This episode is a long-form sit down with Greg Hake - Nebraska farm kid turned Navy SEAL, senior enlisted leader, and now Corporate Operator. We have some fun unpacking a 22-year career that took him from the conventional Navy all the way to retiring as an E8 in the Teams, with combat deployments across multiple theaters.

Greg walks us through his not-so-linear road to BUD/S, including early fleet time that built the grit (and motivation) that ultimately got him through selection. That experience paid dividends later, leading to multiple deployments as a Sniper and JTAC - coordinating air assets in combat, managing everything from infil and exfil to close air support, sometimes juggling more aircraft than most people can keep track of Uber rides.

We get into the realities of senior enlisted leadership - carrying responsibility for younger guys, the weight of losing teammates, and what it means to stay operational for over two decades. Greg also opens up about the physical toll of service, including emergency surgery to remove a brain tumor the size of a fist, along with enough orthopedic damage to keep the doc on speed dial - and overcoming it all to battle his way back to an operational platoon and deploy again.

Naturally, the heavy moments get balanced out with the stories you'd expect - friendly rivalry between other branch's SpecOps units, instructor chaos, deployment absurdity, and the timeless SEAL tradition of talking just enough shit to create problems that you then have to solve.

After retirement, Greg shifted lanes through the Honor Foundation into consulting, startups, and corporate leadership development - translating battlefield leadership into boardrooms and business strategy.

It's a conversation about perseverence, reinvention, and staying mission-driven long after the uniform comes off - 22 years of service, senior leadership perspective, and what comes next when the Teams chapter closes.

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Ep. 46 • Greg Hake • Skull Surgery to Sniper Ops in Afghanistan: Keep Fighting