Transcript

ALL IN: Navy SEAL Secret to Proven Results - Brent Gleeson

From The Proven Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 2 min · 13,042 words · 139 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "ALL IN: Navy SEAL Secret to Proven Results - Brent Gleeson", an episode of The Proven Podcast published November 28, 2025 (1 h 2 min, about 13,042 words). It mentions 32 people, works and ideas, including Embrace the Suck, Hell Week, 911, Artificial Intelligence, IPO.

What this episode is about

Brent Gleeson, a Navy SEAL combat veteran and bestselling author, discusses the concept of "going all in" as a foundational principle for achieving personal growth and professional excellence. He shares insights from his military background and entrepreneurial experience, emphasizing the importance of commitment and resilience in all aspects of life.

Key takeaways

  • Transforming from a SEAL to CEO demands ditching distractions; focus is your best armament.
  • 'Embrace the Suck' transitions poorly to business if suck equals scattered focus.
  • SEALs surf icy waters of discomfort, yet drown in the warm sea of too many choices.
  • To conquer chaos, target laser precision: land in your teammate's footsteps, even on life's beach.
  • Success isn't about being all-in everywhere; it's about being all-in on the right thing.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Brent Cleasson, Brett Leon, Embrace the Suck, Forbes
  2. – 20:00: Atomic Habits, Embrace the Suck, mission, vision and values, Remarkable Results Pyramid
  3. – 30:00: Marine, stop-start-continue methodology
  4. – 40:00: culture of accountability
  5. – 50:00: Accelerate
  6. – 1:00:00: Hell Week, Naval Special Warfare, Donald C. Murphy, Embrace the Suck
  7. – 1:01:40: Brent_Gleason, Accelerate, Amazon, Instagram

Notable quotes from "ALL IN: Navy SEAL Secret to Proven Results - Brent Gleeson"

  • Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where I don't care what you think, only what you can prove. On this episode, Brett Leon, a Navy Seal operator, a father, and a multi-time…
    about Brett Leon · at
  • But there are some who transition well and some who again another title of your book was embrace the suck who can embrace the suck but also embracing the suck to then being per…
    about Embrace the Suck · at
  • Remember the first time I ever had it explained to me how you get through any sort of evolution be hell week or anything else. They talk about running on a beach and all you're…
    about Hell Week · at
  • Finance for a year. And when I initially decided 6 months before 911 to join the Navy, and try out for the SEAL program, it was really, quite frankly, more of a selfish goal, a…
    about SEAL program · at
  • Major transformation or cultural transformation or operationalizing mission, vision and values. It's the same exercise that an individual should go through is really identifying you know starting with some reflection on in various times in.
    about mission, vision and values · at
  • Attack yeah it's again company's called accelerate and we are a fully integrated hybrid of management consulting ulting and enterprise software. So one of the and that is purely by design. So we spent five years as a management.
    about Accelerate · at
  • Literally the CEO of Buds at the time, and this is sort of an introduction to the mindset and culture of naval special warfare out of necessity. It's not about being macho.…
    about Naval Special Warfare · at
  • Professional Excellence. I'm on LinkedIn, of course, so find me on LinkedIn Instagram Brent_Gleason and our company website is accelerate.ai, AI, but that is spelled E X L R the number 8 AI.
    about Brent_Gleason · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Brett Leon — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Brent Cleasson — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I am Brent Cleasson, Navy Seal combat veteran, longtime tech entrepreneur, two-time bestselling author, hopefully three-time best selling author here coming down the.
  • Donald C. Murphy — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And you know I went through buds with he got rolled back but early part of buds went through buds with Mike Murphy who was postumously awarded the medal of honor for his…
  • Danny Dietz — Person · 1 mention
  • Marcus Luttrell — Person · 1 mention
  • Matt Axelson — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • Accelerate — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Naval Special Warfare — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • BUD/S — Company · 2 mentions
  • Forbes — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Author, hopefully three-time best selling author here coming down the pipeline, Forbes leadership columnist. I am married and have four children, man. Thank you. So, there's a lot to unpack there just in that. So, first.
  • Amazon — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Obviously, you can pre-order it now on any of your favorite retailers. So, Amazon or whatever retailer you prefer. Again, the title is All-In: The Pathway to Personal Growth…
  • Instagram — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Professional Excellence. I'm on LinkedIn, of course, so find me on LinkedIn Instagram Brent_Gleason and our company website is accelerate.ai, AI, but that is spelled E X L R the number 8 AI.
  • Deloitte — Company · 1 mention
  • SMU — Company · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • Hell Week — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • 911 — Concept · 3 mentions
  • Artificial Intelligence — Concept · 3 mentions
  • IPO — Concept · 3 mentions
  • Brent_Gleason — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • SEAL program — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • mission, vision and values — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Remarkable Results Pyramid — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To team development and organizational development with some small tweaks, but it's called the remarkable results pyramid and there's five layers to the pyramid. at the top you…
  • Marine — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    What's going on. and so I got a lot of my work ethic and discipline from my dad, a former Marine, collegiate athlete. And but when he passed he, he had taken a fall had a brain…
  • stop-start-continue methodology — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Deep reflection period led me through, a lot of people know what kind of that stop, start, continue methodology. And I was using that methodology in reflection, thinking about…
  • culture of accountability — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Like that aren't on your list of values, all research points to the same fact that a culture of accountability, however you want to define that, has a distinct and very…
  • Medal of Honor — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Got rolled back but early part of buds went through buds with Mike Murphy who was postumously awarded the medal of honor for his actions as team leader during operation red…
  • Operation Red Wings — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Was postumously awarded the medal of honor for his actions as team leader during operation red wings. Another example of someone who not figuratively sacrificed his life literally is literally sacrificed his life for the.
  • cue-routine-reward — Concept · 1 mention
  • merger and acquisition — Concept · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where I don't care what you think, only what you can prove. On this episode, Brett Leon, a Navy Seal operator, a father, and a multi-time bestselling author, explains exactly what it means to go allin, not just as a SEAL, but on every aspect of your life. There are few people out there that I would trust to scale companies more than him. The show starts now. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show, man. I'm excited to have you on.

Thank you, brother. It's good to be here. I've been looking forward to this. So, for the four or five people who don't know who you are, who are you? What have you done? What's going on?

Uh, I am Brent Cleasson, Navy Seal combat veteran, longtime tech entrepreneur, two-time bestselling author, hopefully three-time best selling author here coming down the pipeline, uh, Forbes leadership columnist. I am married and have four children,

man. Thank you. So, there's a lot to unpack there just in that. So, first off, before we go too far, thank you so much for your service. Thank you for the brothers that didn't make it home and for you allowing us to to be here and and do silly podcasts and and do all of that.

Thank you for that. It was a blessing to have had the opportunity. Appreciate that.

So, you have a new book coming out and it ties into what I want to talk about with everything that you do and how you live your life. What's the what's the name of the new book?

The new book is titled All-In: The Pathway to Personal Growth and Professional Excellence. So a lot of people when they hear SEAL and they hear about they've had professional success in in your world there's a divide right there are people who are unbelievably successful as seals because in order to do that the the limited exposure that I have which I will never be a seal I don't like discomfort I don't like cold water is really frizzy to visit but good god is that cold so uh a mutual friend of ours Mark is out there and I remember asking him I was like do you think I could ever be in a sea like put your foot in the water I was like no I can't be But there are some who transition well and some who again another title of your book was embrace the suck who can embrace the suck but also embracing the suck to then being per you know being successful in business are two very different things. Yeah.

Why do you think some people who are at the top of their game as operators don't seem to do so well because people assume hey if I'm an operator and I execute over here I'm automatically going to execute and just finish these evolutions in the same manner. I think it really boils down to one critical factor that all successful entrepreneurs do master. Uh and it's interesting because it doesn't translate exactly. Obviously, they are high performers in the most elite military organization in the world. However, at the same time as high performers, sometimes people, you know, some of those traits that make them high performers in one arena are their enemy in another arena, and that's focus. So often times when uh folks transition out of special operations, they just try to do too much, too many shiny objects, chasing too many different projects.

They're excited about doing different things, which is great. And often times, obviously, they're pursuing multiple paths to see which one sticks and what they're passionate about and where they feel like they can build a new career. uh they're also going through a pretty significant identity transformation uh from operator to entrepreneur or professional, executive, whatever their career path ends up being. But what I see that drags guys down a little bit is that they're trying to do too many things. they're losing that sense of focus that what's is what drives success through you know the training uh what drives success on the literal battlefields but at the same time really needing to narrow their focus finding one path going allin on that path and that that's what really the entire book is about and I get asked that a lot you know when I'm you know after speaking or working with clients like this

philosophy around being allin all the time tell me more about that because that sounds counterintuitive to what drives success in most areas. And it really is about narrowing your focus, uh, identifying a few key relationships, a few key business practices and strategies and priorities, a few key, uh, you know, personal goals. Uh, whereas we're when we're trying to do too many things, we're just practicing the fine art of mediocrity in every single one of those categories.

Yeah. It goes from embracing the suck to being the suck. Yeah. So, one of the things we talk about getting really ridiculously focused. I remember the first time I ever had it explained to me how you get through any sort of evolution be hell hell week or anything else. They talk about running on a beach and all you're focusing on doing is landing in the other guy's footstep because he's already compressed the sand down and being that militarily focused. You're not care about I don't care how long the run is. I just have to land there because if I don't it's going to make it significantly harder. So, that that laser focus in has always hit me. That makes sense in the SEAL world.

In the entrepreneur world, we have shiny coat, shiny coat, shiny coat, whatever. The squirrel syndrome. That's why we call it.

How do you what are the tactical ways that you can do that? You know, we we talk about here on proven like this is what you can do because we all have these little dopamine screens that are following us around all the time and then you know you've got multiple children and you've got the misses and you've got multiple books and you're running organizations and you're scaling. There's a lot of moving targets for you. How do you lock in on that one? And and how do you teach people to do it as well?

Yeah. And in referencing the different things that uh that I focus on when doing that, it sounds like a lot, but all of those key areas have intentional strategic overlap. Whereas, if they're living in their own silos and their own, you know, their own separate projects that really don't add value to the other projects, then yeah, I would be pulled in too many different directions. Uh but it comes down again to really taking some time, not too much time. You don't want to get caught in that, you know, that uh time-conuming bunker of reflection and finding your purpose and all those things. It is action that drives that discovery process. Taking action, course correcting, pivoting, collecting data, getting feedback, finding a good mentor, a good coach, things like that. Not necessarily one you pay for, but like if you and I were coaching each other on uh you know sharing best practices and

what's worked in your career versus mine, you can learn a lot just doing that by through just friends and colleagues. But really listening and then identifying a path and putting your time, resources, your learning into one of a few key areas, you know, as opposed to trying to do too many things and then putting systems in place to ensure that you're continually working towards uh, you know, whatever KPIs and goals or milestones, metrics that you put in place to know that you're showing progress just like on any project goal or business you're trying to build. uh having a system and a framework in place to know that you're making progress, getting feedback along the way as opposed to, hey, let's team up over here and build this new app or let's go try to start, you know, do this startup, but also we're going to do a podcast and we're going to do all these different things and it's like it's going to be

great and we're going to win. Well, unless those things, like I said before, are intentionally designed as part of one cohesive system to drive um, you know, to drive continuity uh across all of those different types of seemingly separate projects, then you're just going to be doing too many things and you're not going to win in any one of those key categories.

You you talked early on um you always talk about this that execution wins above ego and emotions. So, if you're sitting in self-reflection, there's a time and a place, but you need to execute. We also talk about uh don't ever make a plan because everyone goes through like hey I made plans. I'm like cool. How many have gone exactly the way you thought? No, stop making plans. Marry your goal. Get out of the way.

But you mentioned something about purpose and I'm curious about that because again when someone decides to join the military or decides to be in service on that level, there's a driving purpose. And I'm curious when you did the transition over and okay, you know, again, you're a father and you're an author and you're, you know, you're doing business stuff and you're a friend and you have all these different things. How much does purpose align and in those in your business? How important is purpose versus mission? And that are they separate?

Purpose is incredibly important, but it is a messy path. It doesn't have to be identified all at once. I mean, that's a very difficult thing to do. And as we evolve, we mature, we go through different life experiences. That purpose can take different forms, different shapes or transform completely. Like when I, you know, I went to SMU for undergrad in Dallas and I was working in finance for a year. And when I initially decided 6 months before 911 to join the Navy, uh, and try out for the SEAL program, it was really, quite frankly, more of a selfish goal, a resume building activity, if you will. Let's see if I could take on this challenge.

one of my buddies from college was doing it. So I uh it was a it wasn't an overnight decision of course but uh at the same time there is some element of purpose. Yes, I wanted to give to a cause greater than myself. I I I had a bit of a call to serve. Uh I reflected on a lot prayed on it a lot but at the same time it was peace time. But when 911 happened when my class was going right in the middle of training going from BUDS to advanced training uh that purpose evolved immensely because there was a new mission and it was very clear.

So again, things in our life will happen that will evolve or completely transition that purpose. Something that we can emotionally connect to that aligns with our values, assuming we've

gone through some spent some time defining what those values are. So those values don't suck. Uh but then upon transitioning out uh again not spending so much time uh in deep reflection and trying to identify you know what is my why and all these things that sound a little bit cliche but it is taking action like you said before that will help you identify what your why is and what your purpose really is. It's the foundation there is your values. Now I highly encourage anyone to really sit down just like any great business, any great team, any great organization has clearly defined concise, measurable and actionable values that are their guiding principles. It defines how they make decisions, how they behave, how they show up as leaders. Well, if high performing teams do that, high performing individuals need to do that as well. And those values help us make decisions. It helps us identify our

purpose. It helps us explore the right opportunities and most importantly say no to the majority of quote unquote opportunities that come our way.

Right. Can you walk me through a list of an example of a values or set of values?

Yeah, typically and we coach this in you know our enterprise clients and customers and things like that when sometimes we're taking them through a major transformation or cultural transformation or operationalizing mission, vision and values. It's the same exercise that an individual should go through is really identifying um you know starting with some reflection on in in various times in your life. One question might be when you were at your most resilient and adaptable

what was true about you in those moments. You know what feelings, what thoughts, what principles were really guiding you uh to overcome those obstacles or when you felt the most joy at any time in your life. What was true about you in those moments? And then taking it a step further to start to identify, you know, how do I want to show up every single day for my spouse, for my kids, for my family, for my business, uh, or the team at the organization that I'm a part of. And identifying even down to the granular nature of always, never statements like today, I will, you know, always do this, that, and the other thing. I will never do this. Never statements obviously correlate to where you're not going to color outside the lines of values that you've identified. So again, just like any goal, you know, your your values ideally should be very concise, very measurable, clearly defined and have

some sort of metrics tied to them so you know that you are actually living those uh in a measurable way every day.

So there's a lot again to unpack there. I love that you talked about always and never this conversation that goes like how do I be happy? Well, stop doing the things that make you unhappy. This isn't this isn't complicated. It isn't that. focused.

It's just so when you're having like I will never do this. And we we talk about this where people like, "Hey, I want to make $50,000 of of passive income every single month." Awesome. Then you're never going to take things that deter you from that goal. And people like, "Oh, that that that sounds crazy." And it, you know, it is what it is. Cool. Would you let a rhino have sex with your spouse? They're like, "Wait, what? That's insane. I would never what are you talking about?" I'm like, "Okay, that's the level of just repulsion you have to have to anything that doesn't align with your

goals." Rhinos, dude, it's just it is me with rhinos and giraffes today. It's just it is what it is. I mean, you know me at this point. So, it just it's weird. So, um exit only. You know me by well, you know, exit only. No, not going to happen.

So, from there, people, this is what happens when you get a So, people talk about systems all the time. It's become very cliche. It's very much like um you know finding your why which obviously I have resistance to and you know your purpose and all of that. There's a difference between processes and systems and again you're very tactical in the way you do things and you've evolved that to become very successful. Most people you know take a very long time or never even write a book. You've done three at this point. I mean I I I wrote one in nine days at at WSJ 16 days after. I'm I'm I'm good. I'm done. I don't want to do that again because I can't spell to save my life.

You're spending two years doing it. I think that was the mistake I made and my system or my process was just vomiting it out and then someone else fixed it.

When someone talks about systems and they talk about processes, what's the difference? What is a system from your point of view? Because you're at a higher mountain top than other people have been looking back when you're like, "Hey, this is what I thought a system was." What are what are systems in your world and how do you make it that they're all in on them? Yeah, it is a good question and people confuse these and we do talk a lot about systems a lot and how they drive desired outcomes. Uh I take it a step further too and the the book all-in is actually built around a framework that we've developed. Uh I touched on this framework in a slightly different way in embrace the suck and it's a framework we've actually implemented in organizations but in all in it's really focused a bit more on personal development. Now granted, you could apply any good framework or model to team development and organizational

development with some small tweaks, but uh it's called the remarkable results pyramid and there's five layers to the pyramid. Uh at the top you have your existing results and it's a transformation model. So then you move into your desired outcomes and the remarkable results you want to achieve whatever kind of nature you want to put to that.

The the second layer under there is systems and processes. There's some some minor subtleties into the differences those that I'll get into in a second. But skipping past the middle at the bottom is routines. And so one thing I go into in defining is what is the difference between a routine or a ritual uh and a process. And they're very different. the rituals and routines being the foundation of the pyramid are habit building and habit breaking uh daily routines and rituals that you put in place as a foundational element to being in a continuous state of improvement. So if I want to break certain habits or build certain habits, you follow the exact same model. And this isn't model I've created. This is, you know, from behavioral psychologists and things like that that are built where you look at and James Clear, uh, his book Atomic Habits dives deep into this. Uh, my book dives deep into it as

well. But you look at the cue, the routine, and the reward. You can apply this to building a new habit, uh, or breaking a bad habit. One of the things I did at the beginning of writing allin was, we don't need to get into all the details right now, but I decided to eliminate alcohol from my life completely, you know,

overnight. And it's, you know, ironically, the book comes out in a couple weeks on December 2nd. It that will be exactly to a day, two years of compos. I know it's

congratulations. That's amazing. That was not by design. Uh, but it's interesting. And so, in order to do that, I had to create new routines and rituals following that same path. So, what were the what were the trigger points or the cues that would uh make me want to drink at certain times of the day or things like that? Well, you do the same thing following that cue. Let's say it's end of the day, you've had a long day, a good day, a bad day, doesn't really matter. Um, but then that routine would be to have a drink or multiple drinks. So instead of you know that time of day or you know whatever you know however we've trained our minds to be addicted to certain routines if it's a bad habit you replace that actual routine with something different like a workout or long walk or something like that and you actually get the same but a better reward which is you know an elevated you know dopamine spike or a

natural high from the exercise just an example but the same thing goes into how we build new habits whether it's work habits or daily routines rituals, uh, you know, fitness, wellness, business practices. Uh, the same thing applies to how we build those habits. It takes about 66 days to build a new habit if you're doing those routines on a regular basis. Now, when you go up the layers of the pyramid to systems and processes, the system is your overall framework, you know, for um, you know, putting all these things in motion to achieve desired outcomes. Just like in a business, you have specific systems. um the how you use technology, how you conduct meetings, how you meet with clients, all the different things. Those are your systems that are put in place that you do on a you know consistent or semicconsistent basis to achieve specific results. How you use resources, how you use technology, all those

different things. Now a process is a layer below that and how you you know go through those on a day-to-day, weekly, whatever timebound cadence you put to those. Um, but the big difference really there is looking at the difference in the systems, but also the rituals that will drive the mindset necessary to be disciplined and accountable and how you follow your systems. That's where teams and individuals fall short is they don't have that foundational element of daily rituals that will build the mindset of doing new things or following a good system or process. Organizations always complain about they don't have enough resources, they don't have the right technology or the right software.

oftentimes they do. People just aren't using those resources for their intended purpose or they're using them so inconsistently that they have bad data um and they're not getting the desired outcomes that they're trying to achieve.

So when I want to jump into because a lot of people have problems drinking. I'm allergic to alcohol. I take three sips of it. It comes right back out. My body views it as, you know, spoiled milk. It's just it's a gift from my grandmother. Thank you, grandmother. So I haven't had that. I've helped people get through it. And people when they hear things like this like, "Oh, I'm just going to change my pattern. I'm going to say, "Hey, instead of like when I do intermittent fasting, I do three day water fast or seven day water fast."

Whenever it's 5, six o'clock, I'm going to eat, I'll just get up, throw on a rock, and then go for a walk instead. So, I'm replacing the activity with something else. And and people get understand the tactical of that and that and that's easy where I go through and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. You have to pivot who you want to be before you go change those habits. So, in other words, before someone says, yeah, so for those of you who are watching on screen, um, there's a trigger there. Yeah, he agreed. So, most people when they go, I want to stop drinking because, you know, I want to get in better shape or I want to or I want to stop drinking because I have certain toxic behaviors or I want to stop drinking because there was this thing with a rhino again.

Um, so as you go through that, it's I I would I would encourage everybody, you have to switch your identity before you do that. So, in other words, I want to stop drinking because I want to be a better father. I want to be a better husband. And then you say, "Okay, I a better husband does this." Just like if you're eating just I have to watch that. If you're eating not so good food, I had to catch myself there. If you're eating not so good food, saying, "Okay, I'm not going to eat Mickey De's or I'm not going to eat fast food for a week." You're going to break that pattern. But it's not until you sit there and say, "I'm a healthy person. This is who I am. How does a then a healthy person operate?" So, when you were kicking out and you could share or not share why you wanted to stop drinking, uh, I would highly recommend anybody do a test on what you look like doing six months drinking then six

months not drinking and you'll see what your body looks like. Eight years of hospice, it'll it'll give you some data. What you do with that data, awesome. You want to drink, please, by all means drink. Have fun. You want to eat Indian food, please eat Indian food. I'm not going to do either because neither of them taste good to me. So, as you're going through that, can you would you be open to sharing, you know, what was the things that you changed that like, hey, this was this is the time. This is how I'm going to change it. This is important to me enough that if I'm going to go all in on my professional life, if I'm going to go all in on my fitness, I'm I'm going to go on in my personal life. This was something that again, the laundry list of things you could do, this was the one you hit on.

Yeah, it's a great question. I could not agree with you more about the identity piece and being intentional in what that identity transformation needs to look like. That is a critical piece that people miss and why they just time and time and time again they can't stick to a new routine especially wellness activities or fitness related or you know breaking bad habits or quitting drinking or eating crap that kind of thing. But it really goes back to the foundation like you said of like who am I trying to become? Why am I doing that?

you know, and therefore you're trying to tie some sort of deep emotional connection to that desired outcome. Without that, you will not stick with it. Other distractions will come by. You'll you'll backslide to your old habits and um and the reasoning behind why you engage in those those bad habits or practices in the first place. For me, it was and as a SEAL and a combat veteran, I know stranger to death and loss, but for me, the catalyst, and we all have these things. We all experience tragedy, adversity, and loss. That's just part of the human condition. But uh a couple years ago, we lost my dad uh suddenly unexpectedly.

Uh and you know, he was 80 years old. He liked three things. Three things only. It was work, uh working out, and family. Those are the three things. And you know, varying orders depending upon what's going on. Um and so I got a lot of my work ethic and discipline from my dad, a former Marine, uh collegiate athlete. And but when he passed he, you know, he had taken a fall uh had a brain bleed that was inoperable due to some heart medication that he was on. And that was it. By the grace of God, this is this is the chilling part of the story. I mean that in the best possible sense. I was in Dallas where I grew up and where my parents still live or were living. And I go there so often. We have a few uh of our largest clients and investors in Dallas. So I'm there once or twice a month. Sometimes I was like didn't even mention it to my parents that I was coming in. It was like an overnight in and out. And uh by the end

of these meetings we were in, my phone had been blowing up in my pocket. And uh it was actually my mom saying, "Your dad's taking a fall and he's in the hospital. Basically, it's not looking good." And so I text her back immediately saying, you know, actually I'm in Dallas. So the the CEO of this client, he's like, "Let's go." We got in his he loves fast cars. had gotten his Corvette and he drove me through Dallas rush hour traffic all the way to Presbyterian Hospital where I had the opportunity to spend last um

last moments with your dad and be able to have that because a lot of people don't have that closure right they don't have the ability to say those things and you know you've been around death on a level that's a little different than mine because you know mine was hostess no one was deciding to try and kill me with lead poisoning so that it's a different ballgame from what you grew up with and what you were exposed to versus where I did most people don't have the ability to connect and to share with them and hold that space for them and to really have that moment with their loved ones, which is again, you know, we talk about this all the time. Somebody got up today and got on a plane and was worried about Christmas gifts and they're not coming home. Just it is what it is.

Someone's going to get in a car and they're going to have an accident and taking the time out. So, if there's anything you haven't said to the people you love uh more than anything else, just whatever you're doing, stop listening to the stupid podcast of these two idiots. take out your phone and say, "Hey, mom, dad, you remember that one time you bought me the ice cream, which is healthy food. Um, you know, you had that. You know, I really appreciate that you bought me that ice cream or whatever it is." So, you know, people don't get to do that. And and you know, you're you're in the situation.

Your father's, you know, moving on and he's he's transitioning to whatever is next. Whatever people believe or don't believe, I don't care.

But you had that experience. I'm guessing that that triggered something in you that moved you in a different way that like, okay, my identity has to change as it comes down to whiskey or whatever else that you were drinking.

Well, we yeah, it it forces us to consider our own mortality. I mean, time is our most precious commodity. We spend it freely without ever really knowing the balance in our account. And so that deep reflection period led me through, you know, a lot of people know what kind of that stop, start, continue methodology. And I was using that methodology in reflection, thinking about what are things that I need to start doing that will help me maximize the time that I have, you know, by creating the best possible marriage uh that I can, the best possible parenting experience I can, being the best possible founder and CEO and entrepreneur and leader that I can be.

What should I start doing? And more importantly, what blockages are getting in my way? I've I've achieved some semblance of success, however you want to define that, but there's always more that can be done. And I know there are things that are holding me back, you know, to live a life of meaning and more importantly a life uh that has an impact in a positive way on others. And so one of the things on the list of stop doing was uh was drinking. And for me, I also had some close friends for whether they be former teammates, successful entrepreneurs, colleagues, clients who had made that same choice. None of them were drunks laying in a gutter on the side of the road, but all of them did it with some purposeful intent. whether it was to improve their marriage, uh improve their productivity, their energy, their health, their business, usually it was some combination of all of those things

and for every single one of them it was an absolute game changer. So I was uh as I think the saying is like so curious or something like that. I was I was definitely curious about the outcomes looking at those people that I deeply respected. So, you know, it came to the culmination of making that decision one day and I've never looked back. And it has truly been for me, I don't preach it to anybody. I don't talk about it all that time, all that much. But for me, it has truly been in the same way a game changer in my marriage, in my ability to be fully present with my children, uh, in my, you know, business transformation capabilities, uh, and just generally how I show up in my health, my energy, sleep, all those things.

Yeah. So, um, you talk about this thing I've never heard of. Sleep. What is sleep? I've never heard of that. What is

entrepreneur? I don't know. So, it's important. I I'll discover it one day at this point. Um, when it comes to, you know, because there's a lot there's a lot of sugar inside alcohol. And when I purge sugar out of it's it is my addiction 100%. I love sugar. However, when I stopped consuming it, all of a sudden, I could think clearly. I could execute faster. And I was like, "All right, listen. I love ice cream more than I I honestly should, but I enjoy the results I get more. And I think that people have come into this when they're like, "Oh, I'm giving this up." I'm like, "Yeah, but what is the trade-off, right?" Like, I could go and and pound DQ and Pagadas, which is a wonder drug or what or Tente if you're in Switzerland, but it means that the rest of the day I can't execute and I'm in my way and I'm slurring my words and my brain just doesn't work or I'm going to blow out a night of sleep.

So, it's a costbenefit analysis and and we talk about this in business all the time in businesses that you go and you're going all in on and because again, you can't get an organization to stop drinking. It is a different conversation. Organizations and corporations don't drink cuz they're different. What are some of the patterns and what are the things that you've worked with with your clients that you're like, "Hey, these have proven to be as impactful as purging out certain behaviors." Again, guys, if you want to drink, drink. I don't care. Just don't make me do it. Just do whatever you want to do. But in an organization, what are some of the ones you've gone and say, "Hey, I've seen over and over and over again, these orgs do this pattern and it's as toxic as blah blah blah."

Yeah, it's the interesting thing in in having clients and customers, you know, on both the management consulting and and um enterprise software side. Usually, it's a combination of both. But, you know, different types of organizations all over the world, different industries, different sizes. You know, as most of us know, their challenges and opportunities are uniquely similar. Um, because most organizations, if not all of them, are made up of human beings and human beings are driving whatever those outcomes, behaviors, cultural and team dynamics that exist within those organizations, which are going to be either haphazard or by design. High performing organizations and teams that is purely by design. you know the cultural dynamics, team dynamics, values orientation that is something that is actively managed every single second of every single day.

And that as we know that leads to high trust, greater accountability, talent retention, growth and profitability, customer experience, all the incredible things. Now we work with organizations. We're not typically going in to fix some sort of broken organization. and it's more of a a good to great uh effort or post

private equity scenario, merger acquisition, IPO, things like that or just hyperrowth in general. So change comes in many forms. Uh but ultimately if I had to boil it down to one thing, it is how organizations deal with and or lead change. You know, is it a reactive uh approach to change? Is it a proactive approach to change? How do leaders engage with change at every level of the organization? uh and it's the hardest thing for organizations to master which is why the data comes back the same year over year regardless if it's deoid or McKenzie and McKenzie data is always the best as we all know they'll tell you that um but same time the data is the same year over year forget COVID and all these other things that the these all organizations dealt with um you know engagement issues and turnover issues and uh growth obstacles and you know issues with silos and alignment you before co it just exacerbated what other

problems they had in their organizations. But again, if I had to boil it down to one thing, it is how successful organizations are or not at dealing with change. You know, you see a lot of this in my first book. Um I wrote a lot about organizational transformation and that I did that intentionally to build the baseline of this organization around that and organizations fall short most of the time. And usually the data shows that about 70% of organizational change initiatives, whether they're macro or micro or somewhere in between, not necessarily fail, but fall short of meeting their intended objectives due to several key factors, but also mainly because they skip past those foundational elements of and again, we all intellectually understand these things to be important, yet we just blow past them because we're moving so quickly and we're focused on growth and sales activation and, you

know, shareholder value and the next board meeting or whatever it is that's driving us to skip past funamental things that will actually have

a massive positive impact on the financial outcomes of the organization. And those are the cultural pieces, getting good consistent feedback from the employee base, especially those people who are the closest to the execution of those change initiatives. Uh but as you get closer to the top, one of the biggest things you see is just general misalignment. not so much on this direction and strategy, but definitely on strategic priorities of how we're going to get there.

Uh, and as you go across different business units and you asked seven different senior leaders on what the top three priorities are, you're going to get typically six or seven different answers.

A thousand%. Yeah. It's one of the favorite things when you get the seauite together, you're like, "Okay, everybody write down what you think the goal is, like the number one priority of the organization is." And you will get completely different answers. Okay, now we found the problem. Let's start with that. Yeah. And having that convers and it's hilarious because like oh well the marketing guy's like oh we need to keep increase our revenue by 3%. And then this guy's like oh this one we need to cut our losses over here. We don't we our turnover's too high and this one's over like well we have to make our shareholders. I'm like okay you can't hit five different targets with one guy.

I'm like with one round. I'm like is this come on one thing. Choose one thing and you you double down on that one thing and getting that clarity on that is for anybody listening sit down with your org. Have everybody sit down and say hey what's our goal for next year? what's going to go for the the quarter after that? Let's map it all out and you will see that it's you guys are not talking to each other and and understand you're not aligned on it. And then you can get into how do you fix it and and and having those conversations, but most people aren't doing that.

You mentioned culture a couple times and it has become this word that most people don't like. They they sit there and go, "Oh, well, it's it's either too far to the left or too far to the right or it just doesn't align or just just who cares about culture? Just get it done. it doesn't matter where do you fall down on the culture conversation.

The the way organizations and teams fall short around that is making sure that every aspect of their culture hopefully again it's clearly defined when it comes to mission vision values. Again, we all fundamentally know these things to be important, but how do we actually operationalize those into our systems, our processes, daily and weekly rituals at every level of the organization to ensure there's measurable execution happening related to your highle fluffy culture stuff, all that nonsense that doesn't drive revenue or profitability.

It's like wait no actually this stuff actually is financially measurable in the organization on how we attract and retain top talent, how we create an exceptional customer and client experience. Uh how we go through uh significant transformation and growth initiatives within the organization, but also how we instill discipline. And even if accountability or other buzzwords like that aren't on your list of values, all research points to the same fact that a culture of accountability, however you want to define that, has a distinct and very measurable impact on growth, on profit, on operational excellence and efficiency. Uh again, it doesn't have to be defined as one of your guiding principles, but it definitely has to be a baseline. And that's something obviously that we learned from day one uh in the special operations training pipeline. And you definitely learn it, you know, as an operator on and off the battlefield. Uh,

and that's another thing where, uh, and again, not just my opinion. I've done a lot of research on this. Uh, and our organization works with our clients and ensuring that accountability is, uh, a number one cultural pillar because you can't have a high trust organization. Same data comes back, leads to growth, it leads to retention of employee and customer. The list goes on and on. But you can't have a high trust organization without extreme ownership. You just can't. That's why accountability is listed above trust as the two most important cultural pillars. But the priority is accountability because then organically you'll get higher degrees of trust across the organization. And then you can do more with less. You can execute with precision. And everything else seems to kind of work itself out.

Yeah. I like how you mentioned that it's measurable because people don't think that culture is measurable. It absolutely is measurable. It will change your bottom line based on how you implement your culture. So I guess the next question I have is how do you implement that culture? Because if you're dealing with a mindset of special force operators, you guys are going to deal with the cold water in Coronado. You just are. You guys have already embraced it. You're going to embrace the stock. You either this is what's going to happen. You weed people out. And as much as I wish the hiring process was a more rigid and more harsh, it is not, right? But we we deal with the fact that some people who show up in organizations, they're not going to show up at that level. And that's okay. That is what it is. We need people at different levels. But if you're building a culture of people who are not operators and maybe a little bit

softer or have different priorities, how do you build that culture where you've got some people who are way over here as far as performers and some people on the extreme opposite side with performers? What are the tactical ways that you do that? Like, hey, this is what our meetings look like. We're going to have this many meetings or this is what we're going to talk about. Because most people when we talk about values, they ignore them in most calls. So they're like, "Yeah, whatever." They don't listen. They're like, "Hey, can I can I feed my kids?" Because the organization to them is something that's not their first job.

It probably won't be their last job. So they're not going to buy into it as easily. So how do you build that so it does have that that hold and that lock in?

Yeah. And you touched on a few interesting things. Everything we do uh in our teams, in our organizations, will start to formulate some kind of culture. And again, it's either haphazard like it is in unfortunately the majority of organizations or it is by design in high performing organizations. Something that's actively managed. It's uh you know it's integrated into every single operating rhythm to your point in how you conduct meetings. Um how into performance management systems uh decision-making frameworks for managers and leaders at every level. uh but also for non-people leaders you know these types of things are put in place so that you can actually have a flatter organization you can decentralize you can create a greater sense of autonomy so let's take for example core values people can understand that they can visualize it uh let's take a typical core value let's say integrity for

example uh where organizations fall short is they list you know five or six cool core values they look great on the boardroom wall they look great to customers and they sound good yes okay integ integity and excellence and all these customer obsession and all the typical core values. Yeah, it's great. But how do you define that in your organization? Specifically define it. When we say integrity or customer obsession, what is our distinct definition of that? Document it. And then a layer below that is uh defining specifically and not just in performance management systems but defining for the entire organization how we know we are meeting the standard of integrity because our behavior will dictate standards regardless of what we've defined.

If I am if I'm behaving this way over here that's the standard not what we've defined and as leaders we get the behaviors that we tolerate. That's the baseline. And so how do we know we're specifically meeting that standard of integrity based on our definition? How do we define exceeding that standard? And how do we define missing that standard? Where are we below board? Where are we above board? And so doing that with your values, doing that with any types of uh culture manifestos or anything you've defined as guiding principles, but also same thing applies to your mission, to your vision.

And I know people start to roll their eyes. I have mission statements or vision statements. No, same thing. If you're going to have it, it better be authentic and it better guide every single decision from strategic partnerships to customer acquisition, employee acquisition, you will grow strategies, all those different things,

but integrated into every single system, every process, every cultural ritual. So that these are living, breathing things that are frameworks in your organization as opposed to just things that sound nice or look good on your website or on the wall in your office or to customers.

But I also think it's important, I agree with all of that. I also think it's really important that whoever is in the organization that the lowest common denominator can articulate it and fully understand it. If you made it so that you know the again lowest common denominator does not fully understand it, embrace it, then you have failed because then you've got a break in the chain. So when you do get breaks in the chain, how do you reward the high-end achievers like the people who are crushing it versus the individuals who are not? And you've got because you're always going to have it. There's going to be days where people perform. There's days that no people perform. But there are also going to be individuals who are toxic to the culture. There are going to be those and that's a simple answer, right? Those are the extremes. What happens when you're having someone in flux where they're decent and you kind

of value them, but they're not performing well and they're not aligning? How do you get them? Uh, again, go back to our duct tape conversation we had earlier. We can't duct tape them to the wall and they can do what we want to do. How do you get people to start performing and executing in a manner that also aderes to that culture?

Yeah. I I've found water boarding to be incredibly love it. It works really well unless you're a free diver.

Performance management tool. Yeah. Um Yeah. No, I tried both going to hell for so many reasons.

HR legal had a fit. It was It didn't work. But God, HR, you're always in the way.

It doesn't translate from special operations over to really it. Um well, you know, kind of like we talked about, you know, in this in this sort of more performance management related uh topic. uh you're making your life a lot easier when you've clearly defined all those different metrics and definitions and KPIs that associate with those defined uh cultural pillars uh if you will for the organization because then there's zero ambiguity. So we're not just measuring performance on the tactical day-to-day execution of your job function or based on your job description or whatever goals we've set for you. Uh you're based on your behavior, you're based on your values orientation. Uh, and so that is part of what you're being evaluated on every single and not just in your one-on ones and that kind of nonsense, but every single day. These are conversations, stories that are being told and you're

elevating people based on those values or you're having performance management conversations or constructive feedback conversations based on where they're coloring outside the lines of those values. It leaves room for no interpretation, no ambiguity. You're pointing to this. Okay, you're missing the standard here or you're exceeding the standard or incredible, you are a change evangelist and a culture carrier. You are exceeding the standard in every category. Uh now where we all make this mistake is that um and we love the model around radical cander. Kim Scott created it. It's a 2 x two framework. The vertical axis is caring personally. So any good leader, any good team member, you you want to without crossing barriers care personally about your

so we can elevate them. we can learn from one another. It creates a trusting environment. But the more importantly, the horizontal access is is challenging directly. So, because I care about you personally, I'm going to tell you what you need to hear and you're going to tell me what I need to hear so that we can all be in a continuous state of improvement. Not waiting for some one-on-one or some performance management conversation scheduled for next month, like right now in the moment or in a debrief or during a meeting in a group setting if need be where feathers aren't ruffled because we trust each other. And so, when you have people that have consistently been to your point earlier toxic to the team.

You need to have one or two hard conversations and then you need to eliminate those people from the organization regardless of their rank, regardless of their title, regardless of their tenure.

Tenure and rank are can often be the driving forces of toxicity because they are in. Um, now if it's somebody who you believe to be, you know, a a culture carrier, they're doing their best or they're going through some sort of transformation in their personal life,

give them the time. You know, some organizations, we have one uh client that's that actually does this well and they will

some organizations are bad at this and you know, they'll move people around, they'll hang on to people that are good or they'll move them over here, give them another career path opportunity over here. Some organizations do that so they can avoid making tough decisions and like, "Oh, we don't want to get rid of Timmy because Timmy's we like Timmy, but Timmy sucks, but I don't want to fire him, so let's move Timmy to marketing and see if he thrives over there." Oh,

put him in HR. That doesn't help out any, you know, but but when we do that authentically and through getting good feedback from team members and finding a home for someone in our organizations where they will thrive, that can work. Um but otherwise we have as leaders and I don't mean by title necessarily we have a responsibility to the team uh first and foremost and if there are people who are dragging the team down uh because if you have one person who's underperforming or toxic or typically both whatever that looks like from a performance manager standpoint it's impacting five six 10 other people other business units other departments and therefore it's damaging trust and leadership because we hang on to those people for too long. I've done it many times unfortunately not many but for all different types of reasons we hang on to them for too long

we we gain that wisdom through you know looking back and say wow I should have done that 6 months ago

or people are asking me why didn't you make that decision 6 months ago or a year ago

um and the same thing with you know clients and customers we have to make sure that we're aligned from a values perspective I mean you're nodding I know you've had those experiences I've had them for sure where we're aligned with the wrong clients wrong customers or they treat our crap. And ultimately, if you really look under the hood, how muchever money they're paying you, you're actually losing money on those relationships or you're losing money on that team member who's toxic, regardless if they're the quote unquote subject matter expert or the best in the field of what they do.

They're fishing the sea. And you'll find most of the time you find someone who's just as good or better and they're a culture carrier and they're a change evangelist and all these great things. Or maybe they're even like less expensive.

I like it when they're less expensive. My last name is Schwarz. I like it when they're less expensive. Uh, but I think there is something to that because, you know, you mentioned it earlier. Let's say Timmy is just being really, really toxic. Timmy's not affecting just Timmy. It's also affecting Suz's ability to feed his kids. And you as a leader, your job is to stand there and say, "Listen, my job is to make sure that my other employees can eat. You're physically taking away from the ability to execute right now. You're hurting everyone else around you. I have a responsibility to their families that I'm going to do this." And I think, you know, you talked about it before where you decided to quit alcohol. You know, you're leading in every action. Everything you do, your kids are watching going, "Oh, okay.

Well, you know, dad is exceeded and he's excelled in this environment. Huh, I wonder why." Because kids will ignore everything you say. They'll only pay attention to what you do. And we have this conversation in our leadership organizations as well. When I come in, I'm dressed a certain way. I act a certain way. I interact a certain way because on purpose, I want that is the the example I want to be. Now, I will adjust my example because I know there's going to come as a surprise. I'm far from perfect. Ask anybody I've ever dated in my entire life. They will tell you I'm far from perfect, but in this environment going through, hey, you know what? I'm flawed and I'm going to make mistakes, but I'm going to try to adjust those as quickly as humanly possible.

You know, you mentioned that you have a very specific organization and you consult with people. What do you do? And, you know, what does the organization do? And then what is the first thing that you normally do as far as eval when you go in when you're get trying to get you know basic information and you're you deploy the team out you need a sit rep on it when you're going through that you walk into say okay here's this company it's McDonald's they clearly make amazing food what are the what is the organization that it does and then what is the first thing you always just that's it is it culture is it what is it what is it you immediately attack

yeah it's again company's called accelerate and we are a fully integrated hybrid of management consulting ulting and enterprise software. So one of the and that is purely by design. So we spent five years as a management consulting firm also to identify uh the AI technology and software opportunities for what are these organizations spending millions of dollars on that nobody uses what do they have and they like you know what features are being adopted versus not being adopted in different types whether it's workforce technology productivity tools uh performance management systems all these different things and 5 years of in-depth work and research and getting feedback from our clients based on those resources too because often times we're doing transformation work or organizational development work and that always involves tools and resources or

duct tape getting duct tape and getting rid of old duct tape and buying new duct tape. Um, that's all that's all.

And so, um, that being said, we work in we're we're industry and vertically agnostic, but we do a lot of work, for example, in healthcare, a lot in, ironically, construction is one of our biggest industries. They just keep coming. Um, and

God bless it. Yeah. I mean, it's it's one industry that doesn't seem to be typically overly impacted by economic cycles or COVID. They just keep they keep going. And now with AI and technology, you know, just building and data centers and all these different things, there's so much growth. Uh we work with a lot of big airlines, uh hyperrowth tech companies, things like that. So all of our clients, customers are in some state of transformation, whether it's hyperrowth, pre- or post IPO, going through private equitydriven M&A scenarios, um or just trying to go through some sort of transformation to drive more operational efficiency or uh improve engagement and retention. Usually it's some version of all of that. And so the first thing we do, of course, is to go in and do a in-depth diagnostic analysis both. And that usually involves around uh discovery on existing uh operating rhythms. Um doing a culture diagnostic

uh doing executive interviews and feedback using our software tools and AI tools to really dig in and look at how aligned is culture with strategy and desired outcomes, where are the silos, where are the blockages, and just generally getting a sense from them on what are the challenges, what are the opportunities, and how are you going to capitalize on those opportunities to drive growth and change? And what blockages do we need to address? immediately in a prioritized fashion because there's always going to be a lot um to ensure that those are no longer blockages to growth and change. And so whether it's again an airline or a hyperrowth company seeking IPO in the next 24 months um usually a lot of the things that need to be focused on or executed are very similar. There's cultural elements to it. There's strategic leadership alignment pieces to it. And also just a lot of these organizations have elevated people into

management positions in the middle that have no management training, more importantly, no leadership training. They need to go away

or they go from subject matter expert or your best salesperson to VP of sales and you're like, "Holy that was a terrible idea."

Yeah. Yeah. That was I battlefield and now they're trying to lead all the other snipers. But

yeah, somehow dipped. I don't know what's happening. Yeah. I don't know why. Yeah. I took my best salesman off of the field and then and then put him in charge of all of them. I'm like, "Oh my god." I love that you say that there's some for some reason not alignment. I don't I don't know what you're talking about. I've never experienced that before in any organization ever. Okay. So, I'm going to be kind of selfish here and and and tie it to a couple things because you know there there are things there are people that you've met that um are no longer with us and they we lost some people and that were part of the teams and I want to make sure that not only do we remember them but we also remember the lessons from them. So, um, take a couple minutes here and and because it's just a selfish thing for me because I could not ever do that. Um, I'm lucky I have a torn labroom in my left arm. I I I can't

lift. So, I can't physically do that stuff on purpose. But on top of that, I I can hide behind that excuse all day long. But no, I'm a I'm a very delicate, sensitive snowflake. Uh, you know, just it's not going to happen. I don't like this.

I'm not going to leave you, but All right, we'll go. Talk to Mark about it. He he'll give you some more insight. He he he's more aligned on where you are, by the way. just I try to put this one like please don't make me uncomfortable. I've already done that. I've embraced the suck. I don't want to embrace the suck anymore. I'm good.

So do I. I was like there's the reason I decided to make the money I want to make is because I want to at least be in business class. If I'm not in business class, I have failed somewhere along the line.

So that or the plane's really small. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'd love to talk about, you know, not only the people that we've lost and to give, you know, to share them and so we won't forget them and that they're what their legacy and who they are and connection, their lessons, but also what you learned from them and and maybe even in the process of us losing them, what the lessons that you got to that makes you a better husband, makes you a better father, makes you a better operator, makes you a better, you know, leader in your world. I'd love to hear and talk about some of those guys.

Yeah. I mean, I I tend to think about this unfortunately in chronological order. Uh, you know, 20 years conflict. My first experience with the loss of a teammate started in hell week, like literally week five of my Navy Seal career

and it we lost our class leader during hell week. It was uh Thursday uh and he had had um and and the lesson here is is he was a phenomenal leader, a true servant leader in every sense of the word. He put the classes needs before his own every day, every single time, including during hell week when he entered hell week like a lot of guys do with severe pneumonia. Refused to quit. Um he was coughing up blood at every med check, which we do every four hours. Um and we don't need a Monday morning quarterback whether they should have pulled him from training, which they probably should have, but

they didn't. He was a wellrespected officer as an intel uh guy at one of the SEAL teams already, so he had a lot of good relationships, great reputation. So I think they, you know, let him stay the course, but pneumonia turned pulmonary edema and he ended up drowning in the pool.

And it interestingly when we were, you know, formally brief that John was gone, literally the CEO of Buds at the time, and this is sort of an introduction to the mindset and culture of naval special warfare out of necessity. It's not about being macho. Literally, all he said to us was, "Hey guys, listen up." We'd been waiting in the classroom for a few hours. He came in, wasted no time. Listen up, Lieutenant John Scop's pronounced dead at 1:30 a.m. He looked at second officer in command. He said, "Lieutenant Parado, you're in charge of the class now." That's all he said. And he said, "Gentlemen, get used to this feeling that you have right now. This will not be the last teammates you're going to lose."

And he said, you know, he said some things to like come together as a class, stay focused on the mission, and get the job done. And he walked out. That's all he said. And so there was no hugging, there was no empathy uh intertwined into his message and I think that was by design or just a lot skill in that category

as a leader. But then you know and then that was he was absolutely right. If that would was a movie or a book we'd call that foreshadowing. A few months later was 911 and that's when everything got real and you know I went through buds with he got rolled back but early part of buds went through buds with Mike Murphy who was postumously awarded the medal of honor for his actions as team leader during operation red wings. Another example of someone who not not figuratively sacrificed his life literally is literally sacrificed his life for the lives of Marcus, Danny, Matt, you know, and others. And so it um and that is something that just continued unfortunately to happen time and time and time again where you're seeing guys and gals willingly put the needs of the team before themselves. Willingly, not begrudgingly without thinking.

Uh other guys who've jumped on grenades, guys who've done, you know, incredible act and not just in naval special warfare across all branches of the military and living medal recipients. We have more of those now unfortunately than ever. You know, medals aren't a good thing. Metals are happen bad stuff happens on the battlefield

or loss happens on the battlefield. That's where heroism comes from. And so again, people ask you, well, who are your heroes or who do you look look up to? My only answer is the same. You know, it's the brothers that didn't come up. And you know, we carry you carry guilt, you know, for that type of thing naturally. Of course, we all do as humans with survivors, guilt, whatever label to that. But at the same time,

uh, you know, I truly believe if we were to ask any one of those individuals if they were here with us today or on this podcast right now, if they had any regrets, I would venture to say they would their response would be not one, you know, cuz they again when we got to they were purpose driven. Their lives had meaning. They were sacrificing with something very intentional in mind. It wasn't an accident. Uh and so uh those are things we can learn without applying death to it of course or loss to it. The same thing goes into being purpose driven and ultimately the happiest most successful people in the world every pursuit they do in some fashion is for something greater than themselves.

And that is what drives deep emotional connectivity. It's what drives resilience in the face of adversity. It's what drives whether it's you know week one of buds or you know overcoming massive obstacles while you're trying to build a startup you know which every single day there's either something good that's happening or something bad that's happening but maintaining focus. So there's one last piece on that is you know that you learn from

you know the brothers and sisters we're talking about or just people who are naturally very resilient or who've worked on resilience. They do two things simultaneously. They maintain a long-term emotional connection to what they're trying to accomplish or the relationship they're trying to build or maintain or um the cause that they're getting to while simultaneously not just accepting the obstacles or the pain or the suffering or stress, anxiety and adversity, but leaning into it.

Really leaning into it ince every day because they know it's part of the journey,

right? I think it's you know what what your commanding officer did what you know when co came in said get used to it. Let's get going. And it was the idea that this this isn't going to stop. This doesn't mean you don't reflect on it later, but right now that makes this combat ineffective. If we sit here and we stop and we have this moment, I'm trying to train you that in the future when you're downrange and you're, you know, someone's trying to put holes in you, it's going to happen. And if you stop at that moment, you're putting not only yourself, but everyone else at risk. And I think

people don't understand that. I think they look at people that have been in your world and the people that I've been blessed enough to to call friends and and to coach and and be part of that world and get them through some of their survival guilt and and some of the PTSD is helping them understand that there is a time and a place to address it. There is a time where you have to sit with it and whatever you run away from it, it's just going to come back bigger. So, whatever your your fear is, run towards it. It's your shoreline. It's your way home. And but there's a time and a place.

Amen. And I I I I don't think people embrace it enough. and don't understand that enough because they view it as being callous or being indifferent. And it's no different to make it less dramatic that if you're playing football and a guy tackles you and you get a Charlie Boris, deal with it after the play's over. You've got to keep running the play. Just Yes, your leg doesn't work so good right now. It's okay. It will work again at some point. Let's go. Just, you know again

there you go. There you go. So, um I I think those are important factors. And I also think, you know, something you mentioned,

you know, Yeah. So, yeah, they they're willing to to die, to get that done, and to sacrifice the ultimate sacrifice. And most people like, oh, that that's the ultimate sacrifice. Yeah, but are you willing to are you willing to, you know, you're willing to die? Are you willing to live? Are you willing to change how you approach how you you show up? Like you talk about with your, you know, drinking. How am I showing up for my kids, my wife, my partner? Um, am I being the best version of me that I can be with my my knowledge of where I am right now? That might change down the road. I might decide that down the road I want to transition into being a flamingo that dances around with a rhino. to bring that back again for some weird reason. whatever it is. Um, you know, going with it and doing the best you can with what you have with that purpose with every step landing the other footstep and going from there.

Man, I I there's so much value in what you do above and beyond because again, I get that the everyone's like, "Oh, SEAL, that's a chapter and that's great, but I think what you've done on a professional level and the people you've been in service for and how you're helping out those is as impactful and to do it on such elite status is is very challenging to do, especially with the transitioning out of of what you did beforehand. it it's not a you know a buddy of mine worked for the IDF and someone came up we were at the range and we're you know being professional hole punchers at this point and he comes up he goes have you ever the stupid question you always get from these guys and he goes have you ever said have you ever killed anyone he goes we don't make cupcakes and he goes like that but that doesn't define me of who I am I am I am a father I am a husband I am there are there is far more

than me than just this and I think uh for the people who do have the honor of meeting the gifts that you guys are the operator and the special forces and the people who are in service to our country. The only thing I would ask is don't just see them as that. Yes, you you you know you guys did that and it's something I will never understand and I'm in unbelievable just just humbled and just in awe of what you guys have done but you know when you talk to other people like you know we you know our friend Mark he's so much more than what he did with that when he did in the teams. Mark is a gift of a human being and how we approach his spirituality and awareness and all that.

There's so much value on that. Yeah. Couldn't you teach me how to build my kit differently?

But I don't I don't care. There's so much. So the the stuff that you're bringing

the p the business and the proven things that you do over and over again is just it's all inspiring as much as the other stuff is. And um if people are trying to track you down and they're like, "Okay, if if Charles is willing to give this much praise to someone, you know, how do they track you down? How do they learn more? How do they get access to the new book Allin? I want a copy. So I I expect a signed copy very soon, Um How how do we how do we how do people get a hold of you? How do they connect with you?

Sure. Um I'll go in reverse order. The book All-In comes out on December 2nd. Obviously, you can pre-order it now on any of your favorite retailers. So, Amazon or whatever whatever retailer you prefer. Again, the title is All-In: The Pathway to Personal Growth and Professional Excellence. Uh I'm on LinkedIn, of course, so find me on LinkedIn Instagram Brent_Gleason and our company website is uh accelerate.ai, AI, but that is spelled E X L R the number 8 AI.

I'm going to pick on you for that later. So, as well you had to spell it out. Absolutely. It's like E A L Batman symbol for Sanskrit. What are you doing?

I heard it when I was when I was saying it. All right. I I appreciate you coming on. Thank you so very much.

Thank you, brother. While many leaders are distracted by shiny objects and complex strategies, Brent Gleason proved that professional excellence is achieved through laser focus and an all-in commitment built on a foundation of daily rituals. Stop practicing the fine art of mediocrity and start implementing the concise, measurable systems that transform your identity and drive your remarkable results.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "ALL IN: Navy SEAL Secret to Proven Results - Brent Gleeson"?

Charles Schwarz (Host), Brent Gleeson (Guest), Mark (Guest), John Scop (Guest), Michael P. Murphy (Guest), Kim Scott (Guest), James Clear (Guest).

What is "ALL IN: Navy SEAL Secret to Proven Results - Brent Gleeson" about?

Brent Gleeson, a Navy SEAL combat veteran and bestselling author, discusses the concept of "going all in" as a foundational principle for achieving personal growth and professional excellence. He shares insights from his military background and entrepreneurial experience, emphasizing the importance of commitment and resilience in all aspects of life.

What is mentioned in this The Proven Podcast episode?

32 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Embrace the Suck, Hell Week, 911, Artificial Intelligence, IPO, Accelerate. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "ALL IN: Navy SEAL Secret to Proven Results - Brent Gleeson"?

The episode runs 1 h 2 min; the transcript is about 13,042 words in 139 timestamped sections.

More from The Proven Podcast

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.