Transcript

Choices That Define a Life with General Stanley McChrystal I The Learning Leader Show

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h · 10,497 words · 69 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Choices That Define a Life with General Stanley McChrystal I The Learning Leader Show", an episode of Ryan Hawk published May 3, 2025 (1 h, about 10,497 words). It mentions 4 people, works and ideas, including On Character: Choices That Define a Life, ASU University, Vietnam, Fort Benning.

What this episode is about

General Stanley McChrystal reflects on the profound impact of his mother's life on his character, emphasizing the importance of questioning accepted norms and striving for continuous personal growth. He advocates for meaningful conversations that prioritize listening over shouting, while addressing the significance of obsession in achieving personal and professional excellence.

Key takeaways

  • Question everything: acceptance without inquiry is the real danger to our progress.
  • Obsession, when channeled, breeds excellence—it's a military mindset for life’s battlefield.
  • A single moment can shift your trajectory: life is a series of unpredictable shocks.
  • Mothers mold warriors: it’s often their influence that shapes resilience in the face of adversity.
  • Conversations matter: listen more, shout less, and maybe we’ll bridge some divides.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Vietnam, ASU University, Fort Benning
  2. – 50:00: Vietnam
  3. – 1:00:00: On Character: Choices That Define a Life

Notable quotes from "Choices That Define a Life with General Stanley McChrystal I The Learning Leader Show"

  • House. And then she for the rest of her life is married to this army officer. has six children. He goes to Korea. He goes to Vietnam twice. she has all of the challenges, but…
    about Vietnam · at
  • Invited me to go to Gettysburg with the group, the students that you teach or you have taught the leadership class at Yale. And I know you regularly run to the battle site the…
    about ASU University · at
  • Be afraid to try to do more than you think you can because you'll surprise yourself. Love it. Love it. The new book is called On Character: Choices That Define a Life. You have…
    about On Character: Choices That Define a Life · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • ASU University — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the institution where General McChrystal teaches leadership.

Places & events

  • Vietnam — Event · Historical context · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of General McChrystal's father's military service.
  • Fort Benning — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of General McChrystal's parents' marriage story.
    They have this two or three kind of awkward days. And finally, he asked her to drive over to Fort Benning with him because he needed to get some uniform items. And during the ride, he convinces her to marry him. Whoa. and they get married.

Full transcript with timestamps

How many things do we accept because somebody says it and we've never really questioned that? And that's what I think that the danger is. General Stanley Mcrist, I want to start by actually talking about your mom. Everybody's mother's special, but to me, mine was extraordinarily special. We never thought my mother could suddenly be gone. I spent my career in the military, but I spent much of it in the Rangers. And in the Rangers, there was this, it wasn't stoicism, it was something beyond that. I used to think that philosophers were smart people, but they weren't practical for me. And in reality, I became convinced that I don't have the right answers to any questions, but I think I have some of the right questions. If we could have a national conversation on if we could stop shouting and start listening, we could make a difference. You said you're an advocate for obsession. So, h how how

have you applied that to your life? We're only as good as we are right now. But if we're not living up to a standard that that makes us special, then we're not special. All right, General Stanley Mcrist. Man, it is so good to see you. Welcome back on the Learning Leader Show. Ryan, it's great to join you again. Thanks for having me. I want to start by actually talking about your mom. Um, I love that you wrote about her a few times in this latest book about character. And uh, I if you would, I I won't uh I I don't want to share anything that I think about her yet, but I'd love to hear the impact her life and she had on you, especially uh, because of the fact that unfortunately her time was cut short. But what what was it about your mom that impacted you so much in just about 16 years?

Yeah, my my everybody's mother's special, but to me mine was extraordinarily special. She had been raised in a southern family and it was a good family, but her part of it didn't have any money and her parents divorced. So, she essentially she and her sister were raised by her mother. And it I'm not going to say it was a tough life, but it but it wasn't easy. And so my mother was strong willed and in her own way ambitious. She went to college, you know, when it was tough to do that. Became a reporter. And then she met my father right at the end of World War II.

And she was never going to marry a soldier, but she meets this lieutenant who's just graduated from West Point. In fact, she's asked if she wants to go on a double date with a West Pointer. And she was living down in Opaik, Alabama. in West Point, Georgia was not far away. And she says, "I don't want to go out with a Georgia boy." And and they go, "No, no, no. He's this guy." And so she she meets him and my father falls in love. And then my father is assigned to Germany. And after about a year, as the story goes, he comes home to marry his southern girl. Well, she didn't see it that way. She'd been dating other guys.

In fact, she was pretty serious with another guy. And this lieutenant comes back and he goes, "Here I am to to pick up my bride." They hadn't been formerly engaged, but to pick up my bride. And they have this two or three kind of awkward days. And finally, he asked her to drive over to Fort Benning with him because he needed to get some uniform items. And during the ride, he convinces her to marry him. Whoa. and they get married like three days later, you know, in the in the uh living room of her aunt's house. And then she for the rest of her life is married to this army officer. Uh has six children. He goes to Korea. He goes to Vietnam twice. I mean, she has all of the challenges, but she was always her own person. She loved to read. She got involved in politics. She was very involved in the civil rights movement. That's what inspired me about that. And she had me handing out political brochures for the the

Democratic Party in Arlington, Virginia when I was a kid. I didn't even know the differences really, but she was always doing something. And so, particularly with my father gone several times, uh, she had this outsized influence on me. And and of all the six children in the family, I'm probably kidding myself, but I thought I may have had the most special relationship with her. And we would talk about books and things. It was it was really good. H h how did that impact you then at losing her at such a young age? Yeah. Um significant. I was a junior in high school and she got sick one day uh actually New Year's Day and they had not been out partying or anything. My, you know, uh parents were just home. She got sick midm morning and by like 2 in the morning she was dead. Her kidneys had essentially failed. And so I remember it was just shock because you couldn't conceive it. She'd never been

sick. We'd never talked about it. Uh my father was not long back from his second tour in Vietnam and we always thought there was that opportunity. We never thought my mother could suddenly be gone and I remember my father came back from he was at Walter Reed Hospital when they were trying to save her and he comes back to the house and here is this combat veteran, brand new brigadier general and he's been it's clear he's been crying. It was it was just hard to process. Um I had two younger brothers who were 10 and six at the time, so it was probably harder for them.

But I it was just hard for me to get my mind around. And maybe it was years later when I realized how much I missed having that relationship with her as I had gotten into college age and later because I would have treasured the relationship I know I would have had with her. I appreciate you sharing that, General. I mean, um I know how close I still am to my mom. Like I talk I try to talk to her all the time still. I'm grateful for for for the opportunity that my parents moved to Florida during the winter months and and in a way like it kind of bums us out because we don't see them for like five to six months. Uh but we're still so grateful to be so close to to both my mom and my dad. Um so when I was reading about that it kind of I knew about it from previously talking to you, but it still crushed me, you know, to and I felt for you in that moment.

But I also thought of um just how compassionate and generous and kind your wife Annie is. And I know this from firsthand experience. And it's it's cool to read so much more about her in this latest book because you so graciously invited me to go to Gettysburg with the group, the students that you teach or you have taught uh the leadership class at Yale. And I know uh you regularly run to the battle site the morning of the official tour right at uh pre-dawn, like right before sunrise. And I just so happened as you were in the front leading everybody to be kind of like in the middle in the back right next to Annie for a good portion of that run to Gettysburg. And I just thought what a remarkably kind and curious and thoughtful wife you have, man. So, it just it's just neat to to to see that you go from your mom, this like impressive independent woman, and then you find somebody like Annie to marry

and spend your life with, man, it just seems like she's had such a massive impact on your life. You know, it's you're kind to say that about her, but but the other thing is we had our 48th wedding anniversary this week. Wow. And um it's still special. But one of the things I've realized from watching my father and mother is how dependent I am on Annie. Not not in a material way because she's not a very good cook or anything like that, but Oh, no. But but she's my buddy. And in many ways, I feel sort of vulnerable. You know, I always think that if if I passed, okay, that's fine. She'd be fine. I'm not sure the same is true.

There's a there's an emotional dependence I have on her that I'm not even sure she appreciates, but it's it's a gift to have so many years together, but it's a it's always a worry because you realize how important they are to you. In the acknowledgement section of of your most recent book, you write that that this was kind of Annie's thing. It was her idea, right, to push you to write this. And I and I I told you uh prior to recording, I just spent a week in the Bahamas with my family on spring break. And um I spent every morning with you and it was it was the the an awesome way to my family's asleep. I'm working out. I finished the workout on the elliptical. I'll just spend 20 minutes with General Mcrist reading his book to prepare for this conversation. I end up going for an hour, sometimes 90 minutes, just continuously reading because it's so good. it it's you could tell it like it's your genuine real stories. What was

it about these stories and Annie pushing you to get them out of your head onto the page and then publish them so that others could learn from them too? Yeah. As you get to a certain point in life, certain things become sort of central to the way you think and and for me character has become that. It is the idea that we have all of the politics in our world and policy arguments. We have personalities that dominate the airwaves and seemingly our lives. But the thing that really matters is our character and our personal character and our national character as a people. And as we talked about, as I thought about each of these different issues, they all intersect in the idea that what I think matters and determines sort of our quality of life and our what we contribute is character.

And so as I started to to amass these ideas, I became convinced that I don't have the right answers to any questions, but I think I have some of the right questions. And so what I'm trying to get people to do is ask themselves the same questions. And if we could have a national conversation on character, if we could all just step back from all the stupid stuff we talk about right now, if we could stop shouting and stop listening, but talk about character to think about it, talk about it and demand character from ourselves and from each other. We could make a difference.

100% agree. How how realistic is it? I mean, I I honestly don't watch like TV anymore, Stan. When it comes to any of the networks, it just it's almost unbearable. And I feel like at times, am I putting my head in the sand? Like, should I not do that? Like, but but then you watch it and it's like, oh, I want to hear General Stanley Mcrist on those shows. I don't want to talk about character. I don't want to hear the shouting. I don't hear the arguing. I don't hear you got to go far to one end of the spectrum. It gets exhausting to the point where I just don't want to do it. What's the What's the answer? Like how do how do we get better at this? You know, Ryan, I don't know how many people have described almost the same thing that you have. It's almost like we've gone off the grid. We've gone out to live in the wilderness and we we want to be cut off from society because we're unhappy with what we're seeing. But we

do it by changing how we interact with people, changing how we interact with news and whatnot. And that's dangerous. I think one because if we get in our own little echo chamber, we may not have the right ideas in that thing. Um I think that what we need to do is almost get a national coffee shop kind of dynamic going where you've got places you can go and you are comfortable. It's not all the people who agree with you. It's not a chat room where everybody has a strong view that you have. Instead, it's a place where you can talk and be heard, but also listen, but hear things you don't know, be challenged in those things that you believe. Somebody saying, well, you know, have you thought about this? And if at a national level, we could do that. Uh, well, I mean, it could start at the individual level.

could start inside organizations, but if it could become at the national level where we simply respect the idea, you know, the other person might not be wrong. One of the things I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan was you go to war and you think, well, my side's good and their side's bad and therefore that's why we're fighting them. And then you realize that had you had their life journey, you'd be on their side because that's your frame of reference. And so then you step back and say,"Well, if they're not necessarily wrong, am I necessarily right?" And the question is, as a question mark, and we need to question that. We we're not right simply because we are this or that. It's like the idea that America is exceptional. I really take uh exception to that because I think America is only exceptional if we are. We're only as good as we are right now. It's got nothing to do what our founding fathers and the people

before us did. Good for them. But if we're not living up to a standard that that makes us special, then we're not special. Yeah. Um, are you okay if I just like go through some of my highlights from the book and then we can kind of riff on them? Yeah. Okay. At the beginning, you talk about my m my major takeaway at almost 70 years old is conclusive. I wish I had thought more, been more contemplative about my convictions and been more deliberate about the person I sought to be. I find you to be an incredibly thoughtful person and I have for for many years of having the good fortune to know you and it feels like though you're you're a harsh critic on yourself that you are as thoughtful and a contemplative now.

Maybe you are more now than you used to be and maybe that's what you regret. But I'm curious to hear about that that major takeaway at almost 70 years old and being so conclusive about it. Yeah. And and I think I probably am more now. Um you got more time as you as you get older. But if you think about our lives, you go to school, you're taught certain things and you're tested on those things. You you go through a church or whatever religion that you have and you are taught some things and you're asked to believe those things. And then in my case, I went to West Point and into the army. And you're given a set of values, duty, honor, country, and other things that are framing your life. And then you're in an environment where you want to be confident. You want to be viewed as loyal and a a team player. All of those things push you into accepting a set of beliefs and values. And it doesn't make them wrong, but you accept

them. And then you get if you spend a lot of time reading philosophy and, you know, wondering about, you know, the the great questions, people think you're frivolous. Instead, you should be studying this and that and becoming an expert or at least there's a a certain trend that that pushes you in that way. And it's only as you get further on that I started going now wait a minute maybe the philosophers weren't all stupid. You know I used to think that philosophers were smart people but they weren't practical for me. They they weren't helping me solve my problem right now.

Uh and in reality in many cases they make you think about the things that really do matter. And so when you do that, one of the things that comes to me is you suddenly realize it's not a set of things to learn because there are not a set of immutable facts. There are a set of questions that you have to decide what you think and we're all going to get slightly different uh answers to those questions. So I wish I'd for been forced earlier. I think of, you know, a a really classical education that might have forced me to read and think more broadly and and answer those questions would have been helpful. I I don't criticize what I got, but I certainly could have done better. You're right. I accept no belief or claim to truth automatically or unconditionally. It feels like you're really willing to think things through or do additional work, come up with your own thoughts and beliefs based on the work that you do.

And it feels like not a lot of people do that. And you've written about this like it people people just say well they believe things or they say something because their side says it or well they say or they they they already claimed this thing so they just go along with it without doing their own work. And and that's that's lazy. Like we don't think for ourselves in a lot of places. People want to act like they're original thinkers but they're not actually thinking for themselves. And I feel like that's what you're challenging us to do in on character is do the work to actually think for yourself and come up with your own beliefs as opposed to just saying, "Well, my side says this, so I'm just going to go along with it." Yeah.

As you remember, I I write in the book uh just about a year ago when there was a State of the Union address by the president, a friend of mine asked his friends, "So, what'd you think about it?" And they they said, "Well, I think this this this." And he goes, "Well, you actually watched it." and they go, "Oh, no." And they had watched pundits on TV the next day or they'd read an account or social media and all they're doing is regurgitating how somebody else interpreted it. And if we think about the danger, there was also the case in Afghanistan where young Afghan men would be taken into Pakistan into a series of madrasas and they'd be educated and they would be required to memorize the Quran.

The Quran is written in Arabic. They don't speak Arabic. So, they were memorizing the Quran in a language they didn't understand. And then they were being schooled in what the Quran meant by the people, the Talibs or the teachers who were teaching in the the badasses. So, essentially, it's like somebody telling you, okay, this is truth. Accept this and go forward. Now you sort of say, "How could they be, you know, willing to do that? That's stupid." And then we think of our own lives. How many things do we accept because somebody says it and we've never really questioned that. And that's what I think that the danger is. That's the hard thing with me, like some of my friends where we have spirited disagreements from time to time because I think it's almost impossible to completely align with one of our two political parties. And I know you you've written about this too where you you don't either, right? You you have

certain beliefs on certain things and they don't align on one side or the other. So So that's whenever I it doesn't matter what side to me. Whenever I have one that's like this, this this this I believe all this and this is the thing. It's like how I don't see how you're being an independent thinker if you literally align with every single thing on one regardless again of what side you're on. I feel like if you're an independent thinker, you're probably going to have a mix of both. I I think invariably. And that's the danger because on the one hand, we sort of know we should be independent thinkers. On the other hand, we want to be on a team.

We want to put on a jersey. We want to feel like we've got people in our herd or our tribe or our team that that respect us for being loyal members of the team. And those are intention. It's tough. It's tough. I uh I I just like you write about the most crucial discipline is to think for ourselves. And to a sad degree, we're lazy. And that's the story that people comment on things that don't actually read. I I I like that challenge like do that necessary work. Don't be lazy. Okay. Another um I I like this exercise.

as I've done it before myself and it really makes me think and that's that at times for with your students at Yale you would have them write their orbituary and as I said I this is makes me really think about things and actually as I've written it have made it aspirational like I want to live up to make these things true so that if it's being read let's say by one of my children that those things that she's reading are are accurate right and and so I write in a way to live up to these things What what what have you learned from doing that exercise both for yourself as well as with your students at Yale? I I think it's a really valuable exercise because it forces you to think first about those concrete accomplishments that most obituaries at least list. You know, did this, did this, did this, but then you think it's not always captured in an obituary. It's often in the testimonial at a memorial

service. Somebody describes Ryan and they go, "This is the kind of man that he was." And I think, "How would I want to be described?" And if my granddaughters, one of my granddaughters was doing it, how would I want them to tell people about their relationship with me and what they had concluded? And you'd want them not just to be, you know, adoring that they loved you, but you'd want them to pick out some things that, as I describe my parents, in my entire upbringing, I never saw my father and mother do anything wrong. And what I mean by that, they never robbed a bank or anything, of course. I never saw them take a parking place that they shouldn't have. I never saw them keep excess change back. They may have fought between each other. I never saw it. I never saw them do anything that I wouldn't be proud to emulate today. That's pretty amazing.

They were human beings. They weren't 10 feet tall. But the reality wi is they lived a standard that I still admire and I would love to have somebody be able to say even half of that about me. um self-discipline. Um I know you to be a very disciplined person. Uh I mean you're a fourstar general. You you don't get to a position like that probably without quite a bit of discipline. Um what does it mean to have self-discipline to you? Yeah, I think it is the single most important quality for a leader and in some ways for a person because assuming you can figure what kind of person you want to be and what your responsibilities are, you then have to pair that with the self-discipline to actually do it. Most of us know how to be a good leader, for example. We know how to treat people. We know how to interact. We know how to reach decisions, but we don't always do it. We find ourselves treating people poorly or

any number of things when we're tired or we're impatient or we're emotional. And the self-disipline part doesn't mean you don't have baser instincts. You might be greedy. You might be all of those things, but you don't act on it because you know what you should do. That George Washington was famous. He had this towering temper. But the reality is they only really could tell because they would almost see him holding it in check. And so the ability to force yourself to do things in alignment with what you've decided your values are, I think, is just critical. One of the I think interesting quirks about you, I don't know if it's a quirk, it's more of a I think it's a discipline thing, is you I got a lot of them. Yeah. You Well, you only eat dinner. You don't eat breakfast and lunch, right? You don't eat and you've been doing this intermittent fasting long before it was cool, right?

Can can you talk about that? This element of the fact that you only eat dinner. You know, it's funny. I could do some heinous crime, but if somebody interviewed me, the first thing they'd ask me about, they go, "Do you only eat one meal a day?" So, it's turned out to be, you know, pretty valuable, particularly if I ever create commit a big crime. But when I was a lieutenant, I thought I was getting fat. And so I started running a lot and then I started eating just one meal a day. And it's really I hate to admit this particularly on here. It's a reflection of a lack of self-discipline because some people can go and they can eat half a grapefruit for breakfast and they can eat, you know, some very disciplined little thing at lunch and the same at dinner. I can't do that. when I go to a meal, I've got to reach my arms out and eat everything that I can reach. And so what I've learned is I can only do that

once a day. And I've also learned that I have to defer gratification till late in the day. So I always work out first thing in the morning because that's going to be the hardest thing I do all day. And then if I have hard work, I try to do that. And I try to make my day. So dinner is sort of my reward. And then when I get to dinner, even at my age now, I can kind of eat whatever I want because I haven't eaten anything else. Now, contrast this with my wife Annie, who you know, she eats like seven times a day. She's tiny. I mean, she's like 120 pounds, you know, so I can't say what her weight is. She's tiny and soaking wet as you know, but she eats all the time and it just kills me.

Are you hungry? Like I mean, it's 1:26 in the afternoon. Are you hungry? right now. I've been chewing on my forearm between No. Um, no. I kind of don't get hungry because I psychologically decide I'm not. Um, it's funny. Seriously, is that a is that a thing? I think so. I I'm not sure. Um, I know that if I eat lunch, my body assumes it was dinner and it then decides it's time to go to bed. So, if I I eat lunch, day is over. But like, you honestly, you're not hungry right now. Some days I will get very very hungry in the middle of the day usually if I didn't eat enough the night before or something and my body will scream eat and I'll eat something just pretzels or something because but but normally no I'm fine. Gotcha. Um, you you have a I think it was a poster hanging or picture hanging up in your garage that says, "Embrace the suck." Followed by a quote that says, "Why suck a little when you

can suck a lot?" What is that in reference to? Yeah. I um I spent my career in the military, but I spent much of it in the Rangers. And in the Rangers, there was this it wasn't stoicism. It was something beyond that. was you sort of celebrate that your life is hard and you feel sorry for yourself and you use it as a moral superiority over other people. You know, look how much I suck. Now, you think that that puts you on the moral high ground. Most people are laughing at you. But the reality is what we did is we made our lives hard. Now, that was for that business. It was good because what you did is you learned to put up with privation and difficult things and to do more. And so we would do these training exercises and we would make them literally as hard as we could. We'd do some things where you didn't sleep for 72 hours, you you ate almost nothing, you're out in ridiculous uh weather. And it was all designed to push

you to this point that says no human can go beyond this and then you go beyond this and you convince yourselves as a unit how good you are. And so it it's got great value, but it also becomes something that's pretty funny. And that the when you saw it in my garage, it's got a photograph of me standing in this, you know, blinding snowstorm. And we parachuted into Yakama, Washington. Then we done this road march to get to this position. It started snowing and it was, you know, just kind of crazy negative. But at that time, everybody starts joking with each other. It's funny.

instead of getting grimfaced, everybody tries to outdo themselves on how pleasant and funny it can be. And so that's when that saying, that's the first time I heard it. Somebody came up to me and says, "Hey sir, why suck a little when you could suck a lot?" And it sort of captured the moment. What do you think though? Let's say people outside the military, someone like me that I I like something as little as like take the stairs, right? I was just in an airport yesterday. I take the stairs instead of the escalator or like ch in all these little moments in life like certainly waking up fasted workouts lifting running all that stuff is choosing I think voluntary hardship because in my mind and I'd be curious I know this is a big part of training in the military but I want to like relate it to outside of the military in my mind I want to be choosing the harder path on a regular basis to prepare me for the

inevitable adversity that will strike. I don't know what it's going to be, but I know it will be something and it will keep coming. Whatever that adversity will be, I want to be as prepared as possible to deal with it by doing the things that are hard. Right? So, h how have you applied that to your life by choosing the tough path as a form of preparation for the adversity that will inevitably strike? Yeah, I completely agree with you. West Point's cadet prayer has a saying says Lord help me choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. Now they were talking in moral sense but the reality is I think you know you don't have to hit yourself in the head with a hammer every day. So, it's it's not to the point of ridiculous, but I do think that doing those things that are harder that have value for you, like taking the stairs, like getting up early, like foregoing some of the guilty pleasures

that you could do completely. I think it's a it's a discipline that's of great value in everything you do. Yeah. Um, okay. Being obsessed. I love that you wrote about this. Okay. I I've been kind of obsessed with obsession over the last few months. Been reading about it, studying others, speaking with a few CEOs who are really big on this idea of obsession, hiring for obsession. And there are, you know, there are some potential downside. But you you said, "I'm convinced that few truly great achievements are reached by individuals with an impressive work life balance."

And the price of greatness in a word is great. Can and you said you're an advocate for obsession. Can you talk more about this idea of obsession and the price of greatness being great? Yeah, Ryan, I think you and I are very aligned on this one. There are just things that take a huge amount of effort. If you think if you want to be really good at something, if you want to be an Olympic level competitor as an athlete, if you want to be a great artist, if you want to be almost anything, it takes a tremendous amount of of time and practice and focus and that reaches a level of obsession. I think that almost anyone who is world class at business or writing or anything is obsessed. Now, the downside of that is there's a cost. as we say is a cost to the individual and there's a cost to the people around you. There's a cost to your family. There's a cost to, you know, work life balance. And so I don't

think everybody ever can or will be completely obsessed. But the reality is I know I am. I actually want to work with people who are I want I want to be around people who are obsessed maybe about just the good things, you know, accomplishing certain things, not about, you know, just obaining wealth or something like that, but I think that that outsized commitment is of value to us. And I actually think that our the outliers in our society, the very successful people are, and we'd be better if more people were. What What are you obsessed about?

Yeah. Um I'm 70. I'm still working full-time, still leading my company. Just wrote my fifth book. I don't know what it is, but it's maybe it's this obsession that I have to stay relevant. Not on a national level in the news, relevant, but I have to stay relevant in life. I've got to be an important part of the the company I'm I'm in. I have to be important part of my family. I have to I have to not be sitting on the sidelines. And so to me now that changes over life because I what I do now is very different from what I did in the military or later. But the reality is I don't want to be a spectator. I don't want to be some someone that doesn't really matter anymore. Do you think you'll ever retire from the Mcrist Group? Yeah, I think they're plotting right now while I'm in here recording this to how they can retire me. Yeah, that's a great question. Not in the very near term. As long as I think that I can contribute to

this organization to make it stronger, move better, and I'm physically able. I don't intend to because I like it. It's f I I I I love to hear that. It's funny because I I just recently got a question from my financial adviser. He's like, "Well, what age do you want to retire?" I was like, "Retire? I'm doing the exact thing that I'm obsessed about that I love more than anything. Why would I ever want to stop? I mean, the only way I would stop is if like people just don't allow me, which it's my own thing, so I get to make that choice. I'm like, never, never. Why would I ever? I mean, I know my life, my my my mind could change. But I feel like you're kind of doing the thing you're meant to do at this stage, which is help people become more effective leaders. Why stop, you know? Yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot of people who today who retire because they want to and love it and that's great for them. There's a lot of

people who retire simply because you hit a certain age and all your peers think you should retire. Yeah. And and I wish that our society would be just a little more open about that and say as long as you can contribute in some ways, you ought to be welcomed to do that. Yeah. Uh Gettysburg, I already mentioned it once because I was so fortunate to be able to be with you on one of those many trips that you've uh you've taken. You wrote about Gettysburg multiple times in and on character your most recent book. What is it about Gettysburg that is so special to you and the learnings that you take each time you go? Yeah, a lot of people think about Gettysburg just as of course a a big battle. Uh and it was but there are several things that important to me. First, it is a battlefield that is very similar to the ground as it was in 1863. So for a soldier or for anyone, you can go to the ground and the ground

will speak to you. the things that happen there become pretty evident because as you look at Cemetery Ridge and Seminary Ridge and Culpale and the different things you can immediately picture, okay, I get why things happen that way. The next is it was fought by two armies who had both been at war for about two years. They had started as small groups of trained soldiers surrounded by a bunch of completely untrained volunteers. But by the summer of 1863, they were now hardened veterans on both sides. They knew the horror of war.

They knew the danger. And for the case of the Battle of Gettsburg, they knew that this could be the deciding battle of the war. They had hit a point where it was pretty evident that if the North had been badly defeated, it might have caused the the North to give up, to decide it wasn't worth it. And if they could have destroyed Robert El Lee's army, that could have been decisive at the time. So both sides went to that battle knowing it could be the decisive moment and point in the war. And then finally, there were a series of leadership decisions that were made on the field, not just big strategic decisions but relationshipbased decisions. There's the moment when General John Buford sends back and asks the the core commander coming up, John Reynolds, to to hurry, bring his core up. And a 37year-old cavalry officer, Buford, had committed the army of the PTOAC to a place and battle that he hadn't been

ordered to do. He'd used his judgment. He'd sent back. He says, "I think I found the right place. please come up and support me. Those are pivotal moments in American history. And here's a guy who dies six months later essentially of exhaustion. And we don't forget them in American history, but I'm not sure we always understand that kind of contribution as as completely as we could. What about What about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his story? I I I I can't get enough of it. I I just read it and reread it and and you you you've touched on it. We talked about it when we were there. Uh I just love to hear you tell that again. Yeah. Here's Joshua Lawrence Chamber and he's been at a uh a soldier for about a year. He'd been a professor at Bowden College. He's got the 20th Maine. That's less than 300 soldiers, but they are brought up to the battlefield. The the Union Army is like a long slinky and it's moving up and

they're they're not at the back of it, but they're partway through. And so they get to Gettsburg, not on the first day, but on the second day of the battle, and they are they can hear the cannon, they know a battle is going on, and they're directed to go onto this hill, little roundtop. They can't see the rest of the battlefield. They're in the woods. They're at the left flank of the Union line. And they're given this order that says, "You're the left flank. You cannot leave this position. You have to hold or the whole Union army will cave in." He can't really see anything else except he knows the Confederates are about to attack. And so he puts his people in position, maybe the most uh famous defense in American army history. It gets attacked by the 15th Alabama several times. And then when his men are just running out of ammunition, he launches a uh bayonet charge downhill to push him away and

holds. You know, here's a guy who wasn't a trained soldier, although he was a smart guy and a student of it, becomes three times governor of Maine, Medal of Honor winner, just sort of an extraordinary personality, but it's it's the person in the moment or I should say the people in the moment because he wasn't alone. So, good. Um, I want to talk about having high standards or the value of unwavering standards. This is called the Ranger effect, right? Again, a non-military guy talking to one of the ultimate military leaders of our of our generation. What but I but I think where we are aligned is if we're going to do it, I'm going to give maximum effort and expect excellence of myself first and foremost and then of everyone else or we're not going to do it. Right? And this idea of having high standards for whatever it is you choose to do, the the Ranger effect.

Can you can you go deeper in this value of unwavering high standards? Sure. The the Rangers go back in American history and they were in World War II and Korea, Vietnam, but then they have been disbanded. And in 1973, General Kraton Abrams, chief of staff of the army, decides to form two Ranger battalions. And one belief was that he was forming these special units for raids and and missions. He was really forming two units because near the end of the Vietnam War, the standards of the US Army had deteriorated badly. There were integrity problems. There were discipline problems. There were training problems. The army was a shell of itself. And so he decided to create two units and have them do everything they did to the highest possible standard. And that's what happened. He they wrote a RA an Abrams charter which basically charged the units to be the best units of their kind. And so the Rangers did that. They had more severe

uniform standards, meaning higher standards expected. They had some more haircuts, discipline. Everything was done just to the the penultimate standard and it had this extraordinary effect. The people in the organization raised their own expectations of themselves. The unit held each other accountable because you're in this and it was a difficult place to serve because if you put your hands in your pocket, some person even junior to you would go, "Hey, sir, we don't do that." And it was just amazing. And those standards became emulated across the army. I was able to join the Rangers as a captain. And when I got there, I'd expect that everybody was going to be 10 feet tall, you know, square jawed, brilliant, and they weren't. They were just normal people who lived to a higher standard by choice. And the difference between the Rangers and every other unit was simply that expectation and those standards.

And so over time, the rest of the army in places they didn't even know they were doing it were emulating the Rangers. And so one organization that became a regiment later um really had this effect across an entire organization and I would argue some armies of other nations as well. When you're working with leaders, let's say in corporate America, a Fortune 500 company for example, and you want to bring some of that ranger mentality of having very high expectations and setting the standard and holding the line, right? All of those things, how do you do it? Like, how do you how do you utilize what you learned as a ranger and leading rangers and leading, you know, everyone really to then doing that in a in a corporate environment?

It's it's harder than it seems. Yeah. The first thing is in a corporate environment, what's meant by higher standards is different than in the military. Not on things like integrity and character and and level of work, but on, you know, uniforms and things like that obviously, but you can set you start by clearly establishing what those expectations are. And sometimes we write down lists of the values of you know the company. And the great danger is you put these values down and then what you have said is different from what people see you do and you get what we call a say do gap and once you get a say do gap then that just becomes a poster on the wall that people don't respect. So it starts with the leader demonstrating those values on a constant basis. And I I emphasize constant because we sometimes think I'm going to be a leader when I'm leading by example. So I'm going to comb my hair and brush my teeth, put my best

clothes on, and go out and lead. But the reality is you lead every moment of every day because your people are watching everything, how you act, how you interact with people. And so your first opportunity is to be what you want. And then they will, if you are a good leader, they will want to be as much like you as they are capable of being. The second is the discipline to hold people to account. And that's probably the hardest part, particularly in a corporate environment, because if you come in and you say, "I want this, this, this, and we're going to do it this way." You can seem like an unrealistic jerk. And and people get shy about demanding standards. they get shy about um telling people to do it over if it's not done well enough, that sort of thing. And the problem is that sets a new lower standard. As soon as you accept lower standards, that's it. So, it really takes a little courage to get

out in front of people both both to uh demonstrate the behaviors, but then to demand other people to do it. You know you're you're getting there when people demand each other meet the standard. It's amazing how that works as probably in the military certainly on a football team. I know this from firsthand experience. If people say like what's the big I've been on winning teams and losing teams unfortunately but I but fortunately I learned from those situations which were what's the biggest difference between the winning teams and losing teams. I will tell you I think number one is that the winning teams the players raised the standards and held each other accountable. The losing teams the coaches tried to hold the players accountable and the players did not hold each other accountable. And that was the difference. That was the biggest difference. And and that's as a leader that's what we're trying to create,

right? It's an environment where you set the standard. You lead from the front when it comes to living up to those very high standards. There is no say do gap, right? You you lead you live out those values and then you would hope that then the team would follow, right? The team would want to live up to those standards and then hold others accountable when they're not living up to them. You know, I love that, Ryan, because just two weeks ago, we took the Yale football team, the rising seniors, to Gettsburg, and we do that every year. And what we do is we take them to Gettsburg for it's it's really just two days. And the first night there we have a dinner and I give a pitch on the battle and talk about different things. And then we spend the rest of the evening myself and there's for some former military and CIA guys who go help. Um the team talks to each other.

these future seniors talk to each other about what they want from each other for the next year, what they're going to do as leaders of the team, what standards they want to hold each other to, things that may have been bothering them for the last three years, we urge them to sort of get out. And after about an hour of that, Coach Reno, who's an extraordinary coach of Yale football, we leave and the team stays in there and they typically stay three or four more hours and they literally just have this session between themselves of of raw honesty and they leave sort of locking arms saying, "This is what we're going to be as leaders for the team the following year." And I would tell you, of course, Yale's been doing really well over the last decade. Uh I can't claim it's us, but I am proud that we've been a part of helping shape that culture.

You uh in your chapter titled in in patient pursuit of greatness, I think it was 2012 when you first met coach Tony Reno, and I think he wrote, "Not many things I like this line, not many things materially affect my trajectory, but this time was different." And I was like, whoa, what was different? And you said it was coach Tony Reno. What is it about him that makes him so special and such a great leader for the Yale football team? Well, you you want to think of a an iconic football coach is this big personality who just pushes.

Coach Reno is a humble guy, but obviously very uh competent. But when he first took that job, he said, "I want to have a leadership development culture." And I'd asked he asked me and another guy to help him. And the beauty is most people who do that they come in and they do it for a couple of months and then they go on to a new shiny thing or a new initiative. He's done it now for more than a decade and it's consistent. And he is calm. He is demanding. He is sort of a the steady uh force that moves yield football along. And so now when he goes to recruit young men to come play football at Yale, he can look at their parents and he can say, "The thing your son is going to get most from this experience is leadership.

They're going to get a Yale degree. They're going to get to play football. Those are both good, but they are going to be built into leaders." And boy, that's quite a value proposition. I met a few of those football players when I was at Gettysburg, and I was blown away. I kept in touch with a number of them afterwards because I had a kinship with the football guys of course and it was just I'm like these guys are on another level like I don't I don't know if they fully realize how lucky I mean some of them did they have really good perspective but some like I don't realize if know if you realize how lucky you are that you have great coach you're you're you're being led here by General Stanley Mcrist and a leadership class like man the trajectory of those people are set up right um okay this I think this other part was was fascinating and it actually makes me want to do this adventure. You You said when the subject

of America's involvement in Afghanistan arises, you are frequently asked what you might do differently if given a chance to do it all over again. And you said your answer is go whitewater rafting. What What's that all about? Yeah. You know, when you do anything that's hard, whether it's start a business or wage a war, it's going to get difficult and all of the bonds between the key people doing it are going to be strained. So with the the wisdom of hindsight, I realized that and I'm serious about this. if we could to do it all over again. And they asked my recommendation. And I've had the president, secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs, the general on the ground, director of the CIA, the the key people go whitewater rafting and and not talk about the war, drink a lot of beer, talk about whitewater rafting and develop relationships so that when it is tested later, when you're several thousand

miles away and something comes out in the newspaper that said General Mcrist did this, they can go, "Now wait a minute, I know him and that doesn't align with the guy that I knew. I think that those relationships, you know, if you if we had a war impending and they did went off whitewater rafting, a lot of media would say it's a waste of time. This is a boondoggle. Important leaders ought to be studying maps. I would argue the most important thing will be the senue of those relationships. And so it's key. I'm I'm curious about that, General, because um I I work with leadership teams now. It's part of the thing that's that's branched off from this podcast. And sometimes we'll talk about those things. We'll do improv. Uh we'll do these things that like people think of like, why are you doing that?

Like why are you wasting us time? You should be teaching us leadership. And I've been criticized because I'll bring in others to help me with these areas that they're specialists at. And that would be, you know, going on challenging hikes, like I mentioned, improv, these things that are uncomfortable. And at times, they even have been been said, "Hey, uh, can you stop doing those things that are time wasters and just get in the classroom and teach us leadership?" And I I get in these kind of disagreement arguments and sometimes they don't even want to work with us anymore. And I I'm blown away by that because like if you're a four-star general saying we should have gotten the president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, CIA, the four-star general, we should have went white water rafting. If you're saying it, I don't feel like there's any way that that could not be accurate when it

comes to like building a a a group of cohesiveness of doing something challenging together. We just learn it from experience in life, Ryan. you know, it's sports teams, anything, any group that's going to have to be committed to each other, building those bonds pays dividends. It really does. Um, leadership is a choice, right? It's not a title. It's not a position. And I feel like this is so good, especially coming from a guy like you, right? Who had the position of leading thousands and thousands of people, of having immense power, and yet you of all people still say, "No, no, no, that didn't make me a leader." Right? Like leadership's a choice. and and anybody can choose to do that. Can you go deeper on the fact that it's not a positional thing? It's not a rank, right? It's not a title, but leadership is a choice.

Yeah. You have sometimes management authority or direction authority because of your position and so you can give orders, you can set up schedules, whatever is involved in that. But leadership's a bit different. Leadership is getting people to want to do something that they wouldn't otherwise do. In the case of the military, it's you're asking them to go into harm's way, and that's not a natural thing. In a football team, you're asking them to work harder than they would like to work, to to beat their body up at key moments and be committed. And you do that through leadership. um we we sometimes get it confused with monetary incentives or or other things.

Leadership I think is more primal than that. It is you reach in and you inspire. You build in somebody a willingness and a desire to do something. And that takes commitment on the leader part. It's harder. It's it's less convenient. It's more emotional because sometimes you'll you'll really throw yourself into trying to lead a person or a group and it just doesn't work and it can be really difficult on the the leader because you do invest so much. But ultimately it's it's still the most rewarding thing that I've ever found uh and all the things you do with your business. Stan, not talking family stuff now, let's talk work stuff. What is your favorite thing to do work-wise?

writing, speaking, podcast, like what is your favorite element of your work now? Yeah. Um, well, inside my company, I like helping I've I've got some leaders right below my level. I'm the CEO, but I've got people who kind of really run the place. I love sort of helping and coaching them do that. Not to make the decisions, but helping them. We're consultants and so I spend a lot of my time with clients who are trying to wrestle with really difficult problems about reshaping their country or company. We're not the kind of consultants that come in and do big reorganization plans for you. We help people lead differently. We help them make decisions better. We help them communicate better. And if you can help people do that, you suddenly see these terrific outcomes. And that's yeah, that's rewarding. Love it. One more uh before we run. Um you're meeting with let's say a Yale graduate, right? Or

anybody who's a recent college grad and they're like, "General Mcrist, man, I I I want to I want to leave a dent in the world in a positive way. I want to do good. I want to live. I want to make these good choices. I want to have high character." What are some general pieces of life slashcareer advice you give to that person? Yeah, and I think a lot about this. The first is self-discipline. Decide what kind of person you want to be and then try to hold yourself to that. Now, you'll have ups and downs. All of us do.

But the reality is if you think if you're intentional about that and it's not what position you want to hold, it's what you want your obituary to say. You know, it's that's the more qualitative part. The second part is listen. you know, we get in an awful hurry and we want to we're put in a position where we're in charge of a few people and we want to talk and the reality is in most cases those people know more than you do because they've been around longer. So listen and it's not just you learn a lot but it's also respectful. If you respect somebody's expertise and experience, it's amazing the loyalty that that will build up. Um, and then the last is don't be timid about what you try to do. We sometimes worry about failing. You know, I was always, you know, scared to ask girls out on dates and I think most of us are because we're introverted and whatnot. But the worst that can happen is you can fail. And if you think about

most if you're free climbing El Capitan and you fail, that's a problem. If you start a business and you fail, as long as you didn't lie, cheat, or steal, so what? Start another business. If you start a diet and you can't keep it, that's okay. Start another one. And so, I guess that's what I'd tell you. Don't be afraid to try to do more than you think you can because you'll surprise yourself. Love it. Love it. The new book is called On Character: Choices That Define a Life. You have been speaking to me for the past week by I get me getting to read this book every morning while on vacation. It was the best. I absolutely love it. I highly highly highly recommend uh you get on character and read choices that define life. It's so good. General Mcrist, thanks again for coming back and being here and I know we will continue our dialogue as we both progress. We'll do it again, Ryan. I look forward to it. Thank you. Thank you

so much.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Choices That Define a Life with General Stanley McChrystal I The Learning Leader Show"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), General Stanley McChrystal (Guest).

What is "Choices That Define a Life with General Stanley McChrystal I The Learning Leader Show" about?

General Stanley McChrystal reflects on the profound impact of his mother's life on his character, emphasizing the importance of questioning accepted norms and striving for continuous personal growth. He advocates for meaningful conversations that prioritize listening over shouting, while addressing the significance of obsession in achieving personal and professional excellence.

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

4 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including On Character: Choices That Define a Life, ASU University, Vietnam, Fort Benning. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Choices That Define a Life with General Stanley McChrystal I The Learning Leader Show"?

The episode runs 1 h; the transcript is about 10,497 words in 69 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.