Brian Gubernick uses the Navy SEALs motto "plan your dive, dive your plan" to show why disciplined planning and execution matter in business, fitness, and money. He walks through how deviating from a plan can be fatal underwater, then applies that to entrepreneurs hiring without clarity, people attempting marathons with no training schedule, and investors without a written financial roadmap. The challenge: audit where you're diving without a plan, create one detailed plan this week, and follow it for 30 days without deviation.
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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. Just recently, I was involved in the 29029 event in Mont-Tremblant, just outside Montreal. And as you can imagine, or if you know anything about the event, you're going for 36 hours And the idea is that you climb the equivalent of 29,029 feet, which is the height of Everest. You need a pretty solid plan when you go into, into an event like that, or any, any endurance event of that nature. You have a plan. But too often, while we may have a plan, for whatever reason, we deviate from that plan. Well, Before our event, a speaker, one of the coaches, he had shared, you know, that risk, that risk of having a plan and doing something opposite your plan. And he shared a motto that Navy divers, Navy SEALs live by. That motto is plan your dive, dive your plan. Plan your dive, dive your plan. It's simple. It's direct. It's life or death serious. You do not step into the water, into the ocean without a plan. And then once you're under that water, you stick to that plan. The more I got to thinking about that, that phrase, that motto, the more I realized it's not really about diving. Yes, sure, that quote specifically refers to diving. But I think it's applicable, no surprise, in so many different areas. I think it's about business, and I think it's about health and wealth and about, about life in general. The success of the mission depends on the discipline of the plan. You know, if you think about it, in the water, things can, can kill you pretty fast. I mean, oxygen runs low, or currents shift, equipment fails. You don't improvise in scenarios like that. You prepare. I think SEALs and Navy divers, they plan every single detail. I mean, I've read enough about them. I certainly was not one myself, but I'm fairly certain they plan every detail. The depth, the time, the decompression stops. The signals, the contingencies. And then once they're in, they dive their plan. I think in leadership, most of us, we probably skip one of these steps. We either don't plan at all, or we plan endlessly, meticulously, but never follow through. And the power is kind of in both halves, the rigor of the planning and the discipline of the execution. In the Navy, in Navy training, there's a story that I've read that I know is sh— that has been shared, you know, many a time about dive missions, specifically in Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta. The Navy divers, the SEALs, would be inserted to sabotage enemy supply lines underwater. The visibility apparently of the Mekong Delta was near zero. You could not even see, from what I understand, your hand in front of your face. If those divers hadn't planned their depth and their air usage and their exit routes ahead of time, they, they would have never surfaced. I think that's the weight behind this motto. You can't afford to, to guess when you're blind, when your life depends on oxygen. The only thing that actually keeps you alive is the plan you made before you ever hit the water. Now, this applies, like I said, in so many different places. How about business? I think too many entrepreneurs dive without a plan. They jump into markets or they make a hire or, or they start projects without much clarity. And that's a really easy way for your company to run out of money, or at the very least, have an unclear direction. Now, on the flip side, some leaders plan forever, but then they never execute. They're still on the boat. They're never in the water. I think business success requires mapping of your priorities, defining of your resources, assignment of responsibilities, setting milestones, and then actually following the plan. Adjustments absolutely happen, but not wholesale chaos, but not wholesale chaos. Now, in health, I think fitness goals fail without a structured plan. I think most of us inherently know that, that our goals, our fitness goals, are not likely to be, be achieved without a structured plan. So if you're running some sort of race, or you're looking to lose weight, or you're just simply trying to lower your blood pressure, that requires daily disciplined steps. So if you're training for a marathon, let's say, you don't just wing it with random runs. I mean, sure, there's always the one guy or girl that can do it and they get by. But if you truly want to be successful, however you're defining success with respect to that marathon in this example, you're not going to just wing it with, with randomness. You're going to map a schedule, mileage, nutrition, recovery, and then you've gotta go run the plan. The temptation may be to skip workouts or even push harder than designed, but deviation creates injury or it creates burnout. In other words, it's consistency that wins. In wealth, favorite topic of ours here at No Days Off, when you think personal finance, oftentimes people dive into investments or business ventures or even debt without actually planning. That's, to me, that's speculation, that's gambling. That's not building wealth. Wealth building requires a written plan. It requires saving targets and allocation percentages and determining, you know, your risk tolerance and then having tax strategies. And then once you write these things out, discipline matters. You can't be raiding the, the savings account. You can't be chasing shiny new investments that are specifically not part of the plan. If you find yourself raiding the savings account or chasing these new investments, I would challenge you on maybe your plan, how it was written, and if you ever really meant to follow it. So, as we begin to kind of wrap up today's episode, I have a couple action items, some things I want to encourage you to consider. Number 1, audit your planning. Audit your planning. When, when in— or I'm sorry, where in your life are you maybe diving without a plan? Is it in business? Is it in health, finances? Write that down. Where, where is it? Where in your life are you diving without, without actually having a plan? Once you've identified where that is and you, and you write it down, I want you to commit to one plan. Like this week, create one detailed plan in one area. Maybe it's a business goal or a fitness target or some financial milestone. And then number 3, dive it. Dive it. What do I mean? That means follow it without deviation for 30 days. I know there's going to be temptation to drift, to get away from it, to improvise, maybe even to take shortcuts. Don't do it. Just commit to following it without deviation for 30 days and then see what happens when you stick to the course. You know, I think as you're considering all this, a good question might be to ask, where am I diving without a plan, just hoping it's going to work out? Or where am I even over-planning and under-executing? And one of my favorites, because I love exposure, the accountability, if my team watched me dive my plan, What would they learn about discipline? So, plan your dive, dive your plan. For Navy SEALs, it's survival. For us entrepreneurs listening to the No Days Off podcast, for us, it's success. So, planning really without action is just wasted time. And action without planning is pretty damn reckless. I think the magic is in marrying the two. Build the plan. And then live it. That's how missions succeed. That's how companies grow. That's how wealth is built. And I think that's how you win. That's all I 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.
