← Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger
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Jill Schlesinger
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Mark
a little bit about having to present the president with options. Will he then say, bill, what do you think? Or do you immediately say, Here are your 5 options? This is what I think you should do.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
No, no. At least with President Obama. And I have not met President Trump, so I can't speak to President Trump. But I'm sure the process is pretty much the same, which, again, the military leaders will come in and they provide options. Now, if the President says, what is your, you know, your number one option? Then they're certainly prepared to provide that. But invariably there's a dialogue, as there was with President Obama during the bin Laden raid. And I can tell you, the president, President Obama asked a lot of good questions, hard questions. What are the risks involved? What are our chances of success? I mean, these are kind of natural questions that the president will ask the military leaders.
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Mark
And so when President Obama. Obama asked some of those hard questions, give me an example of some of that, like, what would he have asked?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, the president always wants to know the risk, the risk to the force. But in the case of the bin Laden raid, President Obama wanted to understand, okay, if I agree to this raid, then how much risk will be? What is the threat to your men on the ground, and how are you going to mitigate that risk? And so this is part of the plan that any military commander has to bring to a president is, you know, you know, force protection. Get the mission done. Make sure you're protecting the force as best you can. Explain the risks to the President of the United States.
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Mark
And is there ever a time where the President asked you a question and it made you rethink your position
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Admiral William H. McRaven
in the case of the bin Laden raid? Yes. I mean, in terms of tightening up the planning on the mission. Again, I gave the President kind of a broad option. Look, we'll do a helicopter raid, we'll get on the ground. But if we encounter the Pakistanis, we have this option. This option or this option? So the President and myself and a number of members of the national security team talked through those and helped refine the plan.
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Mark
Was the bin Laden raid, which obviously went in your direction. Did you have apprehension about it?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
No, never.
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Mark
Really? How come?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
No, because I knew what my forces were capable of doing. This was not a terribly complex mission. It was a long helicopter ride about 162 miles from Afghanistan into Abbottabad, Pakistan. But I knew the seals were, you know, highly trained. They were all combat veterans. The helicopter pilots were all combat veterans. We had, you know, good overhead surveillance. We had appropriate packages in the event they got into trouble. So we had a plan A, a plan B, a plan C and a plan D. And I was very confident that we could carry out any one of those if we needed. So, no, I wasn't. I mean, again, you're always worried about the safety of your troops. They're your men in this case, and I wanted them all to come back safely. But we also wanted to accomplish the mission. I was confident we could do both.
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Mark
And you did it.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
And we were fortunate that we did it. The guys did it.
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Mark
The guys did it. That's pretty great. I don't know why, but I always think that. And I told you before we went on the air that I have come married into a military family and, and I always. It was striking to me that it never seemed like our nephew would talk about being fearful. But you have to be afraid in these various missions. What made you afraid along the way?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Yeah, I think, you know, you have to be a little bit scared because that's kind of what keeps you on edge and keeps you looking for potential problem areas. You know, where are you going to get ambushed? How's the helicopter going to get from point A to point B? If you're not scared going into these missions, then you probably haven't been on them before. I mean, you ought to have a little bit of heightened sense of anxiety. And I think every operator does but the flip side of that is you're very well trained, and you recognize that your training and the support you have from the other members of your team or the military are going to be there to help you out. So whatever that apprehension is, I think, again, you can reduce some of that concern by realizing you've got great teammates.
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Mark
All right, so when were you scared? Come on, come clean here. Besides, I was scared a lot. Were you scared walking down the aisle with this lovely lady?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Oh, no, that part never scared me. That was easy.
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Jill Schlesinger
So what was scary?
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Mark
Like, give me a. Give me an instance where you were like, oh, my God, I am scared.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Yeah. You know, for me, as a. As a commander, again, during Iraq and Afghanistan, I wasn't, you know, a frontline troop, so I didn't have to go out into combat every day like these, you know, young Rangers, young Special forces officers and NCOs, the SEALs, the Delta Force operators, the helicopter pilots, everybody that supported us. I mean, you know, this. This 911 generation was in hard combat every day. My job was really to ensure we had a kind of a strategic and operational look at it. So most of the time, I wasn't in harm's way day in and day out. Now, having said that, you know, I'd try to go out on a mission with them about once a month just to make sure one. They. They saw me as a combat leader that, you know, wasn't afraid to take some risk, wasn't afraid to, you know, endure the hardships that they had to endure. And that's important, I think, for any leader. Having said that, my greatest concerns were always to the troops on the ground, because every night we had overhead surveillance, we had Predators that we could watch the action unfold in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, you know, when you are back and you are watching these young men, sometimes in firefights, as good as they are, they're your troops. And so if I was ever concerned or anxious, it was always about the welfare of the troops, more in the middle of a combat situation than at any other time.
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Mark
Now, to kind of Shift Gears, 2014, you're delivering a commencement speech at the University of Texas, Right?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Right.
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Mark
And first of all, how did that come about? Who asked you to do that?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, the President of the University of Bill Powers asked me to come do the commencement speech at my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. And I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do it. And it turned out to be just a fantastic night in Austin in May, and 8,000 students and about 20,000 of their parents and best friends. It was a great evening.
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Mark
And from that commencement speech comes this slim, elegant, and really terrific book called make youe Bed.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Every morning in SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they'd do is inspect my bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers would be pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard, and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack. It was a simple task, mundane at best, but every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough, battle hardened Seals. But the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better. So if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
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Mark
Let's start with why you wanted to turn. First of all, by the way, everyone go and check out the speech because it's been downloaded 10 million times, something to that effect. But what made you want to turn into a book?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
You know, every day, literally every single day since the speech, Saturdays and Sundays included, somebody comes up to me and says, I make my bed, or you know, I don't ring the bell or I don't back down from the sharks. But after they tell me that, then they always ask me, what was it that inspired you? Tell me about your experience as a sugar cookie. Tell me about how you didn't back down, or who were the people that inspired you. And for several years I was just busy, didn't have time to do it, and finally had an opportunity to. It's a small gift book, but I think it has broad appeal. This is not just a book for commencement. I think it's a book for anybody that goes through life that has to deal with failures, that has great dark moments in life that they have to overcome. So the book was really about people that inspired me.
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Mark
And let's just start with the number one, which is the title of the book, make your bed. Why is making your bed so important?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, at least when I was being raised, my father was an Air Force officer and my mother was a school school teacher in Texas. And my mother ensured, more so than my father, that I made my bed every day. But as a young kid, you don't really understand why other than your mom wanted you to make your bed. When I got to SEAL training, it was something that the SEAL instructors came in and inspected every day. And I didn't really understand it at first. Look, we're here to be real SEAL warriors. Why are we worried about making our bed? And then all of a sudden, you have this epiphany, which is they recognize that it was kind of the first task of the day. And if you start off your day right by taking a little pride and making your bed, it's a simple task. And if you do it well, then other tasks will come and then you'll complete the next task. And so it's kind of the first rung on the ladder in the course of your day. But the other thing about making your bed is it shows that if you do the little things well, then maybe you can do the bigger things well. And the SEAL instructors would make sure. If you can't make your bed, if you can't make those hospital corners right, if you don't know how to put your wool blanket at the foot of the bed, if you can't take the time to make your bed correctly, how will you ever be a good SEAL running an important mission? So learn to do the little things right, and then that'll help you do the big things right. Finally, in SEAL training, there's a bell, a brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see. All you have to do quit. All you have to do to quit is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o'. Clock. Ring the bell, and you no longer have to be in the freezing cold swims. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the pt. And you no longer have to endure the hardships of training. All you have to do is ring the bell to get out. If you want to change the world, don't ever, ever ring the bell.
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Mark
Is there something about SEAL training that is different than any other part of the military? What differentiates the SEAL from The guy who's in the Army. Tell me a little bit about that.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, I will tell you, I think a lot of almost all the Special Forces training are similar in terms of there's a selection process where, you know, you're looking for, in my case, they were all men. You're looking for men that you think are going to make it through training. You're trying to ensure that they have kind of the right stuff. All of the Special Forces training, the Ranger training, the SEAL training. I would say the thing that differentiates SEAL training is obviously the water. So a lot of my great army brethren didn't like the part about being cold, wet and miserable. That doesn't make them any less tough. Let me tell you, I have seen some of the toughest men I've seen are Army Rangers and Army Greenburger and we like to think SEAL training is the toughest military training out there. But I think all of them stack up as being pretty tough.
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Mark
Yeah, it would seem so. So one of the other pieces of this, and as you go through and you give the little things that can change your life, you do talk about making sure that you have good teammates and find someone to help you paddle. In the book also, you give some great examples in your own life. But I'm just wondering, like in your, not just career, but in your life, talk a little bit about the reliance on others, that team based approach. Because I do feel a tiny bit like sometimes that's lost in this current culture where everyone's sort of sitting alone at a screen feeling disconnected. How do those connections really foster success?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, I talked a little bit about it in the speech and then I, I kind of cull it out a little bit in the book. But when you go through SEAL training, you're giving what we refer to as an inflatable boat, small. It's about an 8 to 10 foot little raft, rubber raft, and you carry it everywhere you go. And the purpose of carrying the raft, it's a seven man boat crew. But the purpose of carrying it isn't just to carry the boat, it's to recognize that if you're going to get the boat from point A to point B, everybody has to work together as a team. And I don't care whether you're the officer or the junior enlisted guy. If you don't paddle the way you're supposed to paddle, if you don't, you know, stroke hard, if everybody doesn't dig in, then the boat won't get to where it needs to get to. And so the recognition as you go through SEAL training that, you know, you better be a good teammate first. We're called the SEAL teams for a reason. And in fact, when you meet another guy in the SEAL teams, you say, hey, are you in the teams? And so this concept of being a team, everybody having a role to play for you to be successful is important. And then in the book I talk about the fact that I had a parachute accident back in 2001. Up to that point in my career, I thought like a lot of seals, that maybe I was a little invincible. I'd had some life threatening situations in the air, underwater and other places, and I'd always managed to get out of it it, but not this time. And so I got pretty banged up in a free fall parachute jump. And frankly, I thought my career was over. I was banged up that badly. But fortunately I had a lot of folks, my wife in particular, but my boss, Admiral Eric Olson, friends came by to see me, you know, wish me well, helped me with my therapy, my physical therapy. And I would never be where I am today were it not for the fact that everybody came together to help me through that tough event in my life.
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Mark
How did that change you going forward when you actually did get injured? Did you change? Did your mindset change about how you approached what you did or how you approached others?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
I think, you know, up to that point in time, I always recognized the value of team, but I was never the individual that kind of needed the help in terms of the other team helping me. That was a point in time where I went, I'm just as vulnerable as everybody else. You know, life can be very, very fragile. I mean, I realized that once again, you know, my life was spared and it all happened in an instant. I'd had a number of those in my career leading up to the parachute accident. But again, I'd always managed to do the right thing and gotten out of it. Now all of a sudden I'm badly injured and realize that, wow, moving forward, this is easier than I thought in terms of the potential to get injured. So after 9 11, this occurred before 9 11. After 9 11, as I watched my soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and others and saw the wounds that they suffered, you realized that you needed to be in a position. I needed to be in a position to help them. Other people needed to be in a position to help them because we all need people to help us get through life.
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Mark
That life's not fair is something that seems to have quite a bit of resonance in your world, because unfair things Happen all the time. And how do you get through those unfair things?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Yeah, you know, again, when we were going through training, there were a lot of folks that felt if they were the best runner that day, then they would be rewarded for that. If they had the best uniform, they would be rewarded for that. There was this sense of, if I perform well, everything's going to fall into place. But it didn't. And this concept of being a sugar cookie, as I refer to in the chapter, a sugar cookie was an instructor would just arbitrarily say, mcraven, hit the surf. You had to hit the surf, get all wet, then roll around in the sand. And so you're covered head to toe in, in sand. And, you know, there was a time when you said, why, you know, my uniform looked good, everything was great, I should be rewarded for that. And the point was, sorry, life isn't fair. You're not always going to be rewarded for things. And so this understanding as you go through life that, you know, life isn't fair, you have to get over it. And you can't spend your time, you know, blaming your parents or blaming your circumstances or blaming your bosses. Life's not fair. But if you press on, if you accept the fact that every once in a while things are going to just go, not go your way, get over it and move on.
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Mark
And does that mean, though, as a boss, because you're a boss of a lot of people that you don't, I mean, really bad things happen, that's one thing. But like, when somewhat bad things are, you hardened to that, in other words. I don't know, I'm feeling like in the military, that's a lesson. Like, of course you have to move on. Like, we have a mission here, but in an organization like, you know, I'm working at CBS and like, oh, a story gets killed, life's not fair. Move on. And you know, like, you've just spent hours and hours doing this and it is true. But do you get to sit on your pity pot for like five minutes?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Yeah, probably every, everybody does for a few minutes. And you know, that's, that's just human nature. But the point is, don't sit on it for too long. Yeah, like I said, sometimes you, you bust your tail and things just don't work out.
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Mark
Well, can you talk a little bit about failure? Because I never associate like, I guess military and failure as, you know, like where. How you come through that. Because I feel like sometimes failure is, it's, you know, can result in the loss of life and Injury and like, so how do you come on the other side of that? That's a much more difficult thing than saying, oh, well, life's unfair. Failure is a big deal.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Failure is a big deal, particularly in a combat situation. And you know, fortunately, by the time I was in combat after 9 11, I was a pretty seasoned SEAL officer. I'd been in about 26 years and I'd had a number of failures, not combat related, but a number of failures in my career. And you do the best to show that you're better than your failure. But when it comes to combat, your failures can in fact result in the deaths of civilians, unfortunately, and some of your soldiers. But what you have to realize is you have to learn from your mistakes. And particularly in combat, you're going to make mistakes. Combat moves at a pace that you don't control sometimes. We always say that the enemy has a vote, so you can build a great plan, but the enemy may not react the way you expected. And unfortunately, every once in a while you lose guys. But a good combat leader recognizes that you can't sit on your pity pot too long. You have to say, what did I learn from that? How are we going to do better next time? But you have to be prepared to make the next tough decision as a combat leader. And I think the difference between a great combat leader and a good combat leader is the great ones overcome failure as quickly as possible. They learn from it, and then they make the next tough decision. Because if you're not prepared to make the next tough decision, then you're going to lose more young men and women. And so that's the important thing to recognize in combat.
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Mark
Who inspired you in your career?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Oh, a lot of people inspire me in my career, but I will tell you, invariably, probably not who people think. The kids that inspired me were the young soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. I met the ones that had families with kids. And you'd watch these young soldiers go overseas and come back, and then eight months later, they're back overseas again. And they do it year after year after year. And the wife stays at home and takes care of the kids, or the husband stays at home in some cases and takes care of the kids as the wife is forward. I mean, these are the men and women that I think are truly inspiring. And they don't, you know, nobody writes books about them. They're not going to have any monuments built to them. But they are, you know, the American soldier. And so, you know, they're what's really inspiring.
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Mark
What don't we Civilians really understand about the military life. What are some of the things we just don't get and we could never get?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, I don't know that you could never get it, but, you know, the military life is a life of sacrifice. You don't go into the military. A lot of people say, well, why'd you go in the military? And people will say, well, to serve my country. And certainly people want to serve their country. But most young men and women that go into the military, I think initially there's this kind of sense of a challenge. You know, I want to make it through basic training, or I want to make it through SEAL training or Ranger training. And then there's a little sense of adventure. You go from a challenge to an adventure, and now, you know, you're in the seals, and in my case, you know, you're traveling around the world, you're jumping out of airplanes, you're locking out of submarines, you have this adventure, and then at some point in time in your career, it kind of becomes a profession. But then after that, it becomes a calling. And that's really kind of when you hit your peak. For me, the calling really came after 9 11. What I saw with the young men and women that came in right after 911 was they jumped my 26 years. And within a short period of time, they had gone from the challenge, the adventure of the profession to a calling. And that calling required sacrifice. And so it's just hard to appreciate the sacrifice of these young soldiers day in and day out, going on combat missions year after year, deploying every couple of years, moving their family from one geographic location to the next. And now their kids have got to make new friends in school. I mean, these are the sacrifices. But I will tell you, almost any soldier you talk to will tell you that they are happy to sacrifice that. That they love the job they're doing, they're proud to serve this nation, and. And so we're happy to bear that burden and bear that sacrifice.
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Mark
You talk about rising to the occasion, and I feel like, you know, you're in this dangerous place and you're trained in a certain way. You are going to rise to the occasion. But how do civilians rise to the occasion in your lives? How do you see that playing out?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Yeah, you know, sometimes I think it's just something deep, deep inside that comes up when a dark moment occurs. I don't know that you can plan for it. I don't know that you can prepare for it. I don't know that even the soldiers I've Met fully prepare for it. When you lose a loved one, I don't care whether you lose them on the battlefield or you lose them in a car accident or they die of cancer, you find out really who you are in those dark moments. And I think we all have it inside us. And the point of the book is you don't have to be a superhero to rise to the occasion. But you know, dig deep, it's in there and the people around you are going to need you to rise to that occasion when bad things happen. So, you know, this is more of a hope that people that read the book will realize that they have it within themselves to be this person when difficult things happen in your career.
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Mark
As you look back, were you able to identify people who you said, that guy, that woman, that's a leader?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Absolutely. Easily, Pretty easily.
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Mark
And what are some of those attributes that would make you poised to be a leader?
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Yeah, they are generally people, persons. You know, they understand how to build a team. As we talked about, they recognize that it's not about them. They are kind of a servant leader. I mean, I think the great leaders are servant leaders. You know, I love this saying from, from Pope Francis that, you know, a shepherd should smell like his sheep. And I think, you know, we have learned that in the military that great leaders are the ones that are out with the troops. And I don't care whether you're a non commissioned officer, you know, to be a great leader, you've got to be out, you've got to suffer the hardships. You have to, you have to lead from the front, as we say. Sometimes leading from the front is literally jumping out of the airplane first. Sometimes leading from the front is being the last in the chow line to get chow. But leading from the front means setting the example and doing the difficult things. You don't have to be the best at everything. In fact, great leaders are rarely the best at everything. But they've got to respect the people that work for them. They've got to be able to build the team around them. And you can see that pretty quickly. I mean, there are some folks that are a little too full of themselves that think they always have the right plan, that they're the smartest man or woman in the room. Those people you have to be a little bit careful of. Now every once in a while they turn out to be great leaders as well. But I tell you, more times than not, it's that man or woman who knows how to build team, who is the servant leader, who respects the people that work for them and who sets the example and does things that are moral, legal and ethical.
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Mark
When you look at, say, corporate America now, and you maybe read stories in the papers about this CEO does this, or this malfeasance of that, I can only imagine that somebody like you, true leader, who's selfless in many ways, you know, that, that really must pain you in some ways to read stories or hear things like that.
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Admiral William H. McRaven
Well, you know, we're not perfect in the military, but I think as an organization we work hard to instill the right values in people. And I think most of the men and women I've worked with in the military adhere to those values. But you know, again, I have one litmus test for every decision we make. And as I said, you have to do things that are, are moral, legal and ethical. And if your decision passes that litmus test, then it's probably a good decision. And most leaders know when things aren't moral, legal or ethical. It's not always easy to be good though. The circumstances that swirl around you sometimes where nobody's perfect. And again, we're going to make mistakes and sometimes as hard as you try to be more illegal enough, it doesn't work out. And we talk about your integrity being the most important thing, but frankly, you're the only one that can lose your integrity. And it happens sometimes. Again, that's a time when you just have to say, look, I made a mistake. I'm gonna figure out how to do better next time and move on.
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Mark
Now that you are out of the military and in academia, which is a
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Jill Schlesinger
whole nother universe, I love it.
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Mark
How has the transition been?
- [31:07]
Admiral William H. McRaven
Transition's been great. You know, I'm used to running a large organization. So in my role as the chancellor of the University of Texas System, I'm the CEO of these 14 institutions. And we were talking before the beginning of the broadcast about UT Austin, but of course that is our flagship, but it is hardly the only institution. We have eight academic institutions and then six health related institutions and we've got six medical schools. But I got to tell you, the best thing about the job is look at these. You know, first in family to go to college. We have a large Hispanic population in Texas. And down at UT Rio Grande Valley and Universidad El Paso and UT San Antonio, you see these kids that are the first in their family ever to go to school and you realize they have just changed the entire trajectory of their family forever. Because you know what statistics show is if you go to college, chances are very high your kids are going to go to college and their kids are going to go to college. And everything about going to college, you know, frankly, makes you a better person. I mean, statistically speaking, you know, not only do you make more money, but you're less likely to be racist and bigoted and you're going to be healthier. I mean, everything about spending time on a college campus is actually good for human beings.
- [32:17]
Jill Schlesinger
Okay, that is our show for today for everyone who's currently serving in the military. Thank you so much. We love hearing from you. Somehow or other, our podcast got sent around to a lot of these folks and we so enjoy our conversations with you. So many who are retiring or maybe thinking of second and third careers. But anyone else out there listening? Of course you know how to get in touch with us. Just go to jillonmoney.com, click the contact us button, write us a note, and if you want to join us live, all you need to do is check the box. You can subscribe to us on the Odyssey app or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Don't forget to do something now. Nice for someone else today. Change your work, change your wealth, change your life. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Hey gang, you know I've changed my tune on Bitcoin. Meaning I know that a lot of you are bitcoin curious, and that's okay. I know you're not putting all of your money into this. If you've been curious about bitcoin but haven't made the jump yet, Cash App makes it easy. You can set up automatic purchases with zero fees or buy larger amounts also with zero fees. Start small or go bigger. It's designed to be simple either way. So whether you're just learning or ready to try it out, it's built to meet you where you are for a limited time. New customers can get $10 added to their balance. Just use code CASHAPP10 when you sign up. And don't forget this part. Send at least $5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank Partners. Bitcoin services provided by Block Inc. Brand for additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at Cash App legalpodcast.
- [34:07]
Admiral William H. McRaven
On my new podcast on par with Maury Povich, we're getting down to the the truth behind the names that you know and love. Unfiltered conversations with legends like Leanne Morgan, Kathy Griffin, Ricky Lake to find out when they feel the most on par. We're breaking it down with Don Lemon, Aaron Parnas, Lamani Jones, laughing it up with Josh Johnson, Dan Soder, many more. You know the results are in. Great conversations are always on par. So follow and listen to On Par wherever you get your podcasts.