Brent Gleeson - A Navy SEAL's Guide To Embracing The Suck

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Welcome to the Man Talk Show. I'm Connor Beaton and joining me today is Brent Gleason. Brent Gleason is a Navy SEAL combat veteran with multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Africa. Upon leaving Seal Team 5, he turned his discipline and battlefield lessons to the world of business and has become an award winning entrepreneur, best selling author and acclaimed speaker on topics ranging from resilience, mental toughness, leadership and building high performance teams to culture and organizational transformation. Brent is the Founder and CEO of Taking Point Leadership, a progressive leadership and organizational development consulting firm with a focus on business transformation. He holds degrees in Finance and Economics from Southern Methodist University, certificates in English and History from Oxford University in England, and a graduate business degree from the University of San Diego. He's a bestselling author of taking Navy SEALs 10 fail safe principles for Leading Through Change, which would number one release on new release on Amazon in Organizational Change and Business Structural Adjustment. And his latest book, which we talk about today, Embrace the the Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life is number one on Amazon right now in Self Help. So this is a really, really cool conversation about how we deal with suffering, how we embrace the shit that can happen in life, and how we cultivate a spirit of perseverance, a spirit of resiliency in the face of challenge, in the face of controversy, in the face of everything that we've been going through lately. So this is a really poignant conversation. I think it's very timely as well. And so we get into a number of topics. Brent shares a little bit about his career as a Navy seal, a little bit about some of his experiences. We then dive into what does it actually mean to embrace the suck and why is it important? And we have a really interesting conversation about suffering, about how we face those things, about how we actually develop a spirit of perseverance, how we develop resiliency through all of this, and how empathy actually plays a really crucial role in all of this. So before I bring Brent on, just a quick reminder, hit subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to us on. We are on Audible, Amazon, Google, Spotify, itunes. So don't forget to subscribe to the episode to the podcast and don't forget to share this episode. Man it forward. If you enjoy this conversation, send it to a few people that you know will enjoy this conversation. I think sometimes, you know, we just need to find the right access point for people to be able to hear some of these messages. And Brent has a really interesting and potent perspective, in my opinion. Without any further delay, please welcome Brent Gleason.

I'm good. Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.

Yeah, yeah, likewise. It's an honor to have you. All right, well, I have. I have a lot of questions for you today. I love the concept of what we're going to dig into. I think it's going to resonate with the listeners. But as always, I have to start with a question which is tell us a story about a defining moment in your life that made you who you are today.

Sure. The defining moment, per se that comes to mind isn't necessarily one specific incident or one thing that happened or a choice that I made. It really goes back to my decision to transition from the world of corporate America, to actually follow one of my college friends on his journey to become a seal. As a quick backstory to help support that. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, did my undergrad at Southern Methodist University, degrees in finance and economics, and upon graduation, I actually took a job as a financial analyst with a global firm based in downtown Dallas. Now, during that time, I had a close friend who actually had a childhood vision and dream of one day graduating, joining the Navy, and at least attempting to be accepted into the notorious SEAL training pipeline. Now, keep in mind, this was just pre 9 11, so it was peacetime, a little bit of a different context when we think of the world we live in today, still obviously honorable, a call to serve, giving back to a cause greater than himself. So obviously I thought that was a phenomenal path for him, not necessarily for me. My dad served as a Marine during Vietnam, but never pushed the idea of military service on my twin brother, nor I. But he and I started training together when I was working in finance. He was a senior at smu. For me, it was just a way to stay fit, have an accountability partner, and help him in a way, prepare for his journey. And so by nature, we started spending a lot of time together. And the dialogue we had about this path he was taking piqued my interest. So I started reading about the history of the Naval special warfare community, our forefathers in the underwater demolition teams in World War II, how we essentially cut our teeth as an elite assault force in Vietnam and then the missions and conflicts beyond there to present day. And I became fascinated with the mindset, the grit, the concepts of resilience and mental fortitude, the culture and behavioral expectations of a high performing team or organization. And that growing fascination, coupled with the somewhat boring nature of my entry level financial analyst position, led me to the culmination of an ultimate decision to essentially looking back now, live a life of no regret, to give to a cause greater than myself. I knew that the pivot tables and spreadsheets would be there for me upon return if I ever went back to that world. And that really was the moment when I did make that final decision to quit my job, dive headfirst into a very risky path. I mean, it's upwards of a 85 to 90%, sometimes failure rate. And I had no ambition of doing anything else in the military or the Navy other than this once I'd made that decision. So knowing that it was very risky and also taking stock of the advice that people gave me, which was to not do this. This is a terrible idea. You're probably not going to make it. So is this really the fancy want to take? You're already on a great trajectory in the world of business and finance, which is what you wanted. But there was, you know, like, we all have at a pivotal moment in our life, a fire burning inside or a passion that is growing that we feel at some point, you know, we have to follow. And the premise of my new book really is about following those paths, listening to those voices, shutting out, you know, the naysayers and the negativity when you know this is something you have to pursue. And that really, that decision is one, of course, that set me on the path that I'm on today, maybe the person that I am today. And I know we'll get into this, but obviously there's a few really key takeaways and insights that have helped me develop in my career as an entrepreneur in business, in my relationships, and being a leader for my family. There's a lot of things that really come out of both the good and bad experiences of military service, especially during wartime, that can be applied to all aspects of our lives.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's some. There's some really interesting insight in there, and I'm actually curious because I think since starting this podcast, you know, sort of like three or four years ago, I've been going for a while, but even in the last decade, I've noticed that there's sort of like this surge of seals that are. That come out of. That come out of serving and have a really strong influence on our. On our modern culture. And that's. I find that to be really interesting. And I'm just curious, before we kind of go down these pathways, I'm curious, from your perspective, why is that, like, why. Why do we see this sort of like, surge of. Of Navy SEALs who largely have been behind the scenes for a very long time. And all of a sudden in like the last decade, there has been, you know, them sort of stepping into the front, you know, writing these types of books and supporting people. And there's some really solid components that are coming out of it. But I'm curious from your perspective, why this sort of sudden surge into mainstream culture?

Sure, it's in large part it's due to the timing. We've been at war for two decades. And if you go back to, there's some, actually some interesting pieces of that journey that the naval special warfare community has taken and evolved as far as our organization, our culture, you know, how we approach the, you know, the silent warrior mentality as opposed to how we acquire new talent, how we recruit, how we develop and build the ranks of our community, of our wartime organization. We realized, you know, in three to four years after nine, 11, and moving at the speed these wars required, that there were going to have to be some significant, not just operational transitions, but mindset and cultural transitions. If we wanted to grow the ranks of the SEAL teams and if we wanted to do a better job of recruiting, I mean, it arguably being one of the most challenging special operations training and pipeline selections in the world, you can't make the training easier, if anything. Technically, it probably gets harder and harder and more competitive because we have young men lined up out the door these days. I mentor young men through the program rather informally, but I've mentored about six guys now. And it's interesting to see how our talent acquisition and recruiting strategies have become better because we were intentional in lifting that veil of secrecy around the community. Now granted, of course, looking back, that was a very controversial strategic move as far as, you know, endorsing movies like act of Valor or allowing books to be written and a little more leniency in there and telling the story. And, you know, one of my former SEAL brothers, whom, you know, Jocko Willink, actually did an interesting post the other day and it was. He had, you know, he had come out just like a lot of us in understanding there's a lot of lessons that can be learned and applied into developing others or building businesses or creating high performing team environments in the civilian world of entrepreneurship, of business, what have you. The advice he got was, historically, we are quiet professionals and that holds a certain context. It doesn't necessarily mean you're a totally silent professional. There are stories of war heroes that need to be told of the guys that we've lost and missions that most people would never hear about had they still been cloaked in the world of secrecy. And so there's an important movement there. There's an important shift that doesn't necessarily. Obviously operational security is important and certain elements that we don't go into, but.

There are many important elements of what we do. And just not just in seals, but in the world of special operations and in the military, that these things that not just need to be told, but also that have a really positive impact on organizational development out here in the civilian world. So again, I think that shift is people have become more comfortable with it over times, or the old guard has either given up or they've realized that there are some positive elements of being able to share a lot of how we approach life and work with the rest of the world.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a. I think it's a very. I think it's a very astute, like just definition and sort of defining of what. Why that is and why that's happening. I think it's also an interesting time. The timing is also interesting because I feel like there's sort of like a lack of leadership from a cultural perspective that's been showing up in America and there's this like, surge of, you know, people like Jocko Willings and David Goggins and yourself that are stepping in and sort of providing this sort of, no bullshit, you know, no fluff, leadership and direction for people that are sort of missing that, you know, And I don't know if that's ever been part of the intention, but it seems to certainly be a byproduct of, you know, these conversations that a lot of you are having, which I think is, you know, has a very substantial ripple effect within our communities. And so I think it's just the reason why I asked the question because I've sort of seen this happening and just been like, man, I wonder how intentional it was for all of these men to sort of start to fill in these gaps within leadership within our culture. You know, in a time where there seems to be a sort of a fall, in some ways of the modern hero archetype and a fall of especially masculine leadership within the home, within our cultures, within our communities, there's a huge vacancy there. And it feels like a lot of young men especially gain so much perspective and insight and even self wisdom and knowledge from the content that you guys are putting out. So I just wanted to touch on that. I wanted to just touch on one more thing. And then I want to dive head first into this idea of embracing the suck, because I feel like there's going to be so much good stuff there. Um, you talked about this fire of, of becoming a seal, and, you know, I've, I've read quite a few of the stories of the men that have gone down that path. And there always seems to be such an interesting.

Sort of tie to their young adult life or a sort of like a proving to themselves that they can do that. Did you, did you have something similar to that, or was it just like that connection to your, to your friend and the brotherhood and the camaraderie? Like what, what else sort of pushed you into the desire to accomplish something like this? Which, which very few people will go through?

Sure. It's an interesting question. I always say that, you know, buds and the SEAL training pipeline for the listener, viewer is well over a year. What you typically think of SEAL training and what you see in documentaries or in Movie and the TVs on TV is typically BUDS, which is an acronym stands for Basic Underwater Demolition Seal. Now, the first few weeks of BUDS that lead up to Hell Week, which is usually around the fifth week, that's what you normally think of the pain, the suffering, the torture. That's where they're weeding out the majority of your class. After Hell Week, you might get a few people who will filter in after recovering from injuries or whatnot, or just reorganizing classes, but predominantly who you come out of Hell Week is who you're going to graduate with. And those early days are just a fascinating social experiment, for lack of a better phrase. Because let's say, for example, you arrive and before you become a class, like a team, it's kind of an individual exercise because you're there to make sure that you make it. That is your number one goal. And then very quickly you realize that you're not going to make it alone. You're going to make it because of the person to your left and right and focusing on them as opposed to yourself and creating small team environments like in your boat cruise. And if you tried to hand pick the 30 or 40 or so students that are going to be standing tall at graduation on day one, if you got any of those right, you'd just be probably pure luck. It's really fascinating. And one of the things I dive into in the new book, which we'll get into in a minute, is that resilience and mental fortitude and that deep emotional connection or passion to achieving a specific goal in life, whether it's becoming a seal, getting into Harvard, beating cancer, it really goes back to an emotional connection and a deep, deep passion for the achievement of that goal. Intellect, sure, fine. Physical prowess, great, those are important things. But when it comes to, we've done a lot of research on this in the NSW community so that we can identify the physical, cognitive, emotional attributes of students more likely to successfully navigate the course. Because like I said before, we're trying to grow the ranks of the SEAL teams, not shrink them. And it comes down to the less measurable data points around resilience and mostly a passion to serve, not just in the military, but a passion to serve as a SEAL operator. And that passion, if we think about any goal we've tried to achieve in life, every goal worth pursuing has some adversity, pain and suffering associated with it. Otherwise it's probably not that lofty of a goal in the first place. Just saying. And so the students that are, that are successful in that endeavor, they have a deep fire, deep passion, a deep burning desire to achieve that goal, to serve, to give to a cause greater than themselves. So there's a bit of altruism, you know, when it comes to that, that's important. And actually research shows that that can, you know, the idea and concept of giving back or giving to a cause greater than yourself really does drive people to achieve more in various ways. And that definitely ties into the success of students making it through this course. But when you look at resilience and mental fortitude, which has always posed a bit of a challenge for psychologists and behavioral scientists, whereas you look at people in my class, for example, we've got my good friend and former teammate, David Goggins. We are in the same boat crew together. He and I have very, very different backgrounds, wildly different personalities. He grew up with abuse, emotionally physically abusive household racism, childhood obesity, learning disabilities, all these extreme obstacles from a very young age through his young adult life, whereas I didn't have any of that. I grew up in a upper middle class family in Dallas, Texas. I went to private school my whole life. I've never been fired from a job. I've never battled a severe illness or had to deal with physical or emotional abuse. So it's an interesting correlation and the reason I bring it up is because the concept of passion or of a deep emotional connection to achieve a specific goal, regardless of the obstacles and adverse situations that will be inevitable in pursuing that goal, doesn't always necessarily have to do with coming from extreme adversity. It can be something that's intentional, what I call purposeful suffering in the book, but also Having that willingness to accept it, to engage in it and lean into it, that is what helps these candidates going through this program, or just any normal person navigating the inevitable adverse situations we all face in life. These people are typically more intentional in how they lean in. They're more intentional in how they accept failure or how they use obstacles as a path towards growth. That's a difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Is when we have a fixed mindset, we're like, well, my skills, my talents, my path in life is what it is. There really is no point in engaging in a lot of effort or trying to change it. I am who I am. Whereas a growth mindset sees challenges as an opportunity, they see setbacks as not just acceptable, but critical for the path to growth and achieving, you know, wisdom, enlightenment, and success, however we choose to define it. So it's interesting because, like I said, it's almost kind of a social experiment in seeing how different people from very different walks of life, you know, the Seal community is actually very diverse. Doesn't look like it in TV and the movies, everybody kind of looks the same. But very, very diverse organization when it comes to, you know, the background, the skills, the talent, you know, the cultural differences and how people come together. But it's really fascinating to see that level of diversity, just like we try to achieve in organizations in the civilian world, creates another layer of high performance that you really can't replicate anywhere else.

Yeah, I mean, such interesting insight. And I love the perspective of.

The.

Differentiation between the backgrounds, that there's different backgrounds and it's not sort of people that are just looking for some ways to sort of, like, prove to themselves or overcome those odds or, you know, because I think there. There can sometimes be. I mean, just in. In any community, this sort of desire to compare our past, our stories, our desires to another and to say, well, I didn't have it that bad. And so, you know, that's where they got that drive from. Or I didn't, you know, I didn't have to go through that. And so they've kind of. They've. They've been taught or dealt with experiences that. That have taught them resiliency. And so I love the perspective because I think what you're really saying is like, this cultivation of perseverance and resiliency can be very intentional. And that it's. That it's not dependent on your background. It's not dependent on your sort of chronological history or your parents or anything like that, but that you can choose to put yourself in situations where you are intentionally going to, you know, eat a little bit and, and cultivate some, and cultivate some resiliency, you know. Absolutely. Like you're gonna. We had that. We have, I have a big organization called the, the alliance. And it's just a ton of men from around the world. And on one of the calls the other day, the guy was, was talking about that, he's like, man, I feel like I've been just eating, like life's just been forcing me to eat shit lately. And he's like, but I kind of reached this place where I'm like, actually this isn't so bad. Like this, this is, this feels, you know, this is okay. And I'm like, I'm building up the resiliency to do so. So with that, with that in mind, let's shift gears and talk about embracing the suck. So why this concept and, and what does it really mean to you? Like, I mean, I kind of get the idea, but maybe just break it down for the listener and how it sort of came about for you and why you feel it's so important.

Sure. I'll start off by kind of explaining just for the, you know, the viewer, listener, what embrace the SEC means. The term was born in the United States military. Obviously been very well adopted within the world of not just special operations training, but just the lifestyle in general. People associate the rigors and hardships of special operations with the training, but the job itself is far more challenging as it relates to the day to day grind. The stress, being gone 250 days a year, having to navigate relationships, family, marriage.

It is the ultimate suck, embracing in a way, but again, it's a call to serve. And the passion and connection to the job is what carries not just the operators, but their families and spouses through as well. So essentially the term just means the battlefield. And we can talk about literal or figurative battlefields. The battlefield's tough. Accept it, lean into it and find a path forward. Essentially being more intentional in the fine art of comfort zone expansion and having that ability to move more quickly from that bunker of normal human emotion when adversity strikes. The surprise, the anger, the depression, the rationalization, and finding a way to move more quickly into acceptance and taking stock of your current situation, developing a plan of action despite the inevitable obstacles you have in front of you, and stepping back onto the battlefield of life and being able to do that over and over and over again in both your personal and professional life. And the book, really the inspiration for the book actually came from in large part what we do within my company, Taking Point Leadership. We're a leadership at organizational development consulting firm. We work with medium to enterprise level organizations all over the world. And my first book, Taking Point, was about organizational transformation, leading change in a business organization. And you can't lead change in an organization or create more positive desired business outcomes unless you enhance the rituals, behaviors, values and actions of the people in the organization. So I was like, well, maybe there's something here because we're really teaching a lot about personal transformation as it relates to being in that continual state of improvement as a leader, as a manager of other people. The best leaders out there are lifelong learners. They crave feedback. They're always trying to enhance their ability in the craft of leadership. So I said, well, maybe there's an interesting project here associated with in the self help or self improvement genre as it relates to books. I knew I had another book in me and I had never read a self help book before. So I went out there, I was like, well, maybe I should do some research and see what's out there. You know what I like, what I don't really connect with. And obviously it's arguably one of the most popular book genres out there. It's a multi billion dollar industry when it comes to personal development, personal improvement, as you well know. And I found some great books, great narratives, great storytelling, really creative, engaging. I didn't find a lot though, kind of going back to what we were talking about before of what our special operators are bringing to the civilian world now. I didn't find a lot that was actionable and I didn't find hardly anything that was really more gritty, in your face, tough love, suck it up, get over it and accept the inevitable pain, suffering and adversity we all face in life. And I found some great books. I really like Mark Manson's approach with his book Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. His second book, you know, Everything is a book about hope. Like really creative, funny, counterintuitive approach to the normal self help fluff. And so I was kind of inspired by his work and then obviously trying to find a way to take a sort of a special operator military spin on it. And in the book you'll see it's again, not a war memoir. It's not a biography by any means. It's designed not just to tell my stories. My story is pale in comparison to many out there, but telling other people's stories, whether it's special operators or elite athletes or historical figures around how people over time have been able to develop grit, resilience and mental fortitude. And what can we potentially learn from that in having the ability to start to change the narrative in our minds about what true adversity really is. Now, I will say going into this project, I didn't realize that 2020 was going to suck so bad. So this had nothing to do with a global pandemic coming down the pipeline. It just. Selfishly, the timing is perfect. But in all seriousness, I'm not trying to discount the loss of life and the loss of business and the hardships people have been through over the past 10 or 11 months. But at the same time, the timing is such that it can be a tool of inspiration and motivation and of taking action. And it's only been out four weeks. We've got phenomenal reviews. It's been holding number one in self help and success and self esteem and happiness and things like that. And that's the ultimate goal. I want it to be a tool that people can really connect with, they can use. They read it multiple times and there's actionable models in each chapter that helps you take the principle of each chapter and actually do something with it. Whether it's avoiding temptation or, or planning better, better execution, better debriefing with yourself so you can be in a constant state of improvement. Those mental models are there to provide the user something to actually take action on. And so far, you know, it's. We've been very blessed. It's been, it's been doing really well. It's had great feedback, so.

Nice. Yeah, I mean, I'm curious, like, as you went through, I kind of got a chuckle because you were talking about like wanting to write the self help book and not having read self help books. And I like got a flashback to starting this podcast and had never listened to podcasts before. So I totally understand. I'm on board with it and I love that because sometimes you just gotta thrust yourself into the fire, right? You're like, I know I need to do this, or I know I'm feeling pulled or called to do this. And so, you know, pushing yourself into that, I think is important. I'm curious from your perspective because I think there's a lot of garbage self help out there, not to knock any of it specifically, but I'm curious, as you went through that process and you started to read those books and see some of these, you know, sort of frameworks that are being put out there, what would you say is one of the main challenges or issues that you See, with the self help industry, specifically, some of the frameworks or like technologies that people put out. I'm just curious.

I think it goes back to what I was saying is that I ordered a stack of a bunch of different types of books in the self help category. But obviously now we have, you know, podcasts associated with this. You have, you know, all different types of avenues of content distribution and consumption when it comes to the self improvement genre. And a lot of it, again, just kind of goes back to things that aren't actionable. Most of the books I picked up, I read a few pages or flipped through and, you know, put them down. Whereas there are a few that really sucked me in that were great reads but also had tools that you can use now. Some were great reads and they didn't have tools, but they were still entertaining. And I did, you know, take things away from them. The type of content that I like to consume and that, you know, we try to push, you know, for my company, for example, is very actionable. Maybe that's military background, I don't know. But I don't like to leave any ambiguity when it comes to the principle I'm trying to convey and then what the tool or framework or mechanism is that someone can actually use to enhance their life. So that's kind of what I've found is missing out there a little bit. And that was the goal of the book, is to create something that connects with people, but that also can be a really good tool to utilize, whether it's enhancing your professional life, your career, your leadership ability, or just your personal life, your relationships, your ability to navigate challenges with your spouse and in marriage or being a parent. It all kind of intimately connects probably now more than ever that we're all working very virtually working from home. It's not work life balance, it's work life integration now. So a lot of those tools really apply just in life in general. I believe probably now more than ever that we have, we're faced with, you know, the complexities of the global pandemic and civil social and political unrest and economic and financial uncertainty and it being an election year. And so people will take. Take away from it what they will. But yeah, those are some of the things that I think the self help space could really use more of is, you know, more, more tools, more action.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I did an episode about like all the, like the worst self help sayings that are out there, you know, like, like if you believe it, you can achieve it or like leap in the net. Will appear and just like just went to task on them because I was like, this is ridiculous. Like this don't help people, you know, like these people stuck. But anyway, back to this idea of embracing your suck. You say in the book emotional intelligence is crucial for effective leadership in any environment, possibly now more than ever. We are the architects of our own beliefs, the decisions we make and the results those decisions deliver. I love this, I love this sentiment in this statement. And it left me wondering, what is a SEAL's take on emotional intelligence? How does that play into your work? I think when people are looking from the outside in and I think when I, you know, having worked with men for a very long time, there's this perspective that we should over index our rational intelligence, that logical linear thinking is somehow the savior to everything. And so can you just speak a little bit to the importance of emotional intelligence? How you define that, how you see that playing into leadership specifically on a personal level? Because we, you know, at man talks, we talk a lot about self leadership and I think that you really hit the nail on the head with this one.

Yeah, it's funny because you think emotional intelligence, Navy Seal, those things don't seem to really mesh well where in actuality in a lot of the research we've done, going back to what I was saying before, as far as candidates more likely to navigate our course, or just individuals in general who develop more quickly as leaders, they score higher in emotional intelligence, in self awareness, relationship management, and just the general ability to exhibit empathy, for example, as a leader. You think that that doesn't necessarily apply in a military context, but it absolutely does. The timing of your question is interesting and it's top of mind because we were just running a training program with one of our large global healthcare organizations. They're senior leaders in Scotland this morning and today's block was on emotional intelligence and empathy as it relates to leading and managing remote teams, for example. So when we talk about leadership, these types of aspects of high performance, when it comes to leading and managing teams and people, the principles are pretty much the same. They've just been, they've been put more into the spotlight when it comes to engaging teams remotely. You know, when you think about this in a business context, employee engagement and keeping people motivated and inspired is already a challenge. Most organizations employee engagement, for example, still usually around one third where the rest of the organization or team is actively or passively disengaged. That's not unusual. The data keeps coming back the same every year from the Deloitte's and other consulting groups around the world. And so our role as leaders, and again, whether you're talking about leadership in a business context, family context, in the military, emotional intelligence is crucial for one. Having enough self awareness to understand how to continually improve yourself, how your emotions, your actions and your words impact others in certain situations, and being able to take stock of how you're behaving and acting in a certain situation. And not just when the sun's shining and everything's going great, but when you're faced with adversity like we've all been faced with over the past 10 months and the uncertainty of COVID Nobody had Covid on their business contingency plan, I guarantee you.

And so one of the things we were talking about today is the importance of empathy as it relates to leadership, as it relates to connecting with others. And you know, we share this model we call the empathy ladder. And there's, there's five stages of the ladder and it's, it's really easy to think of in the context of how you interact with your spouse or in a relationship too. Whereas, you know, tier one, the bottom tier, the lowest level of empathy, when you know, someone comes to you, let's say it's a direct report, or it's your spouse or a teammate and they're struggling with something, they're clearly upset about it. The lowest level of empathy on that ladder will be being somewhat dismissive, being like, embrace the suck, get over it. There are times and places for the embrace the suck philosophy when it comes to empathy. Oftentimes it lives, you know, outside of the context of your immediate level of empathy. Now, empathy doesn't have to live in every scenario. Sometimes there's not that there's a time or place for it. You know, the second tier is problem solving. And we as men have a tendency to go right to number two, problem solve. Got a problem, let's solve it, let's get on it, let's execute. Whereas as you go up the ladder, you gradually get to higher levels of empathy. Because what is the problem? When we immediately, let's say in a leadership context or relationship, when we immediately jump to problem solving, what are we doing? Well, we're not really listening to the other person. We're not really letting them communicate their emotions or how they feel or what that certain situation is doing or causing within their emotional realm. But if you take enough time to really listen, you know, ask good questions and really show true empathy, that, you know, you, it's not always easy. Sometimes you really are in a Place where you don't care. You want to solve the problem. We don't have time for this. But at the same time, when you can go higher up that ladder and ask the question, say, I understand how this must make you feel, because this happens, but then you want to. You can gradually get back to tier two when you start to move closer towards helping them solve that problem, if that's appropriate for the situation, you know? But it's interesting because it seems oftentimes in a leadership context or a military context, that emotional intelligence, empathy aren't important, but it's one of the most critical factors for being able to engage people, communicate with people, and motivate them behind a shared sense of purpose to achieve common goals.

I love that breakdown. I think one of the things that hit like a ton of bricks, you said some just awesome things in there, but the one thing that really stood out was, like, empathy is. Is not required in every situation. And I. And I agree. And I think that we sometimes get stuck trying to be overly empathetic or not being empathetic at the wrong time. So can you just. Can you just.

Can you speak to that yesterday? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're like, can you speak to that a little bit in terms of the importance of not only our own individual leadership, but our leadership and our relationship or at home or in the work environment. Like, what are. What are some of the distinctions? Or, like, what's the framework around that? And how would you sort of guide people in saying, like, here are some clear times where we. You definitely need to execute with empathy. And here are some times where maybe you don't, you know, maybe that's time to just to face someone, say, embrace the sock, you know, like, and call them forward. Can you just iron that a little bit?

Scenario one, a gunfight in Fallujah. If I have a teammate coming to me saying, you know what, Brent? These guys are shooting at me, and it's making me feel really upset. Well, I'm probably going to go from number one, embrace the suck, to number two, let's solve the problem. Let's move, shoot, communicate. But in all seriousness, the. You know, I had a scenario literally like this this morning with my wife. I had just, you know, with my team. We had taught a whole block on emotional intelligence and empathy. And soon thereafter, she had come to me and she was upset about something. And, you know, obviously, sometimes as, you know, as parents, we have different styles when it comes to parenting and how we parent this child versus this child, and they're different ages. And they eat different things. And, you know, we're. You always have to make that conscious effort to be aligned and show, you know, an aligned front. But, you know, we're all human. We have different approaches and different styles, and sometimes we just don't agree. I'll just, you know, when it comes to that.

And I was literally, I had all this fresh in my mind and, you know, she's explaining it to me and she literally stopped. She says, I know you're just not saying anything because you want me to just get it out and so you can move on and get back to work. I was like, no, that's not what I'm doing. And. But I was thinking about, I was like, you know, use the tools that you teach. I was thinking about this while she was talking. Like, don't just try to problem solve. Don't just keep your mouth shut up. But also when you're being asked by someone whether it's your spouse or a teammate or a peer, when they're literally saying, can you understand how that makes me feel? You have to try to actually understand how that makes them feel. And at the very least try and have that conversation, put yourself in that context, put yourself in their shoes. But you have to be authentic about it for it to actually help heal that situation or help heal that person. And as humans, we're meant to live with social interactivity and relationship. We're meant to suffer in relationship. That's one of the things that Covid, for example, has caused a lot of challenges when it comes to mental health is the social isolation and not having social interactivity, whether it's in a work environment or just a peer to peer environment. That's why mental health has become a big topic as it relates to this current environment. So always finding ways to navigate that. But yeah, it's an important thing. But emotional intelligence and empathy are not just something you innately have or you don't have. It's something we actively have to work on. It's why you teach it in leadership development programs. It's why people write about it, it's why people talk about it. It's why there's podcasts about it, because it's a skill set that has to be continually developed. And it's going to be those types of usages of those tools are situational. You're not going to use the same tools in the same situation. And like you said, sometimes.

The time or place isn't appropriate for certain levels of empathy. And as men, sometimes we think, well, I need to. I'm being proactive in my ability to enhance my emotional intelligence and my empathy so I can lead better or have better relationships. And sometimes we overdo it.

And then it becomes kind of, like I said, inauthentic. So there's a balance.

Yeah. I mean, I really appreciate what you're saying there in terms of, like, we can train ourselves in empathy. And I think that distinction of not just sort of like going through the motions of empathy, but actually being. Being in the. In the felt experience of empathy. And I think there's a. There's an innate threat to that I've found for myself in dealing with my wife, who's a marriage and family therapist and like, one of the best or the men.

And so. But I, I've. I've realized for me, that there's. There's a threat usually in. In the sense that contextually we often find that when I find that when we are going to be empathetic for another, there's a threat that, like, it's going to somehow make us vulnerable to their experience, you know, that it might. It might shift us, it might change us, it might cause us to think a little bit differently. And that's the point. But I think that, yeah, it can. And you know, I think oftentimes we are. We're aiming at victory, we're aiming at control. Sometimes we're aiming at, like, regaining our sense of power or authority in a situation. And I think what I hear you saying is that sometimes we as leaders have to risk the fear of losing those things for the connection of empathy, because those things aren't going to be threatened. They're actually, or diminished actually be enhanced when we really have that empathy. Is that, Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. No, absolutely. And to your point, it actually made me think of something a VA counselor told me one time. When it comes to post traumatic stress or things like that, or the things that you share with others and you can actually give your spouse or significant other elements of post traumatic stress just by sharing experiences with them and with them being empathetic to those experiences, they can actually start to exhibit certain PTSD symptoms actually from that, because to your point, they start to have that desire to carry that load with you. But at the same time, when it comes to. In the leadership context, like you said, we fear sometimes that we're lifting that veil too much too soon, or we're opening ourselves up for.

Greater levels of transparency. Most of the time you're actually building trust, you're building more meaningful relationships. You're building connections that you can't really replicate without showing certain levels of empathy. So in most contexts of a team or a leadership environment, you will enhance the performance of that team by being vulnerable as a leader. It's not always about being a robot or controlling your emotions, which of course is appropriate in certain situations, but also having that balance of being able to control your emotions, stay focused on the mission, but at the same time, in the appropriate context, being empathetic and transparent and also accepting of feedback, too.

Yeah, I love that. I love that distinction. There's one part of the book that I really. That I really loved, which is one of the chapters called choose wisely what you suffer for. And I've always held this belief that what we consciously choose to suffer for significantly enhances our life, or if we're unconsciously choosing it, is going to diminish it significantly because we will be. We will just become a walking meat sack of resentment and anger and shame and all of these other pieces. And so I was hoping that you could expand on that one a little bit, because I think that it's just one of the. It's one of those lessons that I feel is so underrated that people can't hear enough of it. So can you unpack that one a little bit for us?

Sure. I mean, in its simplest form, obviously, the suffering we experience in life will be suffering we choose and suffering we don't choose. You know, let's start with the suffering we don't choose. Obviously, the inevitable pain and the obstacles we face personally, professionally, you know, the loss of loved ones or illness or financial strain, divorce, you know, just the general challenges of being a parent. For example, you know, there's. There's a little bit of suffering in, you know, all walks of life, especially when it comes to pursuing meaningful things. You know, if it doesn't associate a little pain or suffering or stress or anxiety with it, then maybe it's not. Maybe it's not worth pursuing in a certain way. And so those are the things that we. You know, there's the elements of suffering that we. That we don't choose. Now, again, there's suffering practices that I share in the book that help us navigate the inevitable suffering we face in life. Tools you can use, and also ways you can engage through the relationship, through mentorship, through acceptance, and then also finding ways to apply lessons learned. Kind of break it down, too. If you look at various cultures in the world, in the West, Western cultures, we have a tendency to avoid pain and suffering and pursue happiness and pleasure at all costs. Whereas in many Eastern cultures historically they see that pain and suffering are not just acceptable, but critical to continue to navigate that meandering path towards enlightenment, wisdom, and ultimately more meaningful, purpose driven life. There's a happy medium in there somewhere, of course, but when it comes to choosing wisely what you suffer for, it's about being intentional in the paths you choose based on your core values, based on the goals you set, based on what we want to get out of this short life, what mark we want to leave on the world. And then once you have a direction and a purpose, then developing a plan of action to achieve those goals and understanding and labeling the obstacles that you'll face, there's it kind of associates a little bit with the chapter titled do something that sucks every Day. Once you have that plan, once you've labeled the obstacles, the threats and blockages that stand in your way, and the anxiety or the stress or the things that you're not that good at that you'll have to overcome anyway if you want to achieve that goal. It'll make you uncomfortable. Like we say in the seal teams, well get comfortable being uncomfortable. Be intentional in expanding your comfort zone. Identify the things that make you cringe or that are the challenges that you face or the, the suffering you know that will be inevitable and accept it. Develop a plan of action and once it strikes, be able to course correct as needed. So there's that difference between the suffering we choose, the suffering we don't choose. But we have a pretty significant say in how our lives unfold. When it comes to how we react in the face of adversity. It's easy to say it that way. Obviously it's not that simple. There are certain things that we'll never embrace, like the loss of a loved one or a child or spouse or a teammate. But at the same time, there are ways to accept and to extract what we can from those experiences and use those to move forward with a new perspective, maybe a little bit of wisdom and enlightenment so that we can gradually develop greater levels of mental fortitude and continue to just bounce back quicker as we navigate life's inevitable obstacles.

Yeah, well said, well said. I'm curious. You know, I think all of this is sort of a combination of having individuals that are in some ways very self led, that there's a high level of self accountability, self ownership, self leadership. And from what I understand about the seals, having worked with a few of them myself and been in a fortunate enough position to do so, from what I have heard and understood. There comes a point when a SEAL unit starts to connect with their, like, their own individual leadership starts to connect with the group, and they're able to move together in a sort of, like, felt sense, like an intuitional sense. Do I have that right? Or, like, how would you describe that process?

Absolutely. And it's, it's. You can sort of see that transformation even in the early stages of training. And then you really see it on the literal battlefield. You don't even know how well that's going to come together until you are in combat scenarios with that team. The special operations community is designed to be somewhat of a flat organization. We're military, we have ranks, things like that, but at the same time, we're very agile, nimble, networked, more of an ecosystem than a traditional command and control organization. So.

It'S a bit different than what people from the outside of the military world might think of. In the context of command and control, hierarchy works given down, orders executed. Whereas in a agile world of special operations, on the battlefield and in training, the idea is that every single person on the team leads. Everyone leads, no matter what. In the various contexts. Everyone has the ability to make autonomous decisions. In certain situations. We don't have the time or the ability to wait for your platoon commander, your ground force commander to tell you exactly what to do. You know, you're moving at the speed of war. People need to execute and adapt very, very quickly. Obviously, that doesn't happen overnight. That's years and years of training and rehearsals and dirt diving and lessons learned and creating that learning culture that we have so that we can adapt more quickly. When you're working in a small team environment such as special operations, whether you're in Fallujah, you're underwater in the pitch black, you get to know each individual, you know what kind of decisions they're gonna make in certain situations. And it really creates a very dynamic organizational environment so that we can be more nimble. And it's like our enemy. Our enemy is very networked. Their ecosystems could say disorganized, but I say networked and ecosystem, and they're intentional in that. And you can't fight that type of enemy with a traditional hierarchical organization. So it's really fascinating. Even back in early stages of buds, say Hell Week, for example, you do everything in those early weeks in boat crews, so seven person teams, one boat crew leader, which is the officer, six enlisted students. And during Hell Week, much of what you do is actually in competition with the other crews. And some crews come together with that Leadership at all levels, philosophy. They're collaborative, they work cross functionally, they accept transparent feedback, they're on a constant state of improvement. They adapt. Each person on the team looks out more for the person to their left and right than they do themselves, which creates that overlapping web of performance. And those crews, of course, as you can imagine, consistently win in these races and competitions. Now, other crews or the majority of other crews don't develop that leadership philosophy where everyone's leading. They don't work cross functionally, they work in silos, they don't communicate, they don't collaborate. Everybody's looking out for this guy as opposed to the person to the left and right. And as you can imagine, when you think about the attributes of high performing teams, that type of element is the opposite of those attributes. And of course, they lose consistently. So sometimes the instructors would perform these interesting sort of leadership or cultural experiments and they would take the boat crew leader from the crew that's winning the majority of the races and swap them out with the boat crew leader that's losing the majority of the races. So they take the leaders, swap crews, and then they would see what happens. And what happens is actually pretty fascinating and has been relatively consistent across many classes where the crew that's losing the majority of the races under basically new inspirational leadership. A leader who knows how to quickly transform the culture, which is not easy to do, to reignite the individual's emotional connection and passion for the vision of what they're trying to accomplish, which is finish hell week and move on with the rest of training and, you know, reignite that flame and that passion and get them working together, help them understand that we're not going to win individually, we're going to win as a team. Otherwise more pain and suffering will be coming for us. Because if you're losing, you're getting extra attention from the instructors. That alone should be a powerful tool for shifting towards a winning team mindset. Now, the crew that was winning all the races under new, seemingly poor leadership, well, what happens to them? They continue to win the majority of the races because they've already built such a cohesive winning team culture. The rituals, behaviors and actions necessary for them to achieve their desired outcome, that not one individual, not one external or internal factor could dismantle what they created. So it's actually an interesting experience when it comes to the philosophy of a team and how the individuals of a team contribute to the desired outcome of what they're trying to accomplish.

That's fascinating. I love the example. Thank you so much. For sharing that. I think it really speaks to just, just the power of individuals sort of claiming and working on that level of self leadership and then bringing that sovereignty to the group and, and then bringing that, when we bring that as a collective, there, there creates a sort of cohesion that is very potent, you know, very challenging to sort of break. So I like that, that visual example and I kind of wanted to. Um, we're going to have to wrap up here in just a minute, but I did have a question about, you know, where does the embrace the suck? Where does the embrace the suck sort of end and things like grief come in and you know, where is the time for, for people to distinguish, like this is something I need to push through and this is something that I need to face and embrace versus this is something that I need to like really actually grieve. And what does that look like for seals? Because I've again, I'm thinking about a few individuals that I've worked with and I remember working with one individual and I let him through a couple experiences about being able to grieve. Some of the stuff that he had gone through, not only in battle but previous to that in his, in his childhood and then in his relationship. And when, when we were finished the exercises, he said, I shit you not, I would rather rush a machine gun nest than go through what you just brought me through. Because that's so, so bloody confronting, you know, and it's very challenging, I think for any, anyone to really allow themselves to grieve. And so what does that look like for you? And where does that, where is that.

Line, yeah, the, the embrace the suck philosophy, while seemingly wrapped sort of in a macho, you know, hard edged approach to just life in general, to really embrace the suck and really to live a meaningful, purpose driven life where you meet and exceed more of the goals you set. You overcome obstacles in a healthy manner and deal with pain and suffering in a responsible way. It requires really good suffering practices and the ability to grieve, not shove it down into a box. We men sometimes are really good at compartmentalizing. Now there's sort of, there's healthy compartmentalization and there's unhealthy compartmentalization. And you know, I've worked with therapists and counselors too because I think it's the responsible thing to do whether you've been in combat or not. I think that I really believe in therapy, I believe in counseling. Whether it's individual or with your spouse. It's always good to not just have an outside perspective. But have an expert help you navigate grief in a way that will help you heal properly and not swallow it down. Get over it as quickly as possible. But go through those stages of grief and you know, anybody for example, who's been in combat will probably have some element of post traumatic stress. In special operations, all of us have lost countless teammates. You know, I went in right before 9 11. Our class leader, the highest ranking officer in our Buds class died during hell week. And the commanding officer, two hours after he was pronounced dead, he was talking to the class. He basically said, get used to this feeling you're having right now. This is not going to be the last teammate you lose and you better accept that now. And then he walked out of the room. Not very empathetic.

But it was real. And if this were a movie or a book, you would call that foreshadowing because five months later was 9 11. And that's when the whole environment of the world really changed. And that's when military and special operators went from peacetime operators to wartime operators essentially overnight. Literally overnight. And what's been interesting to see though is that we've been working really hard and individuals and the organizations within the military special operations have been working very hard to change the culture and the mindset around grief and the mindset around the acceptance of PTSD and the extreme suffering that our operators go through, not just from different experiences, but from the physical elements of TBI of traumatic brain injury. You know, if you're doing an explosive breach every single night on the target and you're standing 10ft away from a 1 to 2 pound block of C4, you're going to have micro concussions just like NFL players smacking helmets, you know, every night in games and things like that. Those physical damages to your body have emotional obviously repercussions. The suicide rate, for example. Right now we're losing 20 to 22 veterans a day to suicide. I mean it's mind numbing to even think about. It's hard to even wrap your head around the concept of what that really is. And so it's been at least positive to see that we're shifting the culture and seeing operators come out now and they're being open on social media about their suffering, they're being open on social media about their grief and what they're doing about it. There's more foundations that help with it. People are talking about it, which is, it's really awesome because we've put away finally that old school tough guy mentality of swallow it Down. That's combat. You're a warrior. Well, that doesn't work. You know, we have to be. And again, going back to the philosophy, embrace the suck. It's not meant to be macho. It's meant to actually use tools to grieve properly. You know, engage in proper suffering practices so that you can heal, you can become stronger, but also just be a responsible human. It's irresponsible for us, in my opinion, not to seek help, not to seek counseling or, you know, or. Or medical care that we need to be able to grieve. Whether you're talking about, you know, a combat veteran or just any of us who have to deal with any type of grief in life, it's. It's better to be proactive, lean into it and go get the help you need.

Awesome, man. Awesome. Well, I really, I really appreciate that and I definitely felt that through your book and through the content that you put out, and I could. I just, you know, I wanted to give you a chance to use your own words to say it because it's just, you know, I feel like it's necessary, it's needed. And I love that the content of the book emphasizes that. You know, it talks about empathy. It talks about these components. It's not just sort of like a suck it up and move through it mentality. It's like, yeah, embrace the shit. You know, embrace the suck. It's gonna be hard. And leave room for these things that are absolutely necessary for your growth, for your expansion. So listen, for everybody that's out there that wants to go, has listened to this conversation, is like, I gotta go listen to this book. I gotta go buy this book. Where can they find it? I know it's on Audible, but where would you like people to go?

Sure. Obviously it's on Audible. It's on Amazon and all online retailers. It's in the brick and mortar bookstores as well, and probably some local bookstores around the United States. So it's easily accessible. You can find. You can navigate there, too, through our company website, which is taking point leadership.com and through my social media platforms. Professionally, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram, at Brent Underscore, Gleason, and on Twitter as well.

Awesome, man. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming back or coming on the show. I was going to say I would love to have you back on if you, you know, put another book or just to have another conversation about something, because this was awesome and profound and I love your insight. So thanks for everything that you do and for everyone that's out there listening, definitely go check out Brent's work. We'll have the links to the book and to Brent in the show notes. Don't forget to share this episode, man it forward and share it with somebody that you know will enjoy it. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.