little to no idea of what any particular food is for or what any particular drink if for, or rather what the impact is on their bodies regarding what they consume. The first step to be extra ordinary is to get to a base line in physical ability first and then secondly maintain that base line for the rest of your life. Here is a suggested extra ordinary base line to own your body:

1. 8 glasses a water a day
2. 5 balanced meals, nothing processed, and hand made meals
3. stretch every muscle and joint for at least 20 minutes a day
4. run or swim or hike or bike or any endeavor where you use all your muscles for one hour a day
5. do 20 push-ups, 20 sit-ups, 20 squats, 2 pull-ups, and bear crawl and grab walk for at least 20 yards a day

Now that may not seem extra ordinary but the honest truth is less than 10 percent of the population in the US can do this ever day.

Wealth. Alright, let’s talk for a moment. I define wealth as the ability to be compensated for delivering value. You want to build wealth than deliver something of value and be compensated for that. What is normal here. Normal is chasing money for the sake of money and not delivering value, or a better way to say that is expecting to be paid for time and activity instead of measurably affecting an outcome and getting a percent of what you brought to the table. It is really normal to the point of disturbing that people expect to be paid for time and activity even if that activity is doesn’t impact the game or business. Just remember this salaries are a cost to a business, sales people or people who bring in business or move the needle are not a cost they are revenue generators. The real key to building wealth is hunting and bringing home meat. That is extra ordinary and very rare.

Relationships and Team work are also very rare indeed. It is normal to operate in a silo. It is normal do just go do work by yourself. It is very, very hard to be on a team or in a relationship, like a marriage. The old adage really applies here, “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far and do more, form a team.” So why is it normal to go alone, why is it normal now to get divorced, why is it normal to not be on a high performing team. Well, because it is damn right hard. You have to give up your point of view for the team to operate together. You have to deal with the ups and downs of drama by not adding your own drama. You have to forgive. You have to ensure others succeed before you do. If you do that you go really, freaking far in athletics, in business and in marriage. If you don’t you get stunted and end up just doing the same things that make you comfortable and content.

Now real greatness is in spiritual connections, or what I call connecting the dots and making one area of life impact and effect many other areas to include other people. Connecting the dots is not just rare but may be not attainable for most people. Connecting the dots means you first have the capacity to learn, have the ability to grow your body every day, have the ability to deliver measurable outcomes and get paid for it, and have the capability to work on a team with other knuckle heads. As hard as that sounds connecting the dots means you have to empathize and have to have the balls to risk everything. Spiritual master is so difficult even as a spectator that no one even tries to acquire the skill. If you do than what you thought possible before seems mundane.

The extra ordinary moves me. Take Matt Boling in Texas, the 18 year old runner who just crushed the sprinting world like the times that came before him seem small. Watching him run is incredible, because I know what is behind it. You can learn from a coach, he knows his body, he delivers measurable results, and he functions really freaking well on a team. That is extra ordinary.

What is your extra ordinary?

121. Resilience: the core of leadership with Thom Shea

Resilience is a very misunderstood aspect lately and is truly misrepresented in leadership. The going trend is to look at resilience after the breaking down of either combat soldiers and sailors or businesses which have fallen to constant strain. Odd that we look at the ones who didn’t weather the storm instead of the ones who do. Hey listen, success leaves tracks leading toward success. Losing leaves scars that cause dysfunctions.

Is often funny to witness growth and leadership through the lens of Resilience.

Growth always is exciting up front. And, there never seems to be cause to practice resilience in the beginning.

Growth initially pushes away the fog, allows for new insights and new paths through the darkness. And during planning in the light no one wants to consider what will happen during dark times.

Growth then becomes dirty, as you have to cut down branches and pick up rocks on the trail that impede progress. If you were one who had weathered many storms you would have practiced the resilience side of growth and leadership, by preparing for darkness.

Growth then becomes emotional, when the people who were on your team lose sight of the path they were on that was comfortable and clean and even though that old path led to a cliff and death they are emotionally attached to the feeling they had on the death path. And the ego and emotionally midgetry of people who expect something new for no effort cause resiliency to never ignite.

Growth then and always dies in the 11th hour.  In the 11th hour we always realize we are still carrying many of the processes and gear and people that were on the death path and none of them are helping clear the new path.  We fight the old ways and fight each other and never just keep after it. And that again would have been part of the success equation had the leaders and team actually consider being resilient up front, but few do.

What we never realize is that we are only 20 feet from breaking through, so we settle with the old ways and often turn 90 degrees and maybe even 180 degrees away from success. Most of us cannot endure the pressure of grinding and doing simple mundane things, like making one more sales call, like picking up the trash in our office. And few leaders have the resilience to hear the team complaining and questioning the outcome just one more day. 

Resilience in simply honoring your word over time, through challenges and until the outcome happens. I only care that you honor your word and honor god and honor your family and get to the end, which is where you need to be.

Here is the truth about resilient leaders in any industry or on any team or even at home. Maybe this is a linear way to look at the importance of being a resilient leader.

1. Commit to the goal before you have a team or a solution or any clarity of how you will get there.
2. As a leader you must put to words your vision and your mission. And your job from this point on is to keep speaking your vision and mission everywhere all the time and no matter what is breaking apart around you.
3. As a leader you must get, recruit, and form a team of people around you that are much better at this than you are. If you don’t do this right and do this early, you will not have access to resilience at all.
4. Develop a base line executable plan that has people doing activity that gets the ball one yard at a time down the field. Once you design the plan hand it to a 8 year old. If the 8 year old cannot figure it out and do it than scrap it and go back to another plan that an 8 year old can do.
5. Now that you are ready, stop. You now have to get ready for everything that is going to go wrong and prepare for the smack down that will surely come. If your direct reports, or your team captains, or your main team members don’t have the stomach or patience to prepare for the darkness get rid of them or encourage them with your wise leadership to prepare.
6. Launch the ship, start the project, begin the race.
7. Don’t give up, don’t give in, never quit until the end.

That seems simple yet those who are resilient know this one fact: no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Not one of them. Every single project or plan or even a football play gets hammered right after you start. Your job as a resilient leader is to clean up the mess and start again. Every thing has and will go wrong. Buses crash, money gets lost or stolen, people die and quit, wives or husbands leave. And this is the first part of resilience, is clean up the mess and start again.

What happens in the 11th hour? By the 11th hour everything is thin, people are tired of it, money is not coming in like you thought, families are exhausted, the products and practices are always changing, and you as a leader are questioning yourself and your team and everything. But what isn’t happening in the 11th hour is resilience. You and your team are not doing the basics and fundamentals anymore. Resilience in the 11th hour is master the basics, do the basics and keep doing them. Don’t quit for god’s sake don’t quit now. Take one more step. Keep the team going one more day. Keep after the basics.

For god’s sake be resilient in your life, because it is the most critical skill to have as a leader.

120. Some Gave It All a vietnam marine and grandmaster Danny Lane

Based on an incredible true story, a highly decorated Marine fights the hardest battle of his life, thirty-eight years after he returns from the Vietnam War.

As doctors rush to save his life, his unbelievable journey in the abyss of Vietnam unfolds, giving you a front row seat to the intense action, courage, sacrifice, and survival he and other Marines endured.

You will experience the ferocity and scars of battle; the deep bonds of brotherhood; and the stinging, delirious cold sweat of fear that hangs persistently over the jungle canopy.

Be with him in a foxhole while a “Broken Arrow” goes into effect as the enemy sappers overtake their position and they have to fight the enemy hand to hand.

Order the book here

119. Leaving your Comfort Zone with Rene Johnson.

Leaving your Comfort Zone has been a life-changing, transformational book in the lives of many US women as well as international clients. Though written for professional women, men have enjoyed reading and share being powerfully impacted by the 6 Power Zone Principles™  included. Also, this has become a powerful tool for Rene' Johnson's clients with several businesses investing in the entire team to read and leave their comfort zones! 

In this book, the author René Johnson shares her passion for helping professional women lead their lives from their Power Zones. The Power Zone is where transformation happens, courage is found, inspiration is fired up, passion and confidence combine and taking risks to grow and fulfilling your dreams looks achievable. René strongly feels that when women explore the boundaries of their comfort zone, they can become an empowered leader in all areas of their life, creating a ripple effect to all they influence. As a result, their lives, businesses, and communities they serve are all enriched. Empowered leaders at all levels are much needed in our society and the world today. With her message, René wants to positively challenge women (and men) to step up and find their “inner” leaders and breakthrough to their Power Zones. This book continues to change lives for the better as it’s not like other books that will inspire you yet leaving you thinking – now what! Instead, it’s created as a guide with René gently and passionately coaching the reader through the 6 Power Zone Principles™, while sharing her personal story and client examples, with detailed step-by-step instructions to turn inspiration into powerful action. 

118. Success isnt pretty. Tiger Woods on display.

Some how, some where the reality of high performance; the shock of achievement; and the “wait what” of success completely got off track. Everyone seems to not realize that being successful is hard, you have to get dirty rather often, and the process is completely exhausting.   Whether you are an athlete trying to get better, or a student trying to learn a subject, or boss trying to scale or grow a company, or a parent trying to parent, or a pastor trying to preach the process to achieve will break you. You will actually feel broken rather often, you will feel pain that doesn’t whisper it screams, you will often not know if you will make another dollar, and you will most surely want to get divorced, and I can tell you from the mouth of many pastors they question it all rather often.

The notion that success doesn’t break you is what we have been sold by the current social media and news outlets. Because they show you the end point of the rare people who stick it out and sort of neglect to even show you the 10,000 times that successful person was broken. Take the Olympics, that is the end point of countless hours and days and years for that person or team to make it to the success point and all we get to see is the 10seconds of that process. And we walk away inspired and say to ourselves I wish I could run a 9 second 100 meter or swim like Mike Phelps. And we all think wow and google this or that person in top form and for some reason that inspires us.

Most are inspired and decide to start working out again. We all are enthusiastic up to the point of the first work out where we cannot even run 100 meters or swim 100 meters without something hurting. 80% of the people stop at that point and go back to doing minor inconvenient things that don’t break us and clearly don’t lead to success. Because, to be successful you have to keep breaking and feeling broken and being confused, and being beaten down by others.

There in lies the greatest paradox to the human growth idea. Success isn’t pretty at all but we all want to be successful. We all want to be in shape, smart, have money, be married to our sexy soul mate, and be one with whatever god we follow. To do that we have to pass through pain, confusion, scarcity, separation, and meaninglessness and that is the deal.

Tiger Woods is a clear example of the paradox and the dirtiness of success. Tiger broke, unraveled, got divorced, everyone crushed him and thought less of him. It was a dirty, ugly, he couldn’t walk well, his back and shoulders needed reconstruction, he had to change every thing. Everyone said he was done, he even questioned himself. Yet he came back from Hell. Now everyone loves him again and no one sees what it takes to succeed just he 10 seconds of fame at the end. Everyone wants that.

This deception in the media wasn’t always the way. There was a time longer ago that need be that youth, and that teachers, and that coaches and athletes, that business owners and employees knew of the dirty process to succeed.

Success isn’t pretty it takes a long time to get there. What does it take? Let’s reinvent the process and get rid of this entitlement to failure.

What does it take to succeed in athletics? Here is an example one that is a struggle for everyone: weight loss. I am not a fan of abstract weight loss but the process is real. This is free I will tell you the process to lose weight and look sexy.

It takes 3 months. Don’t start unless you are going to do it for three months.

You have to workout, run, or anything physical every day for an hour for 3 months. Every day you miss you basically have to add another 3 days.

You have to plan and maintain your five small meals a day for three months. If you miss a day you have to add three days.

You have to drink 8 glasses of water a day for three months. If you miss a day you have to add three days.

Wait I didn’t mention what workout is best. Hey listen it doesn’t matter really. That is just a sales related subject of what type of workout is best.

Plan your meals and stick to it. It may matter what you eat but I have found 1 out of a 1000 even have the strength to plan every meal they eat and fewer can actually drink 8 glasses of water a day.

Everything not mentioned is a hack and may or may not work. And if you do the above for 3 months you will lose weight, look amazing and be rather fit. And you can do this at any age.

What does it take to 2 x your business? Yes 200 %. I can say that because of the people issue that exists in businesses. People are rather not efficient and not engaged and random. We have 2 x’ed many companies in the past three years by applying this basic formula. It takes 9 months of 9 sets of 21 day cycles.

Each cycle has three hours a day baseline work. That is all.

1. One hour a day focusing on your target market, your target products.
2. One hour a day selling, yes selling.
3. One hour a day tying up or doing admin or paper work.

You have to do this every day for 21 days. No weekends off. If you take a day off you have to add three days to the cycle. After that you can actually not even go to work, and we notice toward the end most companies don’t work much during the off weeks.

The retention is off the charts, the sales is so on point it makes you laugh, and the people are so happy.

What really happens during the weight loss and the 2x’ing your business. Even though those points are simple, they are not easy. In the weight loss, working out and eating right and drinking on point is hard. Your body will definitely hurt from day one to day 90. You will pull a muscle, you will probably get a random illness. You will be tired. You will be hungry and hide candy around the house so no one sees you cheat. If you are a business person and travel eating well is a beast. Drinking that amount of water in the first month makes you go the bathroom and wake up 100 times a night. You will have every reason to quit and most people do. If you make it 3 months wow look in the mirror and weigh yourself and you will be amazed. No one can do this without a coach, no one.

What happens in business. The hardest most dirty part of the 3 hours a day, is selling. For god’s sake it is as if selling is like asking someone on a daily basis to poke their eyes out with hot pokers. Many people like the safety of planning and doing paperwork and no one wants to sell. I call it hunting. You will hear no more than yes, you will question yourself, your boss, the product. You will hide and make yourself sick just so you don’t have to sell. You will not do it on the weekends because you will excuse yourself for winning and the weekends are the biggest excuse from business success in the world. And no company can do this 9 months without help.

Success isn’t pretty. If you want to succeed you must commit to the process of dirty.

Find out where you are on the Path to becoming Unbreakable take the free test or the breakthrough profile at: Unbreakable Path

117. Beating the odds with Thom Shea

By the way, the odds are never in your favor. The odds of success are always tipped away from your idea working out. In any athletic endeavor there are and will always be chances of loss. And you see that year end and year out that even in a pro football game a team can be down 3 touchdowns and everyone is betting on the team losing and they pull it out. There is no way they could have and they do it.

In business the odds of making a profit are low and the odds of amazon and uber or facebook making billions is very low in the beginning. Most start ups fall to the pressure of everything stacked against them.

In the SEAL teams the odds are very much against even making it through training. If I were an investor, and I always wonder why Vegas doesn’t have a line on seal training, I would beat heavily on 70% of the class not making it. Surviving the type of combat the SEAL teams encounter is so heavily against the SEAL, I would bet on getting shot more than I would bet on not getting hit. And by the way most SEALs bet on getting hit like there is no way around that fact.

The odds are you will not marry the first person you so deeply love and what to marry. Even later the odds are that you won’t stay married.

Consider the odds are so against you even being born. Look at the known universe and the odds of life like ours existing on any planet.

Consider what I just said. The reality of your life and all life is that it is always against you. Everything all the time is collapsing and breaking apart, in science it is called entropy, the natural state of the universe.

And none the less you are alive. You already beat the biggest odds. How did you do that and how can you keep doing that is the question.

The first thing you need to know about beating the odds is that You, yes you, have to learn to not give up on you. You have to learn that early and practice it often. The skill of not giving up has the highest attrition rate of any skill humans can learn. It diminishes 1 second after the last time you didn’t quit. Meaning every second, really, you have to keep going and not quit on you. Everything you are learning or have learning is literally worthless compared to learning and practicing the skill of not quitting.

Look around you. Most people quit so often they don’t even know they do it anymore. I would even so most people practice quitting, and they can rarely unlearn that skill. Most people even are taught to quit by well-intentioned quitters.

“Don’t over do it” people may say.

Only study for an hour others may say.

Don’t try to be a business owner, or don’t try to be a soldier or god forbid don’t try to be a SEAL, our trusted advisors teach us to quit without even knowing it.

How do you learn how not to quit? First you need to take time out of the calculus. What do I mean by that? How long does it take to win or succeed or accomplish your dream or desire? Most people actually look at success and a derivative on time. If you do you will most surely quit. The answer is it takes as long as it takes. Success may take you 70 years. Learning a song or getting a passing score mat take you 5 years. Being able to bench press 2 times your body weight make take you 2 years. If you use time as a success parameter you are going to quit.

The second aspect of not quitting I think is the harder thing in our society to learn and teach others, especially in this socially networked environment where any one can connect with anyone else, and that point is get rid of all the nay sayers in your life. Now I didn’t say get thick skin and get used to criticism. Really, you all, thick skin is easy. Just don’t pay attention to critical people. The harder part is to kick critical or negative people out of your life entirely. The sooner you learn the art and science of getting rid of a negative influence the quicker you learn to not give up on your and beat the odds.

The third important skill you must learn at some point in your life is repetition. For god’s sake learn this skill. This skill in and of itself breeds passion, and converts a losing game or situation to a winning game and literally is the practice on not giving up. For instance, if you want to be a better runner run more. I mean more than you think you should. Don’t run for another mile, run for 50 more miles. Run until you cannot stand. Run until it is stupid.

If you want to learn how to sell a product. Practice selling that product 1000 times to the mirror. If you want to learn to invest then invest 1 penny using your strategy 1000 times before you go big. Go through the whole process 1000 times just to invest and track a penny. Do that until it is stupid.

Here is the deal about not quitting and the three rules I just mentioned, the ones who beat the odds do them every day. Some used to suggest running a marathon was nearly impossible. But some dreamer did it anyway. Then someone said running 100 miles couldn’t be done. Now look at all the people running multiple 100 mile races a year. It takes 4 months of running 80 miles a week to run a 100 mile race. They run because they have to practice not quitting mentally, and they run so that their bodies learn to not quit or die physically. To put in that amount of effort and practice they all kick negative people out of their life because it is so hard to do that anyone suggesting they stop will make them quit.

Jeff Bezos worked on and pitched amazon so many times it would make you cry. I am sure he cried many times too. He didn’t put a timeline to it, he just said recently he was willing to do it forever. He literally got rid of all people who said it was stupid. And look at him now.

So what is stopping you from learning these three aspects of never give up so that you can keep beating the odds of your life? Why do you always kill off your dreams and your direction by putting time as a limiting factor? What on earth makes you keep talking and dealing with people who aren’t supporting you or putting you down? And really, practice until you cannot go any more. Practice until it is stupid than do it 10 more times past stupid.

That is how you beat the odds.  

I often wonder why we teach our kids to play it safe in life. I often wonder why adults never have enough time to produce results or never just commit to getting it done because it will take too much time. Ironically so many people surround themselves openly with people who brutalize them for years. Look at the top people who do well in sport or business or parents who keep parenting every day.

Beat the odds beginning tomorrow. It may take you your entire life. You may be alone for quite some time fighting the odds. You may have to do it 10,000 times to get it right once.

Or you could never start, or you could keep hanging with the nay sayers, or you could try it once and get frustrated and walk away and never even try to beat the odds.

Get to it.

116. Real Toughness with Thom Shea

Each of us has inside an indomitable spirit. This spirit has the capacity to endure tough times. This spirit has the ability to build us up from the ashes of failure. This spirit will love so deeply it will amaze you. This spirit however does not live on the surface of our lives. It must be acquired through diving into rough times and only surfaces right before you drown. That is the way of it. There are no short cuts to toughness.

Every year 2 to 4 times a year my team puts on a 24 hour challenge to allow participants the experience of coming face to face with their own toughness. And trust me it takes 20 hours before the spirit shows up, then it takes 4 hours for each of us to learn that our own spirit will see us through.

The 24 hour is, for me, one of the most predictable ways to have anyone come face to face with their indomitable spirit. Like must challenges of any merit, you have to show up to win. Maybe that is the first point of toughness … willingness to challenge yourself.

To date, we have done 23 challenges. Or rather I have led 23 challenges and seen toughness arise over 400 diverse people all from unique backgrounds and body types and life struggles. And I have seen 23 versions of toughness in me, because the challenge pushes a new limit each and every time.

You are asking yourself “why would anyone do anything for 24 hours?”. Isn’t that the point? The point of the challenge is to find in you that person who is willing to push the limits. Something amazing happens when you push your self imposed 24 hour limits, actually most peoples first limit is 16 hours. You know what I am saying, most people have to sleep 8 hours a day that is a limit. And it excludes them from what is possible if and when you don’t sleep a third of your life.

After doing 23 24 hour challenges four predictable limits will be broken apart for you if you do join us and push for 24 hours and here they are:

Bravery

The first limit everyone pushes is being brave. It takes bravery to sign up and prepare for a challenge where you know you are going to have to do something hard with people you don’t know for 24 hours. Most people are not brave at all, really. I call this first limit to humans being brave. Only the brave show up to do hard things. Only the brave sign up. Only the brave toe the line in their lives.

Willingness to be coached

The Second limit of toughness is the biggest limiting factor in human beings every where. So few people are willing to be coached. So few people are willing to open up to any coaching that brings out their limits or expose their weaknesses. At this point in my life I realize this factor is the key factor of not only toughness but success as a whole. Literally only 20% of the population on the planet is willing to open up and be coached through their own self imposed limits. The 24 hour exposes limits rather fast and clearly but you have to be willing to be coached through them or you quit.

Pain and exhaustion

Pain will come. There is no way around it. Exhaustion will come when least expected. There is no escaping this. Society as a whole has moved away from dealing with and every consciously pushing through pain or exhaustion. An easy life, entitlement to something unearned, and the notion that pain is bad limits people. And in the 24 hour challenge you will get to know what pain is and you will be tired for sure.

Tunnel of despair

The final limiting factor that predictably happens in every 24 hour challenge is passing through the tunnel of despair. Maybe the whole challenge is the last four hours. The tunnel is a mental and physical condition where there is no way out of feeling pain and being tired and no way out of not wanting to feel it any more. Stepping up to the plate again and again even though it hurts; walking with pain; not wanting to lay down and rest because it hurts to get down and hurts to get back up; questioning what you are doing but doing it anyway that is the tunnel.

And that is your life really. 24 hours of dealing with your real life. 24 hours of being a part of other people willing to break through their own limits with you is the reward.

What would your life be like if you were brave and committed and showed up to something tough? What would you really do if you allowed yourself to be coached? What would your life be like if you learned to deal effectively with pain and exhaustion? And, what would happen if you kept putting one foot in front of the other no matter what was happening?

Join us if you are brave, if you want to be coached, if you want to encounter pain, and if you want to master the tunnel of despair. If you just want to be normal don’t show up. Quitters are not allowed.

24 hour challenge

115. Team Leadership and Structure with Thom Shea

How big should your leadership team be?

For the past 28 years my experience in team driven missions has been with small, highly selective, very highly training individuals who team up for the sole purpose of execution of a mission. Little did I know how every maneuverable, effective, and decentralized this type of team is when compared to the big, highly political, and less training and more emotionally organized team that is competitively organized to maintain market share.

One is offensive and the other defensive. I suppose both have their place in the world. I see more of the defensive, emotionally and politically organized team structure than I do the on point mission focused team.

The misconception of the defensive, huge organization is that the top leader should have command and control of every aspect of the workings of the company. The misconception may stem for the ill-fated organization of the team, or rather political, emotional, and lack of intensive training per position. Or maybe the misconception is from books or movies leaders read about command and control.

I can tell you first hand leaders are only a small role in the business, a business of that is offensive that is to say. In a lethal, swift to act, dynamic, highly specialized team, the leader plays only a small role. A leader in an offensive team reigns in the team and never uses the whip, says no more than yes. A leader of a defensive team always, always, always feels like they need to whip and make decisions and keep people moving.

Oddly both have unique cultures simply because of the design flaw. The defensive organization has a culture of grind, delays, no one can impact the day to day. The offensive team has a culture of opportunity, urgency, and influence. So why in the hell do 78% of the organizations structure for defense, yet everyone screams for culture of offense.

Over the past 5 years we have reset organizations from defense to offense and the process takes 7 months.

The method is simple. The method is disruptive to be sure, yet works every time. The ROI is four times the lag in action, the loss of retention, and the immediate revenue generation of take out the defensive mindset. The culture is light, and communicative by necessity, intense, and no one wants to leave.

What would your company be like if you were an offensive culture, and had decentralized command and control? What would your life be like? That is the question I pose to you.

114. Leadership Culture of Unified Action with Thom Shea

Culture is the hot topic of the day. Whether it be political, economical, business, at the gym, or even at home, culture is the new topic. It is a rather old idea that is newly recycled with a nice catchy word like culture.

Learn a Skill that matters

I have just returned from a week long trip to West Point and was reading an article on the state of our economy and the solution was culture.

What do any of us know about the economy and how to measure it or even how to impact it. The economy as discussed seems to encompass everything and is an ominous thing, and culture as described is a nebulous smoke filled room of people and thoughts and activities.

But again how to measure both.

The Economy is:

Work force

Money spent and made and saved

Manufacturing, service, even government employment is a job (I find that odd) that someone would measure the economic engine on jobs that come from taxing and restraining the very engine.

Many other factors no one even can understand how to move any of them.

War moves the economy

Natural disasters move the economy

Humans are the immeasurable part, but have the most immediate impact (if one boss can figure out how to have people at his or her business actually do work and take care of themselves and have the desire to grow (then that company would move the economy). They will move it up to the point the people get comfortable, blame oriented, and scared, and fat.

Middle managers keep people on task is his only valid point worth digesting.  

The military (culture is still being taught at West Point and the academies) learned this 200 years ago that training, leadership, and accountability wins even during battles when the enemy or the economy is beating Your ass.

Business is rediscovering this and calling it culture. Selection, Earn it, train to a basic needed skill, integrate new ideas only when they work, reinforce good behavior and actions and punish bad behavior. Duty to the mission, honor your word, Country above self. Good lord what would happen if companies had that type of culture.

Alas, that type of culture (selection, training, integrating, leadership of accountability, duty, honor, and country) is hard. It is hard because a culture of growth and working together is uncomfortable.

Culture is a round table of people who are all in and bring to the table commitment, training, leadership, and a desire to align with the people at the table.

A round table forces diversity of ideas, but demands unity in action. That is the huge difference in successful companies who have culture ( and case in point the military academies and even the SEAL Teams). In the SEAL teams all ideas are welcome, then a choice is made and everyone aligns with that one idea and makes one action out if it.

Seems like society doesn’t like the idea of unity of action but wants diversity of ideas and actions and cannot figure out why nothing has any short or long term impact.

Culture in this sense is rare but rather easy to create when accountability is the blood we all share as a unified Team. Non accountability is the blood spilt by unsuccessful companies that cannot unify toward action.

113. Do epic things and get after your life with Thom Shea

The difference between the ones at the top of their field and the other people isn’t genetics, isn’t where they went to school, isn’t family upbringing, isn’t luck.

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The difference is that the top people actually are trying to do something they cannot do. They are doing epic things when everyone else is trying to just survive.

Can you imagine what your life would actually be like if you learned to do epic things, if you learned to commit to doing things you currently aren’t doing at all.

Running an ultra marathon or doing any physical event that lasts more than 12 hours is epic. Building a business or making a new technology or turning around a failing business is epic. Learning to do something with your other hand, or learning a new skill is epic. Currently marrying your equal and raising a family of warriors is epic.

Purpose

The first factor that differentiates the top for all others is clarity of vision and mission focus. The few at the top have a clarity of vision that separates them from all others. They can see what they want; they can smell it; they can taste it; they can feel it in their bones, even when others cannot. The top have laser focus on their mission to win. Actually that is all they focus on and completely disregard all else. That is the foundational point of why they are on the top.

Relentless Passion

The second factor that bridges the gap between top and bottom is that the people on top are always practicing and learning the skills required to win. Actually the ones at the top are relentless, overbearing, inexhaustible and consumed with getting there. Yet they cannot imagine why anyone would take a day off. They rest because they are completely spent and have to, they are always working on a better solution. It isn’t a lifestyle as most refer to it in today’s social media; the relentlessness is their life. They have to, but often don’t want to.

The Team

The third factor that propels the top people across that gap between epic and normal is the ability to surround themselves with people who support and drive them toward where they want to go. The capacity to kick out the nah-sayers is darn near impossible in today’s social media and virtual world. Yet, without this factor purpose and relentless passion literally gets drenched in the stink of negative people and the fire to keep doing it gets put out.

It takes 100 miles a week for 6 weeks to survive a ultra and not injure yourself. That is 24 plus hours a week running. To do that you need to be completely clear of the end goal and the process needed to even train. You have to learn five different forms of running. I bet you didn’t know there were different forms. You have to learn to eat and drink while running. You have to learn to handle the emotions of what goes on with your body and mind during pain and isolation. It isn’t just running. It is fragile. If you spouse doesn’t’ support you don’t even try. If your friends you spend time with question you then you won’t do it for long. But, when you get a team to help you, you are unbreakable.

It takes 5 years to get a start up to a profitable business worth investors or worth selling. You will work every day. You will fail so often and make bad decisions every week if not every day. You will lose money, period. You will make money and it will freak you out then you will lose it. If you don’t hire a team or have support then you might as well just go to Vegas and put all your net worth on a green color. Because you have no real chance to get to the success point. You will have to speak your company into existence before it is even a company. You will have to hear people tell you no so often you will forget what yes sounds like. If you don’t quit on yourself and your team you will make it.

It takes a life time to have a successful marriage and raise warrior kids. There is no book on how to do it. Lust for your spouse changes with the weather. You will get fat then skinny. So will she. When you are carrying the baby your life style prior to that is gone. You will have to adapt your diet to fries and vinegar. You will have to deal with crazy mood swings. When baby arrives you no longer matter. Most people cannot deal so they quit. And that may all occur in the first year. At 10 years you will not remember your life before. That is if you are doing it right.   Then as you and spouse make it to the puberty years of your first kid, and your kid starts testing you. That makes for some impossible times. But you must stay at it everyday. Every day is a marriage. The past is gone the future is weird and today is hard. But it is epic.

Why don’t you give up the notion to be normal and take on an epic life. Go for it. Go for it now before it is too late.

112. No SEAL left behind, the brotherhood of the SEAL teams with Martin Strong

Honoring the Brotherhood of the SEAL Teams. Marty Strong and I discuss the Teams and how to survive retirement.

Get into the mind of the author of numerous warrior stories with a true Navy SEAL brother and warrior. 

Pre-order Death before Dawn

In the post 9/11 world of special operations the Navy SEALs establish a reputation for excellence, courage, and fortitude. But for Lieutenant Matthew Barrett, he finds that becoming an officer worthy of respect in this elite band of brothers, he'll have to measure up to men individually selected for their prowess in combat and their poise under unimaginable stress. Death Before Dawn is the first in an exciting series of novels, authored by M. L. Strong, a decorated SEAL officer and combat veteran, tracing the trials and tribulations of young Matthew Barrett and the SEALs he leads into harm's way.

111. High Performance for the Tactical Athlete with Adam Lareau

Founded by former US Navy SEALs, O2X’s comprehensive curriculum targets the specific issues facing tactical populations including high rates of injury, elevated cancer and cardiac health risks, and behavioral health issues commonly associated with high-stress work environments.

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What you’ll find in the book:

Our science-backed EAT SWEAT THRIVE methodology

The role of nutrition in optimizing performance

The principles of movement, injury prevention, and conditioning

The physiological impact of stress and how to build resilience

The importance of sleep for performance

Concrete ways to get one percent better every day

Real-world stories from tactical athletes and human performance experts

All the science you would find in a text book presented in the same digestible way we teach our signature workshops

As a tactical athlete, you have no off-season. This book gives you the tools you need to get better every day so you can finish your career as strong as you started.

110. SEAL Combat Leadership: Bring Everyone Home with Thom Shea

It has been 10 years now, since I lead SEALs into combat. Ten years since utter clarity.

Yes you did hear that correctly. Combat to great leaders is simple and clear. Taking SEALs into combat was for me a brilliant culmination of 20 years in the SEAL teams.

Combat leadership as I reflect on it had five elements to it. They will not be what you expect to hear. The movies and politicians and people who have never been there simple don’t know. Often I do realize there are soldiers and sailors and marines and Airman who never got in alignment with the five elements.

In movies, and I can hardly even watch combat movies because they are not accurate at all, comparing movies to real combat is like comparing Apples to Dogs. And, the people who have never seen real combat simply live in another world of confusion and excitement mixed with questions that have no answers.

Leading SEALs in combat is now and even was than an honor I can hardly describe. SEALs are the last homogenous group left. Homogenous in the fact they all go through the same unfiltered training; homogenous in the first principle of team work which is diverse thoughts and opinions that culminate in one singular action; and homogenous in the fact that they all simply don’t give a shit what other people say about them. They are all more committed to each other than they are pretty much any thing else in the world.

So that is the first unexpected element of combat leadership; the deep unrelenting love and connection and draw each SEAL has for his platoon and other SEALs. With out that key element as a combat leader, you will just be a bus driver.

The second element to combat leadership is commitment prior to knowing how. What do I mean by that? Let me explain, the reality and the biggest differentiator of the wolf and the sheep but in the military and in the business sector is the wolf is already committed. And the Sheep is waiting to be told. In the SEALs and in combat, I was already committed to getting to it. You never as a combat leader receive a mission that is solvable. Each mission you receive has no solution, or worse, each mission looks like everyone is going to die. But here is the second most important thing in combat leadership: Commitment is the only thing that will solve the unsolvable. SEALs from the first day of training until the die or retire or quit are constantly faced with problems that have no solution. They are used to remaining committed in order to solve the problems.

I was shocked in the civilian world and in business the opposite is the norm. Everyone wants the solution before they commit. They work on problems from the point of view of lack on commitment and the process exhausts them and they never commit. Sad, but true.

The Third element of combat leadership is high level of fitness. This element is reinforced every single day. This fitness and constant athleticism may actually be the lynch-pin to success in combat. I often think without this element the other factors cannot work. Point blank in your face physically tough and constantly working out is so important to being successful in high risk stressful environments. It is not written down anywhere, often this high level fitness isn’t even talked about, but if you aren’t visibly doing it the team will make you do it. Oddly enough no one in the combat teams cares how you emotionally feel about staying fit. They only care that you are capable to carrying your load and enduring tough times, so that they don’t have to carry you through at the risk of the mission and their lives. So you stay fit as a matter of principle. Or you pay.

The forth element is trade craft expertise. In other words, to be effective as a combat leader you have to ensure and enforce that your team constantly improves their skills. What do I mean by that? Here is the reality of leading men in combat: You don’t lead them. Wait, what? That is right you don’t lead highly trained, highly fit, committed people into combat. You as a leader simply keep them all focused in one direction for short periods of time, usually the length of the mission. That is the truth. They don’t follow you, these men align with you because they know you will put them in the area that allows them to make use of the skills they bring to the table. It is that simple. If you don’t constantly show them that you can manage the chaos and put them into the right place and area where they can do their thing they will just not unite. Know your men and do for them what they require, anything else is simply a waste of your life and their life.

The fifth element is what most expect. I call it fusion. You as a combat leader have to fuse together all moving parts into a plan of action that even a 13 year old can execute. And that is not easy. You have to deal with the Egos of the top brass or other entities which I call jello. You have to then create and control a time line that is precise. And trust me controlling Time is harder than dealing with ego.  I call time AIR. Then you have to fuse your time line with the rehearsal of the actions of others.   I call it the Machine. Wolves hate to rehearse and they hate you for making them do it. Yet if you don’t men die prematurely and missions fail when they don’t have to fail. The final point of fusion and the final point of combat leadership is you have to fuse and be ok with killing and death.   I call this emotional mastery. Combat is the rude awakening to killing and death. Combat is mean, situations in combat are so staggeringly brutal you will shut down if you haven’t made your peace with killing and dying. You leave on each mission having already considered your death and those of your team and considered the enemy will die at your hands.

You must fuse all these factors: You must fuse Jello, with Air, with the Machine, with Your Emotions. And you must go anyway.

Combat leadership is this:

Deep love and connection to your team

Commit before there is a solution

Relentless physical capability

Constant trade craft mastery

And Fusing elements not meant to exist together.

And in the final consideration you must bring everyone home.

109. A Measurable Life with Thom Shea

A Measurable Life

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): the Design of Human Performance

 The Training Starts Now

There are Five Measurable factors in your life. We call these aspects “The Five Pyramids of Human Performance.” Our notion is that Human Performance ultimately is a measure of achieving results in the Five Pyramids of Human Performance®. To achieve these five results we find it necessary to access five “tools”: Intentionality, Emotional Mastery, Modeling Failure, Inspired Mentorship, and Disruption. Our Human performance training is a step-by-step methodology of linear progression ... there is no other way to grow. While linear progression is needed, the underlying cause of greatness in every human being anywhere is to first master the two keys to human performance:

1. Honoring your word
2. Never giving up on honoring your word

Without the two keys being deeply mastered and constantly applied the climb toward a Measurable Life is doomed. We will test these two aspects of human performance upfront and teach you to master them first.

THE ADAMANTINE ALLIANCE SOLUTION:

Operating at 20% efficiency and capacity is both tiresome and emotionally draining. Being out of sequence will leave you plateaued and unaware of your ultimate potential. Not pursuing your ultimate potential every day will cause you to be unhealthy, stagnant, scarce, alone, and disconnected.

Intent of overall training:

1. Provide direct/hands on training to produce rapid and sustainable growth if the five pyramids
2. Provide a step-by-step methodology of both personal and business leadership growth
3. Achieve 3 goals in Physical, 8 in Intellectual, 2 in Wealth, 6 in Relationship, and 1 in Spiritual

Adamantine Alliance Reflections and Projections

Intentionality/Focused Effort (Evolution two) Your ability to engage your five senses and use focused effort and rest as a means to achieve your goals.

Emotional Mastery (Evolution three) Your ability to use emotions for their intended design and overcome/let go of emotional attachments rapidly, will always overcome every problem you will face in order to have life! 

Failure Modeling (Evolution four) will be a ‘stepping stone’ to things currently out of reach.  Your ability to bounce back from failure will make your grow exponentially.

Inspired Mentorship (Evolution five) Once you have mastered these four tools of human performance you must learn to mentor other people so that they can achieve their life’s goals.  Mentoring is your ability to follow what inspires you and help people attain their goals.  You must always be inspired when they are not.  Most lose inspiration so they cannot mentor. Without mentoring at the leadership level the culture of your company will not be under your control 

Spartan Woman (Evolution six) We have found that both men and women require a deeper understanding of the profound power of a Spartan Woman. In this evolution you will learn the four distinctions:

                  Strength in the Face of Uncertainty

            Compromising yourself

            It cannot last without Me

            I don’t need You

Innovation and Disruption (Evolution seven) Then you must balance your own five pyramids of performance to actually create new opportunities. Innovation comes for balance not risk

Spiritual Connection (Evolution eight) In the final training you will learn how to access your Own five senses in order to be able to connect in profound ways to others 

Each of the graduates has gone through what you will go through in their own ways.  We are evolving you toward these points:

• You must always have a physical goal
• You must always have a wealth goal
• You must always be learning in measurable ways
• You must always know exactly what your partner's goals are (if you don't then you will forever be on a plateau of discontent)
• Always have two people you are mentoring who inspire you, who you can spiritually connect with

Each of the graduates has achieved 2.5 times more in each pyramid of their lives by doing the training.  All the growth happens after failure, you will fail many times in the next year … embrace it now.

108. Sales Success with Thom Shea and Mark Bowser

107. Three Ways to Build Momentum with Thom Shea

The greatest challenge in life is to maintain momentum.  That is to say, maintaining momentum in health, learning, wealth, relationships, and spiritual growth.  Yet, as in all things successful that you do in life, the basics are the key.

Buy The Book Unbreakable

Sleep and rest are basic skills and few manage to control this skill set. 

Eating and drinking properly is a basic skill and fewer have any real access or ability in this area.

Listening is a necessity to communication and few people practice this skill even on a weekly basis.

Focused exercise for one hour a day is without question the premise of health and even endurance yet, again, a small minority of people have this skill set.

Paying your self for the doing of the basic skill is the root of wealth creation, and the battle for people to put tangible money in their pocket on a daily basis is like pulling teeth from a bear.

Spending 30 minutes a day with your loved ones would seem practical to keep a relationship from imploding, but I have noticed only a hand full of people can or will even try this.

Sitting quietly to pray or meditate for even 5 minutes a day is a lost skill, like making a fire, it simply is lost.  People just don't see the value in it at all.

106. Author your Story, The Rule of Nines with Kathy Heim

The Greatest gift you can give to the world is to be brave enough to write your story.  Kathlyn Heim shares the lessons she has learned in her life in the book Rule of Nines.

The real credit always goes to the one's of us who risk it all and share what they have learned.  The Rule of Nines provides a 9-step simple plan to guide people towards success in the evocation of behavioral changes necessary to succeed in personal goal achievement.  This book takes a unique approach towards goal identification, and provides the reader with the “tools” necessary for success.  Although there are books on the market geared towards goal achievement, there has yet to have been written a book that includes the depth of self-reflection necessary to achieve permanent success.  Unlike the other books on the market, this book has an associated 365-day journal that requires self-reflection and awareness.  It is not based on a physical reward system, but on a personal reward system. The Rule of Nines takes the reader on a personal journey of self-discovery.

105. Finish Like a Pro. Sticking with it until the end with Thom Shea

We embarked three weeks ago on a project to show our clients a simple method to start up a new effort and ensure the foundation is set.

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I have spent 35 years applying this time-honored way of achieving success. During those years the method of using the 21 day grind cycle to establish a baseline has proven effective every time. The 21 day challenge is a simple but not easy process. The simple aspect is you must have a goal you are wanting to achieve. The not easy process is actually doing three basic things every single day for 21 days.

In podcast 102 I discuss the 21 day method and the value of it. And as many of you are not aware we had a private Facebook community doing the 21 day as a team effort to post and support each other through the first 7 days. It takes a team of committed people to get through the first 7 days of anything new. I am always surprised people don’t realize how vital support and team efforts are in life in general but specifically I am dumb founded how people try to do things by themselves. You will fail alone.  

In podcast 103, I further discussed the middle ground is where everyone really fails in start ups or hey in life too. The middle is when we use excuses rather than the simple action of doing what we agreed to. In the group many people had to start over. Here is why, we excuse ourselves by using reasons. I am tired, This is stupid, I forgot, My wife or husband criticized, or blame. I have trained so many people that I realize that until you can honor your word for 21 days straight and overcome the inertia of an excuse driven life, than there is no way to teach someone any specific skills to succeed, because they will quit anyway.

Yet there is always something magical that happens when someone doing the 21 day challenge realizes they didn’t do the simple things in life, because they excused themselves. The magic is when they start over, because they want to honor their word. When they do that then greatness is possible.

So what is it like to complete the 21 day challenge. If you get to day 18, something odd has happened. Your body, your mind, your life has adapted. It takes that long for adaptation to happen. On day 18 you just do it. You have carved out the space in your life. Pain, support, Why are all gone. You will do it come hell or high water. You can see the end and will crawl if needed to the end.

This is rare for most people these days. To see the hard work they have done produce an outcome, and even more rare still is how the 21 day challenge makes you want to do the three simple things.

The principle of the 21 day cycle of adaption is not taught in formal schools. The 21 day cycle is rare in the business world, except by the great businesses who use it. Every top athlete I know does this. Every successful salesman or woman does this.

Imagine if you used this method in your life. Whether it be lose weight, get stronger, or add a new technique if you have a goal, then find three simple things you know are needed, then do these three things every day for 21 days. Imagine if you did that in business. Make one call a day, save $20, submit one case analysis, whatever, what would happen? You would have saved $420, made 21 calls, and opened 21 cases. Simple who cares that isn’t a lot.   But now you have carved a space for that in your life. In a year you have $5040, 252 calls and cases will have lead to a business volume you cannot even imagine.

Three simple things have an effect on your life that you cannot begin to imagine.   But what normally happens. You talk yourself out of doing them. Often I have seen people stopping simple things for a month then trying to make up for that month with 6 things a day. You all know what I am saying don’t hide now. You are probably one of them. Hey you cannot make up for bad choices by doubling down when there is no space for even doing simple things.

Stop excusing yourself from your own simple success.

Next month in February we are going to continue with what is known as momentum training. You can join us at www.Unbreakblelessons.com by doing the five goals and playing with us on facebook.

Three simple things for 21 days. If you want to pay for your vacation join us. If you want to keep momentum in your life join us. We don’t do hacks or cut corners.

104. The Ultra Marathon: The Basics of the impossible goal with Ben Light

Your Impossible Goal simply isn’t. Maybe the basics are the real means to become successful. Ben Light is an accomplished Ultra Marathon runner, because he masters the basics of running.

Step by step, process driven, hard work, goal oriented is the testament to achieving the Impossible Goal. Mindset is part of the step by step process. Having committed partners, as Ben mentions is literally the glue that binds each piece together. Listen as Ben shares the critical point of success being “having a great partner”.

 Learn the 13 Unbreakable Lessons

Follow Ben on Facebook at Ben Light or Ultralight007 and in Instagram.

Support Ben on his next Impossible Goal of Fastest Known Time through the Pyrenees Mountains next fall.

103. High Achievement: People Fail in the Middle with Thom Shea

For those participating in the Unbreakable Training and currently doing the 21 day challenge, I personally congratulate you for being committed to your life starting with your health. It actually takes a high level of bravery to commit to a goal. It takes boldness to actually do three things a day that matter to you. It takes someone Unbreakable to actually do three things a day for 21 straight days.

This podcast Why People Fail in the Middle is the second in a series to discuss in an open forum the secrets behind success. I have taught over 1000 clients about the fundamentals of success and find this lesson the most critical one.

And if you are watching or listening you can track and watch people go through lesson one either on Unbreakable Lessons or on facebook at Unbreakablelessons or at unbreakable community.

The first episode was a broad discussion of the lesson and the pitfalls and to do the lesson you must first have a goal you actually are wanting to attain in the next 60 days and to select 3 simple things you will do every day to ensure you succeed and to do those three things every day for 21 days. And the episode was to discuss for first 7 days.

Today’s episode is about the middle: The middle days when 70% of the people quit. Yes that many people fail in the middle. Most people in any endeavor fail on the quest for success in the middle. Whether it be a work on a project, or in training for a race, or in a relationship, or while learning anything, or in their spiritual life the middle is the hell they cannot get through.

I have found 2% quit in the first 7 days or in the beginning of a project. The excitement is real, it is fun, things are moving and changing, and there is progress.

And, what is really happening here is that there are no excuses or reasons to not do the simple things.

Let me tell you a secret, the simple things make you successful. Not the bold wow, last ditch efforts that weren’t a part of the plan. The medal of honor heroic action isn’t the key to success. The heroic action is when everything falls apart. Albeit you may need to do that and few can muster that type of action, but remember heroism is because the simple things weren’t done and now you die or live.

So here is the deal the utter beauty of the 21 day challenge for you. You literally always have to use this way of beginning something new or when you are developing a new skill. It takes 21 days to integrate the new way into your life, into your timeline, into your capacity to use the thing you are starting. There are no hacks, no short cuts to success. And this 3 week integration challenge is one of many rules of success, and only 20% of the people use it and can even make it through 21 days.

So last episode I talked about the first 7 days. And everyone really can do it for a week. But what the Hell happens on days 8 through 18? What happens in the middle? Today’s episode is about the middle.

To begin let me tell you what doesn’t change, even if you quit. What doesn’t change was your goal, and the three simple things you decided you need to do to make the goal happen.   That didn’t change. So what happens to 70% of the people.

What changed. Let me make a list and as I go through the list you will begin to agree on the things that change to stop you or anyone from getting it done.

1. The way you feel your excitement about the goal or the things you said were important.
2. Support from others
3. Your body hurts more now or you are tired
4. The weather changed
5. You may have gotten sick or some stupid thing like that
6. Work changed
7. You get bored
8. You don’t want to anymore
9. People laugh at you
10. Or your performance in the actual thing you are doing gets worse

I will stop the list there. Because the reality is that we humans if left by ourselves can come up with about 1 million reasons to fucking quit on ourselves. We can even right books and make millions on proving to the world the reasons are more important than the outcome.

REASONs and excuses. Reasons are lethal to our objectives. No reasonable man or woman would do whatever it takes. The reasonable person reasons himself right out of succeeding 80% of the time. Excuses literally excuse you. I am tired. Got it you are now excused from the table. I forgot (which by chance is the number one excuse known to man) to call or to do whatever, got it you are excused.

Meanwhile the three simple tasks aren’t getting done. All you had to do was do the three things, but people are often an excuse. I don’t feel like it, so you don’t do it.

My wife doesn’t support me doing it, so you are excuses. Your knee is swollen or feet hurt, so you reason that if you do it more you will do more damage or maybe you will die, so you are excused. It is raining, Ok you are out. You have a fever, no reasonable person would do this sick so you quit.

But here is what happens in the middle, it gets boring. Getting up and riding a stationary bike each morning at 5 am is down right boring. Why? Because you are boring. You not the bike. You have to beat boredom away inside of you. But you are blaming the bike for your own grey nature. So we excuse ourselves from learning to create excitement when real excitement only comes from within.

In the middle other than boredom the next battle is tired/pain/and exhaustion. I call these the three amigos. The three amigos don’t want you to win. But they are so real. It hurts to run 5 miles every day. It is mentally exhausting to run the 15th tranche of five miles. The end isn’t even in sight. And you are tired of it. In the middle the battle is real so people quit to avoid the battle.

In the middle greatness happens if you just do the three simple things no matter what. In the middle champions are created. Because they kept doing the three simple things. In the middle you have to kill of your reasons and never excuse yourself ever.

Stop looking for a way out. Look for a way in through the bullshit that are your reasons. The true battle in your life is to win this exchange.

So my respect is to the people who joined our team to win this battle. It is amazing to witness the changes in you. I know it may not feel good, or may seem no one knows. We know because we are doing out 21 day challenge with you. And we too are in our battle. But I know how to get through.

Kill your excuses. We will get you through.

Write down every reason that comes up and carry those reasons around and read them when you want to quit. I quit on making a million dollars because my friends said I was stupid. I quit because my foot hurt. If it didn’t hurt I would be an Olympic athlete.

Imagine reading those excuses to your kids!

102. Starting a project: 21 days to win with Thom Shea

I have spent a lifetime starting over or starting a new project or starting a new business or even starting a new mission planning cycle in combat.

Today’s podcast is about how to start a project, how to start anything. Today marks the 7 day point into a 21 day start up method, I was taught long ago.

The bottom line upfront is that it really takes 21 days to initiate transformation. It takes 21 straight days for you to get out of your own way. It takes 21 days for your body to accept the new changes you are adding. It takes 21 days for your brain to learn a new subject. It takes 21 days for you to accept a new partner or lover. It takes 21 days. No short cuts, no excusing your self, no hacks.

And, I am inviting you to also join us on the 21 day challenge if you are committed to making a transformation in your life this year. The method is Simple, but not easy.

The simple part is writing down these things. Now I ask you to take time and determine a goal you really want in your physical life. Something measurable and something you actually want.

Why start with physical? I want to let you in on a fundamental truth. Your health or your body is the foundation of your life. Money isn’t the foundation you build from money is the house itself.

You have heard these sayings before I am sure, “without health you got nothing”, “your body is your temple”, and even, “no matter how much you earn you cannot buy back a heart attack”.

In 21 days you will be able to transform your health so that you can begin the real significant projects in your life. You will learn about pain and how to deal with it. You will learn about the importance of food and why you store so much fat. You will learn to breathe. You will see improvement. You will freaking feel better. You will set the foundation necessary for the big things in life.

You will need to pick one health goal that is out in the future about 2 months or so from now. Pick something that motivates you. Pick an event that you have to sign up for. This is not some secret goal that is held in private that you don’t sign up for. You have commit, leverage a loss or risk an investment to attain. That is the simple part.

The next step is the real genius on the 21 days. You must pick three small easy things you know you need to do or be good at doing so that you can accomplish your goal. This is where people begin to unravel the 21 day challenge. People either pick stupid things to do that aren’t helpful or they try to do too much before the base level is set for 21 days.

I have take over 1000 people through this 21 day challenge. And I have some fun numbers to share with you. See where you fit it.

First numbers - only 201 out of 1000 actually do the three things a day for 21 days straight. That is 20%. Only 20% make it through SEAL training, only 20% of start ups in business make it through the first year. Only 20% of the population is health measured solely by how many people work out once a week

Second numbers - 90% make it through the first 7 days. That is also to say 100 people start and quit on their goals and their activity in the first 7 days.

Third numbers- 70% don’t do the activity that they actually said would make them successful between day 7 and 18. 700 people find excuses after 7 days to be successful

Forth numbers- 10% of the people quit on themselves between day 18 and 21.

I find these same facts to be true in sports, in school, in business, and relationships, and in the pursuit of spiritual connection. The fact is people excuse themselves from their own success. And all of this can be learned by doing the 21 day challenge.

So let me share with you what I am doing and what it is like for me. Maybe this will help you. Or you could join our group and unbreakblelessons.com or on facebook at unbreakable lessons.

My goal is simple sign up and complete a 50 mile ultra in May 2019.

So I signed up and committed to it and told my wife and kids and that is that. Most people don’t sign up and ask for accountability and keep everything a secret so when they quit they don’t have to face the music.

My three simple things are just that SIMPLE.

1. Gym workout routine for every muscle getting workout out. It doesn’t matter what I do except that I have my routine and that is what I commit to doing for 21 days straight.
2. Run for an hour a day wherever I am.
3. Ride a bike for an hour a day wherever I am.

I know these three simple things will reset both my mind and my body to be ready for the real work that is ahead of me for getting ready for an ultra. I have run 15 ultras, so I know the base is everything.

This all sounds simple. Your goal doesn’t have to be big. I recommend big because you are worth it. If you want to play small then hey I get it you are small.

Your three simple things you commit to doing need to be small, but you goal I recommend be big.

Do simple things. The easier the better. But do them. Do them. My buddy Jocko wrote a book called discipline equals freedom and here is what happens.

Day one. You will face your tired inertia of your health. Most people don’t deal with day one well because they are complainers. I am too old, too fat, too late, too this that or the other excuse. No matter what you just got to go do it. Just carve out time to do it.

Day two. It hurts. Pain is just data. Pain to a weak mind spells trouble. The key is just go do the simple three things. Even if your three things were, drink three glasses of water a day, then take 10 deep breaths a day, and third to walk for ½ mile a day. Day two hurts more than normal. Day two is discomfort.

Day three. The weak mind looks for meaning. Listen you ain’t going to find meaning in any of this. Meaning is the first way to excuse your self from being successful. On day three this shit you committed to is meaningless.

Day four. Normally clients and even for myself day four is just simple do it grind. Again just do it. Nike brand didn’t coin the phrase the phrase just do it is a master instructor teaching an Olympic hopeful to do a push up while the hopeful wants to do other things.

Day five. The battle of will power and emotional resolve begins today. It is a battle. There are so many days left. The weather, the people around you, the call of the day, and time itself seem to not want to support you doing the three things again. Good you are in a battle. Fight for god’s sake fight to beat this enemy within you. Just go do it.

Day six. We all call this the beginning of the making of a master. Routine sets in. people hate routine. Most people loathe routine. You are either going to embrace routine as means to win, or you will keep battling emotions and will power. Either way just do the three.

Day seven. This is the tipping point. I don’t know why, I just know after this day is over everyone starts to quit on themselves. I recommend day seven being the make it hard as hell day. Make the three things hard. Make it exciting. Just do it. 

Make your life simple. Don’t try so hard to do hard things before you have a base of mental and emotional resolve and physical activity built up. Learn to keep doing simple things. You will make it to the end by doing simple things and emotionally you will be tougher than you can imagine. If all you do is hard things without a base you will fail so often your emotional resolve will never catch up.

Three things you will win at every day for 21 days. No excuses, no ways out, and watch what happens to your life.   Just do it!

101. Content Marketing Strategy for Better Conversion with Thom Shea

Leverage to Scale CEO discusses the video marketing methods to grow business.

 Learn how to connect here.

If you want to create human connection in a digital world, there's one way to do it - and that's video marketing. It's never been more important (and challenging) to make your clients, customers and prospects feel heard, loved and valued.

Automation has saved us time, but it's come at the cost of sacrificing personal connection.

In today's marketing world, quality beats quantity. It's more important to impact the right people - those you want to serve and build real relationships with.

Amber Vilhauer (NGNG Enterprises, standing for NoGutsNoGlory) has developed a content marketing system called Leverage To Scale that puts the power back in your hands. You'll save countless hours while consistently publishing more engaging content, getting greater exposure in an increasingly competitive online space and conditioning your audience to see you as an industry leader. Not only will you connect, you will convert.

This is “the” way industry leaders will thrive amidst the 2019 online marketing crisis which is unfolding as we speak.

We also discuss what it means to be gutsy, take risks and move through your fears - and why this is a lifestyle choice. Amber also shares how selling knives set her on a new and highly successful path in life.

If you're looking for a new way to market your business that focuses on building authentic relationships that last, and hearing that knife story, tune in!

100. A Warrior’s Holiday Story with Thom Shea

Each year man celebrates the holidays. Whether you celebrate Christmas as the birth of Yeshua Hamashiach (known as Jesus) or you celebrate the winter solstice or you celebrate the closing out of a year, the time is meant to celebrate. This holiday season is a time to lay down your issues or grievances and to give.

I would like to share a story I tell my kids around the hearth or fireplace every year to remind them. I bet none of you have heard this story.

In case you were not aware of the true story of who we call santa clause and the reindeer. We all think we know but you don’t. The story of the reindeer is the story of uniting War and Peace, of woman and man, of hard and soft.

As you can imagine the herculean task of unite the two factions. Yet, the true gift of the holiday season is to unite the good and bad, the naughty and nice.

99. Stop Working Out. You play too small.

Listen, I am sorry that you think working out 3 days a week has any value in your life. Going to a gym to simply work out for the sake of working out is the biggest killer to real health. What is missing is you need a real, tangible definable Goal that you are working toward. Going to the gym just to go is like putting money in your mail box because it is like saving money. Neither are of value to you.

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Here are the numbers and reasons people do physical things starting with the worst answers to the best.

10. Just want to get out and do something.

            - listen is your body so unimportant to you that you cannot plan its growth. Y           our body is dying without a goal that it is fighting for and all you do is take it        out for a walk like a dog.

9. It makes me feel better.

            - Do you know why it feels good. Because there is a drug being produced      internally, that is better than heroine. And this one won’t kill you.

8. I like routine.

            - This was seems cool but routine is only good if there is an endgame. Do the           same thing every day won’t do anything for you other than steel time from             you. You know time is the only thing you cannot get back so stop wasting it   on a life that has no goals.

7. Doctor recommends 3 days a week for health reasons.

            - This is something. It can be more if you are measuring BP or heart rate or             weight or something. This can be the beginnings, yet every older person I             ask just wants to not die by using this method.

6. Good place to meet people.

            - ahah, as long as that is your goal. I am sorry just send someone you like the           same money for your gym membership and it will be a better investment.

5. Rehab’ing from injury

            - this is the first of the goal oriented answers and it is real and tangible. But            don’t wait just because you are injured to set the next hard goal. By the way          a goal oriented life will make you heal faster.

4. Maintaining my fitness and weight.

            - this is where many people reside. I call this place vanity. This place is         calorie counting, feelings dependent, weather dependent, and hard to keep it   all together. This is the place all the health industry sells products to.            Because the people here are like young kids with a toy. They buy new toys,       use them a while and want another because vanity cannot be measured.

3. I signed up for a race or an event and I have a plan I follow.

            - bingo. This is the base line reason to work out. You have a goal and you    have a plan and you got to get to it. Makes life so so simple. Doesn’t make             the working out easy but if you are this person you are amazing and I love    you. Simple but not easy.

2. I am competitive and this is a way of life.

            - spot on and rare. This person chose long ago and is on the path and not     easy to get off the path. They work out because internally they are          compelled.

1. Everest, Ultra, or the unattainable Goal.

            - if you ever meet one of these people record what they do what they eat     what they talk about what they think about. That is to say if you even allow          you to. Because they are on a mission and the gym or the workout is a piece             of the puzzle that they are married to solving even if they die in the solving of    it.

98. Overcome the Five Fears with Thom Shea

Five Forms of Fear

Fear is learned. Fear is real for those who practice fear.

Fear has killed more men and women than any disease or event. Fear is how most people deal with failure.

Fear is the most seductive mistress. Fear will always overpower the greatest of forces because fear lies in the shadows of every bright event.

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Over the past 50 years I have heard many acronyms of FEAR. I think they are all funny.

            Forget Everything And Run

            False Events Appearing Real

            Finding Excuses And Reasons

            Failure Expected And Received

            Forget Everything About Reality

Pick one. I laugh at all of these because FEAR is the most prevalent emotion experienced by all of us, everywhere.

The working definition I use is simply that FEAR is a emotional learned response to a problem you face. And in the short of it, fear and problems arise at the same time. Every single problem you will face in your life that is left incomplete will devolve into fear.

Fear is rough to overcome once you have learned it and embedded it into your self. Because fear paralyzes the muscles, makes your mind scream, and causes your hormones to all respond in a way to prevent you from facing the thing you are afraid of. And that is the deal. Fear is an emotional response that stops you. That is what fear is designed to do.

Fear is a powerful effective tool that has one purpose to stop you. Whether you teach yourself fear or fear is influenced by someone else who doesn’t want you to do a particular thing, Fear will stop you.

The only problem is do you want to stop? Maybe you ought to be moving toward the event you fear and not away.

There are five basic fears.

In your physical life the greatest fear is the fear of death. You fear that the thing you are doing will cause the body to die. And this fear of death initially keeps you safe but eventually prevents you from living.

In your intellectual life, the greatest fear is the fear of being found out. As you learn and acquire knowledge you begin to realize you may not be able to learn it all, you get low grades, or you just cannot recall, or someone else is smarter. So you begin to encounter fear by covering up or sounding smarter than you are. That fear of being found out prevents you from actual learning over time, and stops you from learning.

In your pursuit of wealth or rather delivering value the biggest fear is loss. We get jobs and do work and save money and construct fear around the notion that making choices that lose money or taking risks with money will cause us to be poor. So in advertently we slowly very slowly shelter our lives from loss. And as you can imagine being on the defense overtime will ensure loss. We stop ourselves from winning.

Regarding your relationships, our biggest fear is that of being alone. This fear is the most destructive I think. Fear of being alone is the great saboteur in all areas of life. Fear of being alone causes you to first make odd choices on who you are hanging with, then next it makes you stay in bad relationships, then finally the fear of being alone makes you push others away and you are in the end: Alone. Fear here stops you from truly being one with someone else.

The fifth fear is the most nebulous but most impactful. In your spiritual growth, our greatest fear is that we our powerful beyond measure. I didn’t expect that, yet that is the spiritual truth bomb. We are so afraid to be powerful. Think about that today. Think about how disconnecting it is to allow the fear of your own greatness stop you from it.

Fear is the stopping force of everyone’s life. Stops you from greatness, stops you from being one, stops you from real abundance, stops you from learning, and prevents you from winning.

And all you really need to do to overcome fear is to turn toward the thing you fear and face it. You must take action toward everything that you fear.

Be bold, Be Brave, Be Unbreakable

97. Stop Being a Victim. Defeating Your Bully with Stacy Shea

It is December. The Christmas holiday season is upon us. Christmas trees are pooping up all over the place, lights are going up and school is winding down for the kids and end of your stresses are ramping up for business owners.

Christmas in the Shea clan is always a time to be together, to celebrate our lives and accomplishments and be a family. We all like to sit around the table each night talking about the ups and downs and experiences we have had.

Lately the topic of Bullying has come up. It strikes me as odd because I don’t see bullying around me simply because I personally defeated my being a victim long ago so it was a surprise to hear about the topic in my kids schools and in my wife Stacy’s political campaign work. Since I am no one’s victim I am surprised, so as you listen to Stacy and I discuss both the Bully paradigm and victim-ology we pray you powerfully find a way forward and not as a victim.

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96. Transformational Growth or Disruption

This weeks Unbreakable Podcast is for both individuals or companies committed to growth in 2019. There is fundamentally little difference between an individual or a company regarding looking at growth in 2019. I can tell you from personal experience it is not more complicated for a company to grow. The number of people or volume of products doesn’t make growth more complicated. Individual growth is far more complicated because the complexity of ego and emotional attachments truly are harder to adjust.

So why discuss growth in 2019 now while we are still in 2018. In short because January is too late. Once 2019 hits and is underway, without preparing for new growth now in 2018, you will simply be making 2018 more effective by a factor of 10%. Oddly, that is what most organizations look to do each year … improve by 10% on last years accomplishments. If that is where you are personally or as an organization the rest of the podcast isn’t for you.

As you look at 2019, the first aspect of 2019 is a time honored process to unravel these two aspects. Having consulted with 100s of people and organizations to retool for growth, I can tell you that you have to nail these two points before you can move forward.

Foundation work for growth:

1. Vision Statement (7 words).
2. Mission Statement.

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95. Staying Calm Under Pressure

As I grow older, as I, personally, take on new nebulous endeavors, as I train leaders and high achieving men and woman across the nation, one subject comes up more than others. Pressure. Stress. Whatever name you call how you encounter the world you are dealing with.

This week’s podcast is to maybe pass on something relevant from my experiences that will help. And, since, Jill in particular asked me that exact question, I will stumble through an answer.

By the way, my answer will probably disturb the hell out of you. It isn’t intended to but I come from an environment as a SEAL and a combat Vet, and now a turn around consultant, where if you cannot unravel how you perceive the environment you literally will not make it too long.

Pressure is all an interpretation of your environment. That is all it is. How you see or filter your environment is always, always, always divided into 5 parts:

1. The reality of the facts coming at you (I must add here that this is really the key to it all). If there were 100 people in the same environment 85 of them cannot even notice the facts; 10 can deal with some of the facts but will get exhausted, and 5 will see exactly what is coming and change everything.
2. The level of experience and skills you have acquired in dealing with this type of situation.
3. Your emotional background.   Now emotion is the second most important factor.
4. And what actual tools or things you can bring to bear in that exact moment. Meaning you may have line items 1-3 but if you don’t have the equipment needed then you are stuffed.
5. The last one is directed practice. Have you practiced knowing you would encounter this situation. Practice is the turning point of everything and no one practices anymore.

Retired Navy SEAL and Silver Star awardee, Thom Shea, shares his insight on mastering human performance. Through interviews with successful businessmen and women and top athletes, we unravel the mindset and tools needed for extreme success. Learn how to master your own internal dialogue, gain insight from top performers, and engage in weekly challenges. 

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94. Diversity of Choice.

Setting aside the politics of Veterans Day, setting down which side of the tracks you may be on, Veterans Day is a recognition of the profound effect the choice we do have in the United States to actually defend or not defend our country.  

Veterans Day is simply a celebration of choices, maybe it is a celebration of the liberty to actually make a choice that our founding fathers fought and died to provide us.

So, as you listen to today’s podcast, as you do your particular thing and express your self in the ways you have chosen, let me share from a veteran of war’s point of view the choice to defend the country.

Diversity

All who served come from the same diverse background and up-bringings as do all Americans. This point of reality is often missed in the rhetoric of media discourse. Vet’s come from every nationality, both sexes, and all orientations. We are from broken and also strong families, rich and poor, some are orphans, so are from generations of veterans.

93. No Way Out Situations and Simple Steps to Win with Thom Shea

Imagine if you will you were faced with no way to win, no way out, and overwhelming odds not in your favor. What would be your next action or step?

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In the world that surrounds most of us that thought, that circumstance scares us from even thinking about it. Most of us would avoid that situation all together. Few people have the presence of mind and guts to consider … what would I do?

The concept of the no win scenario however is a concept winners solve on a constant and consistent basis. People who shy away from the concept of looking at the no win scenario … lose. And of all the things successful people do that sets them apart from the rest is simply to put themselves openly in no win scenarios as a means to find a way.

92. Raising a Warrior Daughter with Thom Shea

Many of you lately have asked us to discuss how we raise our kids as warriors and what it is like for us to have one of our kids at one of the military academies. We get so many that Stacy and I have reflected often on the experience of raising kids and what we have done that is of any value.

 13 warrior lessons

I would have to start with defining a warrior. There are two types of warriors: those in war, and those who are forward leaning and openly willing to make it through adversity to achieve a goal. Since kids are not really at war, I reflect on the latter definition to describe raising warriors.

For me, and if you as a mom or a dad don’t agree, than so be it, parents are responsible to teaching their kids to lean forward into life, to deal with adversity well, and to play in a bigger cause than self serving smallness. The raising of a young child into an adult and on to being a warrior in their life is very hard. Combat is easier. You as a parent are responsible to getting it done. You must model the behavior you are asking of your kids. No short cuts, no having other people raise your kids because it is too hard and you have other self interests involved. You must be the example and that is very hard.

When I wrote the 13 Unbreakable Lessons into the book I wanted my kids to learn each one. Because each lesson deals with them and each lesson helps overcome internal and external adversity. It makes them warriors in their own lives.

91. 4 Traits of Successful Leaders with Thom Shea

The search for the traits that successful people have, agnostic of industry or even gender seems to be the going trend. You don’t have to have a secret decoder ring or spend a life time getting on degree after the other to find the common leadership traits. The 4 are evident everywhere you look.

Knowing what they are and actually acquiring each trait as a thing you do each day however it not simple. Simple but not easy is the phrase I have found to be true throughout the pursuit of higher level of performance in leadership.

Here is what I have found to be true and if you have found others please email me at [email protected].

1. Mission focus and clarity of purpose.
2. Intentionality and targeting
3. Skills acquisition and consummate learners.
4. Never give up mentality

90. Overcoming self-imposed limits with Thom Shea

We all have limits. Whether they be physical, intellectual, financial, relationship, or spiritual limits. In my search for my own performance in each, I have learned an odd thing regarding limits. Most of them are self-imposed.

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This past weekend was our 21st 24 hour leadership challenge to overcome the self-imposed limits leaders perceive they have. And, each leader did hit and over come their limits.

I originally set up this challenge, which I discussed in my book, “Unbreakable: A Navy SEALs Way of Life” to encourage my children to learn the 13 most valuable lessons in life. I wanted them to be capable of having a great life in case I didn’t return home from combat. And, this lesson, Lesson Number three, I knew would open up their life in magnificent ways. Because, the reality of life is that if you cannot overcome your own self-imposed limits you are stuffed. You are stuffed to the frustration of past failures, you are stuffed to the opinions of others regarding what you allow their opinions to curb you from doing, and you are stuffed to resigning yourself to follow in the footprints of the buffalo running over the cliff.

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89. Morning rituals of successful people with Thom Shea

Jumping right into this topic today, simply because the topic needs no flare. What do successful people do in the morning that makes them different? Having been a active part of the most successful military unit in history, I can tell you that every successful person, or company, or team actually does the same thing in the morning. And what they do differentiates them from failure.

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For brevity sake I will separate the activities into three parts: What they do; what they think about; and how they prepare. Write these items down and you too can actually use these three events in your life to great impact.

88. Three ways to recover from loss with Thom Shea

The topic that comes up most often for me over the past 28 years has been loss. Honestly, winning is not a huge topic. Because, few people win. Out of 100 runners there is one winner. Out of every business competing for the one contract there is one winner. In war there is only one winner. Everyone thinks they want to know how to win, but they soon discover that the first thing they experience is loss.

Even the one out of a million who wins the first time, eventually faces loss. But no one thinks of loss and recover; they just want to win. That is the tragedy of winning: you must master losing…period.

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Here is the truth parents and bosses and leaders ought to be openly teaching the youth, the understudies, and the team, you are going to lose, you are going to hurt, you are going to go sideways, you are going to spend money ineffectively, you are going to make enemies. There is no avoiding loss, loss is the only for sure aspect of growth. Winning actually may never happen. But the only access to winning is recovering from loss.

87. Mitigating Risk and other four letter words with Rob Mitchell and Thom Shea

Navy SEAL's mitigate risk by commitment to the end goal prior to knowing how to achieve the outcome.  Then simply by taking action instead of the common paralysis by analysis. 

Mitigating risk only happens through solving the taking action instead of talking yourself out of taking action.

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86. 2 barriers to execution. The secret few can stomach with Thom Shea

Thank you for joining the Unbreakable Podcast group of listeners. I am Thom Shea, author of Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life and CEO of Adamantine Alliance. We are a group of SEALs dedicated to transforming your notion of what is not only possible in your life but in the lives of those around you. We have spent years thriving in chaotic situations and have developed a method of engaging people in order to win. We know people are capable of a great deal more than what shows up now days and lead people toward their highest level of performance.

We rarely advertise our services, yet in light of today’s topic we all thought it a great opportunity to discuss the hardest point of performance in people. And, that point is Execution and the 2 barriers.

If after hearing about Execution you would like to learn more or engage with us here is how:

You can follow us face book at Thom Shea Unbreakable and www.Thomshea.com . If you are brave enough to take on the 13 Unbreakable Lessons of transformational Leadership I challenge you to sign up for the lessons at www.Unbreakablelessons.com .

85. Quitting and the Damage it does to you with Thom Shea

Learn how not to quit. Quitting is the single most destructive force in your life. Quitting will rob you of money, health, family, certificates of merit, and even deep faith.   Quitting is a disease. Quitting is easy.   Quitting is the more prevalent force I see in business, in athletics, in marriages, in school, and in the pursuit of your spiritual self.

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However. And I say however for a clear distinct purpose. However, quitting is learned and not quitting can also be taught. You can learn to not quit.

The five key areas where quitting destroys you are your physical life, your intellectual pursuits, your wealth accumulation, your relationships, and your spiritual awaken. I hate to say it this way but people quit so often and in so many areas few know there is another way. There is Learn not to quit. Learn it early, learn it often and apply it all the time. Not quitting is a skill that atrophies rather quickly.

84. Stop Waiting to be great with Thom Shea

This podcast is a question I have for you. Whoever you are, and whatever you are doing, and wherever you are doing it.

What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?

Stop it! Stop waiting. 

From bow to stern, it is clear after 28 years of high level performance, that the single most unimpressive thing I have witnessed is that people just don’t go get after their lives.

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83. The Lost practice of Consistency

Consistency is the repetition of effort no matter the circumstances.  Few people learn consistency.  Being consistent in your physical, intellectual, wealth, relationship, and spiritual lives is the key to growth. 

Unbreakable is a mindset, a way of living. We have honed our training and our craft for clients of all walks of life. Our online curriculum, Unbreakable Lessons,  offers an opportunity to proceed through the lessons in Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life at your own pace while being part of a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives.

82. Facing Death and Winning with Kim Chambers and Thom Shea

Real life examples of what is possible with we face death and come back better.  Inside of each of us is the resilient, powerful human being.  Listen and subscribe to the interview with Kim Chambers and Thom Shea. 

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81. 5 books that leaders read with Thom Shea

Over the past five years I have trained many CEOs and many great professional athletes. During that intensive training, many rather unintended findings have arisen I would like to share with you all.

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I find I very interesting that most successful men and women are consumers of knowledge and past experiences. That may be the most differentiating aspect of successful people is their universal desire to learn and apply knowledge.

So this Unbreakable podcast is a short description of what they summarily have read. And why they found these subjects of value and what they learned and can apply from the reading.

Every single person I have trained is a studier of history, point in fact they all have studied their own history and that of the United States.

80. Six transformational leadership questions with Thom Shea

There are six questions that are vital to not only ask but also vital to ask in a linear way. Bottom Line Up front! Here are the six questions presented linearly that every single successful person asks and answers:

1. Who am I or Who are we
2. What is my or our measurable goal
3. When will this goal be measured
4. Where will this goal be accomplished
5. How will this goal be accomplished
6. Why am I or are we doing this

That does seem very basic and way to simple to look at. It is simple but not easy to even begin to fill in in any measurable articulate way. I have spent the past 28 years learning the value of the linearity of the questions and can say 2 in 10 people can fill in the answers.

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79. Parenting Warrior Kids with Thom Shea

As we parents all get ready for the upcoming academic year or if our once kids are now adults and we prepare ourselves for the upcoming year, I want to begin this podcast with a note to you.

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Parenting isn’t a joke. It is the most important job you have. Parenting is relentless. Parenting is rewarding. And Parenting demands you model the behaviors that you want to instill in your off spring. You must parent everyday from conception to your death or theirs. Period.

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78. 7 Rules for a Powerful Life with Thom Shea

7 rules of a powerful life

1. Find your design
2. Pursue Physical health
3. Focus on The One
4. Pursue what you value
5. Emotional Stability
6. Pursue primary relationships every day
7. Disrupt and Fail to grow

These are the 7 rules of leading and having a powerful life. A life you own. A life you will grow and nurture and live into. When you can fill in the details and aspects of these 7 rules you will experience a life that the entitled and protected simply do not have access to. You will even inspire and amaze yourself in ways that you cannot dream of.

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77. Earn it! The mindset of success with Stacy Shea and Thom Shea

Earn your life.  Master the basics and don't take shortcuts.  Every step matters, even the ones that go backward.  Start over and be willing to try again.  You have a gift and the only way to realize your gift is by earning it. 

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76. No Shortcut. Mastering the Grind with Thom Shea

My commitment to you in the podcast is to speak to you about a truth that seems to be utterly lost today both in business and in youth. That truth is there are no shortcuts toward success.

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 Lesson Nine

Why this topic? For the last five years I have watched and taught many hundreds of people and leaders to produce results by getting through the chaos of their lives and jobs or sports by following and process. The process works every single time. But everyone seems to want a hack or a short cut.

I get it. I really do. I get the urgency to want immediate results. I get it because much of our societal media discourse and technology lends itself to immediate gratification across all spectrums even in dating for god’s sake.

This crutch of immediate gratification is causing an entire generation to not realize how greatness is achieved and can be achieved.

75. Independence Day the hard way with Thom Shea

I know the value of independence. I truly get it. There is not a moment that goes by that I am not reminded in some way of the value of being a US citizen and living in this country. But most people have forgotten what it took to get here and what it takes to preserve this state of independence. And that forgetting literally makes them dependent.

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74. Calm Clarity with Due Quach and Thom Shea

Rewiring the brain to handle stress and deliver value will always be important.  Due Quach addresses the journey toward Calm Clarity through Harvard College and Whartan Business School and into the entrepreneur space.  Due is the author of Calm Clarity.

From a traumatized refugee to an overachieving workaholic to a pioneering social entrepreneur, Due’s unique journey shows how genuine transformation is possible and accessible using the Calm Clarity framework, a powerful distillation of modern neuroscience and ancient wisdom.

Today, she shares her insights and experiences to bring Calm Clarity to everyone, including senior leaders, professionals, educators, workforce development programs, first-generation college students, and inner city teens.

Reach out to Due at:

https://www.calmclarity.org/

73. A Navy SEAL's View on Failure with Thom Shea

Unbreakable Podcast is a forum to discuss the solutions to problems through looking at the human dynamic equation. I know that people are the solution. People. People are capable of so much more. And that realization is pretty damn important when you know what can and will happen when people become responsible to the problems we face. www.unbreakablelessons.com My commitment in today’s podcast is to discuss my personal experience with the people side. There are three points I have witness across the five spectrums or pyramids of human performance. Those five pyramids are physical ability, intellectual growth, wealth development, key relationships and spiritual discovery. So in those five areas lets talk about what stops people from succeeding.

72. Fear Prevents Action with Thom Shea

Fear. What is Fear? Why is fear so prevalent in our society? It sure seems so many people are gripped with fear in all aspects of their life. People seem afraid to fail, seem afraid to speak in public, afraid to get and stay in shape, afraid to love or be loved, afraid to win, afraid to say I a sorry. Fear, from my point of view is everywhere.

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I find it odd because in the seal community fear doesn’t really exist. Being scared yes scared does exist, but fear doesn’t.

So what is fear? Fear is an emotion that when felt prevents action. That is all it is. Fear is designed to prevent you from doing whatever you are afraid of doing. Let me say that again fear prevents action.

Fear is an emotion. And like all other emotions has a particular outcome. Did you know that emotions are there to produce a predicable outcome in your life? The outcome of fear is simple to not be able to take action regarding the thing that you are afraid of.

Notice what you are afraid of in your life?

71. The first principle of success- effort

The first principle of success: Effort

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The first principle of success surely isn’t passion. The streets are filled with passionate people who haven’t converted passion to success. Passion is important but passion is not a foundational building block of success. Passion is how you feel about what you are doing and passion can turn when you are tired, when you are faced with extreme conditions, and when the outcome seems impossible.

The first principle of success isn’t education, or grades, or degrees. The same street that is filled with the carcasses of the passionate ones is also filled with the highly educated degree seekers who never hit success. Having a degree and getting a higher education, albeit, seems necessary has lost favor in the business world due to missing the first principle of success.

The real first principle of success is actually effort. Sheer effort in countless hours of practice and routine and hammering until success happens. Without this first principle being both a state of mind and a state of being, then I can tell you your odds of succeeding at anything becomes limited to handouts and unearned entitlements. And effort is not taught openly anymore.

70. War Heroes: Britt Slabinski, Tommy Custer, and Draper Kaufmann

In our family, we celebrate Memorial Day by sharing stories of the men and women and their heroic actions that helped shape our republic. In this podcast I share a few stories are of true warriors, men who were born of war, who loved to fight and encouraged us all to do better.

We begin with Tommy Custer, the brother of George Custer, whom was awarded two Medal of Honors for his relentless bravery during the civil war. His lack of fear for the enemy had a dramatic impact of during the way.

Next is Navy SEAL Draper Kaufmann whom was awarded two Navy Crosses in World War II. He wrote the curriculum for Hell Week and set a precedent for leadership in the teams.

Finally, a story about Navy SEAL Britt Slabinski whom recently was awarded the Medal of Honor. The story is a story of brotherhood and the love and action of love from one to another.

As you ponder the deeds of those men on Memorial Day, get more encouraged that you are here in America and have more to give to the nation, to the family you have and even to yourself. 

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For the committed, join our online curriculum at www.unbreakablelessons.com

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69. The Three Crossroads toward Success With Thom Shea

In my experience, in the experience of growing up in America in the 70s, the experience of beginning a life path in the 80s, the being a Navy SEAL in the 90s and at the turn of the century up until 2014, then now training leaders and high performing men and women in the past 5 years, I am clear there are three major crossroads in everyone’s life.

These huge intersections greatly determine what people can and will do. These three crossroads are action and decision points for all of us. Oddly, few realize how important they truly are.

As we go through the three crossroads, I ask you to imagine what you would be had you taken a different path. I ask you to if possible take the new path, now, if you took the wrong one, then. If you are brave enough to take it now there are many of us who are committed to helping. There are also many other people who are committed to keeping you on the lesser of the paths. But I can assure you my partners know the benefits of the right one.

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68. Mastering body trauma with Kayleigh Martin and Thom Shea

Physical performance means mastering the body and learning about the pain and trauma we carry.  This podcast interview is with Kayleigh Martin, a Practitioner of Embodied Wellness.  We talk about dealing with pain, injury, and most of all relaxation and how to do that and win.

Listen as an eavesdropper as we explore PTSD and high performance and things you can do to relax and build yourself back up.

Reach out to Kayleigh here:

Instagram: @mskayleighm

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mskayleighm/

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/kayleigh-martin-m-13a88116/

Website:  www.kayleighm.com

67. Three principles of self improvement and success with Thom Shea

The Unbreakable Podcasts are to tell the stories about improvement in your lives.  Each one shares a particular life story that will move your forward, if you are brave enough to learn the lesson.

All improvement must stem from the three principles to self-improvement which are translatable to measurable growth. 

1. Clarity of Vision
2. Emotional Resolve
3. Contribution to Others

I challenge you to apply these three principles you every aspect of your life.  Do it today.  Don't wait!

If you are brave enough to take the challenge than sign up and complete the 13 Unbreakable Lessons here.

Follow us on social media on facebook and linkedIn. 

66. Starting over is a Farce, Starting newly is real with Thom Shea

Unbreakable Podcast is for people who are brave and willing to challenge themselves to being better in five areas:  Physical, Intellectual, Wealth, Relationships, And Spiritual.  The notion that starting over in life is possible, simply isn't possible.  You can never start over.  But you can start newly every minute of every day.

If you want to learn how to start newly, take the big challenge of completing all 13 Unbreakable lessons.  Sign up here:

13 Unbreakable Lessons

65. The Effects of Gravity in Leadership with Thom Shea

Maybe great leaders cause gravity and allow people to exist and thrive in the gravity instead of taking away all gravity and stress and creating a utopian place that even a rain drop will destroy.

The 24 hour challenge is a guided process to own your own gravity.

Join us on Unbreakablelessons.com

64. Essentialism with Greg McKeown and Thom Shea

McKeown began his mission for a less overcommitted life after he left his wife and hours-old baby in the hospital for an ultimately unproductive client meeting. Punctuated with zippy, thoughtful one-liners, this guide to doing “less but better” offers strategies for determining what is truly necessary, and shedding what is not. Too many people fall for the having-it-all myth, and would benefit from shifting from a non-essentialist mindset (unable to distinguish and parse out the truly important) to an essentialist one (capable of identifying the goal), contends McKeown. Instead of attempting to achieve everything, readers need to figure out how to do the “right thing the right way at the right time.” According to the author, the first step is un-committing: resisting the urge to join clubs, take on hobbies, and maintain unsatisfying friendships. Readers can stop making casual commitments, and can get over their fear of missing out. By making better choices, and not taking on the weight of other people’s problems, readers can realize the non-essential nature of virtually everything in life, and learn to be present and spend more meaningful time with family and friends. This is a smart, concise guide for the over-committed and under-satisfied.

Buy Greg's book here:

Essentialism

63. The Warrior Within with Thom Shea

In each man is a warrior. Don’t be confused with the trend, with societal shifts, with angry disillusioned people. Just stop paying attention to the emasculating of men that has risen in the past fifty years.

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Inside of every man, anywhere is the warrior.

But, before I tell you the story of the warrior man, before you call your congressman and complain that my point of view is a threat to national security, before all that, pause a moment. Pause, because I respect your life and your point of view; pause, because this topic affects both men and women, and developing youth.

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62. Navy SEAL Teams and the Legacy of Courage

Where does courage come from? What does it take to live a life of courage? You have to make up your mind that the things that have stopped you in the past, the things that convinced you to quit or give up, will no longer have that sway with you. 

Be wiling to fail.  Push your limits.  Push them often.  Challenge the norm.  Challenge every thing.  Even the simple things that isolate you. Challenge them as well.  Go a day without food or water.  Double down one day on business – make 20 phone calls not 10.  Try to make twice the amount of money.  Push your limit physically, walk for 24 hours.  Push your relationship by finally sharing your failures with the one you love. 

The life of courage can be had. By anyone willing to do the work. Do it.

 Be brave, be bold, be unbreakable.

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61. Jordan Harbinger and Thom Shea: Breaking the mold and making life better.

Extra ordinary interview with Jordan Harbinger.  Few entrepreneurs are brave enough to leave a field and start over.  Jordan has done it twice.  Listen and learn what it takes to win again and again.

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Jordan Harbinger

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60. Gun control and the warriors mind with Thom Shea.

Welcome back to Unbreakable Podcast, this is Thom Shea author of Unbreakable a navy seals way of life. I rarely get involved with local trends or scary news stories because opinions are always plentiful and without execution. And my opinion is the same, all opinions don’t matter unless they are supported not by fact or history but by reality of what can be done right now. I call it execution, as in doing what you say you do. Most trends or media opinion doesn’t reflect what the opinion generators actually do or their lifestyle, and all opinions have drama and emotional hooks. So today isn’t opinion. I don’t offer my opinion. I want to tell you a story of warriors and a story about guns.

Learn what is inside

59. Learn anything using the 21 day adaptation cycle with Thom Shea

Welcome to Unbreakable podcast, I am Thom Shea. Imagine if you had the skill set to adapt and learn anything. Imagine what that would be like for you. Imagine what your body would be able to deliver. Imagine what you would be able to learn. Imagine what you would be able to produce in your business. Further more can you imagine the experiences you would bring to your relationships at home. Finally can you really imagine the level of spiritual connections you would have if you learned how to use the 21 day adaptation cycle.

There is a reason for today’s podcast. And here it is, people don’t give themselves enough committed practice to adapt a new skill set in their lives. We simply do not go through the 21 day process that is the corner stone for adaptation.

You cannot shorten the cycle, you cannot hack the cycle, you must do something (anything) for 21 days straight before your system will adjust and adapt to the new demand you put on it.

Unbreakable Lessons

58 Extreme conditions and the power of basics with Thom Shea

Episode 58 Unbreakable Podcast. Extreme conditioning and the truth about basics.

Welcome everyone back to Unbreakable podcast I am Thom Shea Author of Unbreakable A navy seals way of life. We just launched our newly improved Unbreakable Lessons on line after receiving new ideas, new ways to make the old online training better and found a way to improve on the deep interactions and discussions needed to make your learning clearer and more relevant. You can find our new application at Thomshea.com under unbreakable lessons tab.

Today’s topic, however, is about extreme conditioning and the arrival of what truly comes from extreme conditions and that is BASICS, Basics, basics basics. As you listen I want to tell you up front that I am going to divide the discuss into five extreme condition areas. The extremes of physical, the extremes of learning, the extremes of wealth, the extremes of relationships, the extremes of spiritual connections.

57. Creating Passion and other four letter words with Thom Shea

My commitment to you on this podcast is to share with you not only what I have learned about pursuing what interests you but also finding in you passion.

Each week we get volumes of emails and questions that people ask us about business, about athletics, about family, and about a great many other things I care not to mention in a public space. As we go through the week we try to formulate relevant answers to these questions so that in sharing the answer maybe just maybe the answer will move you.

Today's podcast is about being interested again. It is about the crazy ineffective way people search for passion and interest. The other four letters words are my reaction using explicatives when I see people searching in completely the most ineffective manner.

Follow us Creating passion

56. Competition for the Bottom with Thom Shea.

Today's podcast is the accumulation of 23 years in the SEAL teams, and 5 years training leaders and conducting Keynotes around the country about success. I have thought about this topic many times but have put in on the back burner so to speak because it is negative. However, maybe today we can talk about it and make it less so.

Today we talk about the topic of Competition for the bottom. Yes I said the bottom. Competition for the bottom is so common it is disturbing. There are so many people actively doing whatever it takes, exhaustively doing whatever it takes to hit bottom. To lose. To not win. To fail. To get divorced. To get fired. To fail out of school. To get fat. To get injured. To alienate their family. To piss off their co workers or boss. There are even leaders that literally sabotage their businesses.

55. Mentoring the next generation with Max Gruber, author of Us People and Thom Shea

Interview with Max Gruber, author of Us People.  Reaching back to help people up the ladder of life is an honor.  The process is not difficult, but most people are unwilling to commit to the goals of others. 

Max has taken on a project bigger than himself in the writing of "Us People".  His commitment and relentless effort to help the homeless and show us his vision, I felt couldn't be overlooked.

Follow and support "Us People" through the links below:

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54. Winning the battle of Waiting with Thom Shea. Relentless pursuit of Patience, wins.

The topic is waiting. Waiting, waiting for something, waiting for the weather to change, waiting for your body to be fit, waiting for the right job, waiting for the right man or woman, waiting.

The amount of time and energy people put into waiting is profound. Waiting for the bus, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the plan, waiting for permission, waiting for guidance, waiting for clarity.

Every age group has its waiting. Now I want you to think about this and when something I say strikes the right cord, then think about how much time and energy you personally spend waiting.

When you are tired of waiting join us at the link below:

No more waiting

52. Dare to Win the Big Game with Thom Shea.

Beginning the new year means exiting the last year and starting over. 

1. Cleaning up 2017 with lessons learned
2. Creating an end goal for 2018
3. Discussing the known mine field that will derail your efforts this year
4. The first challenge for 2018

Learn about our forging leaders training here:  Adamantine Alliance

53. Interview with Undaunted Life mentor Kyle Thompson with Thom Shea.

Being a man of courage and grit is effective and appreciated.

Kyle Thompson shows us how to be brave in the face of conflict.  Strength, Character, Commitment are never flaws, even though the trend is to be weak. 

No man or woman can do this alone.

Follow Kyle here:

Undaunted Life

instagram: @undauntedlife

Twitter: @undauntedlife

facebook:  Undauntedlife

Podcast: Undaunted Life

51. Leading in Combat and the effect of killing with Dave Grossman and Thom Shea.

On Killing and On Combat are books written by Dave Grossman to share and teach how to lead and thrive in very difficult environments.  Stress is a valuable skill to learn. 

Take away is to always do the simple things:  Sleep, Breathe, and Communicate openly.

Follow Dave here:

http://www.grossmanacademy.com/

Dave's books

50. Navy SEAL key point of success: Abandon Your Why with Thom Shea.

As you seek success in your life, Abandon your WHY. You have been sorely misled. You must BE committed before you discover your why. Why is the sixth order of importance.

Learn with our staff of Navy SEALs at Unbreakable Lessons.

49. Raising warrior kids part TWO. ROE: Rules of Engagement and ROI: Return On Investment with Stacy Shea.

 Stacy and I discuss the raising of a warrior kid.

Rules of Engagement vs Return of Investment.  The two are completely counter to each other. The more you want one the less you get of the other. Here is why- I am committed to performance whether it be my performance, or it be my families performance, or your performance. You cannot create rules and parameters for growth, you must un-bridle the horse to see him run fast.

See how you balance the two.  Take the Unbreakable Balanced Assessment test.

48. SURVIVING THE TOP BY TORCHING THE MODEL AND STARTING OVER WITH MATT MANERO.

Welcome back to Unbreakable Podcasts. I am Thom Shea, CEO of Adamantine Alliance and author of Unbreakable a navy seals way of life. We are in the business of developing people. Today we talk about surviving the top of success by literally torching the model and getting back to the roots.

Matt Manero has authored a book called "The Grit".  Please read it.

Success is a measurement of leadership and ability to adjust and often burn the model that go you to the top.

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47. The impact of war with Thom Shea.

Welcome back to Unbreakable Podcasts. I am Thom Shea, CEO of Adamantine Alliance and author of Unbreakable a navy seals way of life. We are in the business of developing people. People are the greatest gift and the only true product of business. You are either in the business of people or you are pouring coffee for someone who is in the business of people.

Today we celebrate veterans. Every single generation of people who have lived in the United States has been a generation of veterans of war.

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46. Legacy: Raising warrior sons and daughters with Ted Braude

Unbreakable Podcasts bring successful people to our committed listeners.  Today's podcast engages the most important topic for every leader:  The importance of parenting and leaving the legacy of warrior sons and daughters. 

This weeks committed listener discount code to learn the 13 Unbreakable Lessons is "online"

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45. Raising Warrior Kids: The SEAL way, with Stacy Shea.

This episode is an authentic discussion about raising warrior kids, by way of having a strong woman.  Stacy and Thom discuss fear and wanting a warrior kid; earning your life vs entitlement; being a stand for your kids by being the example; and adapting quickly.

Sign up for Unbreakable Lesson and join the ones who want to learn how to raise warrior kids!

44. Breakthrough Performance with Thom Shea

We are in the business of developing people. We teach leaders to lead, teams to function well in chaos, and men and women to grow when others around them do not.

Today's podcast comes as an invitation to share in the discussion and questions from 100s of people who have completed lesson three from our online training.

Sign up for the Unbreakable Lessons

Today's podcast is a deep dive into the inefficient use of Time. We are going to talk about Time and how we have seen people not function well in their lives because of the inefficient and ineffective way we wrap our performance around this Time thing.

43. Inspiration: Spartan Race Athlete and Double Amputee Kacey McCallister

My life has never been one of calm indifference. From a very early age I learned that life is to be lived, not just survived. Even before the accident I knew life was an adventure.

Learn to rise up like Kacey:  Unbreakable Lessons

After the accident I found the ability to conquer unimaginable things. “I can do hard things” has been a way of life for me. I mean, who could imagine that a guy without legs could complete a 50 mile hike, make it to State Championship Wrestling, or become an Eagle Scout? My mom told me soon after the accident that if I wanted to do something all I had to do was figure out a way to make it happen.

Throughout my life there have been few if any challenges that I have not been able to succeed in accomplishing. Trials make us stronger. They raise us up to a higher plain. If we are never pushed and challenged we can never obtain our full potential. For me it was losing my legs. For you,  it may be school, work, parenting, or just dealing with the complexities of day-to-day life. Regardless of what your challenge is,  you too can find a way to RISE UP!

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42. Performance versus Entitlement, Leading in the SEAL teams and Business.

Welcome back to the Unbreakable Podcast. I am Thom Shea, Chairman of Adamantine Alliance and author of Unbreakable a navy seals way of life. I want to personally thank you for listening and subscribing to unbreakable podcasts. Each podcast is designed to bring on men and women who live in a world I call high level performance. These people lead and create a culture of performance. I remain committed to that enduring conversation.

Before we begin This week we received our third batch of coins you all requested and please get them at thomshea.com on the store function on the website.

Today we have four questions from listeners.

High level performance

Hustle

Single point of focus or everything counts

Trust

We are going to raise the price of the online training so if you are committed to your own high level performance join now. Here is why if you can get through the first of the unbreakable lessons. If you can honor your word for three weeks in a row. You will find something inside of you that will immediately transform your life. Go to thomshea.com

Be brave, be bigger than yesterday. And have an Unbreakable life. It is your life to have.

41. Eat to Perform interview with Paul Nobles, CEO of Eat to Perform. The Unbreakable Navy SEAL way of Intentionality with Thom Shea.

Interview with extra ordinary leader Paul Nobles.  We discuss the life style of performance and the disaster of life hacks and diets.Drive your own life, don't take the easy path, be extra ordinary.

Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

When you are ready to learn the Unbreakable Lessons sign up here Take on the Challenge of your life

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40. Navy Cross recipient and Navy SEAL, Mike Day, discuss honor and respect for the nation.

Real Life leadership during chaos discussion with a SEAL shot 27 times and survived.  Mike Day discussion the calming of chaos.

If you are interested in Mike discussing leading during chaos, he will make your event memorable.  Contact us and we will make the connection.

See his story in Act of Valor.

Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

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39. No more complaints, Isaac Lidsky discusses Eyes Wide Open and overcoming blindness to succeed.

In this extraordinary episode, I talk with Isaac Lidsky, actor on Saved by the Bell to best selling author of Eyes Wide Open.  We discuss the gift of losing his sight and the enhanced life that came of it. 

Subscribe and listen to a real story of coming back from loss to have an extraordinary life.

Order book now!

Eyes Wide Open: Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Can't See Clearly

Follow Isaac and reach out to him directly here:

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38: Returning from the dead. The Beauty of a Darker Soul with Josh Mantz

Emotionally traumatic experiences are prevalent in our society, but few people understand the power they can have over our lives. The darkest demons that emerge from these experiences are often the most subtle and difficult to uncover. They can drive us into isolation, make us feel distant from the world, and leave us living within a deep emotional void that seems impossible to overcome.

Darker Souls emerged out of a need to help people understand the depths of trauma so they can regain control over their lives. As we start to emerge from these experiences, they will begin to add a new level of perspective and meaning to our lives. The process to get there is difficult and painful, but the journey is absolutely worth it. There will come a time when you’ll realize that you’ve become stronger and more powerful than the experience itself.

http://darkersouls.com/

Like this episode? We want your feedback. Share, send comments and write your review.

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37. Honor and respect: A Navy SEAL remembers September 11, 2001 with Thom Shea

Remember the ones who died in the towers by loving the ones who remain. Remember the warriors who went to war so that you could do whatever you wanted to do here at home in whatever fashion you wanted to. Remember you can pursue your happiness, your life is safe, and your liberties are here because of those who go to war. And take a moment to remember the warriors who fell by going to a warriors grave and saying thank you.  

Buy now

Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

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Honor the fallen by taking the Unbreakable Challenge The SEAL Warror Challenge

36: The American Experiment. Simple but not easy- The Master Keys to Success

What does an Unbreakable life look like? A Navy SEAL's guide to creating a life of success and X-Factor growth in all areas of your life. Follow these basic principals and take your life to the next level. 

Buy Now!

Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Like this episode? We want your feedback. Share, send comments and write your review.

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35: The real First Blood book and movie, vietnam warriors coming home, with author David Morrell

The warriors coming home from Vietnam came home to a country who did not know how to treat them.  Green Beret had a tough time turning off the war. A must read book:  First Blood.

Buy First Blood!

We welcome your comments.

Be Unbreakable. Master the 13 Unbreakable Lessons, our online curriculum designed by Thom Shea from his 23 years experience as a Navy SEAL.

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34: Inside Darkness with Jason Bourne author Eric Van Lustbader

Understanding the mindset of a warrior.

This interview with Eric Van Lustbader analyzes the mindset of the character Jason Bourne. What does is take to understand a create such a riveting character? How do we understand darkness? What makes a warrior great? 

Thom shares a unique picture, the mindset of a warrior, of how Navy SEALs survive and thrive in hell.

http://www.ericvanlustbader.com/ 

Buy now

Achieve rapid sustainable performance. Master the 13 Unbreakable Lessons, our online curriculum designed by Thom Shea from his 23 years experience as a Navy SEAL to live.

Read the book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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33. The Art of Perception: Rethinking How We See with Amy Herman

Converting observable details into actionable knowledge. Amy Herman trains our elite forces, including Navy SEALs, FBI, Dept of Homeland Security, NYPD, on her innovated solution of visual intelligence.

http://www.visualintelligencebook.com/

http://www.artfulperception.com

Buy Amy's Book Now!

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Commit to a guided process to mastering the Unbreakable Lessons. Our online curriculum is designed by Thom Shea and his 23 years experience as a Navy SEAL to live an Unbreakable life with breakthrough results. The lessons are outlined in his book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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32: Extraordinary Men. The Relentless American Dream with Sorinex President, Bert Sorin

What does it take to be extra ordinary? Navy SEAL Thom Shea is joined by his mentor Navy SEAL Ron Culpepper in an interview with co-founder and president of Sorinex, Bert Sorin. Stories from men of the same mindset, do whatever it takes no matter the  circumstances.

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Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Take your life to the next level with Unbreakable Lessons. This online curriculum is designed by Thom and his 23 years experience as a Navy SEAL to live an Unbreakable life with breakthrough results. The lessons are outlined in his book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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Learn about Sorinex

31 Master Mentorship, the Need to be Needed with Chairman of Barber Wind Turbines, Jerry Barber.

An Interview with my mentor, Jerry Barber.  From High School principal to carnival ride designer, example the Tower of Terror, to the first of its kind Barber Wind Turbine. 

Listen to a life time of building businesses, mentoring men, and the Need to be Needed.

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30: Don't Ever Listen to the Word 'NO' with Lorraine Bosse-Smith

What would your life be like if nobody ever told you that you couldn't do something?

Ret Navy SEAL Thom Shea invites Lorraine Bosse-Smith, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, author and founder of the FIT Leader Formula, onto the podcast to share her Unbreakable story. Take your life to the next level by applying their tools and mindset of success by never giving up on yourself, staying in the drivers seat, and always moving forward. 

Reach out to Lorraine at https://www.lorrainebosse-smith.com/ 

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29: The Dirty Secrets to Success with Entrepreneur Scott Temple

In this episode Navy SEAL Thom Shea interviews successful serial entrepreneur and Marine Vet Scott Temple. Scott's journey is inspiring for everyone looking to breakthrough; beginning with dirty jobs and working his way up to running companies. 

Listen and learn as two combat vets turned entrepreneurs share their insight on the daily grind to achieve balance and success in all areas of their lives: business, family, physical, and spiritual.

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As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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28. The pursuit of what is missing. Be brave, Be Strong, Be Unbreakable

I want to share a reading for you that truly will make you think.  We all seem to be searching for what is missing.  What is missing for a warrior, a teammate, a woman, a vet, a dad? 

Connection when found is the 13 x factor in life.

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

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27: Warrior Talk and Lessons from Naked and Afraid with EJ "Skullcrusher" Snyder

Pushing beyond the normal to what you can really do as a human is valuable.  Listen to how EJ has gone beyond the normal life to have an extra-ordinary life.  If you want to have a great life you must push yourself, you must not give up, you must be Unbreakable.

Reach out to EJ at http://www.ejsnyder.com/

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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26: Positive attitude, Lead by example with Tom Davin, CEO of 5.11 Tactical Gear

Leadership and Culture interview with Tom Davin, CEO of 5.11 Tactical gear.  Discussing the value of military leadership lessons applied in life and business.  Winning culture at Taco Bell and Panda Express while he was the CEO.  "The only control we have in life is our positive mental attitude",  Tom's key life lesson.

You can get 5.11 gear at 5.11 Tactical

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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25: With Tyler Harris and Joseph Caldwell: Navy SEAL Leadership, why failure is the greatest path to success.

Interview with the Sales Wolves, Tyler Harris and Joseph Caldwell. Pushing the envelope of relentless pursuit of success by embracing failure. From Battlefield to Boardroom.

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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24: Leadership, Culture, and a Life of Intent with Thom Shea.

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Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Reasons why or why not, these are the topics our clients, listeners and social media followers bring to us. Find something powerful you can impart to your own performance. Don't forget the free first month of online lessons at the link below.

Time
Culture
Leadership
Fitness
Marriage and relationships
Money and ROI
Age
Spiritual awareness
Fear
Problems
Balance

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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23: Spartan Woman and Spartan Races with Jennifer Klentzman

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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22: Navy SEALs lead from the front w Admiral Scott Moore

Retired SEAL Admiral Scott Moore shares leadership lessons from over 30 years in the teams including nearly three years in Afghanistan. Now CEO of Karakoram Group, consisting of many former top Special Operations leaders, some of the best problem solvers in the world, providing leadership and security advisory services.

Buy Unbreakable now!

Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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21: Pivoting from Death to Success. The Art of Balance with Bryan Falchuk..

Everyone who's successful has that pivotal moment of clarity when we get back into balance. Bryan Falchuk is the prime example of that experience. His book, Do a Day, speaks directly to giving action to that pivot in your life.

Powerful discussion about demanding balance in your own life and staving off distractions to your own performance and commitments that arise. Top performers seek to maintain commitment to the five pyramids of human performance in their own lives: Physical, Intellectual, Wealth, Relationship and Spiritual.

Buy here!

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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Bryan Falchuk, cpt, bcs

20: Warrior Interview with Lee Child, creator of the Jack Reacher series

The man who brought us Jack Reacher sits down with Thom to share the history of the character and how the series came to be. Who is the inspiration for the Jack Reacher character? What are the challenges of being an author? What is it that stops people who want to do great things, including writing important books, and what advice does Lee share with our listeners?

Get newest book now!

As a special offering for our listeners we are including a code for one free month of the Unbreakable Lessons as designed by Thom and spelled out in his book, Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

Click here for free first month.

For information on how to book Thom for your next speaking event, click here.

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19: Combat is the greatest teacher. Warrior lessons with Thom and Stacy Shea.

 Combat is very real. Combat is brutal, killing is brutal. Combat is boring as hell 90% of the time, then it's so overwhelming that time literally stands still. That's when you can smell everything, when you can hear sounds from hundreds of yards away. When your eyes can focus like the vision of an eagle. When your mouth salivates like a rabid dog. When you can have strength and move well beyond your capability. And the only time I've had a 6th sense of knowing what was going to happen before it happened. But when it's over you're drained beyond recognition.

What makes some people rise and operate like that in combat while others shut down? All you men and women who have felt that connection I just tried to describe I want to say something to you that you don't hear very often. I love you and you are not alone.

Today we discuss the most frequent topics brought to us by our followers on all platforms:

Strength

Endurance

Quitting

Commitment

Diversity

Weakness

Family

Money

Balance

While our sweet spot as an organization is working with C Suite executives, we are committed to everyone having a great life, regardless of financial means. We are driven to play a meaningful role in the next generation of leaders. To that end we have created an online curriculum where anyone can participate in the training for a reasonable price.  Visit our website for more details: Unbreakable Lessons Online

For a deeper dive into mastering success in all areas of your life join our online curriculum Unbreakable Lessons from the Thom's book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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18: Truckers Drive The American Way of Life. An Interview with California Trucking Association CEO Shawn Yadon

America's truck drivers are the unsung heroes in this nation of ravenous consumers, bringing goods of all kinds to our stores and our doors. More than 75% of the communities in California and likely most of America are provided exclusively by hard working truck drivers. They're the backbone of our nation and we're deeply grateful to them.

California Trucking Association www.caltrux.org CEO Shawn Yadon stops in to discuss with Thom the most valuable commodity in any industry including trucking, that is the people themselves. From his very personal commitment to the people who serve in all aspects of the trucking industry, Shawn's calling is to advocate for those doing yeoman's work and delivering America, literally. From the owner-operator to medium or large sized trucking companies, caltrux.org is the paramount voice of the trucking industry in California.

The common thread of leadership, mentoring and community in the military and the trucking industry is undeniable. Trucking is tough but rewarding, provides significant autonomy and the unique opportunity to choose your desired level of income.

America (and the trucking industry) needs you! If you're former military with experience in logistics or heavy equipment operation, there are openings for you in the trucking industry. If you're a recent high school grad, college grad or a millennial, we encourage you to take a look at the trucking industry and its many aspects as a choice for a bright and secure future.

For a deeper dive into mastering success in all areas of your life join our online curriculum Unbreakable Lessons from the Thom's book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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17: Win Every Time - In Business or Combat. Leighton Cubbage and Tim Flanagan:

Whether in business or combat, the most effective leaders focus first on the commitment to the mission. They never have the plan up front, which is highly counter-intuitive. They focus first on commitment. Unless you're completely committed, you cannot solve for anything. In this discussion with CEOs Tim Flanigan and Leighton Cubbage, Thom Shea takes a deep dive into what it takes to win.

 The value of flexibility in planning. Everything changes the moment you execute. The most well thought out, well rehearsed plan only survives the first shots fired, the first change in market conditions.

Everything is about the basics. There is no such thing as advanced, only mastery of the basics.

True mastery exists in keeping your word. There are myriad reasons why you don't keep your word. There will always be reasons why people quit.

We drive our own limitations. Nothing else. Nobody else.

For a deeper dive into mastering success in all areas of your life join our online curriculum Unbreakable Lessons from the Thom's book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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16: Michigan Football performance director Fergus Connolly: Author of Game Changer, On Dominating the Competition, and Thriving in Chaos

Nobody achieves excellence on their own. The building blocks of elite performance in business, athletic and military teams include a high level of tolerance for brutal honesty and an unbreakable trust.

How elite performers handle chaos and conflict that gives them an edge over their competition. Every. Single. Time.

Dr. Fergus Connolly, Director of Performance at Michigan Football, uses his experience and background to develop teams and athletes to reach their full potential.

The lost value of hard work in contemporary culture creates extreme opportunity for anyone willing to work harder than their peers. It truly levels the playing field. Nothing can stop someone who is willing to outwork their competition. Not education, not genetics, not money.

There is no magic to elite performance. So what is it that differentiates those few at the top from the rest of the crowd? It's simpler than you think.

How passion, full commitment, emotional investment and an ability to control your emotions lead to breakthrough performance.

Forcing breakdowns in practice situations in any team endeavor provides an unstoppable edge over the competition and dramatically expands your capacity to perform when it matters most.

For a deeper dive into mastering success in all areas of your life join our online curriculum Unbreakable Lessons from the Thom's book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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15. Soccer Pro Jon Busch Longevity in Pro Sports with

 A dynamic conversation between two seasoned professionals as they share their experiences in the value of setbacks and intensity. Numerous teaching points and tips for youth or anyone committed to a life of high performance and success.

Jon Busch is a 22 year professional goalkeeper, currently playing for Indy 11. His campaign SAVES for SEALS benefits the Navy SEAL foundation.

Find out more: www.indyeleven.com/savesforseals

For a deeper dive into mastering success in all areas of your life join our online curriculum Unbreakable Lessons from the Thom's book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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14: The science of optimal perfomance: An interview with Rebecca Heiss PhD

How can understanding the science behind our actions and reactions help us understand performance? This podcast is an interview with Rebecca Heiss PhD, who uses her background in understanding biological behaviors to help businesses and individuals overcome barriers for optimal performance.

We discuss the bodies survival mode, the subconscious reaction state, and how to overcome that with action. Hormones and language are drivers to how we act or react in situations, how we lead, and ultimately how we achieve. This interview is powerful for those looking to get the extra edge in their business and the true power behind creating a strong team environment.

Find out more about Rebecca on her website http://www.rebeccaheiss.com/

Take our free assessment test. For a deeper dive into mastering success in all areas of your life join our online curriculum Unbreakable Lessons from the book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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13: Love, God and Death an Interview with veteran Pastor Dan Dather

A dynamic conversation between a Navy SEAL and a spiritual master. Retired Navy SEAL Thom Shea interviews Dan Dather, a Navy veteran and pastor of the Powdersville Grace Church in Greenville, SC. They go deep into hard topics of life: veterans, death, fear, divorce, God and the Bible.

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Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Life lessons on opening up your own greatness by facing the dark voids into life. Uncovering darkness in your own life by speaking light into them.   

For more conversations on success and greatness, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. We look forward to your reviews and comments.

How do you breakout on the Unbreakable Path to mastery in all areas of your life? Take our free assessment test. To take a deeper dive into mastering spiritual and all areas of your life with the 13 Unbreakable Lessons from the book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life.

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12. Military Transitiion, staying in the game.

We invited our listeners to send in questions. We've answered some of the most frequently asked in today's podcast. Thom's responses are authentic, bold and meaningful. In this podcast, you will hear a wide array of questions on topics including military transition, battling cancer and dealing with fear, how to face the condition of being overwhelmed, dealing with the death of loss of a friend, Spartan women and their impact, divorce and more.

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11: Relentless pursuit is the only way!

How do you train to be Unbreakable? A deeper dive into the training Thom produces to bring high performing individuals to the next level.

Thom brings a taste of SEAL training into a 12 hour Unbreakable Jiu Jitsu training. Gain insight into Thom's model of performance, in that Internal Dialogue Drives Human Performance.

Where are you on the Unbreakable Path? The assessment tool measures how you show up in your life now and your ability to breakthrough. Thom and Ty also discuss the experience of taking on Lesson 1 of the Unbreakable Lessons, the ability to Honor Your Word and how this exercise shows the ability for anyone to create demonstrative change in their lives.

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10: The 13 Unbreakable Life Lessons that only 20% of the people alive will even attempt.

Before my last and most dangerous deployment with the SEAL teams, my wife asked me to write down what my kids would need to learn from their father in case I never returned from combat. These lessons and stories of my life and from combat evolved into my book Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life. In the book there are 13 lessons that I believe everyone should learn to master your own Unbreakable life, f performing at your highest level in all areas of life. Listen to an in depth breakdown of each lesson.

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Join us! Check out the online curriculum of the Unbreakable Lessons, at your own pace while participating with a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives.

9: Doug Greenlaw: Performance and People - In business and combat they're forever intertwined

 
Achieving radical performance in business and combat is highly dependent upon leaders who value their team, develop relationships and can move people from words into action. Formal, classroom education and training, like mission prep, show limitations when operating in real world scenarios. There is no substitute for experience.

Are you up to more? Check out our online curriculum in the Unbreakable Lessons, at your own pace while participating with a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives.

8: Performance Optimization in Jiujitsu with Billy Fletcher

Thom and Billy discuss performance optimization and the value of balance. Gain insight into your own performance and self imposed limitations as they discuss:

Focus versus Balance: The pitfalls of being one-dimensional.

Genetics pale in comparison to determination, unrelenting practice and commitment.

7: Comparable SEAL leadership with Tim Flanagan

6: Leadership During Chaos with Leighton Cubbage

A deep dive into what it takes to be successful from the perspective of Leighton Cubbage, co-founder and chairman at Serrus Capital, and Thom Shea, retired Navy SEAL. The dynamic duo share their authentic and raw personal experiences to unravel the essential tools to breakthrough. Leighton and Thom share their lessons in leadership from relationships, playing Division 1 football, relentless practice, being uncomfortable and the value in gratitude.

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Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Unbreakable is a mindset, a way of living. We have honed our training and our craft for clients of all walks of life. Our online curriculum, Unbreakable Lessons,  offers an opportunity to proceed through the lessons in Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life at your own pace while being part of a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives. Click here to learn more: Unbreakable Lessons

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Find out where you are on the Path to becoming Unbreakable take the free test or the breakthrough profile at: Unbreakable Path

5: Leadership in the SEAL teams, adventure racing and business

In a powerful and engaging episode, Thom Shea shares his growth and experience in leading individuals in high performance during chaos. Thom's stories from doing 700 mile adventure races in order to effectively lead his SEAL team in combat gives insight into immense value of team relationships and leadership skills. This extended episode digs deeper into the core basics of success. 

Unbreakable is a mindset, a way of living. We have honed our training and our craft for clients of all walks of life. Our online curriculum, Unbreakable Lessons,  offers an opportunity to proceed through the lessons in Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life at your own pace while being part of a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives. Click here to learn more: Unbreakable Lessons

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Find out where you are on the Path to becoming Unbreakable take the free test or the breakthrough profile at: Unbreakable Path

4: The millennial mindest with Thom Shea

Thom Shea takes an authentic and deep dive into the conversation many business leaders are having today about working with millennials. Thom invites Meghan Becque on for a millennial perspective as they discuss the reality of success. Thom and Meghan's story of working together will give insight into untapping the power of the millennial perspective and energy for extreme success.  

Unbreakable is a mindset, a way of living. We have honed our training and our craft for clients of all walks of life. Our online curriculum, Unbreakable Lessons,  offers an opportunity to proceed through the lessons in Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life at your own pace while being part of a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives. Click here to learn more: Unbreakable Lessons

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Find out where you are on the Path to becoming Unbreakable take the free test or the breakthrough profile at: Unbreakable Path

3: Being Trainable: the Navy SEAL Way

Join Thom Shea and Ty Rushing as they answer questions that have come in from listeners. 

What were Thom's pivotal experiences in understanding the design of human performance?

What does it take to be trainable? Thom takes a deep dive into what makes someone trainable and how to train someone as a mentor or leader. 

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Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life

Unbreakable is a mindset, a way of living. We have honed our training and our craft for clients of all walks of life. Our online curriculum, Unbreakable Lessons,  offers an opportunity to proceed through the lessons in Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life at your own pace while being part of a community of like minded people who are focused on breakthroughs in their lives. Click here to learn more: Unbreakable Lessons

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Find out where you are on the Path to becoming Unbreakable take the free test or the breakthrough profile at: Unbreakable Path

2: Brutal honesty of retiring and PTSD

In this episode Thom Shea shares his raw experience of his retirement from the SEAL program. Thom and Ty Rushing go through the ups and downs of success and failure, and the significance of being able to emotionally let go of past experiences to be able to move on. 

Buy Unbreakable now!

Unbreakable is a mindset, a way of living. We have honed our training and our craft for clients of all walks of life. There are 13 Lessons that will change your performance.  The Lessons are adapted from,  Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life, we will guide you through.   Click here to learn more: Unbreakable Lessons

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Find out where you are on the Path to becoming Unbreakable take the free test or the breakthrough profile at: Unbreakable Path

1. How to start over?

Through failing and rebuilding, again and again, success is achieved.  There is no other way.  Leading other SEALs in combat is built on years of pushing through failure and starting over, again and again.  Overcoming failure is the key to success.  Failure is taboo in most aspects of life, and is the only way to achieve success.  Thom, discusses how to achieve success through failure and how the writing of the national best selling book Unbreakable are lessons from failure specifically written for his kids, in case he were to die in combat.

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