In this episode of The Navy SEAL Mindset, I explore the multifaceted nature of leadership through the lens of failure and success. We'll discuss the critical role failure plays in shaping effective leaders and the importance of learning from these experiences. Drawing on personal anecdotes, including a pivotal moment during 9/11, I illustrate the essence of leadership in times of crisis and uncertainty.
Key Takeaways:
- Leadership is an art form, honed through experience and often through the lessons learned from failure. Embrace your failures as opportunities for growth. - The Navy SEAL Creed emphasizes the significance of leading by example in all situations, a principle that guides me both in and out of service. - A leader's responsibility is not to have all the answers but to seek solutions and make decisive actions. It's about supporting your team and owning the decisions you make. - Real-life leadership extends beyond formal roles; it's about how you lead in everyday situations, including your family and community. - I share a personal narrative from 9/11, highlighting how unexpected challenges test our leadership and the importance of adaptability and resilience in such moments.
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WANT TO THINK LIKE A NAVY SEAL AND UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL?
Discover the 5 SEAL Secrets to Success
A short read with powerful tactical lessons to change your life
In this episode of The Navy SEAL Mindset, I explore the multifaceted nature of leadership through the lens of failure and success. We'll discuss the critical role failure plays in shaping effective leaders and the importance of learning from these experiences. Drawing on personal anecdotes, including a pivotal moment during 9/11, I illustrate the essence of leadership in times of crisis and uncertainty.
Key Takeaways:
- Leadership is an art form, honed through experience and often through the lessons learned from failure. Embrace your failures as opportunities for growth. - The Navy SEAL Creed emphasizes the significance of leading by example in all situations, a principle that guides me both in and out of service. - A leader's responsibility is not to have all the answers but to seek solutions and make decisive actions. It's about supporting your team and owning the decisions you make. - Real-life leadership extends beyond formal roles; it's about how you lead in everyday situations, including your family and community. - I share a personal narrative from 9/11, highlighting how unexpected challenges test our leadership and the importance of adaptability and resilience in such moments.
--------------
WANT TO THINK LIKE A NAVY SEAL AND UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL?
Discover the 5 SEAL Secrets to Success
A short read with powerful tactical lessons to change your life
https://www.5sealsecrets.com/
Willian Branum:
Welcome to the Navy SEAL Mindset. I am your host, William Branham, and this is episode zero two two. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you guys about failure. Failure as a leader. Leadership is something that we all do, whether we like it or not. There is a quote in the Navy SEAL Creed. And it says, We expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders, I will take charge and lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. I will lead by example in all situations. That's actually not the whole creed. I actually have it right here, I will read it again, because I believe it's that important. We expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders, I will take charge. Lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. I will lead by example in all situations. I will never quit. I persevere and I thrive on adversity. Leadership. In order to be a good leader, you have to be a good follower. And I think I've talked about this in other episodes of the podcast. Leadership is a, it's kind of a weird thing. There's a bunch of books about leadership out there and they're all right and they're all wrong. Leadership is not an exact science. It's more like an art form and you rarely do it right the first time and you often do it wrong more times than you do it right. And that's okay. Failing as a leader is not a bad thing, as long as you learn from your failures. So I can tell you that I have failed over and over and over and over again as a leader, as a leader in the SEAL teams, as a leader amongst my friends, as a leader of my family, as a leader of my children. And I have failed. And I continue to fail. And hopefully I continue to learn from those failures. But I remember, I think, gosh, I can, right now I can remember about a thousand different failures I've had in the SEAL teams and mistakes I've made. Everything from not really owning the leadership position that I was in and saying it was, someone else made me do it. It's someone else, someone else, our leader told me to punish you. Not me saying, I am telling you that I'm punishing you because you screwed up. I can remember very specific examples of that, but I want to talk about one example of leadership where I actually did it right. I think, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think I did it right surprisingly, and I want to share that with you. So, September 11th, 2001. I was teaching sniper school and I actually happened to be the senior instructor on staff at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. I'd had probably a grand total of about 8 years in the military at that point. And, um, the guy who was actually in charge of sniper school was off in California and he left me in charge. Again, about approximately 8 years of experience under my belt as a U. S. Navy person. And we got up that morning. We worked out at 5 a. m. like we do every morning. We finished our workout. We cleaned up. We had breakfast. Guys, uh, packed their lunch for the rest of the day. They packed their bags, their books, their bullets, their guns, ground pads, spotting copes, everything else. And headed off to the rains, I don't know, around 8, 8. 30 in the morning. And You know, about 10 or 15 minutes later, the instructors head down to the range. It takes about 20 or 30 minutes to get the range set up for the students to shoot all day. The students go down and set everything up. So myself and one other instructor jumped in the truck and we started driving down to the range. It's about a 10 or 15 minute drive down. I believe NPR was on. And the guy on the radio talked about an airplane crashed into the World Trade Center. And I thought to myself, what kind of idiot flies an airplane into the World Trade Center. It's a gigantic building. How would you even, how could you not miss that thing? And then I thought, well, maybe it was some like midlife crisis. Some guy just wanted to commit suicide and go out in a blaze of glory. And then the radio announcer started talking about, or the DJ started talking about the, the bombing of the World Trade Center back in 1989, where Al Qaeda drove a U Haul truck full of demolitions and parked it in the parking garage underneath the World Trade Center and set it off. They tried to drop the World Trade Center back then. They talked about the foundation had recently been Fixed. And so there shouldn't be any issue from this airplane flying into the World Trade Center. Then the announcer, the DJ talked about, he just got word that it was a commercial aircraft that flew into the World Trade Center. And I turned to my buddy, Jeff, the other instructor in the truck with me, and said, Hey, Jeff, why don't we head back to the classroom and check out what's really going on with this airplane World Trade Center thing. So we turned the truck around, we were almost to the range. We drove back to the classroom, we turned the TV on, and we saw the first tower on fire. We listened to what the news commentators were saying, and I made the call to bring the, guys back from the range so they could call home. Maybe they had some friends or family that worked in the World Trade Center, or maybe some of their friends or family were on that aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center. Again, this was super weird that a commercial aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center. Kind of surreal. And as the guys are walking in from the range with their bags and bullets and guns and spotting scopes and everything else that they needed for the day. We watched the second plane fly into the World Trade Center. Immediately we knew something weird was going on. This was not normal. Then they started talking about the, airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Where the passengers took it over and fought back against the terrorists. And we also started hearing word about the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. We continued to watch. We continued to listen to the news. And then we watched the first tower fall. And then we watched the second tower fall. And pretty soon, the guys in the class, the older guys in the class. So remember, I'd been in the Navy for approximately 8 years at that point. And the older guys in the class that had been in for 18 years, some of them were working for me as junior instructors or student instructors. They all kind of got together and they came to me and they asked me, what are we going to do? And I, my internal monologue was like, why are you asking me what we're going to do? I have no idea. You guys are all senior to me. You all know more. You have more experience. You have more life experience. You have more time in the military. You should know what to do. I have no idea what to do, but I didn't say that to them. That was just my internal monologue. And we talked about kind of some actions forward and I asked them for their feedback. What do you guys think we should do? Some people said maybe we should load up and drive back to Virginia Beach. Some guy said, maybe we should drive up to New York and help with the recovery effort. And I said, okay, I, I'll take all that on board. Let me go call the headquarters. So, I went in the office, shut the door, left everyone outside to, to continue watching TV, and I called the headquarters and I said, hey, this is us up in sniper school. We saw what happened to the World Trade Center. What do you want us to do? Do you want us to drive up to New York and help with the recovery effort? Do you want us to Come back home to Virginia Beach. What do you want us to do? And I remember that the command master chief on the other end said to me, he said I want you guys to continue training Because we're gonna need your skill set very soon. Soon after that we started deploying to Afghanistan and later to Iraq And we have used those skill sets ever since. The moral of the story here is, as a leader, you don't always have to have the right answer. You don't always have to know what to do. I asked for feedback from the people in the class. The guys that had more experience than me. What do you guys think we should do? And I took that as advisement. So that I can make the right decision, so that I can present that to the, to my leadership. A leader doesn't always know what to do, but a leader needs to know how to find the answers. Leaders need to make decisions and start moving forward. Again, leadership is not a, it's not something you're born with, it's a skill that you learn. Leadership is about failing, failing often, and learning from those failures. Leadership is about supporting your team. When you are in a leadership position, the buck stops with you. So I'm going to ask you guys, how are you leading your team? How are you leading your team? How are you leading your family? Do you make excuses? Do you blame others? Because I can tell you from experience, recent experience, I want, as a leader, I want to make excuses. I want to blame others. That is the wrong thing to do. That's the wrong thing for me to do. That's the wrong thing for you to do. You may not be getting ready to deploy into harm's way, but you are a leader. You are a leader. If you're listening to this, you are a leader in everything that you do. If you're watching this, stop waiting for someone else to step up and lead. I want you to take the bull by the horns and take charge. Again, the Navy Seal Creed says, we expect to lead and be led. And in the absence of orders, I will take charge. I will take charge. You will take charge. I will lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. I lead by example in every situation. We expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders, I will take charge, lead my teammates, and accomplish the mission. I lead by example in all situations. So, everything that you do, you are a leader. You're a leader to your family, you're a leader to your business, you're a leader to your coworkers, you're a leader to your friends. Your actions are being watched. Make sure that the people who are watching you, the people who you are leading, make sure they receive the right example. You guys stay awesome. Don't forget to get naked. Be a freaking great leader. Don't be afraid to fail at leadership though. Learn from those failures. Lean forward. Own it. Do it. You guys stay awesome. Don't forget to get naked. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. Peace out.
