Errol Doebler: Leader 193 | The Business Blast Podcast #891

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All right, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I got Errol Dobler with us. He is a former Navy SEAL, FBI special agent, and founder of his leadership consulting firm, Leader193. Errol has helped leaders of all levels become better versions of themselves. So, welcome to the show, man.

Well, thanks, Tyler. Appreciate you having me on.

Of course. Grateful to have you here. So, I'm sure you got some great stories for us. I'm excited for this. So, the first one is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Yeah. I think the message there is don't tie yourself and your identity to your job. I learned that early in the SEAL teams. I got injured on deployment. We were actually preparing, rehearsing for an operation, and I got injured and subsequently medically discharged. And I had really identified myself as a SEAL, and then all of a sudden I wasn't anymore. So what was I? And I just think that, you know, I was worried about now with people like me as much because I wasn't doing this cool job and so on and so forth. And what you come to realize is people don't really care what you do. They care how you act, how you treat them. And so I think that's a big lesson for people because I think a lot of times we tie ourselves and our identity to our job. We shouldn't, you know. If you can— how do you check if you're doing that? Well, what do you— what's your identity? Can it be taken away? So, you know, you say, well, I'm a, you know, I'm a podcast host. Yeah, I take away your mic, you're not a podcast. Yeah, what does that mean? You know, well, some people can go to the religious or spiritual. I'm a child of God, you know, the religious side. We can't really take that away from them. I'm a leader. There's all sorts of things under leadership that I do. No matter what you take away from me, I can still do and be those things. So that's just an example.

Yeah. No, no, I completely agree. I was actually talking to somebody about this yesterday. I had a meeting. I live down here in Miami and we were talking about how a lot of really successful people will actually, after they retire, they'll go into pretty deep depression because they had tied their entire identity to the work that made them successful. And then, once they retire, that identity is gone and they don't know what they are or who they are.

Yeah, yeah. And it goes, it can get a little morbid, but not, not even intentionally. Like, it's, you know, I'm a parent. I have two small kids and one on the way, and I can identify myself as a parent or a husband. But I go back to the story, you know, my sister died of cancer at the age of 40. You know, my parents, they had identified themselves as, well, I'm a parent. Well, the unfortunate part was they weren't anymore. In their heart, they will always be, but she was gone. And, the real challenge to be able to say, "Okay. What am I and how will I be this way no matter what I'm doing?" So, yeah. I think that's the best story from my life. Something I love was taken away. I wasn't that anymore. I had to kind of redefine myself.

Yeah. It's really important. So, my next one for you is, what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Yeah, so my background is interesting, you know, I acknowledge it. Former Navy SEAL, FBI agent, I did really cool things. Um, but sometimes when I'm talking to potential clients, they'll kind of— I don't get it. What's the correlation? And my point is that those battlefield lessons, whether they were literally battlefield in Afghanistan, the mountains of Afghanistan, battlefield on the streets of New York City or, you know, Kazakhstan or some of the other overseas places that I've been to, to conduct investigations— technically that's a battlefield— we had to do certain things. And we had to do certain things in a leadership perspective. You know, we had to plan properly. We had to control our emotions and understand them. We had to set a series of guidelines for behavior that we could always count on for other people. And if we did those things, we generally could ensure some success in our mission. But more importantly, we kept people safe and alive. And those battlefield lessons, leadership lessons, are transferable to business. They're transferable to your home. So that's kind of a, you know, kind of a personal thing to let everybody know, you know, okay, Errol Dobler is these things. Well, that doesn't apply. I do I help people write books for a living. It applies 100% because these philosophies are life philosophies.

Yeah, yeah. I agree. I mean, I think it even almost applies more than learning actual just business leadership. And, I've never experienced it, but I think being on the battlefield, that would be another level. Talk about leadership under stress. That's on another level of any sort of stress you could have in a boardroom.

You know, so like, I mean, things you need to do to get it right. Yeah, consequences are higher, but that's why we do it. Yeah, a lot of times we don't do those things in the boardroom because the consequences aren't so high in that nobody's going to die. That still doesn't mean it's not the right step to take. For sure, consequences in the boardroom, they could be devastating. They could be loss of money, loss of jobs.

Definitely.

That's a virtual death to a lot of people.

True. Yeah, no, you're right, actually, when you think about it like that, it is almost as serious. It definitely applies. So, my next one for you is, what is your best piece of overall business advice? So, not necessarily industry-specific.

Yeah. I could say something like, "Always be courageous and flexible," and I would be accurate, but I want to kind of hit on something that I hear a lot. When I say it, people kind of joke back, and I get a lot from leaders I coach, you know, how do I get people to really care about their job, really love their job? And my answer to them is, who cares if they love their job? The fact of the matter is, you and I are lucky, right? We picked an industry that we want to do, we want to work for ourselves, so we do get to wake up every day and love our job. That's not the overwhelming majority of people. Okay, they do their job as a means to an end. So what do you do then? Well, make sure they love the environment. Make sure they love the predictability of the environment. Make sure they know that when they go into the office that people will behave a certain way that I can be comfortable with, that my expectations, what, what is expected of me, is very clear so I can just do that, right? So I know what to expect. That creates a good environment. It creates a safe environment. You know, between after I got injured in the SEAL teams and before I got medically cleared and joined the FBI, I sold copiers, right? I was in sales. I loved that job. Not because I give a crap about copiers, I don't, but the environment we worked in was all of those things. It was predictable. The boss told us what was expected of us. People treated each other with courtesy and respect. We cheered for each other. We helped each other. And that all was driven by the leader. But it was predictability in the environment. Then all of a sudden, I kind of like the job. So, yeah, I think that's business advice for leaders. Yeah, the environment. Don't worry so much about the job because they may not— you're allowed not to.

Absolutely, man. It's the culture.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, so if you could give— next one is, if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

It would 100% be The awareness and understanding of how our emotions drive our actions. Emotional awareness and control. 100%, we are driven by our emotions, right? We're nervous, we act nervously. We're shy, we act in a way that's, you know, the way a person who's shy acts. We're angry, we might act angry. Unless we're aware of those emotions and how they drive us to act, we can't control our actions. And I think back on all the mistakes I— not all the mistakes, but so many of the mistakes I made, bad decisions were driven by emotions. If I had just that awareness, like, okay, let me stop and think, what am I feeling? I'm feeling insecure. When I feel insecure, I act out this way. I overcompensate. And then that turns people off. And now we're getting into arguments. But if you just realize, wow, I'm feeling insecure right now. Okay, it's okay. How do I want to act? Let me decide how I want to act.

Yeah.

Feeling is something different than how I'm going to decide to act. So, I think that's something that really all young people should start to try to get a grasp on and old people because we're always doing it.

Yeah. No, no, I agree. I mean, I think self-awareness is a big thing. And, I think when you're younger, a lot of people when you're younger, you really don't have it because you are so wrapped up in your emotions. So, it's really you're just on this emotional roller coaster and you never take time to sit back and like analyze like what happened or why did this happen. So yeah. So the next one, kind of going a little bit down a different path. In your opinion, what's the key to happiness?

Well, it's cliché, okay? But look, the reason we hate the clichés is because they're true.

Yeah.

And it's perspective, okay? We have to get perspective in our lives, and it kind of actually goes to a little bit of that emotional awareness and control, because to do that, we have to take a step back. Okay. And when I say perspective, I think about people who, again, we talk about tie their identity to their work, not something bigger, not something of being in the moment where they're at home with their family. And I just, I think people wear it as a badge of honor sometimes, say, well, I just, I'm always thinking about work. And in my mind, I've had leaders say this to me, I'm like, well, you're a massive egomaniac.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. You know, get some perspective for God's sakes. So when you go home and you're with your wife and your kids or your husband and your kids or your mom or your dad or your siblings or whoever it is, you're not thinking about them. Yeah. You're not thinking about what they're saying. You're not truly in tune to how they're feeling. You're thinking about work. That's no perspective at all. And, you know, so then the time that you feel like now you decide you want to engage, guess what? They may not be there for you totally to engage. Mm-hmm. Never had that perspective on, let me see where I am, what's important. Let me take a breath. Let me pay attention to this person. So if you do that, I think you will find the areas where, wow, I might be going down this wrong path, but I've got some perspective. Let me take a step back. Oh, here's the right path.

Yeah.

Perspective is key to happiness.

Yeah, man, I can relate to that too. I find it hard. It's like when you— especially when you run your own thing and like I work from home, so I find it hard sometimes to like turn it off, you know? So I'll be out to dinner with somebody or something and then like I'm still like thinking about business. It's just like I got to like turn it off and focus on the present moment. So yeah, I'm working on it. But I think for a lot of people, people, that is a struggle.

It's a huge struggle. And again, just think you're out to dinner with friends. Wouldn't it be more fun if you were with them?

Yeah, absolutely.

Thinking about your next podcast, quite frankly. Yeah, eventually you're not going to get invited anymore.

Yeah, hopefully. Well, actually, maybe if they listen to this, they'll know I'm trying. So my next one for you is, what's the best books that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?

Yeah, I'm a pretty avid reader. So that's a tough question. But I will say, I took a look at all my books. You were fair and you gave us some prep on what books to ask. Thank you for that. And there's a book by Admiral William McRaven. He got famous by Make Your Bed. That became a pretty famous book based on his commencement speech at the University of Texas. A long time ago, when he was still a SEAL, I think he was doing his master's, he wrote a book called Spec Ops. And it's really just, um, they're case studies of special operations warfare missions and theory. And the reason I think it's such a great book is because when I read it, I think about a group of people who looked at an objective that was almost impossible to win, and just how they planned, what their mindset was, the chances and risks, calculated risks they take. They took. And it just— it's each story just seems to build on the next. So I always enjoyed that. But more recently, I read a book called The Art of War by Stephen Pressfield, and I love that book because it really validates a lot of things. That's really what my job is a lot of times, is validating people's feelings. Like, I kind of feel like I should do this. And he talks about something called the resistance and being a professional. Right? And essentially the resistance is everything that stops you from doing what you should do, and then being a professional, handling it like an adult. And so it was a good book, it was interesting, it's a quick read, but it just reminds you that there are things always conspiring against us. Not people, just things. And it's usually stuff inside ourselves.

Yeah, yeah.

Let me identify it. Oh, this is the resistance telling me to not do this thing I know I'm supposed to do. So, yeah, "The War of Art," good book.

Dude, absolutely, man. I think that's the biggest thing with books is it's interesting when you want to write a book, you will do anything you can to avoid the actual writing of it. So, you'll be like, "Oh, that shirt's dirty. I need to do laundry now." Anything.

It was Shakespeare. One of those famous writers said, "Writing is easy. All I have to do is—" Sit down at your typewriter and bleed.

Yeah, yeah, I know that quote. It's true, man.

I'm not sure if you're Shakespeare, but somebody like that said that.

No, yeah, yeah, I have read that quote. I think it might have been Ernest Hemingway, I think, but I'm not sure. Yes, Ernest Hemingway. Gotcha, yeah. So, and it's probably not your favorite one. So, your next one is what's your favorite quote and why? Yeah, there's a couple.

One I had, and it was— I put it in my high school yearbook, you know, and they make you do the silly— and I don't even know where I came across it, but it's always stuck with me. It was by Elbert Hubbard. It said, "God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars." And I just feel like I've just somehow— that's always stayed with me when I saw it at a young age, and it resonated, and I believe in it. You know, it's, it's, it's— oh, look, I'm not saying we should never tout our successes. We have to sometimes, but not at the expense of really appreciating the inner struggle that gets you there and understanding that, that those scars are the things that will give you the perspective. You know, if you want to tie all these questions together, you know, what's key to happiness? Perspective. Well, how do you get perspective? Well, get scars, man. Yeah. And then appreciate that journey because that's what you're going to be judged on. Nobody cares at the end of the day what you have on your wall as far as the medals, degrees, or diplomas. They're not sure that you paid a price to get there, right? Because that's where the respect comes. Yeah. How'd you do that? That's awesome. Tell me about that journey, not keep showing me the plaque. Let me tell you about the scars. Yeah, man.

Dude, I agree. And I think that's like what makes something travel too, is like the story behind it so it's not the achievement; how did you get there? I think that's what travel—

You talked to somebody who lost a bunch of weight and it was great, right? And I couldn't appreciate the whole thing because they weren't willing to talk about the scars. Lost 80 pounds but tell me how you were feeling. Tell me the battles that you went through. No, no. I read the book and I modeled this person and I did it. Yeah. I'm proud of you, but I'm like, you've lost me. I want to hear the spirit of the story. What was the— where was the pain?

Yeah.

Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm— No, dude.

I mean, I can relate to it. Again, you know, I just— because it's what I do, I go back to books. Like, for a book to try— have you heard of that new book by David Goggins? Have you? It's called You Can't Hurt Me. And it's basically, it's stories. He has a lot of stories. And I can't remember if he was— he's Navy or if he was Marine. Yeah, but it's— yeah, yeah, yeah. So like the book's doing really well. And like there's various reasons for that. But I listen to it and I do audiobooks like crazy. Like I listen like 2 hours a day. And, I listened to that book in 2 days. And, the reason I think it's doing so well and it's traveling, I mean we're talking about it now, is because the stories that he tells in that book are crazy and they're the battle wound. They're the real— the scars, yeah, like you're saying. And so, that's why I think it's traveling. It's not because he can run whatever 100 miles without stopping, which is also impressive, But it's like, how did he get to that point to running 100 miles? People don't read that book.

They might pick it up because he was a SEAL and that's exciting. Yeah. They'll get something out of it because of the journey, because of the scars and the things he talks about. So that Trident he wears on his chest is great. Yeah. That's not why we like you or respect you. It's the stories and the scars that you got along the way.

So yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, dude, thank you for coming on. The last one I got for you is where can our audience best find you online?

Yeah, appreciate that. My website, leader193.com. Learn about my business, learn about the Wim Hof Method where I'm an instructor. Talk about that, all sorts of things. And then Instagram is one of the other ones I'm more active on, and that's @leader_193. Perfect.

Thanks again for coming on, man.

Thank you, Tyler. Good luck, man.

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