126： 7 Principles of Total Focus ｜ Navy SEAL Brandon Webb
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
196.5522
Summary
Brandon Webb is a former Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author. He spent 13 years in the elite United States Navy SEALs and was instrumental in redesigning the sniper SEAL training program, which trained members such as Chris Kyle and some of the deadliest snipers in US military history. After leaving the SEALs, Brandon went on to found Softrep, a media company that focuses on the special forces community, and is now an experimental test pilot.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
We are constantly bombarded by stimulus and more than any other time in history, the ability to
00:00:04.860
focus is becoming increasingly difficult. Focus, however, sits at the top of a list of virtues and
00:00:10.200
abilities every man needs to develop if he hopes to experience any level of success in his life.
00:00:15.360
My guest today, Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, joins me to talk about how to make better decisions
00:00:19.160
under pressure, the power of self-talk and visualization, how to become more effective
00:00:24.040
at violence of action, and the seven principles for total focus.
00:00:28.380
You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly charge
00:00:33.300
your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You
00:00:38.880
are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This
00:00:45.160
is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said
00:00:53.240
Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and founder of this
00:00:57.880
podcast, The Order of Man. If you are with us for the first time today, I want to welcome
00:01:02.580
you. If you're a veteran of The Order of Man podcast, I also want to welcome you. This
00:01:07.520
is the go-to podcast for every conversation that you'd ever want to have about being a
00:01:12.740
better man, and if we've missed any conversations that you would like to have or you would like
00:01:17.240
to hear, just let me know, and we will make that happen. Each week, guys, I am interviewing
00:01:21.920
the world's most successful men on the planet. I'm finding out what makes them so successful,
00:01:26.000
and then we're delivering that conversation straight to you so you can be successful in
00:01:30.240
your life as well. Today, I interview Navy SEAL Brandon Webb about creating more focus
00:01:34.920
in your life, but before we get into that, I do want to give you a couple of resources
00:01:40.320
that you are going to want to check out. First, if you are listening to this, the day it is being
00:01:45.140
released, we just finished our first ever live meetup in Kansas City. A lot of you guys knew
00:01:50.020
about that, and a lot of you guys attended. We had 75 members of The Order of Man. It was
00:01:55.160
such a huge success, and I know the guys really enjoyed the weekend and, of course, received
00:02:00.580
a ton of value from it. If you weren't there, don't worry. No problem. We are going to be
00:02:04.580
doing more since we know it works now, and we know it's something that you guys want more
00:02:09.060
of, so be on the lookout for that. It has been, guys, a crazy summer. It's been a crazy
00:02:15.340
last couple of months. Two weeks ago, I spent a couple of days in Sundance, Utah, with eight
00:02:21.740
of our team leaders within the Iron Council. If you don't know what that is, you can head
00:02:26.600
to orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Essentially, it's our exclusive brotherhood, but like I was
00:02:32.200
saying, we spent two days hashing out a lot of details and new plans to improve the experience
00:02:37.380
that the 300 guys inside the Iron Council are having. I'll tell you more about that during
00:02:42.400
the break, today during the podcast, but for now, you can check it out at orderofman.com
00:02:46.960
slash Iron Council. Guys, my guest today, I'm excited to introduce you to him. He is a Navy
00:02:52.780
SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author. His name is Brandon Webb. I'm absolutely blown away
00:02:58.480
with the caliber of man that this guy is. He spent 13 years with the Navy SEALs. He was actually
00:03:05.020
instrumental in redesigning the sniper SEAL training program, which trained members such as Chris Kyle
00:03:11.160
and some of the deadliest snipers in US military history. And when he left the SEALs, Brandon went
00:03:17.580
on to found softrep.com and Hurricane Media, which is one of the largest media organizations that focus
00:03:24.480
on news and information for the special forces community. When he's not doing all of that, he is
00:03:29.740
an experimental test pilot. As you can see, the man and his resume are impressive, and you'll get a
00:03:36.040
chance to hear exactly what I mean today in my conversation with Brandon Webb. Brandon, what's
00:03:42.160
going on, man? Thanks for joining me on the show today. Thanks for having me. I've been looking
00:03:45.320
forward to it. Yeah, you've got a big book launch today. I thought we would get you on the call to
00:03:49.720
talk about focus, which I think is something myself and probably a lot of men listening to this need a
00:03:54.620
little bit more of in their life. Yeah, the decision to write Total Focus was something I experienced
00:04:00.820
myself as an entrepreneur, leaving the SEAL teams at a time when the whole SEAL brand was blowing up in
00:04:07.960
the media. I had a lot of opportunity. I just lost my first business, which is a whole nother story
00:04:14.920
maybe we could get into on another show. Yeah, it sounds like I went through and researched that a
00:04:20.320
little bit. So yeah, that might be a different conversation, but keep going. Yeah, it was tough.
00:04:24.360
I got out of the SEAL teams at the height of my career and wanted to be around my children more
00:04:30.420
to be a dad. Started a business, lost everything, lost my life savings, got divorced, but still had
00:04:37.320
all these opportunities. And I was just chasing five or six things. And I remember I had always,
00:04:45.200
guys always come to me because the work I did at the sniper program and asked me for shooting lessons.
00:04:51.520
And I just, I remember a guy approached me, a business owner, Todd, and he said, look, I want you
00:04:57.320
to teach me private lessons. I said, look, I just don't do this. He said,
00:05:00.420
oh, let me know your price. And I told him a thousand an hour and he said, no problem. Come
00:05:05.380
up to LA. Okay. I should have charged more, I guess. I know. Cause I just, I thought I would
00:05:11.280
just get rid of them. Right. And it ended up being ironic is that the time I spent with Todd
00:05:16.620
and he owned a Porsche dismantler business. It's a really interesting guy. We got to know each other
00:05:22.600
and he said, look, you know, I don't know you that well, but I know you're smart and you've got
00:05:27.060
these opportunities you're chasing. And it reminds me of myself before I started to focus on
00:05:33.220
my core business. And at the time, you know, he had this conversation with me and it really
00:05:39.340
resonated with me. And he said, if you think of these opportunities, like a big garden, it's like,
00:05:44.400
by the time you're watering that opportunity at the far end of the garden and get back to the first
00:05:50.440
one, it's dead. And he said, it's just, you know, focus on one thing was basically what he said.
00:05:56.060
So it all has to do with, with focusing in and learning how to say no to, to opportunities.
00:06:02.260
And when I applied, that was the first time, you know, I launched my second business and started to
00:06:07.700
have a lot of success and get it over, you know, the seven figure mark and now into the eight figure
00:06:13.600
mark. So the focus is a big part of my life as well as, you know, how we deal with opportunities,
00:06:21.940
but also, you know, how do we focus on what's important to us in life and use a lot of the
00:06:26.740
mental management principles that I learned and taught and lived in the SEAL sniper community.
00:06:33.280
How do those translate to real life, you know, outside of the Navy SEAL teams? And that's what I
00:06:39.820
really hope to accomplish with, with this book, Total Focus was to share my personal experiences
00:06:45.640
and basically translate these skills that I learned in the SEAL teams. And as a Navy SEAL sniper
00:06:50.780
instructor, give people some tools that hopefully they can use. And so is this the seven principles
00:06:56.620
that you go through in the book that you've, you've outlined these principles and these are
00:06:59.840
the principles that you use personally to focus as you built your business to where it is today?
00:07:04.300
Exactly. I'm going to mess up the saying, but there's that common saying, like there's those that
00:07:09.240
those that can do, do, and those that can teach, can't or something like that.
00:07:13.100
Right. Those that can do, do, those that can't teach.
00:07:15.540
Yeah. And so I think that's a line of bullshit because some of my biggest mentors and teacher
00:07:22.120
in life were experts and they were doers and they were also, you know, teacher mentors. And so
00:07:28.320
I see a lot of books. I read a ton because I'm a, been a CEO and entrepreneur now for over 10 years
00:07:34.680
and I read, you know, several books a month, but I'm always looking for books that are written by
00:07:40.160
people that are actually doing stuff, not somebody that just had a concept, an idea.
00:07:47.760
Yeah. It's that real world experience. And, and that's what I wanted in this book too. So I'm
00:07:53.340
fortunate to be a member of the entrepreneurs organization and I'm in the New York chapter.
00:07:58.960
So I featured them in the book as well. And so, and it's all about real world experiences. This
00:08:05.240
just, this isn't academic. It's about, you know, people that are actually out there doing stuff and
00:08:11.280
what tools are they using to, to, and practices are they using to, to be, be successful. So I feel
00:08:19.120
really good about the book, but it's a first for me because the first one I wrote was The Red Circle,
00:08:23.220
which is my memoir up until leaving the Navy really. And, you know, I'm really proud of that book
00:08:30.560
as much as I've taken a lot of heat being one of the first authors with Chris Kyle and Marcus
00:08:39.460
Luttrell. We were in that handful of guys that were first out the door. And so we, we did take a lot
00:08:47.560
Which seems to have subsided a little bit. I mean, you see a lot of members of the special
00:08:51.140
operations community who have come out and written more books and are more public and
00:08:55.280
doing podcasts and things like that. Has that changed quite a bit since you came out with The
00:08:59.900
You know, it has, it's definitely gone. Because at the time, a lot of guys didn't understand
00:09:06.720
because they were still in, in the, the SEAL teams. And, you know, you're seeing things from
00:09:12.120
a different lens, but when you're outside and have a family to feed and you've got to make a living,
00:09:17.060
you should be proud to be a member of the SEAL community or, or military and just a veteran
00:09:22.100
in general. And it's not something to be ashamed of or leave off your resume. But a lot of guys
00:09:26.980
didn't understand it. And now, thankfully, a lot of guys in my peer group have retired and they've,
00:09:33.800
they've gotten out and they're, they're transitioning and doing good stuff. Like Jocko has a great
00:09:39.360
I'm glad to see it happen, but inevitably, you know, we come from a very, the SEAL community
00:09:46.260
is extremely competitive inside the military and a lot of traits that may, you know, there's a few
00:09:54.060
guys that I would definitely go to war with at the drop of a hat, but I wouldn't want them over at a
00:10:04.200
You know, a lot of guys don't make, you know, they transition out to civilian life and they
00:10:09.140
just don't know how to behave and act like professionals. And that's the part that is a
00:10:13.620
little bit frustrating at times. Cause I, I, every once in a while it pops up and I'll, I'll get
00:10:18.820
attacked. And yeah, but the biggest thing is when some 13 year old young man is like, why would this
00:10:24.760
guy do this or say this about you? And I'm just like, look, you gotta just always take the high road
00:10:29.460
and be positive and look at most of the guys you can kind of see either they've got issues or
00:10:35.580
problems, but it's still, it's tough. I won't say it's, it's something that, you know, when it does
00:10:40.080
pop up, it sucks, but it's just something you have to deal with.
00:10:43.000
Well, and I imagine too, this is part of the concept of focus as well, because you can take a lot of your
00:10:48.200
time and attention and energy focusing on some of the negativity that you're inevitably going to
00:10:52.640
receive, or you can decide to focus on something that's going to be far more productive for not only
00:10:58.060
yourself, but the people you're trying to serve as well. I want to break down some of these
00:11:01.920
principles. I think the first, the first one you talked about was front sight focus. Can you explain
00:11:06.680
what you mean? I mean, obviously this is a military term, but for those of us who may not know what
00:11:10.680
front sight focus is. Yeah. So front sight focus and marksmanship is, you know, when you're lining up a
00:11:18.520
target, whether it's the reticle on a sniper scope or an iron sight on a rifle or handgun, you want that
00:11:25.920
front sight to be clear and focus. And your target is slightly blurry because you're focused just on
00:11:31.800
the front side of the weapon or the, you know, the crosshairs of the sniper scope.
00:11:36.540
Right. Cause the, the, I, I obviously can't focus on multiple things at once.
00:11:40.860
Exactly. And a common mistake people will make is they'll go back and forth, right? Their eyes are
00:11:46.020
going to the target, to the reticle, to the target, to the reticle. So front sight focus is,
00:11:50.540
is that's where the term comes from. And so to stay on target and, you know, I talk about what it was
00:11:55.640
like to be a sniper and get up as a sniper student and take, we had a shot every morning and we get
00:12:03.520
up at 6am and we do a cold bore shot, which is just like a one shot out of a cold rifle and it was pass
00:12:09.880
or fail. And so I translate that to like live every day with that single bullet. And, and I, so I talk
00:12:17.020
about, you know, what it's like to have everything on the line. Also, we had a saying in the SEAL team
00:12:23.220
it's called earn your Trident every day. And I see people, I've seen it on the civilian world.
00:12:28.100
And, and when I was in the military, they, they start off strong, but they don't. And then they
00:12:32.980
just fade and they, you know, they think that it's okay to like do a really good job for the first
00:12:38.280
couple of days. And then they taper off and it's like, look, you've got to really bust your ass
00:12:42.920
every day to earn your, your SEAL pin. You can't let up like it's, you have to earn it every day.
00:12:48.600
So that's kind of a big thing about being an entrepreneur and a parent even.
00:12:54.140
Yeah. I mean, I think we see this arrival syndrome, right? Where guys think, oh, because I'm an
00:12:57.660
entrepreneur or because my business is now producing seven figures that somehow I can now coast and
00:13:03.940
Exactly. They get a little confident and, you know, and as you know, life can kick you in the nuts in a
00:13:11.540
Sure. How do you decide what to make your front side focus? Because there is a lot that we can choose
00:13:17.240
from. How do you decide what it is in your life?
00:13:19.980
I mean, me, it has to be something that I'm passionate about. I've always been into creating
00:13:25.400
content since I was a kid. I grew up on a sailboat with hippie parents. They pull my sister and I out
00:13:30.760
of school and we'd sail to Mexico to South Pacific and I didn't have a TV. So I read a ton of books and
00:13:36.700
I always had these ideas for, for different stories. And so I accidentally got into digital media
00:13:43.500
because I decided to start writing and then I got asked to run a blog for military.com and I never
00:13:49.000
would have thought I would have been doing the business that I'm doing today at Hurricane if
00:13:54.020
you had asked me when I was a sniper. I was like, what are you talking about? Digital media stuff.
00:13:58.000
I imagine it's a little bit different than a previous life for you.
00:14:01.240
Yeah. But I love what we do. You know, we have a, we have the software podcast. We have our software
00:14:05.860
TV channel. It's, that's all web based on an app. We have so much content. And then, you know,
00:14:12.740
the products that we sell, I genuinely love what we do and love that I can take, you know,
00:14:18.500
this last winter, we took five guys over to the French Alps and did this big ski and snowboard
00:14:24.900
documentary that was focused on showing that a different path or outlet for the whole concept
00:14:32.160
was thrills before pills. It was taking guys that could really charge big mountain terrain
00:14:36.880
and interview them as well and, and show that how they use the outdoors as therapy. And so that,
00:14:42.240
you know, doing that was, it was incredible, like indie documentary to, to make ourselves,
00:14:47.500
but the message is really powerful as well. And I just love being able to do that. So I, I would
00:14:52.240
say back to your question is, you know, I, I get guys that ask me all the time, like, I want to
00:14:57.080
start a business. What, what should I do? And the first thing is find something that you're,
00:15:01.300
you really care about because it, it won't seem like work. I mean, you still have to bust your
00:15:05.980
ass, but it will not seem like work because you genuinely really enjoy it. Right. I know I've
00:15:11.500
even had people ask me like how many hours per day or week that you work. And I honestly, I have no
00:15:16.500
idea because I enjoy what I do. I come down here into my basement and get to work and I'm always busy
00:15:21.580
and I don't know if it ever shuts off for me. My wife could probably attest to that, but I don't
00:15:26.500
consider it like me, you know, punching the time clock because it is something that I genuinely enjoy.
00:15:31.300
You know, I love the fact that what you're doing, especially today, I've seen over the past
00:15:37.760
decade, this kind of wussification for lack of a better term, but look, you can still be a man
00:15:44.080
and be respectful of other people's viewpoints, religion, sexual preferences, but, but you don't
00:15:51.020
have to like hide and scurry away. Like you can still be a man in the 21st century. I've just,
00:15:57.060
but I've seen this, like people are afraid, you know, it's like afraid to open a door for a,
00:16:02.800
for a lady. And it's just like stuff like that, you know, and hats off to what you're doing with
00:16:07.260
the podcast and your business. I appreciate that. Yeah. Let's move on to the second principle that
00:16:12.200
you talk about, which is situational awareness. We've had a lot of guys talk about situational
00:16:16.240
awareness. And one of the takes and the stances that you talk about in the book is knowing more than
00:16:21.220
you think you need to know. I'd like to hear your perspective on that because in a way,
00:16:25.580
it's almost like a little counterintuitive because you talk about focusing on the things
00:16:29.540
that matter, but then also expanding your reach to things that you might not need to know.
00:16:33.860
Help me understand that and walk us through that a little bit.
00:16:36.140
Sure. So I do want to just really quickly, cause it's such an important thing of whether you're
00:16:41.580
parents, you know, in business management, whatever, but self-talk is one of the biggest
00:16:46.720
thing. And I, it's in the front side focus chapter. We are our biggest enemies when it comes
00:16:52.800
to self-talk and how we think and talk to ourselves in our head. And so I would encourage people that
00:16:58.700
there's a book called with winning in mind. And I, of course, talk about it and, and total focus,
00:17:03.820
but the self-talk is so critical. Like we, and there's, there's things that you can do to kind
00:17:08.640
of counter those narratives where we're thinking of ourselves in a certain way. And generally it's,
00:17:14.080
it's a negative, negative way. Like I'm not a very good golfer. I'm not this.
00:17:18.060
It almost seems like that's the default, right? Yeah. So the self-talk thing, like really
00:17:22.140
developing a habit to, to counter that and, and, and create positive self-talk is a, is a really
00:17:28.540
important principle that I just didn't want to skip over. But the total situational awareness,
00:17:36.060
what I'm really am getting at by that is you, you have to always be kind of, it's like running a
00:17:43.000
business and living life is, is like a chess match, right? You always have to be looking forward and
00:17:48.140
planning your next moves. Because if you just kind of head down and for, there was a couple of years
00:17:54.180
when I started my company where it was, you know, the brands who were advertising online and in the
00:18:02.840
digital space were throwing seven figures around, like it was nothing, like, like a dollar bills at a
00:18:09.400
strip club. It was, it was, and it was like this crazy environment. And I'm like, man, this is great.
00:18:15.940
Like just make some good content, have a little bit of audience and life is good. And then all of a
00:18:22.320
sudden things started to change. And I was noticing that the, the oncoming of Facebook and Facebook has
00:18:30.660
totally disrupted the advertising industry because, because you can spend a dollar on an ad. And if you do
00:18:37.820
your, if you manage, right, you can make two, three, four or five dollars on that dollar spend. And you
00:18:44.100
can't do that with a TV ad or a magazine ad. And so paying attention, you know, for me, as I related
00:18:51.280
personally, I was, I was starting to notice, okay, something is changing and ad rates are now going way, way
00:19:00.020
down. And also on the podcast space, the opposite was happening. Podcast was, you know, only, I think a year
00:19:07.740
or two ago has really been accepted as mainstream, but I could tell it was going to tip as terrestrial
00:19:13.340
radio and even satellite XM. I mean, you can put those satellite XMs and all the new cars you want.
00:19:21.520
People nowadays, they want to access podcast and content on their smartphone, on their mobile device.
00:19:29.240
Exactly. They don't, you know, they want to listen to it when the show's being piped through a
00:19:34.080
satellite feed. They want to listen to it on demand, you know, put the kids down for the night or whatever
00:19:39.200
and listen to the, listen to it on their way into work. So just, you know, I was noticing all these
00:19:45.240
changes. And if I just sat back and run my business without having this like big situational awareness,
00:19:51.560
I would have just gotten crushed. So that, that's what I'm about, you know, the book is really written
00:19:57.340
for business leaders and entrepreneurs. Um, but there's so much more that can be applied to
00:20:03.460
parenting too, which is, I should write it. I feel like I should write a parenting book because,
00:20:08.180
you know, I feel like very similar. I mean, there's, there's definitely things that cross,
00:20:12.260
I guess my question, when you start to see some of these things going on, whether it's in the
00:20:16.780
entrepreneurial world and you've got Facebook ads and podcasting, because the next point you talk
00:20:21.060
about is violence of action and you talk about getting off the X. So how do you decide to
00:20:25.660
then implement? And I think this is probably the biggest barrier that a lot of guys have is
00:20:30.160
okay. I'm aware of what's going on. I'm focused on what I want now. What exactly? And so a good
00:20:36.400
friend of mine, Kamal Ravikant is a tech venture capitalist. Uh, his brother started AngelList and
00:20:42.520
Silicon Valley and Kamal paid me the best compliment a couple months ago. He said, you know what?
00:20:48.200
Cause he's in a, he's on my advisory board. He's like, you know, what makes you different? It's like,
00:20:52.900
you actually will write down and actually put what I'm, I'm giving you this advice and you'll
00:20:59.080
write it down and I'll see it happen. And like two weeks later, he's like, you actually get shit
00:21:03.620
done. Yeah. And, and so look, execution to your point earlier is, is a thing. I, I feel like people
00:21:10.700
are, they get paralyzed. And I remember as a sniper instructor, we'd have these students that
00:21:17.660
we would have a stock field, say it's a mile long and it's very, you know, it's like a football field.
00:21:23.020
So we have one end of the field, they start the other end. We have two instructors like myself.
00:21:28.080
And I know you had Eric Davis on the show who was a counterpart of mine. And so Eric and I will be on
00:21:33.660
the, on the high powered binos and these guys would get into the zone and we, they have to set up within
00:21:40.100
200 meters roughly. And we'll have walkers in the field with these orange hats and radios.
00:21:45.860
And I remember even being a walker, looking at these guys, they get up to the stock position
00:21:51.200
and they spend all this time vegging up and getting ready to take the shot. And there they'll be the
00:21:57.140
first ones up there on a five hour stock and they'll waste three and a half hours just fucking
00:22:02.440
around and not, they just can't commit to take the damn shot. And so I feel like that's, and it all
00:22:09.140
comes down to like, they're thinking, Oh, I just got to prep more. I gotta, I gotta make sure this is
00:22:13.480
perfect and it's just not good enough. And the point is, is you've got to put something into
00:22:18.480
action because you're going to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. But the point
00:22:23.400
is you've got to put the plan into motion and just stop messing around. And, and I think that
00:22:30.140
people get paralyzed, whether it's, they are miserable in their job and they just cannot make
00:22:36.480
that move. I see people all the time that they just get stuck and they can't execute. So violence
00:22:42.620
of action is a term we have in the, the SEAL community. And I use it as, and in the special
00:22:48.980
ops community in general, but the whole point is you assault, say we're boarding a ship in the middle
00:22:54.300
of the night, we hit that ship so hard and fast. They don't even know what happened to them.
00:22:59.740
Most of the missions I went on in Afghanistan were like that. Like we'd hit, we'd hit a target
00:23:04.960
with the Norwegians and we hit it so hard and fast and we'd have the element of surprise.
00:23:10.340
These guys were flex cuffed and before they even knew what happened to them. And then you could see
00:23:16.000
them get pissed off. They want to fight back, but it's too late.
00:23:20.880
Yeah. And, and, uh, real quick, the, the CEO of Skullcandy gave a talk a few years back and he said
00:23:28.160
when he was an executive at Nike, Nike was scared to death of these small companies because they
00:23:35.060
were so nimble and they didn't have to have 10 meetings by committee to make a decision. They
00:23:40.200
could put a product into market in, in less than a year, which for Nike, it's years and years of
00:23:46.440
planning. And so, you know, there, there's something there too, right? Like when you're
00:23:51.360
to being nimble and fast and putting stuff into motion quickly, I use it as a competitive advantage
00:23:56.860
today. A hundred percent, a hundred percent, especially these small companies going against
00:24:00.580
these behemoth monster companies that can spend billions of dollars and add revenue to promote
00:24:05.900
their products and brands. And then you have even a podcast like this, it's relatively small
00:24:10.340
can now to some degree compete with this because of how nimble and how quickly we can move to market.
00:24:15.320
How do you reconcile this with your fourth point, which is excellence matters? Because sometimes
00:24:20.560
it's not going to be excellent. Like it's not going to be perfect because execution is the name of the
00:24:25.860
game. How do you then balance or strike that balance between the two? Yeah, I think so. And
00:24:30.540
that's a good question. And I honestly think making excellence a habit is it's like we used
00:24:37.360
to train, you know, we'd chart out when these new snipers would show up and I'd say, look, we're going to
00:24:42.680
train to such a high level to when you're, when you haven't maybe been on the rifle range in, in a few
00:24:49.960
months, you're, you'll sink down to this next point of competency, but it's still extremely high
00:24:55.920
because you've, we've trained you and put you in this caliber of, of habit. And so that's,
00:25:04.300
that's something I think. So making excellence a habit. And, and so when you do execute, it's not
00:25:10.180
going to be perfect, but you're going to do things, you know, at a certain level of competency.
00:25:14.660
And so I just think it's an, it is important to balance that, but you can still do things very
00:25:20.000
well and do them quickly. Gentlemen, just a quick timeout to tell you about our elite mastermind,
00:25:27.480
the iron council. Two weeks ago, I spent the weekend with eight of our iron council team leaders,
00:25:32.860
as we spent two days hashing out some exciting new initiatives inside of our exclusive brotherhood.
00:25:38.840
We're going to be releasing more information and details in the coming weeks, but for now,
00:25:42.600
know that it is our goal to create more structure and more resources and more tools to help the men
00:25:48.240
inside of the council, take their health and their businesses and their bank accounts and their bodies
00:25:52.900
and lives to the next level. So if you're looking for a resource of like-minded men, you can work
00:25:59.360
alongside as you become the man that you are meant to be. I want to invite you to join the iron council
00:26:04.620
inside. You're going to operate in a battle team of 15 men. You're going to work on some key metrics
00:26:10.060
and objectives and tactics to enhance your life the way you see fit. And with the addition of our new
00:26:16.480
forum-like platform, you'll be able to individualize your experience in the iron council. If you want to
00:26:22.320
learn more and reserve your seat at the table, you can do that at order of men.com slash iron council.
00:26:27.860
Now let's get back to my conversation with Brandon. And I think this comes back to your point too,
00:26:33.720
when you talked about doing things consistently, like it's not enough to show up for three days or
00:26:39.100
three months or even three years. This is a consistent process developed over years,
00:26:44.600
which I think develops and builds that habit of excellence and improves upon the foundation you
00:26:49.660
already have. Yeah. It's literally the hair on the tortoise, you know, slow and steady wins the race.
00:26:55.420
Yes. You can go out there and do a great job for a little bit, but you've got to maintain,
00:27:00.940
you know, to really, you got to look at it as if the long game. The other thing I talk about in the
00:27:06.220
book that I think your audience would, it would resonate with is mental visualization is so such
00:27:13.040
a huge part of everything that, that we trained to in the, in the sniper program is still something
00:27:18.620
I use today and teach my own kids. And then I'll tell a quick story that was told to me by
00:27:24.400
Lanny Basham, who's a mentor of mine and a gold medalist. He had met this POW on an airplane
00:27:30.780
flying to Egypt and this guy, they got to talking and Lanny was already big on visualization,
00:27:37.960
but not maybe applying it as well as he could have. And so he sat down with this Captain Jack
00:27:43.580
Sands and this guy told a story about how he's a prisoner of war for over four years. He was shot
00:27:48.260
down over Vietnam as a pilot. Eventually he was liberated and they flew him to San Diego
00:27:53.420
at the Arab station, North Island. And there's a big military naval hospital called Balboa in San
00:28:00.100
Diego. And so they were taking these POWs, you know, who looked like hell. These guys were,
00:28:05.240
you know, weighed nothing and they were offloading him on the airplane, driving on a Balboa out the
00:28:10.900
back gate and they drove by this golf course. And this captain had dealt with his captivity in a way
00:28:17.480
where he would play golf in his head. And so he would play all his favorite golf courses for four
00:28:22.780
years in captivity. It's kind of his happy place to go to. And he freaked out when he saw this golf
00:28:30.140
course. He made the ambulance pull over. He's like, look, I've got to shoot a round of golf. And
00:28:34.060
they're like, you're crazy. You know, he's like, let me out of this damn thing. He goes into the
00:28:38.820
clubhouse and, you know, the guys look at him like, like he looks like a homeless person. And he tells
00:28:45.700
him who he is. And these guys like tear up and they take him into the pro shop. And he says, look,
00:28:51.940
I just want to shoot one game of golf, 18 holes. Fast forward, he shoots, having not picked up a
00:28:58.220
golf club in over four years, he shoots 18 holes and he shoots par. And he's in terrible shape.
00:29:05.540
And these guys look at him like, how is this possible? And he says, I've been playing perfect
00:29:10.900
golf in my head for four years. And so, and I just think that story is so powerful because I've
00:29:18.420
seen, I've taught it and I've applied it to the sniper students. I've seen it in my own life when
00:29:24.580
I took my, I'm a big fan of aviation and fly airplanes as a hobby. And when I took my instrument
00:29:32.040
rating, I practiced the whole thing in my head and had a perfect exam because I had practiced all
00:29:38.040
these contingencies, even stuff that could go wrong that, you know, could possibly go wrong.
00:29:42.720
You rehearse these contingencies and you train yourself and deal with these problems. I mean,
00:29:48.480
public speaking is a big one. People get nervous about speaking in public and you can close your
00:29:54.000
eyes and imagine that happening and you dealing with it successfully before it even happens. So I
00:29:59.720
think the visualization stuff in the book is, I think people will really get some value out of it.
00:30:04.960
And I imagine too, this really helps with the next point, which is embrace the suck. I know,
00:30:09.320
and I've talked to the guys before about a 60 hour endurance event that I participated in.
00:30:13.880
And quite honestly, there was a few things that got me through that outside of being physically
00:30:17.780
prepared for it. One of the things that really helped me get through that was the visualization of
00:30:24.160
me making a phone call to my kids and telling them that I finished 60 hours. And during the hardest
00:30:30.240
points of that event, that phone call and that celebration is actually what kept me going.
00:30:36.800
Yeah. It's funny how you, you kind of dig in and figure out what drives you. The part that I try and
00:30:44.620
make resonate with people is that, you know, look, bad things happen. I can't tell you how many times
00:30:50.040
people even in my own family who know me, they look at me today and say, wow, you're so lucky.
00:30:55.680
You own an airplane. You live in New York. And I say, wait a minute, what happened like six years
00:31:02.360
ago when I lost my entire life savings? And my wife at the time said, look, I've had enough. You
00:31:08.200
put me, you put me through hell on the SEAL teams. And, but I, and I was at like one of the lowest points
00:31:14.560
in my life. And I remembered thinking to myself, I can look at this and focus on the negative,
00:31:20.760
or I can look at this adverse situation and dig out all the positives. The fact that even though
00:31:27.980
I lost the business, I learned a tremendous amount about, you know, how to read a financial
00:31:32.280
statement, how to choose partners better, how to choose customers better, you know, how to,
00:31:38.480
how to raise money debt, you know, through debt and equity, how to go to the small business
00:31:42.880
administration, get us working capital loan to buy or start a business. And there was all this
00:31:48.340
incredible things that I've learned that came out of, you know, being in this very tough situation.
00:31:55.820
And so now as a habit, I always look at when, when something goes wrong, okay, how can I use this to
00:32:01.480
my advantage? How can I, even recently I'll, I'll tell a real story. I had, I had, you know, we talked
00:32:08.220
about the, the kind of haters out there. I had a guy who's been hate hating on me for years. He's not
00:32:15.140
in a good place. And he wrote this terrible post on Instagram and my 13 year old daughter read it
00:32:20.120
and she was crying. She was crying. Like, why would this guy say this stuff about you? But I said, and I
00:32:25.720
got pissed off and I said, wait a minute, this is a really good opportunity to have a conversation with
00:32:30.560
my daughter and my older son who also read it about life. Like I remember talking to my friend, Mark
00:32:38.080
Harmon, who's, who's an actor on NCIS, incredible human being. And Mark says, Mark told me, he's like,
00:32:45.340
nobody in life, in life that's in a really good place has the time or inclination to say this stuff.
00:32:51.520
But he's like, the point is people, regardless whether you're successful period, you don't have to be an
00:32:57.200
author and write a book. If you're successful in your career or any other place, you will always
00:33:02.760
have people that are in a bad place that will say and do things that are inappropriate. And so this
00:33:08.000
was, I looked at it as a really, a tremendous learning opportunity to teach my own children.
00:33:13.360
And we had a really productive, positive conversation about it. And they walked away
00:33:18.600
from this, having better, being better prepared to deal with going to high school and onto their
00:33:25.300
out in the real world. And so I was like, look, I want my children to be out in the neighborhood,
00:33:31.940
riding their dirt bike on a homemade box jump and eat shit so they can, they can learn, you know?
00:33:39.080
You know, we learn from our mistakes and, and, and we learn from adversity. And so that's what,
00:33:44.200
that's what that whole embrace the suck chapter is about.
00:33:46.980
Well, and I imagine too, with you being able to communicate that to your children,
00:33:50.840
because you talk a lot about too, is, is the team, right? One team and then having one fight,
00:33:56.220
like you're all on the same page, you're all trying to accomplish the same thing. And I think
00:34:00.680
that level of communication with your children in this case will help foster that, that unity.
00:34:08.680
You know, the important thing in any leadership to, to rally and get a team,
00:34:12.680
you know, working together as you have to have an objective, you know, in sports, it's easy. You
00:34:18.260
know, if you're on a basketball court, the objective maybe longterm is to, is to win the championship,
00:34:23.180
but you know, game by game, the objective is very clear. You want to go out there and win the game
00:34:29.280
and everyone's on the court trying to accomplish that. I see so many times in the military,
00:34:35.120
in business and politics, nobody knows what's going on. And so nobody can kind of rally around
00:34:41.320
the cause. And it's, it is very, it's, it's that simple. And it's why every year I do an offsite
00:34:47.420
meeting and I come up with the next year's strategic plan for my business. And I let everybody contribute
00:34:53.080
to that. And I say, this is our plan for the year and where we're going, you know, in, in 2018 and
00:35:00.000
when they know it, and it's a very, and it, I think the simpler, the better. And when they,
00:35:05.040
when they know what they're doing and can kind of rally around it, like that's, that's how you get a
00:35:09.940
team focused and working together towards that common objective. And as crazy as it sounds,
00:35:15.520
I remember, cause I have friends and, and politics now, my good friend of mine, Ryan Zinke is the
00:35:20.860
secretary of interior and being around those environments. I was shocked at how some people
00:35:27.900
get to these, you know, political positions and leadership positions in business and they,
00:35:32.980
they don't understand that concept. And, you know, not to get, you know, political, you just look at
00:35:38.000
what's happened in Afghanistan. It's a complete disaster where there is no strategic objective to
00:35:44.300
Afghanistan. There was at short of the first couple of years we were there. We knew what we
00:35:49.200
were doing. We're there to, to disrupt the training camps with the terrorists, which we did.
00:35:54.440
And we were going to hunt bin Laden, but we should have pulled all the troops out of Afghanistan after
00:35:58.960
we wiped out the training camps, left a small unit to, to hunt and kill bin Laden. And that's it.
00:36:04.780
Instead, we've invested billions, probably trillions into a country that will never get anything back.
00:36:10.680
And we're going to leave it worse off than, than when we first, first got there. It's just,
00:36:15.360
and it's a huge waste of human life. Like, so I've lost friends, some of the sharpest, finest
00:36:20.820
human beings I've, I've worked with that have given their life up for a country that really is no,
00:36:27.680
and nobody can, I sat down with Mary Walker, who was a former air force attorney general at a,
00:36:33.400
at a dinner full of high powered defense industry executives. And I asked the question, I said,
00:36:39.140
like Mary, cause she was the honorary speaker. I said, look, and this was years ago. I said,
00:36:44.140
I don't understand what we're doing in Afghanistan. Like I don't see a clear strategy and I don't think
00:36:49.620
anybody really knows. And she said, I have no idea either. And that's when it hit me. I'm like,
00:36:55.600
Right. Someone who should know, right. What's going on. And there is no, and that's true.
00:36:59.880
There's no objective. There's no definition of victory in that point.
00:37:02.940
Yeah. And, and it shows up. That's why we're in the situation we are today and with Afghanistan and
00:37:08.260
it, and it's become kind of my generation's Vietnam. It's just, nobody is paying attention
00:37:14.060
that nobody put a plan in place. And I just hope that we get leadership, like, like the Churchills
00:37:20.400
of the world and the Teddy Roosevelt's who can put a very simple plan in place. Even JFK was,
00:37:26.720
you know, we look at JFK was responsible for founding, not only the SEAL teams, but for really putting that
00:37:31.920
narrative in place and setting the challenge to put a man on the moon, you know, and that's a very
00:37:36.980
simple goal that everyone can get around. And we did it, you know, because America is still
00:37:41.520
the greatest country on the planet, but that's how important, you know, bringing it back to whether
00:37:47.140
you're a parent, you know, a leader, a manager, an entrepreneur, you have to lead with those simple
00:37:56.240
narratives and strategies that get people, the simple goal even to get people to rally behind. And that's
00:38:03.580
why even with my own kids, I, every Christmas we meet, I'm like, all right, what's your goals for the
00:38:09.600
year? You know, and it could be, yeah, I want to make, I want to make the soccer team, but I make them
00:38:15.680
And I think this leads to that last point, which is leading from the front too, right? Because if you look at
00:38:19.920
leadership just in society today, I think it's a lot of pushing, right? Oh, go do this, go do that. We want you to
00:38:25.180
accomplish this. We want you to accomplish that. Yet, when you ask that leader, or even take a look
00:38:29.180
at the example that leader is providing, they're not leading from the front. They're not willing to
00:38:33.240
do what they're asking their quote unquote followers to do.
00:38:36.120
Exactly. And that's, that's a huge point. And there was a, there's a couple of different means
00:38:41.140
out there that were, that show the difference between a boss and a leader. And I think I,
00:38:45.380
the one I like best is, you know, it shows a picture of a boss and either in the chariot,
00:38:50.360
whipping the people in front and the leader, the leader, yeah, the leader,
00:38:55.180
picture is, you know, the person like in front dragging this, this cart with the team. And,
00:39:01.180
and that's how I, you know, that's how I led in the military as a chief petty officer. That's how I
00:39:07.260
lead my business today. Even with my kids, like they know that I'm, you know, dads may ask them to
00:39:12.880
take the trash, but he's not afraid to take the trash out himself. You know, I remember at our offsite
00:39:19.680
last year, I was in there cleaning up the kitchen and I'm not above that. And I think that's,
00:39:24.600
that's a good example for, you know, your team member, employees, whatever, if you're willing
00:39:30.000
to roll your sleeves up and get dirty with them, you know, that goes a long way to, to winning their
00:39:34.760
respect. And they know if the time comes that you ask them to do something that, that they know that
00:39:39.880
you're, you're not afraid to, to do that work yourself means a lot.
00:39:44.600
That's for sure. Well, Brandon, we're winding down on time. I want to ask you some questions
00:39:48.480
as we do. The one that I had talked to you a little bit about is what does it mean to be a man?
00:39:56.560
Yes, absolutely. One that we need some answers to for sure.
00:39:59.940
Yeah. You know, I mean, just asking me off the cuff, you know, I think, you know, being a man
00:40:05.500
is leading, leading by example. It's being a man of your word, being a loyal friend and,
00:40:13.020
and family member. It's being positive, you know, having, you know, the, the utmost integrity and
00:40:19.360
always taking the high ground. That's what, you know, I was, I grew up, one of my first jobs on a,
00:40:25.080
was working on a scuba diving boat. And I had a, fortunately, these sea captains that,
00:40:29.460
that really taught me about setting the example and, and being, you know, that exemplary leader.
00:40:34.700
So important. So, you know, off the top of my head, that that's what being a man is. And I think
00:40:39.520
the world in this country needs more men who aren't afraid to, to be a man. And, you know,
00:40:46.620
it, it look, feminism is fine, but the definition of feminism is equality. And I think what I've seen
00:40:53.740
over the past couple of years is this, this whole demasculization of men. It's like, no, it's,
00:40:59.480
it's okay for women to be on equal playing field, but it's okay to be a man as well and still
00:41:04.120
respect women, respect people of other religions and, and sexual preferences. And you can still
00:41:11.020
be a man and do all that. Wholeheartedly agree. Wholeheartedly agree. I appreciate you sharing
00:41:15.000
that. Um, how do we connect with you? How do we get the book? How do we connect with you? Learn
00:41:18.000
more about what else you've written and what you've been up to? So my website is brandontylerwebb.com.
00:41:24.200
That has all my books on there. We also have a, a survival tactical gear club for men called the
00:41:30.280
crate club. Um, it's crateclub.us. The guys and I put a lot of effort into selecting really cool
00:41:36.360
products that go out in that box every month. And you can get that again at crateclub.us.
00:41:42.160
You know, my books are on Amazon and my author site. You guys can keep up with me there.
00:41:47.020
Right on. We'll, uh, we'll link all that up in the show notes, Brandon. I appreciate you
00:41:50.260
taking some time. Uh, I appreciate your work. I appreciate your service to our country. And of
00:41:54.460
course your, your wisdom that you're imparting with us today. Thanks for coming on the show, man.
00:42:00.280
Man. If you want to learn how to better focus in your family life, your business life,
00:42:06.520
or just life in general, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy of Brandon's book, total focus.
00:42:11.500
You will not be disappointed. And you can do that on the page for this show at order of man.com
00:42:16.560
slash one, two, six as an episode 126. In the meantime, make sure you do two things right now.
00:42:23.240
First join our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council at order of man.com slash iron council.
00:42:28.480
You're going to find 300 other incredible men to bandwidth to help you accomplish life on a bigger
00:42:33.540
scale than potentially are right now. Also keep an eye out for future order of man meetups and some
00:42:39.600
very cool new resources that we will have coming online in the next couple of weeks. I told you two
00:42:44.560
things, but I've got three. This is the last thing. If you would, I don't ask for this very often,
00:42:48.720
but please, please, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes. We read every single one of those
00:42:54.740
reviews and there you go a long way in spreading the mission of the order. So we'd appreciate it
00:43:00.380
if you would take a couple of minutes to do that. Guys, I will look forward to talking with you on
00:43:04.200
Friday for our Friday field notes, but until then take action and become the man you are meant to be.
00:43:10.820
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
00:43:15.440
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.