Navy SEAL Mindset

How Leadership Culture Drives Elite Teams to Victory

• William Branum • Episode 29

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Welcome back to The Navy SEAL Mindset Podcast. In this episode, we’re diving deep into the power of culture, communication, and taking action like a SEAL. I’m your host, William Branum—retired Navy SEAL sniper instructor, speaker, and coach—and today I’m calling myself out and getting back to what matters: delivering the Navy SEAL mindset straight to you, no more excuses.

After speaking at a Self-Storage Mastermind event and recording two back-to-back podcasts, I was reminded of the importance of consistency, leadership, and living what I preach. This episode is a wake-up call—to me and to you—about overthinking, setting the standard, and why culture always wins over strategy.

Key Takeaways:

  • Stop Making Excuses: If I can admit I was slacking, so can you. Get back on the path and keep showing up.


  • Communication is a Lifeline: In combat and in life, the ability to clearly communicate can be the difference between chaos and mission success.


  • Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast: You can have the best plan in the world, but if your team (or family) lacks strong culture, it won’t matter.


  • Train Like You Fight: From the SEAL teams to everyday leadership, the way you prepare is how you’ll perform under pressure.


  • Take Care of the Team First: SEALs live by “team gear, personal gear, self.” Apply that mindset to your business, relationships, and community.


  • Be the Culture Driver: If you’re not intentionally shaping the culture in your organization, someone else is—and that’s a risk you can’t afford to take.


Whether you’re leading a business, raising a family, or trying to level up in life, this episode is your blueprint for building resilience, leading by example, and creating a culture that wins—even when the plan doesn’t go perfectly.



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Welcome to the Navy SEAL Mindset. This is episode 029. My name is William Branham. I'm a retired Navy SEAL sniper instructor and a bunch of other stuff. Entrepreneur, speaker, coach. like I've said in previous episodes, I do All the things I do today are things I swore I would never do, so I just put a post up on Instagram the other day. It said never say never because you never know there could be a Navy SEAL hiding somewhere inside of you. so for this episode, I've been remiss in my responsibilities of sharing the Navy SEAL mindset with you. And so here we are, we're back at it again. And, we will not have any drops. I'll have a podcast for you every single week. Because that is my responsibility and, and I failed in my responsibility. I was making excuses about life. pretty much exactly the opposite of what I ask all of you to not do. Don't make excuses. Don't come up with reasons to not do something. Find reasons to do something. And you are my reason to create this podcast. So, hopefully you guys are getting, some pretty epic information out of it. Things that will change and influence your life for the positive. And if it influences your life for the negative and stop listening and, find someone else who can give you different information that will make your life positive. But if my podcast is making your life positive in a, in any way, shape or form. Subscribe, like, all that good stuff that all the YouTubers do. And this does go up on YouTube, so like and subscribe and all that good stuff. I love that when my 11 year old daughter tells me to like and subscribe when I'm talking about doing a podcast. She says, Dad, don't forget to tell em to like and subscribe. So, anyway, hope you guys are doing awesome. Again, my name is William Brown. I'm a retired Navy SEAL. And, this is episode 029. I just rambled a whole bunch for almost two minutes. So, here we go. Let's kick this thing off. So, last week One of the things that lit a fire to start doing podcasts again, as I spoke at an event at the, what is it called? It was a self storage mastermind. I had no idea that this was an entire industry, everything from finance, to, to realtors who specify in self storage, to masterminds, to, different communities who are promoting and building. there are people who focus specifically on making those, self storage facilities more efficient. So they have a greater ROI, better, return on their investment. And, so I just got to meet a room full of epic individuals and, I feel like I'm a better person because of everyone that I got to meet. And I'm looking forward to hosting many of them out in the SEAL leadership challenge in Temecula, California on February 18th. So if you guys are interested in the SEAL leadership challenge, go to SEALleadershipchallenge. com. I think actually it's backslash something else, but anyway. I'll, we'll put a link in the show notes and there will be future, leadership challenges out in Temecula and potentially in Florida in the future at a buddy of mine's facility. And I'm also in, in talks to potentially build a facility somewhere in Texas, so centrally located. Pretty much anyone who can go. But anyway, here we go back to the show. the whole reason for this podcast is, you know, as I was in that mastermind, I was interviewed for two different podcasts in one day. So one was, very much in person in the, the makeshift studio in the room that we were doing The, mastermind in and, they set up cameras and microphones and all that good stuff. and the host was very well informed about me. He knew, really great questions to ask me. And so I just delivered whatever I needed to deliver. And then, the guy who actually. Hosts the podcast, he has his own podcast, he was asking me about communications in the SEAL teams and how important that was and I started laying it out, you know, when you're in a gunfight, there's only three things that matter, you need to be able to shoot, you need to be able to move, and you need to be able to communicate, and those are the only three things that matter, it's like a triangle, if you think about a triangle, you have shooting on one side, moving on one side, and communication on one side, it's like this rolling triangle, not one, aspect of being in a gunfight, that shoot, move, or communicate is more important than the other. It's just which one is on top is the most important thing at that time. So communication is the top three things to do in a gunfight. So communication in pretty much anything you do is important. And this is a form of communication, me delivering my message to you. And when you receive it, you go and do something about it. So anyway. I did two podcasts. One of them, the second one was literally on the guy's, Doug is the guy's name on his iPhone in the lobby of the hotel where the mastermind event was happening. And I was like, you know what am I doing? Why am I wasting time? getting all this stuff ready, cameras and other cameras and microphones, just pick up my phone. And record a podcast. It is literally that simple. When you overthink things, you overanalyze this, you get this paralysis analysis thing, and you never actually deliver the message or the thing that you want to do. So stop screwing around. I was screwing around. I was not living up to my own message. And so my message to you today is as my dad used to say, do as I say, not as I do, but screw that. Do what I'm doing. Go out and create some epic stuff in your life. You're going to have setbacks, that's okay. Live with it, suck it up, and move forward. That's just part of life. Learn from your mistakes, and then move forward. anyway, I want to talk about culture in an organization. Some people are like, what? Culture is stupid. I read a quote Not that long ago that I thought was super interesting because I didn't truly understand it right away And the quote was written by Peter Drucker and it says culture eats strategy for breakfast Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I didn't truly understand what that meant Even though I was preaching culture is the one of the most important things that you can do as a leader If you're not driving the culture in your organization Then someone else probably driving it and it's probably not what you wanted to be But if you think about culture in an organization and you think about strategy, I was, you know, as I thought about that culture eats strategy for breakfast, I realized that it doesn't matter. You could have the most epic strategy on the planet. Strategy is super important, but you could have the most epic strategy on the planet. But if you have a team that has a mediocre culture and you go against an organization has an epic culture and a mediocre strategy, the company or organization or family or whatever it is that has an epic culture is going to beat the company or organization that has a mediocre culture. Even though the mediocre culture has an epic strategy that they should win, they should absolutely win. But they don't have the culture to back it up. They don't have the get it done attitude to execute that culture violently. It goes back to that saying that a 70 percent plan executed violently is way better than a 100 percent plan executed mediocre or whatever the words are. We can execute things when the culture that you live and die by, you live and breathe by, that you drive in your organization. And when I say organization, I, it could just be me and you going for a walk. We could be an organization. we could be having dinner today together. are we combative? Are we competitive? are we trying to, be kind? What is our culture? what is our core value? What are the things that we want, that we instill in ourselves and the people who are around us? that's what I mean by culture. And if you're a parent, what is the culture you're driving into your children? What is the culture that the school that they're going to driving into your children? You should know what that culture is. so when I started thinking about this episode and what is the culture in the SEAL teams, what culture makes us successful in the SEAL teams? And it doesn't matter if it's the SEAL teams or any other, special operations group, we all have a very similar culture. so I'm just, I just made a list, leaning forward, being aggressive, that's culture being the best in the world at what we do. That is the culture that we're trying to live by every single day. some slogans that we have, train like we fight, there are no shortcuts. We train like we fight. this is something that we've learned in blood. Where, actually I'll use some non CO case studies. So I remember hearing some case studies on police officers in the field where they would go in and maybe they'd have a traffic stop and they would interlace their fingers like this and put their hands so that they're presenting a non aggressive stance to you know, someone who they pulled over or traffic stop or whatever it is. And then the person got out of the car and pulled a gun on them and they. They actually weren't able to pull their hands apart to grab their gun because they got stressed out and they freaked out right here because they knew like bad stuff was about to happen to them and they were, they ended up being shot with their hands clenched together like this. Another scenario was, and we talked about these in the SEAL teams, which is, why we, again, train the way we fight is, we had a police officer, he had a revolver and. In training, because he didn't want to pick up the brass off the ground, he would, shoot his gun and then when it was time for him to dump the brass out, the empty casings, he would open up the revolver and drop the brass casings in his hand and put them in his pocket, then pull out new rounds and put them in the revolver, close the barrel, Or the cylinder, and then start shooting again. unfortunately, that same guy got into a gunfight with a revolver, and then he was training in such a way where he, when he was in combat, when he was in a gunfight, as a police officer, he went to dump the brass out of his Revolver into his hand because that's how he trained and then he was found dead with a handful of empty brass Rather than not caring whether the brass went on the ground Putting in new rounds so he could get back in the fight or taking cover. He fought the way that he trained And so in the SEAL teams, we, we train the way we fight. So we, anytime we do training, we're doing it as if we're actually going into combat is that there's real bad guys on, on the other side of whoever we're fighting, in that training scenario, you show up early, always look for a job. This is a culture thing in the SEAL teams always look for a job. So for, I don't know, on a mission and we're clearing a building. And, you've cleared your space and there's nothing else. There's nothing, no evidence in there. There's no bad guys. There's no, whatever you get back in line and you look for a new job. Maybe there's a whole bunch of stuff going around. Maybe you find something like, a scenario where maybe. No one's guarding this location. Hey, let the leadership know, Hey, I'm holding on this position because no one else was guarding it or whatever. You're always looking for a job because things get chaotic and the leadership isn't there to micromanage you. They're there to get the mission done and they need you to help in any way that you can show up and help. And sometimes they don't know who's doing what because they're so busy focused on their own job. And so your job. as a shooter or as a SEAL or as a whatever, is to come in and find a job, find what needs to be done. There's so many things on a combat mission that need to be done that we're not telling you what to do. We're not micromanaging, like, hey, come and help, like, there, there's no scenario in combat in any mission that I've ever been on or will ever be on. Where dudes are going to show up and they're not going to be looking for a job. They're not going to be like, Oh, I'm kind of tired. You know, I walked six miles with body armor and everything, you know, all this gear on. They're not just going to sit on the couch once the target is secured and take a break. Maybe ask the people who own the house if they can, we can have some tea or something. Although that does happen where, the guy who we came in to get. While we're interrogating, his family actually makes chai tea and gives it to us. When I first started drinking that, I was like, oh my god, they're gonna poison us. But the culture over there was, you're in my house, I'm gonna take care of you, even though you're there to potentially take me to jail. So that's a different level of, kind of culture. We're in there, interrogating the man of the house. And then they're bringing us, they're taking care of us while we're on target because we're in their house. That's culture. Super interesting, different, a different, avenue of culture that I hadn't really thought about until right now. so when we finished training or we finished a mission, the first things we do, we take care of the team equipment. Then we take care of our personal equipment, and then we go and take care of ourself. It doesn't matter if you're coming off of a, a dive, where it's freezing cold water and you're mostly hypothermic hypothermic, You stilll have to take care of all the team equipment, then you take care of your personal equipment, and then you can go take a hot shower. That's the culture we have in the SEAL teams. That's a culture that almost every special operations organization has. Team gear, personal gear, self. So take care of the organization, then your stuff, and then you take care of you. That doesn't mean that you don't get taken care of. You for sure need to find time to take care of yourself, but there are other times where you need to take care of the team, the organization. First, then, you take care of yourself and you make sure you do a really good job of taking care of yourself. We'd, no man left behind. Never in the SEAL teams have we ever left anyone behind in combat. Now, there was a scenario, the lone survivor, Marcus Luttrell, all that other stuff, we'd, no one, he didn't get left behind. We actually sent two helicopters in to get him and his team. One of those helicopters got shot down, the other had to go. land, not where they were going to get shot down because they did get shot at. And then we sent people in to go find Marcus, but we didn't leave him behind. We were like, Oh, sorry, we're not going back there. We obviously went back there and rescued him. And there were other scenarios in Afghanistan where we had to go back in and get the people who had been shot or killed or whatever. So. If you're in a leadership position and you're running an organization. And again, I see organization is a broad brush. It could be a group of friends. It could be an actual business that you run. It could be your family. You should always be leading your family and you should always be driving the culture. You should be setting the standards. Everything that you do. It doesn't matter if it's again, if it's your, you're going to the grocery store. What are the standards that you set? If you go to the bathroom, this is one of the fun things about traveling and going to different events. Go to the bathroom, use the bathroom, wash my hands, and the bathroom sinks are a disaster. And I actually started doing this before I heard anyone else say it. But I've heard some other people out there. Talk about doing this is, I'll be in the bathroom, wash my hands. I can be in the airport. It doesn't matter. And I'll take a handful of paper towels and then clean up all of the sinks and then throw that in the trash. all the water just splashed all over the sinks where it just looks like a disaster. I clean up the sinks, then I wash my hands again, and then I throw that, all that paper towel in the trash, and people notice what you're doing, they see what you're doing, and especially if I'm the keynote speaker of an event, and they see me come in and do it, they say something, they notice something, and then that creates a chain reaction where the next handful of times I go in the bathroom, the sinks are almost pristine, they don't look like a bunch of Seventh grade dudes were just in there, just taking, splashing water in their pits and on their face because they forgot to put on deodorant. They leave it better than they found it. That's culture. So no matter what you're doing, in any part of org, any organization you're in, if you're not driving the culture of that organization, it's probably going to be something that you don't want it to be. So you should be leading and you should be driving that culture every single day. I like to bring up things that are not specific Navy seal things but you know everything that we do in the seal teams the mindset that we have comes from somewhere else and One of those things I, I like to pull from Napoleon Hill because I like his style of writing. I like the way that he thinks. And one of the things that he talked about, one of the big things he talks about is a mastermind group. and Napoleon Hill, he liked to surround himself with like minded people, people that are success driven and who have a shared goal. And the idea is that the synergy created by a group under a shared purpose. Creates momentum and success beyond the individual effort. So the culture of your organization should be group driven, not individually driven. If you're trying to make your people better, don't try to make the individual better, make the group better, help have everyone help one another. That is epic. That is how you drive culture in your organization. So if you as the leader are not driving the culture in your organization Someone else is probably driving that culture and it's probably not what you wanted to be Hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the navy seal mindset again. My name is william brannum. I am your host This is episode 029. You guys stay awesome and don't forget to get naked and I will talk to you soon. Boom.