Brian Gubernick breaks down the Navy SEAL saying "Two is one and one is none," which means building redundancy into everything that matters. A single rock-star employee, one lead source, or one workout routine creates fragility. Great leaders anticipate failure by cross-training, diversifying, and building backups so the system survives when something breaks.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. I have been on a Jocko Willink kick as of late. I'm sure you know who Jocko is— famed Navy SEAL, author, just an amazing, amazing guy. And someone who could teach us all a few things. And as I'm on this Jocko kick, I'm reading different quotes of his. And one thing that I heard him share the other day, well, it got me thinking a bit and I thought I'd share it here with this No Days Off Nation of ours. There is a saying from the Navy SEALs that I think is just a great leadership principle. And that saying is, Two is one and one is none. Two is one and one is none, the title of today's episode. Now, when I first read that or heard it, I was really thinking that it had to do primarily with gear, like military gear, backup weapons, or spare radio or extra batteries. But the more I kind of sat with it, and the more I thought about how it applied to my world, the more I realized that it's not actually about stuff. It's about how we think. See, in combat, based on what Jocko was saying— I've never served, but what I understood from Jocko's message is you never trust that one thing will work. Because if that one thing fails, and it's in a high-stress environment, things often do, you know, often do fail. When that happens, you're screwed. One is not enough. In other words, you need redundancy. You need margin. You need to plan for contingencies, not because you're pessimistic, but because you're serious and stuff happens. So, what does that have to do with business and with life and with leadership, our favorite topics here at No Days Off? I think it has everything to do with it. Let's start with, with business. Imagine that you have one rockstar employee and that employee holds the keys to your operations. They know the systems, they run the meetings, they handle all the tough calls, but they're the only one who can do it. Guess what? Your business is not in a position of strength. Uh, you're actually pretty fragile. That's one is none. Makes sense? Or if you had one lead source, maybe Facebook ads are, are working and they're, and they're feeding your funnel and, and you're feeling great, but you've built no backup or alternative. You've tested No other channels. You've developed no outbound plan or referral engine or nurture system. As a result, you're exposed. One is none. This shows up in leadership too. If you're the only one who knows the vision, the only one casting it, the only one driving accountability, you're not actually building a team. You're kind of renting one. I think the strongest leaders multiply their capabilities through people and through processes and preparation. They don't rely on a single tool or a single channel or a single plan. They have backups. They built contingency plans. They cross-train. They ask the question, "Hey, if this fails, then what?" Let's take this into life. Let's think about it, how it applies in life. Let's think about your health. For example, if your plan for staying fit relies entirely on one gym or one workout time or one method, you're actually one disruption away from quitting. For example, what happens when you travel and you don't have access to that gym or that one workout time or that one method? Or what happens when your schedule changes? What happens when you get injured? Or think about your relationships. If the only time you connect with your significant other or your kids is during dinner, then what happens when dinner gets skipped or distracted or busy? Well, one is none. So, here's the brutal truth. Life doesn't reward those who do the minimum. It rewards those who build margin, those who prepare not just for when things go right, but for when they don't. So, when we talk about resilience, resilience in people and in teams and in systems, I think it always comes back to this, asking the question, what happens when the plan breaks? Because eventually it will. And what— when it does, If you've only got one way out, you really have none. You have no way out. Great leaders are not paranoid, they are prepared. I would call it a healthy paranoia. Great leaders don't expect failure, they anticipate it. And I think because of that, they don't panic when it actually shows up because they've been thinking around it. They've built in the redundancies into their business. They've trained their team to step up. They've diversified their income or their strategies or their relationships. They've created layers of strength instead of single points of failure. So, here's the challenge I have for you this week, okay? I want you to identify one area of your life or your business where you only have one. For example, one source of leads. Or one person who knows how to run a process, or one personal habit you rely on to stay grounded, or one system, one tool, one solution, any place where you have just one. And then I want you to ask yourself, if this failed tomorrow, what's my plan? If this failed tomorrow, what's my plan? Based on that, I then challenge you to take one small step towards building a second. Maybe it's training someone else. Maybe it's creating a backup. Maybe it's diversifying your inputs. Maybe it's simply adding margin. Because again, remember, two is one and one is none. So don't just be strong. I want to make sure that you are in fact prepared. That's all we have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
