S5:E7🎙️ Live with CDR William C. Spears, USN (Multi Tracks Audio)

Hi, I'm John Maxwell. When the top companies in the world are looking for trainers, speakers, and coaches, there's one name that stands above the rest, and that's Maxwell Leadership. Our certified team members have gotten proven results for companies all over the globe, and our reputation, I'm proud to say, is second to none. Some of our members have risen to the top of their profession, including the one you're going to meet today. I proudly introduce you to my friend Bob Fabien Zinga.

Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ, where we help you lead with purpose and succeed with impact. If you're ready to grow into the kind of leader others want to follow, this podcast is for you. If you're determined to elevate your success and leave a lasting legacy, this podcast is for you. As my mentor, Dr. John C. Maxwell, reminds us, everything rises and falls on leadership. Our goal is simple, to inspire you, challenge you, and equip you with insights that can transform the trajectory of your leadership journey. Welcome aboard to Welcome to another episode of the Leadership and Success Podcast with Coach BZ.

You can never communicate too much why we're here and why we're doing what we're doing. And if you're insincere in that communication, then they're going to detect that a mile away. You've got to really understand yourself why we're here, why we're doing what we're doing, and you've got to believe in it. And if you don't, then you probably shouldn't be there. No one ever wants to talk about morale. If I go to a bunch of sailors, a bunch of soldiers, and I say, gentlemen and Ladies, I'm here to talk about morality. They're all gonna just, their eyes are gonna roll. Tell me how to be disciplined. Tell me how to be industrious. Tell me how to be productive. Tell me how to be self-obedient. Isn't it valuable sometimes to be angry? Like, wouldn't that make you better at fighting or better at handling a situation that you should handle appropriately? Like, if someone is threatening my family or someone is threatening my organization, shouldn't I be angry about that? And I would say absolutely.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us for another episode of the Leadership and Success Podcast. I am really glad you are here and we have a very, very special guest for you. I am really excited about this. And before I introduce him, just to remind everyone, so our moment of gratitude, which we do every time we meet. Uh, an earlier episode today, I was saying that I'm really grateful to be alive in 2026. Today is only the 4th day of this brand new calendar year, and I really look forward to everything we are going to be able to accomplish this year. I know 2025 was pretty tough for a lot of people, but I think things are getting better. And I do believe that our country, America, will get back on track. And it is really a blessing to be an American and to live in this country, right? The home of the brave and the land of the free. So I'm so grateful for that. All right, let us know what you are grateful for. Please, uh, type it in the comment. And also let us know where you are joining us from, uh, what city. And, uh, if you're outside of the US, uh, which, uh, country. And I also, uh, if you have a question for our guest Commander Spears, please go ahead and type it in the comment and we are going to answer live. Okay, let me, uh, try, uh, my best here to introduce our guest. So Commander William C. Spears, U.S. Navy, is a Navy submarine warfare officer. I think there's always— I don't know, I know I couldn't do it. I couldn't be a submarine officer. There is just no way. It's so, so small. I mean, you, you've got— we need people to do it for sure, kind of like the Marines to me. Someone has to do it, but this is just not, not me. But anyway, he has served as an executive officer of a ballistic missile submarine, and now he works at the Pentagon in the office of the Secretary of Defense. So he's also a respected military thinker and the author of Stoicism as a Warrior Philosophy. We're definitely going to be talking about this insight on the morality of military service. So Will represents the rare warrior philosopher, a leader who understands that command is not just operational but also deeply moral. So what I think we're going to be covering today is why command is a moral act, not just a positional one. And how stoicism applies to modern leadership, war, and decision-making. What leaders must retain when operating under hierarchy and pressure, but also how to lead with discipline, integrity, and conscience in gray zones. So I really believe this is going to add a lot of value for you, whether you are a junior naval officer, enlisted, or a member of the tech community here in Silicon Valley. All right. So without any further ado, would you please help me welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast, the one and only Commander William Spears. All right, BZ.

Hey, thanks a lot for that intro, and I'm really grateful to be here, man.

Yeah, we are really, really excited to have you here. Maybe just to get started, what is something that you are grateful for today?

Man, that— so that is an incredibly deep question. So yeah, I was— you did warn me about it. Um, but that, I mean, that's, that's, it's, it's kind of almost impossible to, to give, to try to answer it without it sounding trite, you know. But let's just pick one thing, okay? Let's pick air conditioning, you know. And, and I mean, if you look at all of human history and the amount of human history for which, you know, air conditioning has been available and how much that impacts quality of life and the ability to live and the ability to think and the ability to, you know, operate in certain climates and everything, and And that, then the point isn't air conditioning. The point is that's just one little tiny thing of all the things that are around us. You know, we live in palaces relative to the way that things are.

That is so true. Although there are places, I don't know if you've been at the Naval War, uh, I mean the Naval Postgraduate School yet in Monterey, for example, because it's usually temperate weather, they don't have air conditioning there. They have heater, but they don't have air conditioning. So very, very few times that's happened often. It gets pretty cold. And, uh, now we have this Indian summer and all of that, but Those days I really wish my home there would have had air conditioning. But again, for the most part, the weather is always very nice and it is really great. But also my background, where I come from originally, the Congo, there definitely the majority of the people there don't have air conditioning in their home. Like even just running, drinking clean water, right? And that's a big, big problem. Whereas in America, pretty much everywhere you go, you can trust the water.

Absolutely, take it for granted. Yeah, we take so much for granted.

For granted. That is so true. But of course, my two kids who are American born and raised here, sometimes I wish, well, maybe I should send you guys to Mexico, some third world country just for like a week or two. And when you come back to America, I think you are going to kiss the ground. But yeah, you are true. Air conditioning may sound like, oh, maybe it's not such a big deal, but it actually could be a very, very big deal for a lot of people still in 2025 on Earth today. So anyway, thank you so much for sharing that. Is there maybe something about you that most people may not know about when they first meet you?

Well, I'm from Louisiana. I think that I'm probably the worst example of a country boy you could imagine. I'm from small town Louisiana.

Are you into college football at all?

I'm not. I'm like the only one from Louisiana who's not particularly into college football. Because I live in Tuscaloosa.

Alabama for like 15 years. And over there, it's like God, football, and everything else.

Yeah, yeah, it is a religion there.

I'm sure the name Nick Saban, I guess you guys call him Nick Satan now, means something to you, doesn't it? But anyway, I remember I was a student at the UA when Nick Saban left Louisiana to join UA, and they said he was a traitor and all kinds of things. But anyway, he's like Gaston II, Bear Bryant. He's earned us a lot of championships. Alabama loves it. But anyway, that's not either there, but at least you root for the US Navy against the Army, right? I think the Navy just won by 1 point, I believe.

Yeah, it was a good game.

Yeah, it was a pretty good game. I guess a win is a win, right? Even if it's only by 1 point. Every time I have a soldier here, I give them a hard time about the Navy and Army football game. But anyway, maybe you can Give us briefly kind of like your leadership journey, how you got to become Commander William C. Spears, U.S. Navy, especially a submariner. That's something.

Sure. So I enlisted in the Navy right after graduating high school, and I went into Navy nuclear power program and I trained as a nuclear electrician. So basically a technician to be, you know, destined for nuclear-powered ships. Before I ever made it to a ship, I, uh, I immediately applied to every officer program I could, and I got accepted by the Naval Academy. They're the one— they were the ones that called back.

What was your last enlisted rank?

Uh, an E-4, a Petty Officer Third Class.

Yeah, me too. Cool.

Yeah, so I went to— I went to the Naval Academy prep school for a year, and then, and then on to the Academy. And then I, you know, I, I wanted to go back into submarines from there, or in the nuclear power world. I, I got attracted to submarines while I was in, in enlisted in the, in the nuclear power school curriculum there. And so I went back into that. I majored in mechanical engineering in order to facilitate that and basically did a submarine career from there. And so I, you know, I started off on a fast attack submarine out of Guam and then I, you know, I went to Naval Postgraduate School for shore duty and then did a tour as a department head as the weapons officer of the attack submarine that went out of Pearl Harbor. Yeah, and, uh, and then it's been the career since then. It's been a wonderful career.

That is really, really amazing. I must tell you, the first time I was deployed, actually it was a big day. Uh, they ran out of space, no, in, uh, officers' country, so they got me where they, they kept the, uh, enlisted Marines. So they had, uh, those, uh, beds kind of, no, on top of each other, like I think 4, 4 in a row, and I was kind of like in the middle bed and I couldn't sleep that first night. I was like, man, I feel like I'm in a casket or something. I, I, I can't breathe. I mean, but you know, as you know, when you are deployed, it's, you know, 24/7, high, high temp and all of that. Eventually my body just got tired and I got just used to it. But I can't just imagine being on a small submarine ship for like no more than a day. It's like, how do you guys do it?

You get used to anything. Wow, you get busy. The, the, the, the Uh, the main trick of it is that you just got so much to do that you don't have time to, to think about, about like, oh man, I'd really like to go outside. Like, you know, you're not going outside.

Crazy. Because I am pretty sure the entire Navy suffers because of you. Because I know when you go to boot camp, right, they're pretty anal about how you keep everything clean, everything in its place, and all of that. Doing your bed and all that. I think it's just training to, to, to be a submariner, isn't it?

Yeah, probably. I mean, there's, there's not a lot of place to stick stuff. You don't, you don't bring a lot of junk with you underway because you don't know where to put it. You know, it's gonna be, it's gonna be in your rack with you.

I am very, very grateful for people like you who can do that because I, I just can't. I mean, uh, just, there is just no way. So like me, you began your Navy journey as an enlisted sailor. I didn't know you, you were a Petty Officer Third Class before accepting your permission. Third class. Third class, yes. E-4, I did the same thing. So how did that experience being enlisted kind of shape the kind of officer and leader you eventually became, you think?

I think it had the most effect as a junior officer. And you know, after you've been in for a while, the differences kind of smooth out and even out between everyone. But as a junior officer, I said, I think I was a lot more sensitive to a lot of the perceptions of the enlisted guys. And that there's a lot of things that, of the officer-enlisted dynamic, that can, can be kind of taken offensively by enlisted guys sometimes. And especially if the officers are just blind to it. And a lot of junior officers will be really, really blind to certain things and not realize how classist certain things look or appear. And being sensitive to those things, like a good example is kind of in the wardroom, you know, you eat the same food, the crew eats the same food, but the officers officers, you sit down in a wardroom and it gets served to you by the culinary specialist. They come out and, and kind of emphasizing to the other officers like, hey, these, these guys, they're, they're not servants, okay? They're not doing this because you've got some kind of moral worth. These guys are, are skilled tradesmen and they're exercising a skill. And so whenever they hand the plate, you know, they, they set the plate on the table a certain way, you know, they're trained to do that. And, you know, they've got to entertain dignitaries and stuff like that. Your ship might be a, you know, a a place where, you know, diplomacy is happening. And yes, like, this stuff is important and this stuff is a skill and you need to respect it as such. And basically kind of emphasizing that with that throughout the wardroom and letting that kind of perception color the other, other ways of interacting with the crew. And, you know, one of the things I kind of tell junior officers now is, you know, if this were, if this were a story or if this were a narrative of some, some sort, the officers, we're not the main characters here. Yes, we're not, we're not interesting. Like, like, if you, if you look at, like, everyone's diverse and everyone's got their cool background story and everything. Like, if the officers, like, we're— our background stories, there's a lot less variation there.

True.

You know, we're, we're more broadly, you know, there are exceptions, but we're more broadly, uh, kind of a kind of similar socioeconomic backgrounds and stuff like that. Like, what's the main thing that, that distinguishes the officers is the education. But there's nothing magical that happened whenever I went from being a enlisted guy and then I encounter Shakespeare and differential equations. Like, that doesn't I'm like, I'm still the same dude. Yes, yes. So I think the sensitivity to that was, uh, affected my, you know, kind of perceptions and interactions with the crew.

That is really, really powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. Quite insightful. What about the chiefs, which I really believe they do run the Navy? They truly are the anchor. E-7, E-8, and E-9. Me, not having started as an E-1, which I am assuming you at least have one Good Conduct Medal, which officers don't get But enlisted, I know. So yeah, uh, that's probably one of my favorite medals when I, when I look at everything I've earned so far. But anyway, uh, how do you think people who come right out of the academy— I'm sure maybe they have some training because technically the chiefs, they still, you know, mentor junior officers, ensign, lieutenant, JG, and lieutenant. Most of my career, I think I've seen most officers, most, uh CEOs and XO have treated their chief just, just right. But there was just one coming after I had— he really was very, very bad at it. And, uh, I didn't understand why, because those chiefs, they really have a lot of knowledge and experience. And they— I think that's really, in my opinion, the difference between, you know, our Navy and all of the navies from, uh, most other countries, right? Because in other countries, like in Russia, for example, if you get rid of all of their generals, I mean, they're going to be completely lost. They wouldn't know what to do, what, what to go have a mission. Where in the US Navy, I like you can get rid of all of our general, you know, our chiefs, they're still going to be able to do the job and accomplish the mission. But anyway, have you noticed anything different on our JEOs, especially those coming straight from the Academy, interact with senior enlisted?

I don't think so. I think that, you know, I know during the Academy experience, we were often taught like, hey, you need to rely on your chief, you need to listen to your chiefs. It's almost to a degree that I think, I think may be a little bit dangerous if we, if we set up the, set the expectations too high. Because you, you may build junior officers who are not necessarily equipped to identify or recognize if, if their chief is wrong. Or it kind of almost becomes a, you, that junior officer has arrived when they have developed this, the level of maturity to kind of recognize, like, "Hey, Chief, I understand your recommendation. We're going to do this instead." You know, but The— I honestly, in my career, it really wasn't until I was a department head that the chief really— I came to rely on them so much in my officer duties. So, you know, I'm sure it's the same way on surface ships to an extent. But, you know, as a junior officer, it's a lot more— a lot of where you're doing the leadership is kind of as a watch officer leading the watch team or the, you know, in the reactor plant or, you know, you know, conning the ship around. And then, but the, as managing the division, that was, that was a lot more of a solitary endeavor and kind of as an assistant to my department head. It was when I was a department head, you know, trying to, you know, getting my butt handed to me every day by just the job and the level of responsibility. And that was whenever my, my chiefs really, really were, you know, saved my butt a lot. And I really, I really, and a lot of times, you know, whenever I would say something and they would pull me aside and say, Hey, sir, you know, I wouldn't have said that. You know what? You're right. That was a dumb thing to say. Yes. And thank goodness that they would tell me such things and I could get better.

You know, it's truly the anchor for me. I am so grateful for my chief. That's why, you know, I think my chiefs, they really helped me out from E-1 to E-4 and then O-1 through O-4. So when I became a senior officer, I'm like, well, I still need to be mentored by this chief because they really, really know what they are doing, or at least listen to them very, very seriously and consider every everything they, uh, they say, uh, because they definitely know how to take care of the white hats and all of the, uh, enlisted folks, make sure everything is going according to a plan and everybody's taken care of. So let me ask you this about being in a, in a sub. Was, um, because you've served in some of the most demanding, uh, Navy environment, so what did submarines teach you about yourself that no classroom ever could?

Well, in the classroom, you can— it's a— it's ultimately still a solitary endeavor. You've got group projects here and there, and you got to study together and all that. And that's just kind of a surface— that's based— barely scratches the surface of the level of interdependence that you experience once you get to the ship. Ultimately, in the classroom, you're still, uh, you know, your work ethic can get you through the day, and, and you can, you can study and ultimately overcome it and gut it out, and as an individual. And then once you get to the ship, like that does not work anymore. You know, it is not about you anymore, and it is absolutely about your ability to, you know, to leverage the, the intellectual firepower of the people around you. And, um, I'd say that, you know, that, that's like the primary lesson. There's a couple other things. One of them is, is kind of, uh, sleep deprivation will make you dumb, you know, be able to reach, reach that level of exhaustion where you're like, I cannot think straight, and I can't, I can't, I don't even know my left from right right now, you know. And, and And the kind of the other thing is the degree to which being in an emotional state, being upset, angry, you know, or embarrassed or whatever, all those kinds of things, how much those can affect your decision-making ability. And you experience such things whenever you're in the stress of a shipboard environment to a degree that I never like approached in the classroom. And the, you know, the conflation or the combination of you know, those emotional states and the exhaustion states with having to make decisions and think thoughts and give orders of very high consequence and seeing how those things come together, I think was very important in leadership development and recognizing how, OK, we need to keep our emotions in check. We need to make sure that we're rested, you know, or otherwise we're not going to be safe and how those things play together.

So insightful, really, from my own opinion, the Navy, but looks like all of the other branches of the military too. We really are leadership organization, and we just happen to have a bunch of hardware. Now, you as an executive officer for a ballistic missile submarine, what kind of was your leadership philosophy when it, when it came to not just, not leading your, your mission, but also the men and women who were assigned to your command?

Well, uh, I mean, there's, there are a lot of, a lot of elements of that philosophy. One of them, I think, is that you can never communicate too much.

Yes.

You know, and if I, if I had to repeat the same message over and over and over again, you know, that I'm probably doing just right. You know, like there's— you can't repeat the thing too much. And generally trying to— as an XO, you know, you're organizing the day and the plan and where, you know, when we're doing what is kind of the XO's bailiwick. And so I was very, uh, it was very important to me to be efficient and not waste time, not have unnecessary meetings, and, uh, keep kind of keep the trains on the track and the trains running on time. Because that has all these kind of follow-on effects in terms of morale and, uh, people's ability to plan their day. And, and, and, you know, sailors, you know, do not mind hard work. They, they will move the amount mountain for you if they think it's productive and it's useful and it's appropriate. But they cannot stand having their time wasted, you know, and that's a— it's a very disrespectful thing to waste people's time. They will take that personally if you don't appear to value their time. And so making it clear that I value their time and I want their time to be used appropriately. And, you know, there's a consistency there and a believability whenever I, you know, I frame it as You know, it's not just because I care about you. It's because I care about your productivity, because I care about the ship. I do not want to waste your time. And the sailors say, yes, thank you. Thank goodness. You know, we agree. I'm like, you know, so, so that, that, that I think shaped my, my leadership philosophy a lot.

No, that is, that is really key because it just shows respect. And if everybody will definitely appreciate that. Now, for those who are watching who are not in the military, so when I say executive officer, we also call that XO, basically. That's the second person in charge of the entire submarine or command or unit. So that's a very, very big deal, especially on a sub. You really operate right at the center of strategic deterrence with all of America's enemies wherever you guys are deployed. And it's top secret. But how does one mentally and morally carry the weight of missions whose consequences, you know, could be existential? How did you do that?

Well, the, the strategic mission is, is a very serious and very, uh, kind of somber mission. And until you're, until you're involved in it, there's, there's kind of this veil of unreality to it, you know. Uh, you, it, it's because I, I went through, you know, a couple of tours as a fast attack sailor and never, never was on a ballistic missile submarine. So I didn't really have that kind of exposure to the strategic mission, the strategic deterrence side of things. And up until I was involved in it, it kind of always was in head is like this big red button that it's just like, it's a big deal. It's the big red end the world button. Just don't press it, you know. Why, why is that hard? Well, there's this veil of unreality. Well, whenever you're right in the middle of it, it's very, very real, you know, and it's very, very serious. And the people who are involved in the professionals that are involved in that mission take it very, very seriously, uh, and, and they need to. And it's a, it's an extremely serious deal, uh, and so So some people will say like, okay, well, we've got all these weapons, but we're never really going to use them, right? It's like, that's a gross— that's what in the nuclear power world we call a gross concept error.

Yes.

Weapons are used every single day that they shape the decision space of the Vladimir Putins and the Xi Jinpings of the world. Okay. Every day that those guys have to, you know, weigh in, in their calculus and their boundaries of behavior, have to weigh in that you've got this strategic enterprise.

Not today, maybe tomorrow. But not today, you know.

And, uh, and, and that is in use. And it does— and no, it's not satisfying, and yes, it is paradoxical. And but, you know, I'm sorry, it does make us a lot safer. And there's a lot of, um, you know, stability, geopolitical stability that follows from these things. And it's— and it's— it is an imperfect and paradoxical system. I'm sorry, but it has been for 50 years or 70 years or wherever you want to draw the line.

Yeah.

Uh, but it's a very somber and important Um, and, uh, I think an important part, you know, I'm, I'm a moralist. I think through the moral stuff. And, you know, that's not everyone. A lot of people are just like, oh, I'm gonna just focus on the job, you know. And, but if someone tells me, oh, don't really think about it, then I'm like, oh, well, I'm definitely gonna think about it now.

Yes, me too.

But, uh, once I got kind of into on the inside of the curtain, uh, of going through you know, understanding the targeting process, understanding the planning, strategic planning, and the authorization processes.

Yes.

How well developed and how seriously those things are taken.

Yeah, all of the SIGCOMs. It's incredible.

Yeah. And having that knowledge now, I have the confidence that if I receive a valid and authentic order, I know confidently that that is it is the right thing to do to follow it.

Yes.

And, and that is an important, that is an important part of, of the development of a leader in the strategic mission. So, yeah, you know, but I definitely am thinking about the moral, the moral questions there because they do weigh on me. They're important. It's important that people think about it.

Yeah. But because, you know, many leaders, even here in Silicon Valley in tech, you know, they talk about accountability, but, but really what I think people outside of the Navy or the military don't understand is really, like you say, it could be a matter of life or death. I mean, this is very, very serious business, right? So really few people really, uh, live accountability at the level that you did. So how do you define responsibility when mistakes are not survivable, when it could mean the end of not just you but your entire crew?

Well, I think that that, uh, that interdependence of the crew and the, the stakes that are on a submarine, that, that the submarine world has to deal with, are really one of the, the, the strengths, uh, that, that creates the culture that generally submariners like and want to come back to. And, uh, the, the, the degree of seriousness of any kind of casualty, the degree of interdependence of how much every human on that ship ship needs to know exactly what to do and where to go and how to, how to follow their procedures if there is an emergency. I think that, that level of interdependence creates a sense of, of self, you know, of value. And, and like when I have a new sailor that is struggling to adapt and, you know, they're, they're, they're not learning, they're, they're, they're not fitting in, they're they're, they're struggling, they're, they're thinking about trying to quit and how they can get out of it and everything. What I want to do is get that guy qualified as soon as possible and standing watch and doing stuff where he's feeling other people depend on him. And especially if I can get him to the point where he's teaching other people, yeah, they'll start to see, they'll start to recognize their own value and their own importance and how much everyone else is depending on them, how much it's going to hurt if they, if, if if they leave.

That is powerful.

Yeah, it doesn't always work, but it works more often than not. It definitely, I think, is one of the strengths that we have, is that level of interdependence.

Yeah, I guess as the commanding officer, the executive officer, sometimes, you know, you kind of have to weigh in, right? You do have a mission to accomplish. It has to be accomplished. That's a priority. But you also want to take care of your people. And sometimes Sometimes, you know, so people, even some of the best people you have, you know, for whatever reason, they may say, no, I don't really want to stay. I want to do something else. So you still have to respect that, right? But I guess the question I have for you, how do you balance? Now we say mission first, people always. Yeah, that is true. But sometimes, no, there might be like a conflict between the mission, what you need right now, and then what some of your members of your crew may need. Individually. How do you go about handling it for the best? I guess we do everything for the best of the neighbor, but also making sure that you truly care about your sellers too.

Well, you recognize— I think it's important to call out and basically articulate that if we're not accomplishing our mission, it's going to suck for everyone. Everyone's quality of life will suffer if we're not able to, you know, if we're failing our inspections, if we're unable to get the ship, uh, underway, if we're unable to keep to the schedule of our own fault. Such things are going to, uh, summon a lot of help to our ship, and, and that's going to make everyone miserable, and it's going to make everyone— whatever quality of life we might have been preserving, yes, uh, is gonna plummet. And I think there's a lot of value in kind of articulating that because the crew knows you care about the mission. OK, they don't need to be told you care about the mission. And everyone says we care about the sailor. But, you know, the sailors, you know, do they believe that? But if I can point out where the consistencies, where taking care of the, you know, I recognize that taking care of the sailor supports the mission and taking care of the mission supports the sailors. That's believable. Okay, that, that is not going to set off everyone's BS detectors to the same degree that me saying like, oh, we're all a family or some idiotic thing like that.

Yes. Wow, that is really insightful. Now, for the junior officers who are listening right now who aspire to command, in your experience, what do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of command?

Well, the— okay, the first thing I have to say is like, I have not had command, you know, I have not been in command, but But, you know, as I have moved up in rank, I have observed of myself in my own personal experience and of my COs, I think a huge misunderstanding is the idea that you stop making mistakes. Like there's, there's this trope that like, oh, as a junior officer, you can just nod your head and you're going to make all these mistakes and everyone's going to be forgiving of it. And then, you know, as you move up, you don't make mistakes anymore because obviously you'll just be fired. And, you know, the COs don't make any mistakes. XOs don't make any mistakes. That is totally like backwards.

Okay.

So what happens is as you move up, more and more of what you're doing is making decisions. OK, you know, as a junior officer, you're doing a lot of studying and everything and you're managing paperwork, you're department head, you're planning, you know, but the percentage of your time that is spent making decisions, just like a greater portion of the— your 24 hours of a day becomes devoted to decisions as you move up. And if I— when I go from making, you know, one decision of consequence a day to 10 decisions of consequence a day to 100, you know, I'm going to make more mistakes. It's just a fact. It's just statistically the fact that I'm going to make a ton of mistakes as an XO and as a CO. Maybe not grave ones that, you know, would, would hazard the ship, you know, that I would be removed very quickly in that event. But, you know, just interactions of day-to-day of like how, you know, I talked to a sailor and I, you know, I was gruff with him when I shouldn't have been or he didn't deserve it. That was a mistake that might ruin that guy's day. That might make him a crappy watchstander now. Because his mood is screwed up, you know, because of some mistake I made. So being able to deal with that and, and account for those mistakes and say, you know what, that's not how I should have handled that particular situation. I should have, you know, had a different plan. I should have had a different priority, whatever. And being able to continuously learn from making those mistakes, like, you don't, you don't just like graduate from that. Yeah, being a junior officer, it becomes just more important, you know. And, uh, and it doesn't mean I'm gonna go in front of the crew and constantly flail, flog myself and say like, oh, you know, I'm sorry for having a bad plan of the day or something. But, but maybe it's appropriate to say like, hey brother, like, I did not interact with you correctly yesterday. Let me tell you why, you know. But I, you know, that's, that's not how I do business. I just want to let you know. And, you know, we'll, we'll work on that. And, uh, but, but being able to record, you know, that's the misconception, is the idea that you just graduate making mistakes. Totally not true.

Yes, that's so true. Uh, I had another submariner, retired in 2005, I don't know if you know him, Commander Tony Grayson. But anyway, great sharp guy, he's a tech CEO now. And one thing he said during our interview, I think it was for season 4, episode 130, I think. But anyway, one thing he says, when you make mistake, right, there are two types of mistake. One is like, like you're driving a and you may fall into a ditch or something. That's recoverable, no problem. Everybody makes mistakes, so everything's cool. You just learn from it, you move on. But then sometimes you have to, you hit a pole and then that's really catastrophic and there is really not much we can do about that. So you absolutely have to avoid those mistakes, you know, and not make as many mistakes as you want getting into ditches and stuff, but learning from it and not repeating the same mistake over and over again. But definitely do not drive into a pole because and that may be the end of your career. But anyway, I thought that was kind of insightful.

Yeah.

But also it's true that you haven't been a commanding officer yet, but correct me if I'm wrong, but in the Navy, basically each unit, ship and command, they really have free command billet, right? There's the CO, the commanding officer, the XO, and then the senior enlisted leader.

Yeah, the chief of the boat is what we call that on a submarine.

Exactly. So it is definitely being in command, you are in charge of the entire crew. And the mission that's powerful. It looks like we have our first chat today. No, actually, no, that's someone from Twitch. Most people, they don't pay attention to what we're saying. All they do is play games, but sometimes I want them to listen. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about stoicism, ethics, and the warrior mindset, which is really, I think, what your book right here, which again, I recommend everybody to get, Stoicism as a Warrior philosophy. This is really, really, really, really good. Let's unpack this just a little bit. So your book, it really challenges both pop stoicism and shallow leadership thinking. All right. So what problem were you trying to solve when you decided this book needed to exist?

So I discovered stoicism while I was at the academy through the writings of James Stockdale And but at the time it was kind of like this, just this private thing. It wasn't, it wasn't like anyone talked about it, and it had not blown up on the popular sphere. And it was like 10 years later that it kind of exploded in popularity due to, due to a few, a few, you know, popular writers that, that, uh, figured out they can make money selling books about Stoicism, and it took off, you know. And it's a great philosophy, and, you know, there's, there's a lot of value to be derived from it. But whenever that happened, whenever it kind of exploded in the popular space, I kept expecting someone is going to write a book about Stoicism in the military. Someone's going to put out some like, you know, Navy SEALs, how, you know, they use the secrets of the Stoics to be super awesome or something, you know. And it's like, I hope no one puts out some stupid, you know, about, about this because it's a, it's a very deep and layered you know, multifaceted philosophy that I think could be, uh, often is misunderstood. And I think I would be good at articulating it well. And no one ever published that book. And so I, I ultimately—

wow—

you know, just started working on it. And, uh, and I wanted to articulate the morality of a warrior and the morality of warfare through the lens of Stoic philosophy and be reference-based while doing it, you know, to be authentic and to actually deal with the original references. And that's part of— that's my nuclear training speaking there, is like, I want to know what the book says, you know. I'll care about your opinion after we look at the book, you know. And so that's kind of the approach I took.

That is really insightful. And, uh, what did that process teach you?

Well, I mean, it taught me that I totally did not understand Stoicism nearly as deeply as I thought I did, you know. Whenever you go try to teach something, you're gonna— that's whenever you really, really become to understand it. Yeah, I was like, I thought I, I thought I got it, but I totally didn't get it. Uh, or at least I didn't get it to the, the layers of depth that is there to be learned. I also, you know, like, just the process of writing a book while managing a Navy career, uh, that, that was a huge, uh, endeavor Insane. Well, it wasn't quick, okay? You know, like, I mean, I've been working on this thing for like a decade. Like, like, it wasn't something like I just, I just suddenly had the time to do it. And it was like just kind of picking away little chips at a time, you know, abusing my library card at NPS and then, and then at the War College later.

Well, that is really powerful. That's another reason why I really wanted to, to have you on the show, because especially when a junior officer, you really don't have a clear idea of, you know, what you— where you can take your career. I think, you know, you know, sometimes the Navy has a need for you. We need this and we need that. You're gonna do this and that. But many times, especially the more senior you become, you get a lot of leeway of what you want to do, uh, which, uh, community you, you want to join, or the billet you are going to go for. But I think it's really important for J.O.s to kind of know, ah, it is possible, right? You can be a submariner but also be, you know, a, uh, successful offer or share your story. Now, thanks so much for sending me the advanced copy of the book. When I read this, there's only one theme I see throughout and something you talk about is integrity is not binary. So, it's not zero and one. So, can you unpack what that means for leaders facing morally gray decisions today?

Yeah. When I say integrity is not binary, That's, you know, I actually put that together in an essay that I wrote when I was a department head that, you know, it's on my website. You can, it's like a, it was a proceedings article. But the idea there is that in our training and development, we, when we talk about integrity, we treat it like it's just this thing that, you know, obviously, we have integrity. We all have it, you know, because if we didn't have integrity, you would be a bad person. And we wouldn't want you here. And it's just like this, this, this black or white thing that everyone must have. And if you don't have, you need to fix yourself immediately. And we would— we're really loath to admit that we don't have perfect integrity. An individual doesn't have perfect integrity. But I think that we do a huge disservice to the people that we're developing whenever we refuse to admit that, you know. And, and, and the thing is, is we want to be uncompromising there. We don't— we And, you know, admitting that we are, we all have imperfect integrity to some degree is tantamount to, you know, being compromised or accepting compromise, where we would all very much like to believe that we're uncompromising. But, you know, the fact remains that no human being is perfect. And by admitting that there are degrees, there are shades of gray in, in the level of integrity that an individual can have and that an organization can have, we're empowered to improve it. And we're empowered to treat it as a standard, just like physical fitness or formality or anything else. That's what I encourage is like recognize that your organization's, your organizational culture of integrity is a standard, just like formality, and it can be improved. And there are techniques to do it, such as the way you do inspections, the way you communicate, the way that you communicate things that, you know, truthfully communicate when you can, can't accomplish what you have been asked to do, and not to ask people to do things that you know that they can't truthfully accomplish. All those kinds of things affect your organizational level of integrity. And I, you know, I think that's important. It has so many ripple effects.

Uh, yeah, that is quite, quite insightful. No, I, I, I really like the, the way you, you took it. Now, stoicism does emphasize control over ones' own responses, right? Not external event. So how does that philosophy kind of hold up in environment like a military where, you know, you have orders, hierarchy, and lethal force intersect?

Well, I think, I, I think it holds up better than any other discrete philosophy out there. As insofar as any philosophy can be considered a warrior philosophy, Stoicism is it. You know, Stoicism does it better than any one. Now, that doesn't mean it's perfect. I do not, I do not suggest that it is. Uh, it has its flaws. I point them out in the book, or what I think are some, some limitations, uh, to the philosophy and why I don't identify as a Stoic. You know, I, I'm an eclectic. I, I basically take the ideas as I encounter them, and if I, if I agree with them, then I agree with them. You know, I'm not gonna try to believe something that I, I don't necessarily believe, uh, intuitively. Uh, but the— as, as far as discrete philosophies go, it is absolutely conducive to the military service and the degree to which it cultivates those virtues that you want in a warrior, such as fortitude and wisdom and, you know, calm under pressure and all those things.

Yes.

And it's not just about controlling your emotions, you know, or suppressing them, or even just controlling your responses. It's, you know, identifying virtue and identifying being what you want to be and, you know, and why you want to be that and taking the correct actions to do so, which are all things that you want in a warrior.

That is really powerful. One more question I'm going to ask about the book. You do engage directly with that tension between obedience and moral agency. So where should a warrior kind of draw the line and how should leaders prepare their people for that reality?

Well, there's no easy way. There's no easy way. Out, okay, to just when I should obey and when I shouldn't. And it's kind of a new thing in history that warriors, you know, down to junior enlisted guys, are taught to disobey unlawful orders. And that's a good— that's a very, very positive development. And so whenever you, you know, you go through ethics training at the, you know, as a midshipman or you're in boot camp, basic training,, and you say like, well, I've read about the My Lai Massacre, and, you know, I, I would— I, I wouldn't want to be a baby killer. I don't want to be a part of anything like that. And they say, okay, well, that— those are manifestly unlawful orders, you know, don't worry, that would never happen because you would be, you know, you know, you're supposed to disobey such orders. And all of that is true, but that doesn't necessarily scratch my itch completely because it, uh, it kind of like doesn't acknowledge the possibility of orders, receiving orders that are legal and yet are immoral, you know.

Yeah.

And so kind of the, the point that I'm making there is not— I'm not going around telling people, hey, you should just willy-nilly pick what orders to obey, uh, and I'm not encouraging anyone to disobey orders on moral grounds rather than legal grounds. I'm telling you that they will, okay, because they're human beings and they're thinking moral All right. And so kind of the thought experiment is, is if I said to some soldier, you know, hey, hey, soldier, I need you to go bayonet that baby over there, you know, and he's going to say, sir, that, you know, that's an unlawful order. And I could say, OK, roger that. But look, Congress just voted, OK, right here. It's legal. It's now legal. Bayoneting babies is the law. You know, that soldier is still going to say, I'm not going to do that. You're going to have to find someone else. I'm just— I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let you do that.

And be prepared to be court-martialed too. But yes, absolutely.

And okay. You know, and the kind of point there in that thought experiment is that the warrior continues to be a thinking moral agent. And it's not just like that's an unavoidable consequence of the fact that we have human beings and not robots. That is desirable. Okay, it is important that the warrior continues to be a thinking moral agent and continues to recognize that and identify that about themselves. And so, and kind of, I get into the theory behind all that and how the morality of warfare works, the morality of obedience and lawful orders versus, you know, illegal versus immoral. And, and, you know, the line's going to be different for different people, but it's important to recognize that. And it's important to cultivate leaders who have a strong sense of moral agency.

That is so powerful. Sorry, I was looking, I thought I had it here, but I can't find it. Oh, here it is. I knew I had it here. I read this book once a year. Have you read this book, Gates of Fire?

Oh yeah, it's a classic.

Yeah, it's pretty impressive, especially the story about the king. I guess the last question I'm going to ask you before we go into our last segment, it's about the future of leadership and warfare, especially with with technology. Right now everybody's talking about artificial intelligence, emerging tech, and all of that. So as tech accelerates and distance from the battlefield increases with all of the technology we have today, what worries you most about the future of decision-making in war?

Well, I am, you know, I'll kind of tack a little bit differently. A lot of people are very worried about the speed of decision-making, and the degree to which all the pressures lead us to become increasingly reliant on automated decision-making.

Yes.

What I can say is like all the moralizing about that is way shooting behind the duck. Like, like where we're at in warfare is just way ahead of that. And there's lots of people thinking about that, lots of people worrying about that. I am not as worried about that. I ultimately think that, you know, the algorithms and the AI is still ultimately a decision-making tool. You know, it distills information quickly. What I am more worried about is the impacts of AI on literacy writ large and how that is going to impact the moral development of our leaders. I, you know, I more broadly, I worry about literacy, period. You know, declining literacy is precisely what what species-wide moral decline looks like is declining literacy. And you, we're in it. We're living it. And the world of AI and large language models and ChatGPT, I think, is very threatening. I don't know, I have no idea what to do about it, you know, but I think it's very threatening to literacy writ large. Because, you know, academia definitely does not have their arms around it. And why would anyone, you know, write a paper whenever I can have ChatGPT do it? And why would anyone read a document when I can have it, you know, spit out a summary? And then I can go— and, and, you know, everyone's going to feel morally justified on and doing so because they're trying to survive. And I've got advanced thermodynamics over here, I'm trying to survive. And, you know, I've got this, uh, Shakespeare essay over here. Well, I'm going to focus on the dadgum thermodynamics and maybe not develop as deeply as a human as I otherwise would. You know, and I think that that has negative ramifications that are very difficult to measure.

Yes.

So that is what I worry about.

That is definitely a problem now more than ever before. I really couldn't believe, you know, such technology could create such challenges. And you are correct. And I love your honesty. You don't know all of the answer. Neither do I. But if you could just think outside out of the box. What one idea might come to mind how you think as a society we might be able to handle this? Do you think maybe with, I don't know, AI legislation maybe? Or I don't know, I have no idea really, but just—

I'm skeptical of legislative solution. I'm just skeptical of such things in general. I think, you education models need to— I don't think that any of us were really happy of the education models as they existed anyway, you know. So maybe this is the catalyst to, to really change the way that education works and happens. I don't have the slightest idea of how they should go about it. I am not an educator. I have no, I have no professional expertise there. But I think it definitely needs to evolve from, you know, whatever we think is normal and right in terms of how education works.

Yeah, because one thing that did bother me too, right, I I have two daughters, but my kids, they really don't know how to write, write the way we are used to. They don't teach that in school anymore. No, just— so there are definitely a lot of skills that I think the next generations are just not very good at. And just as a country in general, you know, STEM, science, technology, especially math, American kids are just not doing very, very well. And that's very, very worrisome just for our national security in the future. And even the great majority of American universities is really foreign people who are doing all of the master's degree and PhD in tech, technology, and science. But anyway, again, there is no solution. I don't know what the solution is, but it's definitely something as a country we can—

Read books. People need to read.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. But of, I mean, this is the other thing too, like the attention span of this new generation, Gen Z and beyond, it's like microwave now. They can't hardly stay for like 1 minute on a TikTok video. Within 30 seconds they have to go to another thing. It's like, you know, you need to like calm yourself down, you know, think, focus. And but yeah, but it's just completely different than what has happened before.

I mean, it's not just them. It's hard for me to read book now. You know, like, when I have to treat it— and the way that I'm able to actually read a book now is I treat it like a workout. You know, I'm never gonna, never gonna just read for fun because there's so much more other stuff to do. You know, I have to say, like, all right, if I don't read for 30 minutes today, I'm a slob, and I'm just gonna have to do it, just like, like going to work and in the weight room. And otherwise, it's just not gonna happen.

That's a very, very good way to look at it. Okay, for the last segment, let me ask you this. What is the greatest lesson you've ever learned so far, just in general, in leadership and in life? What's the greatest lesson?

I think the appeal to coherency or the importance of coherency and eliminating contradictions. It's a very ancient idea. It's captured very well. Every time I sign a book, I write this little phrase in Latin that translates to, "That which is honorable is useful," and comes from one of my favorite philosophers who's not a— he's not a Stoic, but he's a Stoic adjacent, a guy named Cicero, who's actually a very important political philosopher. But Cicero took Socrates' idea that Socrates 500 years before Cicero, is going around doing the Socrates thing, asking these like just impossible questions and that like no one can answer, and making everyone look foolish. Like, oh, you say you know what is good? Well, what is good? You know, what makes, what makes an act good? You know, that's the very, very Socratic thing to do. And, you know, but the, the dialogue where he talks about it, it, you know, comes to the idea that that which is both honorable and useful is good. Well, Cicero basically took that idea and said, well, we know that, but if we really think about this, we know that that which is honorable is useful. If it is truly honorable, then it is truly useful. And if it is truly useful, then it's truly honorable.

Yes.

And the corollary to that is that if it is not honorable, it is not useful. And that, I think, is a very powerful way of summing up the idea that your, your ideas, your thoughts, your words, and your deeds should cohere. They should work together. And it kind like, like what I was talking about earlier of, of like, I value, you know, I value the, the accomplishing the mission to support the sailor and supporting the sailor to accomplish the mission. Coherency. If, if there is a, a contradiction somewhere in what I'm saying, everyone's going to detect it a mile away, you know. But if what I'm saying is consistent with what I'm doing and, and what everyone knows my priorities are, then it's a lot more believable and it's, it's gonna— every— everything's gonna work together, you know.

That is really powerful. Actually, yesterday I was in another podcast that talks about coherency. One question that came up, uh, can you differentiate between being coherent and being a person of integrity? Coherency and integrity, are they overlap or work together?

No, I think that they— I think that they are, uh, they do work together. And the way I describe it in, in the book, I think that this, this is a helpful way of differentiating between honor and integrity, actually, because the military often uses honor honor and integrity, you know, as interchangeable and they mean the same thing. Well, they kind of don't. Like, they can— when the military uses those things interchangeable, they're using them both as synonymous with honesty.

Yes.

And, you know, there's a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram, but, uh, you know, integrity is coherency between thought, word, and deed, whereas honor is more about, you know, acting as as if I were being, you know, I had an external moral witness. Acting in accordance with my own internal moral witness is honor, as I describe it, you know.

Yeah, I think one of my mentors said, right, whatever you do in the dark when nobody is watching, just think of your grandma. What would she say about what you are about to do? And that usually keeps people on the right track, in my experience.

It's a very, very old idea. Yeah, you know, like the ancient Greeks were talking about this, and, and basically they had a word for it that I, you know, I talk about. And we don't, we don't need to go into Greek terms here, but the, uh, that, that is, it was almost like an emotion to the Stoics specifically, is the caution about, uh, about doing something, you know, worthy of censure.

Wow. But I am really amazed how ancient script can still speak today and be really applicable in 2025, in the 21st century. How we can get all of those lessons, you know, from ancient Greece and Rome and being able to apply them today. It's still relevant. That's quite amazing.

That's why we're still talking about it. So, you know, people will say that, you know, well, philosophy today sucks, you know, and, you know, but the ancient stuff is good. It's the same reason you say music today music today sucks, but like the, the classics were, were good. Well, we're not listening to all the music that sucked from that period of time. Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of philosophy that sucked back then too, and we don't talk about it, you know, because it's not relevant to us. It doesn't speak to, speak to the truth of what it means to be a human being. But it's, it's the same reason you study Shakespeare in high school, is because these things speak to just eternal truths that are going to be true thousands of years from now, uh, you know. True things about what it means to be a human being on Earth. You know, these ancient philosophers were dealing with the same problems that we are, uh, and in the, in the capacities that they were dealing with, uh, the same problems that we are, yeah, in a way that makes sense to us and, and is comprehensible and useful to us. That's what we still talk about because it's good.

Amazing. Now technically we are out of time. If you have to go, I completely understand. Can you give me 10 minutes or no?

Yeah, yeah, I'm good.

Okay, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, man. Uh, this has been a really, really insightful conversation. I'm so glad you are here. So let me ask you this, uh, what do you think is the secret of your success? You went from being an E-1 to now a senior officer in the most powerful Navy in the world, and not only that, but also one of the most challenging, um, billets ever, right? Being on, on a submarine and, you know, all of the responsibility you, you've had. What, what do you do you think has made you so successful?

I was not ready for this. I think that, um, so whenever I, I joined the Navy, you know, my, my parents basically told me they were proud of me, you know, they're glad to see me doing something with my life, you know. But one of the things they said is like, hey, if they offer you school, take it, you know. If they're not offering you school, seek it. But basically, you know, there's so much opportunity in the military and if you can put up with— if you can just put up with the suck of being in the military, of which there's a lot, but there's so much opportunity there. If you'll pursue school and pursue education, then, uh, you know, successful— success will come along with that. And boy, were they right. And, uh, and so just like everywhere that I've been through my whole career, I've been just applying for everything. And it's like, it doesn't mean that I've got— I've gotten everything I applied for, you know, for every 10 things that I've applied for, yeah, yeah, you know, I've, I, I've gotten one. But if I'm like constantly applying to whatever is available that, that offers more education or more training and like constantly seeking the, the most, the most challenging training I can get, yes, then I'm gonna, you know, wow, just so many opportunities have opened up from that, from that, that, yeah, I think that's definitely a master key of success.

That's what I was trying to say earlier the J.O.s listening to us now in the Navy, for sure, there are so many opportunities. You can take your career any way you want to. But the thing is, you kind of have to have some idea of what you can become or which opportunities to take advantage of, because unfortunately many sailors, they just even don't even know all of the benefits that are available to them through the VA, even mortgage, education and all of that. I guess what I'm saying is, you know, take full advantage of the benefits that Uncle Sam puts before you because you can really make your career whatever whatever you want. That is so, so powerful and something my godfather used to tell me, right? An education, nobody will ever, ever be able to take that away from you. So it's definitely a worthy pursuit. So as a leader, we know that leaders are learners. What are you learning right now? What are you into?

So, you know, we talked about reading, you know, how it's hard to read a book. So I finished I, after finishing authoring a book, I realized that it had been a really long time since I've read a book, like just, just read a book from COVID to cover. It's always been, uh, you know, supporting writing somehow. Right now I'm, I'm reading a, uh, a biography of Voltaire, you know, who was a, you know, he's just a philosopher from, you know, kind of, yeah, right before the, the French Revolution. And, uh, and it's interesting. The real point though is, is kind of like getting back into the routine of reading. Like, that's what I'm learning is how to read a book and realizing and acknowledging that it's freaking hard. It requires, uh, it requires routine and discipline there, uh, you know. And there's other things I've picked up from, you know, just reading Voltaire's life. I thought I admired him a lot more than I do, and I'm reading them, I'm like, yeah, a lot of, a lot of ingratiating to a court and kind of treating, you know, high-level conversation is really just this luxury for rich people.

And like, yes, yes, les Français. Yeah, but one, one other thing, uh, I do, I learned that from Tony Robbins. He calls it net time, no extra time, is, uh, books on tapes. I really love those when I'm driving, working out, or doing something that doesn't, uh, require me to use my, my, my brain. So I, I, I read a lot.

Oh yeah, yeah, audiobooks are great.

Yeah. And so Uh, how has failure shaped your life?

I think that, um, you know, dealing with being able to recognize that I have made a mistake and acknowledge that and learn from it basically is a skill, okay? And, and, and not ruminate on it and not treat it as this thing where I'm going around flogging yourself the rest of the time instead of saying like, okay, well, we're not going to do that again, you know. But it's kind of one of the ideas within Stoicism that I exist as a deciding moral agent. I just— I exist in the present, which means that that past me is almost a different person. Like, whatever that they— whatever that past Will Spears did is, is so beyond my power, beyond my agency. There's nothing I can do about that. Now, it might inform my appropriate actions today, it might, you know, I might have a debt to pay, I might owe someone an apology, but that is not me, you know. I am, I am me in the present.

And, uh, that's powerful.

And so that, uh, that has definitely affected— so, so again, like, learning how to, to deal with mistakes and, and, and not ruminate on them.

What I really love about Stoicism is it's really a different way of looking at things. And a lot of those thoughts— I mean, I don't believe everything, but a lot of what they say is really useful, therefore honorable, because it could definitely change your perspective and literally change your life if you put it into practice. Because so many people are kind of stuck in the past. Yes, you've done something wrong, but everybody makes mistake, everyone. So if you can learn from it, you know, and then fail forward and don't let the past define you and who you can become, I mean, that is, that is huge. Uh, wow. Okay, so let me ask you this then, uh, if If you could choose 3 people, they could be alive, dead, or even mythical figures to have dinner with, who would you choose and why?

I think, well, one of them would be my favorite Stoic philosopher, Epictetus. Another one would be my favorite non-Stoic philosopher, Cicero, just because I've read their stuff so much. I just want to hang out with them. And see if they're, they're the way, the way that I, I think that they would be. Uh, and then I really admire the, the naval figure, uh, James Stockdale. And yeah, reading his writings and studying him, he was kind of my introduction, and he was kind of like my first, my first real military hero as a, as a midshipman. And so, uh, I would really like to have met that guy.

Powerful. Is there one book you would recommend to my audience? I know you are really reading the biography of French Voltaire. Is there a book you have in mind that might be useful?

Uh, well, a good just general, um, book that I, I think is good for military leaders in particular— I know a lot of your audience are military leaders— is called The Allure of Battle. Yeah. And so basically it's, it's a military history book, but, uh, it's by Cathal Uh, but it is— it gets— it gets at the idea of there being, uh, it gets the idea of military genius and how that— and it kind of, kind of like, uh, diffuses it in a lot of ways. But also, uh, how that idea of military genius, uh, and kind of the romanticization— romanticizing of it.

Yeah.

Uh, can lead us to making poor decisions.. And I just think it's a very valuable book for leaders to read.

That's really cool. The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost. That is powerful. By Cathol Walsh. Okay. I will definitely add that to our digital bookshelf. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm always amazed when I have good guests like you, you mention books that I haven't read yet. I'm like, okay, I have I've read a lot of books by now, but yeah, I definitely need to pick this one up. Thank you so much for sharing that. Is there maybe like a song, a book, or a movie that would be your life's theme or anthem?

Yeah, audience, we are totally into, into territory that I was not ready for. Uh, I think probably the Michael Keaton Batman would have to be it. Yeah, no, like, I just like that. It's just a great I don't think it has anything to do with my life.

Let me ask you, Batman or Superman? Actually, there was a movie where they were fighting each other to death. Batman. Batman.

Absolutely Batman.

All right then. All right. So if you only had one day to live, what would you have liked your final contribution to be?

I would— spending time with my kids, basically. I would take that time and try to The book that I wrote is, you know, it's dedicated to my sons. And I think that it captures a lot of what I would try to teach them. And the, you know, I would take that day and basically just try to pass any last little bit of— because I mean, they're really why I'm on earth.

Yes, that is powerful. Thank you for sharing. But if you had like a magic wand, you could solve any problem at all, what is the one problem you'd like to solve tomorrow morning?

Call it energy. I think that if you were able to have unlimited energy, I think that that would, that would have so many ramifications. Yes. Yeah. So, so many, because, because there's so many other things you could just solve with the energy problem.

Yes. Yes.

You could create unlimited energy.

Yeah. A lot of the war we've had in the world is because of just that. So we are getting toward the end, and thanks so much for giving us the extra time. What can my audience do to kind of add value back to you?

Well, I hope that they'll read the book, you know, and like all any author wants is to be read. Like, it's not going to make— here's a clue for your audience. Like, writing books is not how anyone makes money, you know. Even the people who like make their living writing books, you know, as authors, they make their money being public speakers and stuff. Yes, there's no money in royalties.

But how did this happen? This was on ABC News Live. What in the world? So that's a publicist or somebody like— how did you do it?

That's Mick Mulroy. He is deeply in— so he is a former, uh, very important official in the Pentagon. On, and he is deeply into Stoicism.

And that's amazing, that's incredible. Yeah. Now you, you also have your website which you mentioned, uh, williamspears.com, so people can go there and find out about your, your work and what you're up to.

Yeah. And that's just basically like, you know, I hang some essays there and other articles I've written and stuff like that, you know.

Very good.

Wow.

But I would love it if people would, would read the book, and I'd love it if they would leave reviews on Amazon. I can't get review the damn thing.

Well, actually, I am going to undo that. Yeah, I guess that means Amazon's gonna force me to buy it again. I really appreciate the free copy you sent me very much. I will take care of that because I think it can definitely make a big difference. Okay. Is there a question maybe I should have asked you that I haven't got a chance to ask you yet?

I don't think so. I think we hit them all. You know, what movie would define your life?

Yeah. All right, so to end, let me ask you this very crucial question. If you could go back and give a piece of advice, right, to your 17-year-old self standing at the edge of this incredible career you've had in the Navy, what would you say to 17-year-old William? Or I guess maybe it was Will at the time. What would you tell him?

Buy Apple.

Yeah, yeah.

No, more seriously, you know, read more. Read more. Read, read more, uh, and, and the, the, all of the benefits that have happened in, in life, you know, so many of them have been the result of reading things I've read, you know. Literacy in general is just, is just kind of your, your key to humanity's wisdom, you know.

All right, we are getting to, to the end. This is going to take less than a minute. It's going to be lightning round, so don't take long to think. Really quickly, uh, whatever comes to your mind. What is one word that defines great leadership? One word.

Integrity.

Okay. Morning routine or practice that keeps you grounded?

Uh, my workout. Physical workout.

Book or quote that changed your life?

Uh, Epictetus' Discourses.

Yes, that's powerful. Okay, who inspires you most to James Stockdale. Very good. And leadership habit you refuse to compromise on?

Being personable and dropping the shield, dropping the formality, and basically talking to other people. As a lot of people will say, like, as an officer, you've really got to keep the boundary, keep the shields up. Nope, not me. You know, that works for some people, but not me. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to, talk to people.

Keeping your ego in check, that's beautiful. Okay, what is one question every leader should ask themselves frequently?

Uh, am I doing the things that, you know, what, what kind of person do I, do I want to be, and am I doing the things to support that?

Wow, that is powerful, powerful. All right, so, uh, what did you want to be when you were kid?

Um, I had various points. I wanted to be a, you know, a DJ, an inventor, a writer. Uh, and you know, in high school I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to be a philosopher.

No one was—

no one was going to pay me to do either one of those things, so I joined the Navy.

Well, you are a writer, you are a philosopher, and you are a war warrior, so you've accomplished it very, very well. All right, 3 adjectives describing you as a child.

I'm sorry, say again?

3 adjectives describing you as a child.

Uh, precocious, uh, smart aleck, and, uh, you know, energetic.

As an adult?

Precocious, smart aleck, and, and, uh, you know, pretty much the same.

All right, the very, very last question, and this is it. What is one word that represents our shared experience on the Leadership Success podcast today?

One word. Interesting.

Okay. And I'm very, very grateful. Thanks so much, Commander William Seaspears, everyone. Really appreciate you sharing from your experience, and I'm really hoping the JOs are listening and taking notes because you've really shared a lot of hard-learned lessons that you really cannot get in a book. You have to live it. So thank you so much, sir. I appreciate that.

All right. Thank you very much.

Be safe. All right, everybody, this is it. This is the last podcast for today. Again, many thanks to Commander William Spears. And just to remind you that tomorrow I will have an interview with the award-winning CIO from Silicon Valley. His name is Lee Jones. He's going to be here. He's a global system builder, tech steward, and calm under pressure is smart. We're going to be talking on going from legacy from fragility to resilience. And then on Tuesday, I have the privilege and honor of interviewing Admiral Melissa Burt, United States Coast Guard JAG. She just retired recently. She's principal strategic empowering, and we're gonna be talking about leadership at the intersection of law, trust, and national security. I don't know what can be more timely than that. And then on Thursday, I will be speaking with Charlie Wetzel. He is a master craftsman, faithful steward, in the world and a multiplier of impact. For example, he's been the writing companion of John Maxwell for more than 30 years. John Maxwell has written and been a number one New York Times bestselling author for almost 100 books now, but Charlie is really the companion, writing companion that made that happen. And then on the same day, I will be also speaking to Temprah Rae Stevenson. She's a food justice visionary, cultural engineer, and scholar-practitioner working on her PhD now, but she's also the founder of Wanda, and she has written the bestselling book series for kids, Wanda. And we're going to be talking about leadership with nourishment. And the last interview I have confirmed, I believe that's going to be on Sunday, will be Daya Ramesh. She's a cybersecurity leader, founder, operator, and mentor. We're going to be talking about cybersecurity being existential. Actually, I just confirmed yesterday I'm going to be at the TED it soon. Lisa Fendt, she's really big in the mentorship space. And then also Commander Erica Dobbs, US Navy retired. Okay, so that's what I have for you. And I will also be back for another special edition of the Book of Proverbs. I start this every year. This is the first time I'm doing this publicly on LinkedIn. It's not religious at all, but we go for ancient wisdom, mentoring from the book of Proverbs, ancient wisdom and leadership lesson. So we did chapter 3 today, I mean chapter 4 today. We're gonna do chapter 5 sometime tomorrow, and we're gonna do this until the end of the month, looking for those gold nuggets, the wisdom and the insight that is still applicable today, even though this book was written more than a couple of thousand years ago. All right. Thank you so much for watching the Leadership and Success podcast, and I will see you tomorrow. More. Thanks for watching. Bye.

Thank you for tuning in to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach Bisi. If today's episode added value to your leadership journey, be sure to subscribe, share, and join us again for more wisdom nuggets on how to lead better and achieve greater success. Remember, leadership is the most critical skill of our time. The world will always need leaders to inspire others, drive innovation, and execute meaningful strategy. So why not count yourself among the bold leaders shaping the 21st century? Until next time, stay inspired, stay committed, and keep leading with excellence.