Loading summary
Transcript59 lines
- [00:00]
Libsyn Ads Host
Back to school is better With Family Freedom from T Mobile, we'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones, all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte 820099 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T mobile phone.
- [00:30]
Mike Pesca
There'S an exciting live event, a debate that I'm taking part of. It's part of the Open to Debate series and the question to be debated is, is masculinity a prison? I think that's a little bit of a term of art, but I'm not going to give away too much of my side of the debate, which is, nah, come on, masculinity is not a prison. I'm actually going to bring more to the debate than just tone of voice. But if it's just on tone of voice, come on, masculinity of prison, things like that will be said. Details of the debate Wednesday, September 10th doors open at 5:30. The debate starts at 6 at the Comedy Cellar Village Underground in Greenwich Village. I will be debating Lux Altram. She is arguing, yes, masculinity is a prison. The moderator is. The moderator is Naima Raza and I think you're going to like it. I've been thinking a lot about is masculinity a prison? And I think I will be able to convince you if you're not already convinced now it's not. September 10th New York City details for tickets in the show Notes or go to opentodebate.org for tickets and more details about the programs they put on. It's Friday, September 5th, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the Gist. I'm Mike Pe and Donald Trump has done it again, the rebranding genius. Remember the Department of Defense, which kept us safe, which allowed for the common defense, a founding document, quote, you don't like that we're gonna be a country with a Department of War.
- [02:12]
Narrator/News Reporter
The president set to sign an executive order today to rebrand the Defense Department, give it a new name, an old name actually, the Department of War. That is, according to two White House officials. Now the president cannot formally change the name of the department without congressional approval, which his administration Reportedly will request he's against war.
- [02:34]
Mike Pesca
No one's more against war than him. But we're going to have a Department of War. He either believes in truth and branding. Looking at the crypto business, going to say no. Or he likes strong, masculine, aggressive things. Look, it's not like it wasn't Department of War before. Of course it was. Edward Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, was called by Lincoln Mars, the God of war. I guess if you're talking Roman gods, Pete Hexeth, I don't know, qualifies as Backus. Why stop there? There's so many things we could rebrand using their much better labels in the past. Let's see what throwback labels Trump might like in Congress. There was the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions and the Committee on Invalid Pensions. I don't know. I don't think Trump likes paying pensions or 401ks. Maybe he'd pronounce it invalid pensions anyway. Ooh, the Bureau of Freedmen's Affairs. You know, Trump wants to bring that back. No one's done more for the freedmen than me. With the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. The General. This is a big one. The General Land Office and Grazing Services that became the Bureau of Land Management. And you know how Trump hates the blm. So I think we should go back to Grazing services that after the Department of War, is the next one for Trump to target. And then of course, there's Health, Education and Welfare, which became hhs. And now HHS has not only changed its name, but changed its mission. They used to be in favor of eradicating diseases through vaccines. Now it's dedicated to eradicating vaccines. Not necessarily a name change, more of a mission statement, not creep. Except if you consider the guy who's in charge of the mission statement. But big changes are afoot and I say let Trump have his labels. He's a master of the rebrand. Like, say, how America used to be a respected superpower throughout the world. On the show today, I bring you a full show interview. You don't maybe get all the time in the world to spend time with a bonafide war hero. Not a defense hero, a war hero, but a war hero who now offers a defense of a purposeful life, a well thought out life, a means of achievement that transcends where he was, the battlefield. Mike Hayes, up next, falls in full swing. I'm feeling the chill. Maybe you are feeling the chill of an old wardrobe that leaves you cold. It's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that feel as good as they look. Quince makes it easy to look polished, to stay warm, to save big. Oh, you're saying you have to stint on quality? No, no stinting. You know what? They have essentials for fall. 100% Mongolian cashmere from $50 washable silk tops. You know me and the tops and the skirts. All right. This is my wife. She went online, she found these perfectly tailored denim pieces. There are these wool coats. They look designer level. Somehow they cost a fraction of the price. It depends on cutting out the middle person. You get luxury quality goods at half the price of similar brands. I've talked a lot about the linen shorts, but we're getting the wool. The wool is coming. I'll tell you how my wife likes the wool.
- [06:12]
Mike Hayes
The wool coat.
- [06:14]
Mike Pesca
I think she's going to like it. I think that it's cut and its comfort will be second to none and oh so cheap. Keep it classy and classic and cozy this fall with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.com the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U I N C E.com the gist to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com the gist Mike Hayes is the former commanding officer of SEAL Team 2. That means he led a 2000 person special operations task force in Afghanistan. So 20 years with the SEALs. Then he was a White House fellow serving as director of Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. And by the way, to span two presidencies like that, it's quite unusual you begin to understand it as you dove into his new book, Mission Driven, the Path to a Life of Purpose. I always wanted to know what that path was. Thank you for telling me, Mike.
- [07:27]
Mike Hayes
Hey, Mike, Let me just start by saying thank you for having me. Thanks for all the incredible impact that you've created on. On people, on your audiences and just for this great nation. You and the Gist are amazing and it's an honor to be here.
- [07:38]
Mike Pesca
Wow, you've buttered me up unbelievably. When people hire you to do corporate events, is that the standard fare? Is that what you do?
- [07:46]
Mike Hayes
Well, there's no hiring for me. It's just. It's just all contribution and helping out the nonprofits that I'm associated with.
- [07:53]
Mike Pesca
So what I want to do in this interview is glean as many insights as possible. Then I'm going to pull back and ask you. And I know you'll engage because I've heard you talk to other interviewers with some meta questions, but let's just do this. Mission driven. The path to a life of purpose. You're a bit regimented about this, and it's a two step process. First, you got to figure out who you are, but before you figure out what your life of purpose is gonna be and how to get there. But who you are could mean a lot of things. How do you distill it? What tools do you use to get a person, a reader of your book or anyone else to figure that out?
- [08:28]
Mike Hayes
Yeah, Mike, great question. So the way I would summarize it is what my wife and I did for our daughter every day growing up. When she went to school, we didn't ask her, what do you wanna be when you grow up? We said, who do you wanna be? And I just feel like the who is so much more important than the when. People say, what do you. I'm 54 years old. What do I want to be when I grow up? I don't know. But I want to keep working on my foundation and contributing to the organizations that I'm a part of and leaning into the hard things and learning and helping make others and make my team win. So, you know, when you think about who you are, it should be defined really, in my view, around your core attributes. And that's like in the book. I don't have any answers for you. I just have the questions that will help people in that Socratic kind of way answer them for themselves.
- [09:17]
Mike Pesca
What are some. I could figure some bad answers to who you are is just flipping the question and really answering what you are to sort of answer anything, like your job title or how others see you. But what are some really good and maybe some unusual answers for who you are that would qualify as a good answer to that question?
- [09:36]
Mike Hayes
Yeah. Well, let me just. My, again, my answers for myself aren't necessarily anybody else's answer for themselves. So I want to be careful. You know, a lot of times when we give mentoring advice, it's always that, hey, you should do what I did because I'm the smartest person. Person I know. And that's just not ever the case. And so for me, I think about when I say, when you say, who is Mike Hayes? I think about being somebody who contributes more than I take. You know, in the SEAL teams growing up, when I was 21 years old, I went through, you know, what is arguably some of the hardest training in the world. 120 guys start my class 19 finished. And the thing that I realized is that I focus more on what we say in the SEAL teams, team, teammate, self. And by, by focusing on your, your teams and your team and your teammate, it just lifts everybody up. And then you just, you also get lifted up because you're in an elite, awesome organization. And so whether it's the SEALs, the White House, or Insight Partners, where I am now, how do we all make each other better? And so at my core, what I try to do is be a person who gives more than I take.
- [10:37]
Mike Pesca
Do you think that goes on at White Houses? You've been in a couple.
- [10:41]
Mike Hayes
Yeah, it's a good question. And so look, I. Here's my experience in two administrations. It' the each and every administration has some really amazing people who are focused on absolutely the right things. And of course, there are some people who are focused more on themselves and them being out in front. And I would argue that the path to success is really the former, not the latter.
- [11:04]
Mike Pesca
Aren't the former more easily manipulated by the latter? Someone who's in it for himself probably has the same qualifications, looks great on paper, might be really probably in the White House, is extremely smart and hardworking. And this a similar, similar attributes for the seals. But if you're a little bit of an Iago, aren't you always going to be able to pull one over on an Othello?
- [11:31]
Mike Hayes
Well, I. Look, I think that in the short term, sure, you can always get hoodwinked in the short term, but in the long run, the world is a lot less imperfect and we figure people out. The one thing that we have perfect radars for in our lives is, is when are people, you know, giving us feedback or criticism or the things that you're referring to that lift us up or that tear us down. You know, a lot of times, like in the seals or I spent time at Bridgewater, World's Largest Hedge Fund, or Insight now, like, what do we do? We look at the things that we do and say, how could we have done that better? That retrospective of looking back and saying, what did I get right? What did I get wrong? What did I learn? That's the way to incorporate and constantly make things better. And so that, that I think is the core. So, sure, in the short term, you can absolutely, you know, get run over by, by some of these people who look out for themselves. But, you know, the more you see these people, the more you can recognize it a mile away. And I just, it just never works out in the long run for these people.
- [12:31]
Mike Pesca
So tell Me about, aside from a large life philosophy, if there are a couple of very workable, manageable tips in there. One was the 1% better tip. Certainly if you can apply that, you're going to get a lot better. Tell me about that.
- [12:47]
Mike Hayes
You heard me say we spent time in D.C. so I know how to not answer the question you asked me, Mike. I'll start in a one step to the left of that, which is when you think about, in life, leaning into the hard things is the path to learning, you know, and so I think the, the world, whether it's corporate or just, you know, nonprofit or just neighborhoods and civic organizations can think about, you know, like success and failure is binary. I think it's not binary. You know, you have to go to. If you fail and you learn, you just succeeded, you know, and so that is the path to that 1% better. And the better you become, the more you can, you know, achieve whether, however you define success and achievement. If that's like we were talking about earlier, helping others and contributing to others, that is that, that, that discipline, the dedication that it takes in order to lean in and try those hard things, it's, it can be very challenging to, to take that because we can either just not want to do the work or we could be afraid of what people are going to think of us if we try the hard thing and then classically fail. But learn. But I just think that 1% better is really foundational to a life that gets richer and richer through time. Because look, we all do things really well and we all do make mistakes in life. How do we lean in and say, hey, you know what, I made a mistake. I would have done that differently if I had another chance. That's the sign of maturity and wisdom.
- [14:11]
Mike Pesca
With some of the organizations, the excellent organizations that you've been asked to advise or that you've been a part of. Is there an over reliance on the academic? Can we as a society find and cultivate excellence from avenues other than Ivy League schools or the 100%?
- [14:31]
Mike Hayes
Absolutely. You know, I think that the most important traits are really the ones that you learn going through life. The book knowledge versus the learned knowledge is skews on paper toward the book knowledge in a lot of these big different positions. But the truth is that is far from a requisite. We actually actively seek out people from all different backgrounds in the seals. It's the same thing in the White House fellowship. And so I agree with. I think you're trying to maybe leading the witness a little bit here, Mike. And I Am agreeing with you.
- [15:15]
Mike Pesca
Well, the seals is what comes to mind. They don't have that. And then if you get through the SEALs program, to me it's more of an imprimatur of future success than great accomplishment from a great school. Look at our Supreme Court. We have nine justices. Yes, one went to Holy Cross, I'm just realizing. But they all went to Ivy League schools. And I wonder. An Ivy League law school and I wonder. Sure, let's just say they're nine of the best possible candidates for that slot from an Ivy League school. But if we keep. I'm not bashing Ivy League schools. I love academics and intellectualism. But if this is the only, if this is the only funnel, how can we possibly get the best people to lead our country or to make our organizations the best they could be? And then the other question is, all right, if not that. And there's also the, there's also the fact that when you get into an Ivy League school and succeed in an Ivy League school or an elite institution, it's somewhat of a proxy for a lot of the traits of hard work and self sacrifice you're talking about to some degree. But if we, if we have this as such a mainstay of defining success, isn't it putting our culture at a little bit of a disadvantage? But then what's the way to get out of that, if not the imprimatur, I'll use the word again, of such an institution.
- [16:40]
Mike Hayes
Well, regardless of whether it's the seals or one of these institutions, all you're really seeing is a talent identification process. And so it isn't like in any of these organizations. The formative, the formative lessons are not the thing I would argue for, for myself. Sure, the seals largely made me who I am because of the 20 years worth of lessons that I learned, but the characteristics to be a SEAL were in me before I walked into SEAL training. And so all that happens is on the other side of that, whether you, you have this, this selection process, that, that is like a little bit of a signal to the world. And so when the world is hiring, the point I think you're trying to make is, sure, we can look at seals or great academic institutions and look at that as a signal. It often and usually is a signal for some sor. However, I think you're making an excellent point through your question, which is you don't have to have that, you know, Ivy League or Navy SEAL or whatever kind of like talent marker in order to be talented. And so how do we Go find that from the rest of the world. It's often from seeing records of success. Do people try hard things, and do they have the drive and the desire and the work ethic? I think that EQ and work ethic takes you way, way farther than any sort of an additional 10 points on anyone's IQ.
- [18:04]
Mike Pesca
Absolutely. I do, too. But what's the way to identify that so that such a person with off the charts EQ and work ethic, someone in the 99th percentile of that, is as identified as potentially a person who could help an organization or lead an organization as much as credentialism? Because this is. As I'm reading your book, I'm saying to myself, this is great. A lot of people would get a lot out of it. But how do you scale this for a culture that has had a lot of elite failure? And I think as part of the elite failure, we've had a lot of elite success, too. But I think a part of the elite failure is who we define as elites. These are just some of the questions I had, so I thought I'd throw it to you.
- [18:51]
Mike Hayes
Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, look, here's the very personal and honest answer is like, I'm that person. I'm not the smartest person. I don't have the highest IQ in the world. Like, I know people who are really, really smart. I'm not them. I'm a person who sees a vision and is ready to work to go achieve something. In the book you might have read, Dan Hurley, the coach of the UConn basketball team, is a dear friend. He read my first book and then asked me to come in and speak to the team. And I've been very close to the UConn basketball team over the last couple years, and they've won a couple national championships. The thing that I go in there and when I talk to the. The team, I think about, you know, if you can visualize something, you know, then you can achieve it. It's only a question of what. What price are you willing to pay to go achieve your goals? When I got into SEAL training, I knew I was going to make it through. Sure, everybody is really hard, and it's blah, blah, blah, like, I don't care. Like, I. To me, my answer to my question was, I will pay any price that it takes to go be a seal. Whatever the edge of human misery is that it requires, I'm ready to do that. And so if you want to win a national championship, it's the same thing. What price are you willing to pay. And that work ethic does help you rise to the top. So in many respects I think, Mike, I am the answer to your question. And so, and there are a lot of me's out there, a lot of people who don't have the highest IQ that just are ready to have that work ethic. I think it's not harder than that.
- [20:21]
Mike Pesca
When you advise Danny Hurley and he decided not to take the job of the LA Lakers, had you already established and worked out your, I think it's like 15 point plan of how to determine what's, what's a great fit for the next job or did working with Hurley help you develop that and some of the things you told him and he put into practice now winds up in the book?
- [20:45]
Mike Hayes
No, no, no. The, the book was formed very much years and years and years ago. You know, I've been asked for many years to help Seals transition from the Seals or like, hey, I'm getting out, I'm. How do I think about this? Or, or I've been in senior managerial roles for, you know, over 10 years in the private sector. And you just think the, the thing that I care the most about are my teammates and I want them to work in my organization and as part of my team as long as, as long as possible. But when their goals diverge from being on the team, then I want to help set them up to go do the next great thing that's going to help set themselves up for their great life. And so when I was talking to Coach Hurley, Dan, it was never a frameworked conversation and I don't have the answers. Just like in Mission Driven, I do not postulate any sort of like you need to go do xyz. It was more of like, hey, how much do you value things like, you know, having impact on someone's life and being able to shape them. A 19 year old college student versus a 27 year old NBA hundred millionaire are two very different archetypes, you know. And so like that's just like one dimension of the consideration. And so those were the kinds of questions that I would throw at, you know, coach early in that situation. But anybody who's considering any sort of a transition is thinking through how things like geography, compensation or you know, what type of organization are you in or how much do you care about public recognition? Does that matter to you? What about size of the firm that you're in, etc. Etc. I could go on, but those are the, those are the questions.
- [22:26]
Mike Pesca
Do you think Danny Hurley or extrapolate out Others in his position. So not the, not the person who just gets out of the seals, but someone established and has two. Has a fork in the road, but they're two great choices. Do you think he. Others like him were looking to you to change his mind or to pretty much confirm what he was already inclined to do?
- [22:48]
Mike Hayes
Well, I think the best people triangulate their decisions. And so we often have a gut feeling of what will be right. But what's hard is to say why is something a gut feeling? And usually your gut. If you think about what's the logic for what you're defining, it's why are you feeling the way you are? And can you put it into words and into a sentence? And so I think a lot of times people need a little bit of outside help thinking, well, how do you crystallize that in these situations of am I looking to get somebody to tell me that I'm making the right decision or. Or hey, help change my mind? Kind of, kind of back to the Madeleine Albright thing. The premise of that is that that person has already made a choice. Many times they haven't, you know, and so. And I'll tell you, even when I hung up with Dan on a Sunday night and he hadn't, I think he announced his thing on like a Monday morning, even he would say, like, I am not even I don't have my final decision made yet. I'm like, listen, here's just some of the questions. And so I think having that open minded, like open minded exploration of what is best for you is really important.
- [24:04]
Mike Pesca
You weren't working JJ Redick on the other line, were you getting a fee from the buses?
- [24:11]
Mike Hayes
I don't want to overstate this either. I was one conversation over, like many conversations that Coach Hurley had. Like, it wasn't like the Mike Hayes, like, look, I'm a small part. I'm a molecule in the decision making process. I don't want to overstate it.
- [24:25]
Mike Pesca
So a couple times in the conversation you mentioned IQ because we were talking about intellect and meritocracy. And so how I think of it is IQ is really imperfect, but it's an attempt to affix an empirical number on this concept of intellect, which we can debate what that means and what goes into it. There's no such number, or there's not really even such a concept with grit. But is it possible? And I might be using an inexact term, but you go into the seals and you just say to yourself, I'm not quitting. And I bet you of the 121 guys in your class, probably 120 of them were saying something similar. But you make it out for a number of reasons. But also I would surmise that you're probably in the top 1% of this quality called grit. If we had a grit score, maybe we would say something like, Mike Hayes. Well, of course he's going to succeed. Look at his off the chart grit. Do you think that. Do you think that grit can. You can pull someone from the 20th% to the 80th percent? Do you think that's possible? I think that there's a lot of innate. There's a lot that's innate even to a quality like grit and hard work.
- [25:33]
Mike Hayes
I think. I think it's nature and nurture. Mike, I think you're putting your finger on something really wise. Like, let's go back to Dan Hurley. Like that dude has. On a scale of 1 to 100, he's 150 in grit, you know. Yeah, like. Like, talk about, like, in what. And so whether it's Dan Hurley, Mike Hayes, or anybody else, what is grit? Grit is really. It is thinking about what are the mistakes that you. That you've made in the. In your past life and that you've learned from, that you incorporate in and say, okay, I'm not going to make that mistake again, so that I don't need to do that hard thing again. The L and seal I joke around stands for lazy. Like, we do not make. We make a lot of mistakes, but we never make the same ones twice. Never. You know, and if we do, that's a problem. And so, you know, the grit factor comes from knowing that you are in a really hard situation, and you've been in a lot of hard situations before in your life, and you're drawing on that wisdom and that gut that we were talking about before to say that shape what you think you should be doing in that moment. If you use that basketball analogy, like, the reason Coach Hurley can win national championships is because he's got decades of experience and he's pattern matching to say, I've seen something, I've seen a movie like this, but before, you know, you're never in the exact same situation twice, different players, different environmentals. But you're drawing on those years and years of looking at what went right, what went wrong, studying it and being a student of your craft and saying, you know what? I'm compounding my knowledge through time. And then it makes it easy to have grit because you're so determined to achieve the goal, whatever it is that you're defining as your success.
- [27:16]
Mike Pesca
And you think grit as equality can be cultivated and increased even in adults, even in 30 year olds or people whose how their cortices have developed.
- [27:26]
Mike Hayes
No doubt. Because look, I was not the most experienced SEAL coming out of SEAL training at age 22. You know, it wasn't until after 911 where most of us got put really through the wringer. And sure, you can go through hell week and be up from Sunday morning to Friday afternoon and realize that no matter how hard hard something is, that you won't quit. But the thing is like when you're in these really tough situations, you realize that you can always stretch yourself further. If I really break it down in SEAL training, we stretch people beyond their limit and then we get them comfortable, we stretch them beyond their limit again, we get them comfortable, et cetera, et cetera. And what you're thinking is, sure, you're stretching your limits, true, but what you're really doing, Mike, is you're helping people. You're putting people in a situation that's really hard and saying, hey, go survive and figure it out. And that pattern like incorporates into someone's grit factor. So that my, at my point in life now I know that I've done a lot of things in life that very few people can do. But, but to be clear, there's a lot, there's way more I can't do than I can do. And there's a lot of people that can do way more things that I could never do. But the fact is I've been in so many different hard situations that when I have a hard situation in front of me, I've been trained, I've trained myself to be calm, to think about the outcome and to think about what do we want out of this situation. Because if we're not calm, all we're doing is wasting our energy and reducing the chances of achieving whatever it is we're trying to achieve. And so yes, I've got better at that every year of my life.
- [29:05]
Mike Pesca
And we'll be back with more with Mike in a minute. We're back with Mike Hayes, author of Mission Driven. I have been recently thinking and researching a lot about the GLP1 drugs. And they seem to go exactly at what we used to call character. And so there were qualities like willpower that very much correlate to grit. And it turns out that if you, and they're not 100% sure how it works, but if you tweak a little of the body's mechanism, then a person without much willpower can turn out to have willpower or what seems like willpower. I don't know. It seems to me like everything you're saying is true and people could get inspiration off it. But I also think that there is so much innate and to some degree I wouldn't want to give up, but we're not fully grappling with. I was going to say fooling ourselves, but we're not fully grappling with how much. How impossible some of this stuff is for a certain kind of person.
- [30:17]
Mike Hayes
Yeah. Look, the way I would explain it, and I've said in the past, probably not eloquently enough, but there's some cone of. I don't know how to show my hands here on screen, but. But some cone of potential outcomes that we all can have in any given thing.
- [30:32]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [30:32]
Mike Hayes
And. And where we land in that cone is a function of that training that we're talking about. But I agree with you. Look, I mean, I'm never going to play in the NFL or the NBA. You know, Like, I just like, like that, like that's outside my cone, you know, like, so where whatever, you know, whatever given abilities that we have, you know, there is an element of that we are capped at certain things, you know, and so. But the beauty of life is, do we train and work to land on that highest possible part of that cone, but more importantly also in the areas that give us energy and help us be better.
- [31:10]
Mike Pesca
Right, Because I agree with that. Otherwise the other argument would be, well, there's no such thing as inspiration.
- [31:16]
Mike Hayes
Right.
- [31:17]
Mike Pesca
There's no such thing as doing better tomorrow than you did yesterday. And I do not subscribe to that. So I want to ask you this. Your last book was called Never Enough A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility and Meaning, Never Enough. Now, I had heard an old interview where you said your next book was going to be called, I think, Always Enough.
- [31:41]
Mike Hayes
Yeah, that must have been a really long time ago. But look, let me start. Start with, like, Never Enough. Man, my mom hated the title. She's like, why Michael? And it's only. There was only a couple people that call me the full Michael.
- [31:51]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, you're pretty.
- [31:53]
Mike Hayes
Yeah. Yeah. Why would I ever go buy a book that says that I'm not enough? You know, And I do clarify early on in there, like, what do you really mean? It's, it's like you have to feel like you are enough at any given moment, but also have that kind of what you're talking about. That, that struggle, that drive, that desire, that grit to go be more. And what does being more mean? It's not my definition of whatever being more is. Some people think it's having more money or some people think it's having more followers on Instagram, and some people think it's having more impact for the nation. I don't sit here and judge. We're all different. So that was the first book and I ended up writing Mission Driven because of a lot of conversations after Never Enough.
- [32:37]
Mike Pesca
So was Mission Driven gonna be the book or is Mission Driven the book that always Enough was gonna be, or that's a different idea?
- [32:44]
Mike Hayes
Well, you know, Mike, I. I wrote Never Enough because I've had a bunch of near death experiences. You know, I've been shot at, I've been rocketed, I've amputated a teammate's leg. I've been held at gunpoint in 96 in Peru long before 911 and thought and threatened with execution and torture and really bad stuff. And I don't know, I could keep going on. I've could. I've got dozens of those types of experiences and to some degree, any of my military peers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have gotten in vehicles and ridden over roads that you don't know if you could be instantaneously vaporized and blown up. And when you have lived that kind of a life and you say, well, I even know that I died, or you have some of these near death experiences, the thing that you think about is of course your family. But the other thing is like, at least what I always thought about is like I had, I've been privileged to have some of these really awesome and really hard experiences. Did I share it and help others? And I. And the answer before I wrote Never Enough was no to some degree. When I wrote that book. This will sound weird, but I felt like I, okay, if I'm in that near death experience again, I'm not going to have that on my mind because I got my thoughts down and got it out to the world. I never planned on writing a book. I never planned on writing a second book, but it just that, you know, when it was just the way to have impact on people that I've never met. And I thought a great way to, to contribute to the, to the nation. And I think you probably know this, but I donated all the profits from Never Enough. I get overpaid to speak in public from time to time. And I. And all the profits from Mission Driven go to a 501c3 charity I started that pays off mortgages for Gold Star widows. And so I don't.
- [34:25]
Mike Pesca
And how many of you paid off so far?
- [34:27]
Mike Hayes
Yeah, we paid off 12. There are no full time employees. It's a very quiet organization that goes and helps. And so 12 women's mortgages have been paid off. And while the husbands have succumbed and paid that ultimate sacrifice, it's the widows and the children that continue to pay that ultimate sacrifice. Every day and to my every remaining day on this planet, I will think about my brothers and teammates that I don't have with me and, and I may seem somewhat normal, but I carry a ton of weight from all of this. And so I'm here to do as much as I can to honor and recognize them and to help those families that have paid that ultimate sacrifice and continue to.
- [35:06]
Mike Pesca
While I have you, I want to ask about a column that David Brooks really wrote. And I read your book and I was reading the column at the same time and I said I got to ask Mike about this. So he writes about certain struggles, the struggle between excellence and superiority. Some people's longings are non comparative. If they're good at something, that satisfaction is its own reward. Other people's longings are primarily competitive. It's not enough for them to be good. They need to be better than they need to come out on top of someone else. I notice awful lot this is Brooks writing of competitive striving for superiority. In the world, our entire meritocracy is built around striving for superiority. It's not that you're good. What matters most is that you're ranked higher. How do you think about that? Because I think that there is something about superiority to even strive for that has merit. I don't know if the seals and their weeding out process was such that we're just going to weed out those who don't make it. And in some classes 80% make it. Or if they had a threshold where in every class we have to fail at least half. But if you don't strive for superiority, you're not going to make it through, I would imagine.
- [36:21]
Mike Hayes
Yeah, let's separate two concepts. Let's separate striving for superiority with the relative. The comparison point you're making. Because to me, what I think life is about is the way that I approached my four mile time runs in SEAL training. I wasn't trying to beat any of my classmates. I was just trying to always beat myself. And so when I'm doing anything hard, it isn't about me doing better. Than anybody else. In fact, I hope everybody else has their best day also. You know, and so the underlying theme between the like the I need to be better than someone else is really rooted in ego or perception. You know, how do we present ourselves to the world? What I would argue is that when you really truly have confidence, it doesn't matter how you look to anyone else. Because like the proudest days that I have are when I stand in front of a room and say, hey, I don't have the answer to that. I don't know. Or your idea is better than mine. Because when I'm a leader of an organization, the outcome of the organization is my success. I don't need my name associated with that success. I need my organization to win. And if that's the way everybody in a team works, then that makes the team success elite. So the, the trait that you're describing of the like I need to look better than somebody else is in my view the fastest path to toxicity and failure.
- [37:49]
Mike Pesca
Did you do seer training in the SEALs?
- [37:52]
Mike Hayes
It's funny you asked. Wow, you've really done your homework. The the in no I haven't is to answer your question. In 1996 I was held at gunpoint. I had and threatened with execution. This was in Lima, Peru. It's a longer story for a different day. But, but I, I lived through a SEAR training situation. And so actually when I came back I had, was not a graduate of SEAR school, but I was asked to go become like to, to help and not necessarily not an instructor, that's like a full time job, but to help talk to them and say, hey, what'd you learn? In 96 there wasn't a whole heck of a lot happening with the military. It was peacetime. And so whenever we did have these like little situations or skirmishes or different situations, we, we always ask ourselves what could we learn from this? And, and candidly, I did a lot right in that situation and so did my swim buddy, my teammate that I was with.
- [38:37]
Mike Pesca
And, and by instinct, by other training that you have that wasn't seer.
- [38:43]
Mike Hayes
Well, I'd say that's a good question. I've never really thought of it that way. I think the, the foundation of SEAL training it was, was what gave me the ability to succeed in that situation. Because what I did was I thought to myself, if I were them, what would make them need to kill someone like me? And so because they had the three things that you learn in basic SEAL training. The successful traits of an ambush are surprise superior firepower and violence of action. These people had all three of those and they, and we were caught flat footed and it's, and we learned a lot from it. But you know, and so again, it's a story for another day. But what matters is can you look at a situation like that and say what went right and what would I have done differently if I could do it over again?
- [39:35]
Mike Pesca
Wow. Such stories, such wisdom. The name of the book is Mission Driven the Path to a Life of Purpose. Mike Hayes, thank you so much.
- [39:45]
Mike Hayes
Mike, thank you so much. Appreciate being here and thank you to everybody listening.
- [39:55]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist. Astrid Green we say goodbye to. She ran our social media exquisitely. Thank you so much, Astrid. If you guys haven't subscribed to the Instagram channel, I have to tell you, it's a personal affront on this wonderful woman. If you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel, I don't know how much more you want to insult this working mom, but those choices are on you. Phillips Weiss, Good has been helping with the Gist list this week. Kathleen Sykes, she is my co author, Hive Brain on Pesca Profundities and the Gist list. Ashley Kahn's our production coordinator and Michelle Pesca is in charge of selecting the backgrounds while we were in Maine. And thanks for listening.
- [40:55]
Libsyn Ads Host
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.