Former Navy SEAL Alden Mills wrote "just in case" letters to his sons after a teammate died in 2003, but found them preachy. He switched to fables instead, drawing on his coastal upbringing to tell stories that could teach without lecturing.
Questions this episode answers
2003
2005
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The content you're about to hear was captured during a live coaching session in the Optimize Coach program. Multiple times every month. Coaches Connect live with Brian, Michael, Alexandra and members of our world class Luminary guest faculty for wisdom, guidance and encouragement. For more head to Optimize Me Coach. The book that Michael is referring to is Be the eight Essential Actions to Succeed in Anything. And that was a book that I started when a close friend of mine was the first Navy SEAL to die in Afghanistan, Neil Roberts. And I knew that when Neil was coming home for the last time that there would be a letter handed to his then 18 month old son. And when you go off to do missions, you have to write these Justin case letters. And at the time that that was occurring, I had written three of those for three different platoons. But my next of kin back then was my brother, my mom, and my dad. I wasn't married and I didn't have any children. And at the same time, my wife was pregnant with our first child. And it really made me wonder, what did Neil write? And so I decided I'd write a just in case letter for my first son, Henry. That was 2003 and it was a do this, don't do that kind of letter, right? It was just a laundry list of things and it wasn't very good and it sounded really preachy. And then 2005 comes along, Charlie comes into the world and I write him a letter still along the same lines. And by the time we went to John and then finally Yummy Yummy or William, I was really struggling with it, right? This is over almost. This is eight years in the making. And I was just riding out on airplanes. And all along the way I had been telling stories to all my nieces and nephews. I love telling children's stories and I've created a whole bunch of them. One dealing with what happens to kids who get cold for Christmas. And another one is about the camp for the misbehaved. And my wife turned to me and she's like, you know, why are you overthinking this book? Why don't you just write a story? You know, kids love stories. And within three days, the parable just flowed right out of me. And, you know, I was a kid who grew up out on eastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod, spent a whole bunch of time putzing around in a little wooden boat. And I love the metaphor of all of us, our Marine captains, and the metaphor of leaving the harbor, of safety, right, that comfort zone to go out beyond the horizon where we can't even see that destination. That really resonated with me. And there's a whole bunch of steps that you got to take to that point. And that's how it all came about. To learn more about the 300 day Optimize coach program, visit Optimize Me Coach.
