William H. McRaven (3:40)

And so when President Obama asked some of those hard questions, give me an example of some of that, like, what would he have asked?

Mark (3:47)

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, 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.

William H. McRaven (4:16)

And is there ever a time where the President asked you a question and it made you rethink your position.

Mark (4:24)

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, 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.

William H. McRaven (4:51)

Was the Bin Laden raid, which obviously went in your direction, did you have apprehension about it?

Mark (4:59)

No, never.

William H. McRaven (5:00)

Really? How come?

Mark (5:02)

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 highly trained. They were all combat veterans. The helicopter pilots were all combat veterans. We had 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 to. So. So, no, I wasn' 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.

William H. McRaven (5:48)

And you did it.

Mark (5:49)

And we were fortunate that we did it. The guys did it.

William H. McRaven (5:52)

The guys did it. That's pretty great. I don't know why, but I always think that with. And I told you before we went on the air that I have come married into a military family, and it was striking to me that it never seemed like. 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?

Mark (6:20)

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 you're 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.

William H. McRaven (7:06)

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?

Mark (7:12)

Oh, no, that part never scared me. That was easy.

William H. McRaven (7:15)

So what was scary? Like, give me a. Give me an instance where you were like, oh, my God, I am scared.

Mark (7:19)

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 wasn't afraid to take some risk, wasn't afraid to 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 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.

William H. McRaven (8:40)

Now, to kind of shift gears, in 2014, you're delivering a commencement speech at the University of Texas, right?

Mark (8:48)

Right.

William H. McRaven (8:49)

And first of all, how did that come about? Who asked you to do that?

Mark (8:52)

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.

William H. McRaven (9:16)

And from that commencement speech comes this slim, elegant, and really terrific book called make youe Bed Every Morning.

Mark (9:27)

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.

William H. McRaven (10:54)

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?

Mark (11:04)

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 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? 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.

William H. McRaven (11:54)

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?

Mark (12:02)

Well, at least when I was being raised, my father was an Air Force officer and my mother was a 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 five 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.

William H. McRaven (14:01)

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.

Mark (14:13)

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.

William H. McRaven (15:02)

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. 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?

Mark (15:45)

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 given 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, 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.

William H. McRaven (17:41)

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?

Mark (17:51)

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 realized 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.

William H. McRaven (18:57)

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?

Mark (19:10)

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 and 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, if you press on, if you accept the fact that every once in a while things are going to just go, you know, not go your way, get over it and move on.

William H. McRaven (20:26)

And does that mean though, as, 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 do, you are you hardened to that, in other words? I don't know, like I'm feeling like a, 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?

Mark (20:56)

Yeah, probably everybody does for a few minutes. And yeah, 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.

William H. McRaven (21:09)

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.

Mark (21:30)

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, you know, a number of failures in my career. And you know, 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. 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.

William H. McRaven (22:57)

Who inspired you in your career?

Mark (23:00)

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.

William H. McRaven (23:50)

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?

Mark (23:57)

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 did 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 the 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.

William H. McRaven (25:38)

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?

Mark (25:53)

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. You know, 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 know, 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 know, 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.

William H. McRaven (26:49)

As you look back, were you able to identify people who you said, that guy, that woman, that's a leader?

Mark (26:56)

Absolutely.

William H. McRaven (26:56)

Easily.

Mark (26:57)

Pretty easily.

William H. McRaven (26:59)

And what are some of those attributes that would make you poised to be a leader?

Mark (27:02)

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. 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 as 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.

William H. McRaven (28:31)

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.

Mark (28:51)

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. As I said, you have to do things that 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, and sometimes as hard as you try to be moral, legal and ethical, 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 going to figure out how to do better next time and move on.

William H. McRaven (29:53)

Now that you are out of the military and in academia, which is a whole nother universe, I love it. How, how has the transition been?

Mark (30:00)

The 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 over 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 University of 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.

Jill Schlesinger (31:10)

Okay, I hope you liked that. That was one of the favorite top three interviews that Mark and I have ever been part of. It was so great. And if you have any comments, questions, anything like that going on in your financial life, you can always reach us@jillonmoney.com click the contact us button, write us a note. And if you want to join us on the air, just check the box. Try to lift someone up. Change your work, change your wealth, change your life. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. When investing your money starts to feel like a second job, betterment steps in with a little work life balance it's the automated investing and savings app that handles the work so you don't have to. While they build and manage your portfolio, you build and manage your weekend plans. While they make it easy to invest for what matters, you just get to enjoy what matters. Their automated tools simplify the complex and put your money to work, optimizing day after day and again and again. So go ahead, take your time to rest and recharge. Because while your money doesn't need a work life balance, you do make your money hustle with Betterment get started@betterment.com that's B E T T E R M E N T.com investing involves risk performance not guaranteed Buying a home in California can certainly feel intimidating. We hear from listeners all the time throughout the state, and they want to know what? Where can they even start? Many of them find that turning to a Realtor changed everything. Realtors can help buyers understand what they can afford. They can explain all of the steps that are involved in purchasing a home, and they can walk you through every detail, from making an offer to closing the deal. Working with a Realtor can help you feel less alone or unsure about the process and that peace of mind that is the power of having a Realtor by your side. Whether you're ready to move or just starting to dream, don't go it alone. Don't let what you don't know stop you from starting your next chapter. Find your realtor@championsofhome.com. that's championsofhome.com.