#355： Leadership and Public Service With Gov. Eric Greitens
Episode Stats
Summary
Eric Gritens is a former Rhodes Scholar, humanitarian worker, and former Navy SEAL. He served as a Rhodes Scholar and served four deployments overseas as a Navy Seal. He also published his book, Resilience, which became a best-seller in 2015. In 2016, Gritons successfully ran for Governor of Missouri, becoming the second youngest governor in the country.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now the art of
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manliness is intentionally and rigorously politically neutral and I never had a politician
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on the podcast before but then never before has a previous guest gone on to become the governor of
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his state I previously had Eric Gritens a former Rhodes Scholar humanitarian worker and Navy SEAL
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on the show to talk about his book resilience that's episode number 105 you want to listen to
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that it's a good one but last year without any prior political experience Gritens successfully
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ran for governor of Missouri becoming the second youngest governor in the country recently I met
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with Gritens in the governor's office at the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City Missouri to have a
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very non-partisan high-level discussion about public service and the duties of citizenship we discussed
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why he decided to run for elected office and why he incorporated service projects and community
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projects and his campaign stops around the state we then discuss how the governor's study of ancient
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philosophy informs his idea of public service and how stoicism comes in handy in the rough and tumble
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political arena governor Gritens then shares what he's been reading to be an effective leader
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and statesman his role models for public office and how he manages being a young father and a busy
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governor at the same time we then end the show talking about why you should get over your cynicism
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of politics and throw your hat in the arena no matter your political or party affiliation really
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interesting podcast after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is slash governor Gritens
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Eric Gritens welcome back to the show thanks Brett good to be on with you and all of the art of
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manliness podcast listeners I had a lot of fun last time we're on and looking forward to talking with
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you today right last time we had you on you just published your book resilience that was 2015 and I got
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a phenomenal response from that podcast particularly the message you have I'm curious
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what was the response you got from that book that you published we had an incredible response
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to resilience from people all over the country every walk of life because the fact is like
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everybody has to deal with pain in their life everybody has to deal with suffering everybody has to
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deal with hardship and I think what people liked about the resilience book was it was just letters
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me talking to my buddy a friend of mine who was a fellow Navy SEAL who'd run into a really tough time
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and what people often said to us was they said look if your buddy who was a Navy SEAL had been through
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the hardest military training in the world if he was knocked down by these things it gave them a sense
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that you know the pain that they're facing is something they can move through they can move through
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that to build wisdom they can move through suffering to build strength move through fear to build
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courage and we had had a really really great great response to it well since then that episode we
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did you've been a busy man you turned into candidate Gritens in Missouri you ran for governor and then
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now you are governor Gritens so let's talk about that because I think it is really interesting what
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I'd like to do is stay very high level with this talk about because as you know I know you're uh you've
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studied the classics ancient history ancient philosophy with your background and one thing I found this is
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the art of manliness podcast if you look back to the ancient Greeks and the Romans part of their ideal
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of manhood or manliness meant you were active in the public arena the public sphere you pretty provided
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some some sense of service to the community absolutely right so let's talk about this before this time you
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had you had a career dedicated to service for those who aren't familiar with you can you kind of give us
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the background of what you know what got you to running for governor yeah so I mean the you know big
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picture background um I'll just say I was very fortunate to grow up in Missouri wonderful family
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good teachers I first started doing service actually as a kid doing doing service projects
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later in college I started doing international humanitarian work that brought me to places like
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Bosnia Rwanda ended up writing a dissertation on how international humanitarian organizations work
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with kids in war zones later as we talked about on the last podcast served as a navy seal did four
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deployments overseas to Afghanistan Iraq Southeast Asia the Horn of Africa and then when I came home
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from Iraq I came home after my team had been hit by a suicide truck bomb I was very fortunate my wounds
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were minor I was taken to the Fallujah Surgical Hospital treated there I was able to return to full
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duty 72 hours later but a lot of my buddies were hurt far worse than I was my friend Joel who was
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standing right next to me when the truck bomb went off he ended up being casualty evacuated all the way back
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to the United States so when I came home I started an organization called the mission continues to help
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returning veterans come back home and to reintegrate successfully to start their own businesses to get
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quality private sector jobs and that was you know that was my trajectory I'd run a small business I'd
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worked to help veterans I'd served as a Navy SEAL done humanitarian work but I'd never been involved
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in politics before so where does this desire to serve comes from where do you think it comes from
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well I think I think it comes from a sense that we have we're going to live well we have to live for
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more than ourselves if we're going to live well we have to find a way to be of service to others and
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in fact you know what a lot of the ancients talked about was the fact that in order to become your full
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self you can only find that through serving others it's only in the act of pushing yourself
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challenging yourself to make a contribution to your community to your family to your country
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that you actually realize your your full self you know we don't talk as much today about the idea of
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a vocation but but a vocation is something that even you go back a couple generations ago people use
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that word a lot more and the best definition of a vocation that I ever heard was from a guy named
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Reverend Peter Gomes and he said your vocation is the place where your great joy meets the world's
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great need and I think what we all have to do is find out how we can do the things that bring us a
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sense of joy and fulfillment and purpose and are meeting the needs in the world how'd you go about
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finding your vocation so so this is actually a really important point one of the things I always
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say to folks is that people often say like how do you find your vocation how do you find your purpose
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and one of the things that I say is look you're never gonna find it by looking for it because it's
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not lost right that there's sometimes this idea in the culture that somehow your vocation is sitting
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out there and you can just sort of discover it actually what the the Greeks understood and I think
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what Reverend Gomes was and others were getting at is that you create your vocation and you create it
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by pushing yourself you create it by challenging yourself you create it by doing things that you
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were once afraid to do and you find ways ways to engage them and as you do that you actually change
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as a person so that the act of of creating your vocation is is part of developing yourself while at the
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same time coming to understand the world and it's a much healthier way of thinking about how you find your
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purpose how you find your vocation because you know what it says to people is you don't have to
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look around to figure this out what you have what you do have to do is you have to start acting start
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serving in your community push yourself go out challenge it challenge yourself to tutor a kid who's in third
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grade who's having trouble reading challenge yourself to get involved in a community challenge yourself to
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to you know help people at the local food bank to mentor a kid through big brothers big sisters as you push
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yourself as you engage in that kind of action you develop yourself and you'll come to a place where
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you really find and build your vocation so public service served in the military navy seal started a
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foundation you were private citizen gritens you decided to run for the governorship of missouri
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was this something you always wanted to do like elected office is this something you saw yourself doing
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as a kid or was there something that caused you like that's what i need to do next well look the real
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moment for me actually came during ferguson in missouri in 2014 i'm sure a lot of your listeners
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watch this they saw the tremendous disaster the real tragedy of what had happened during ferguson now
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the short story is you know i saw what was happening called my buddy harlan we've been friends since we
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were 14 years old and harlan picked up the phone and he says to me i know why you're calling and yes i'll go
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with you so harlan and i go down to go down to ferguson now you know side story i i'd been working
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with a lot of police officers since i came back from iraq in iraq i was a commander of an al-qaeda
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targeting cell our job was to capture mid to senior level al-qaeda leaders in and around fallujah
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fallujah is obviously a rough neighborhood i'd come back from iraq and started working with a lot of
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police officers so i actually knew some of the guys on the st louis city police force st louis county
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police force so we go down to ferguson and the thing that was so striking brett was that
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as soon as i walked on to the streets you could feel you could tell there was no leadership
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our our our governor wasn't present the chief law enforcement officer of the state the attorney
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general wasn't present there was no direction and i just i just walked through the crowd and i talked to
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people and i asked them hey man why why are you why are you out today people were angry they were
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confused they were heard there's rumors that were running through the crowd you talk to our law
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enforcement officers they'd come out to this incredibly difficult dangerous situation and there
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was no guidance there was no leadership so you had protesters who wanted to be heard who were who
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were ignored you had police officers who needed to be supported who were abandoned and i just saw that
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if you'd had if we'd had someone who'd shown up with any kind of command presence and courage and calm
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and clarity we could have had peace now it's not like i i left that night and decided to run for
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governor but i went home and i talked to my wife and i was like i can't believe that there's nobody out
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there there's no one who's out there who's actually leading and it just brought attention to the fact that we
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need to have people who are outsiders who are willing to come in and spend part of their life
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serving in in public office so what was that conversation like with your wife saying that you're
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going to run because you know she she's she gets a job too like she's along for the ride as well
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yeah this is a family endeavor so what was that like well first of all you know we have now we've got
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two uh we've got two young boys joshua who's three years old jacob who's one year old jacob was
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actually born during the campaign so we didn't want to do anything easy brett we wanted to make sure
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that we had a brand new baby a couple months right before the primary but look i think that
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you know what sheena had always known you know when we got married i'd obviously i'd already served in
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the navy seal teams i'd done the humanitarian work when we got married i was running the mission
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continues and you know what we're doing at the mission continues was we were i was you know traveling
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around the country recruiting volunteers building a program to help veterans reintegrate successfully
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she knew how important it was to me to make sure that i was finding a way to serve people to fight
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for people to make a difference for people and she she had seen a lot of the challenges that you know
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that missouri was facing she obviously saw what ferguson was facing and we sat down i think like a lot of
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couples do and we just talked about what this would mean like how we would would get through it but
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absolutely 100 this was a decision that we made together because we knew that it was going to affect
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not just not just us and our kids but you know it does affect your whole family affects your parents
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your friends everybody so as you said you had no political experience at this point going for the
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governor that's that's a big big jump you mean most people they're like okay i'm gonna start as a
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state representative maybe insurance commissioner why did you decide just go for governor and what
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was that experience like not having any political experience before then look the thing is as
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governor you can get things done right and i got into this because i wanted to get things done part
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of the reason like i love this job is that you can wake up every single day and do good things for
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people and that's why i wanted to do this i didn't want to do this to get involved in politics i wanted to
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do this to get involved to fight for people and to make a difference you know simple things like like
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changing the foster care system in the state of missouri got 13 000 kids in the missouri foster care system
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we are making a difference for them we're making a difference for parents and foster care we're
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supporting our national guards supporting our law enforcement bringing jobs the the point is that
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i knew that as governor i could make a difference i knew that as governor we could really change the
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direction of the state was there anything that surprised you about the campaigning process being an
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outsider well i mean one of the things that was i think one of the most pleasant surprises was that
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we were told by all of the insiders that this was impossible i mean they literally they went back
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and they they looked at missouri history and they're like we've never had someone who's come in from the
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outside and who's run for governor and been successful and so we had you know all of these
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political types the career politicians the insiders the lobbyists all of us telling us that this was
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gonna be impossible and and then and then they'd come out with you know polling numbers like in the
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beginning right i can remember there was this poll that came out and you know i was running in a
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primary and there was one candidate had 30 and another had 25 and another had 20 and i was i was at
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two percent and that was in a poll with a margin of error of 4.5 right so we could have even been
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negative and they said this is impossible you'll never be able to do it but the fact is we were
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successful and and what the happy surprise the happy thing that we found was so many people
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wanted to get involved but they wanted to know that they had a candidate and a cause that they could
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believe in and we had thousands of people maybe tens of thousands of people around the state who
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volunteered for us who donated to us who went out who put out yard signs who knocked on doors for us
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who'd never been involved in politics before and you know what those folks are still with us they're
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still helping us to drive change every day so one of the reading about your your candidacy one of
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the unique things you did you did service projects what's i mean that you don't really see that with
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other political people what was going on there look the the most important thing that i found it at
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the at the mission continues and this is true when i was doing humanitarian work it was true when i was
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a navy seal so you got to find ways to take action you got to find ways to take action to solve
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problems and i also found that when people started to work on a problem you often found that a lot of
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these ideological fights and political fights kind of you know faded to the background because people
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were working together what we always did at the mission continues was we always brought people
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together to do service so this isn't something i you know i started when i was in office something
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i've been doing for for years and we would bring hundreds of veterans and non-veterans and family
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members out and we do you know a church cleanup project we do a school rehabilitation and when you
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brought people together and they served together for a day they left with a completely different
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understanding of the person who they'd been serving with you know a lot of our veterans when they first
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came home you know people honored them but they were also afraid they were oh man these guys have
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post-traumatic stress disorder traumatic brain injury well after you spend a day doing a school
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rehabilitation project with somebody and you're painting next to them and you're building next to
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them and you're working working next to them you leave with a different sense of for who they were
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and we've brought that not just into the campaign but actually into government i mean one of the one of
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the things that we did when we were just this is probably a couple weeks into office we got the
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word that there was a terrible act of cemetery desecration at a historic jewish cemetery in
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st louis missouri about 156 headstones have been knocked over bashed with hammers defaced it's a
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really terrible act so we heard about this on monday we went out on tuesday morning to facebook and we
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communicate with a lot of people around the around the state of missouri and around the country on
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on facebook we put out a message on facebook saying that on wednesday i said i'm going to be in that
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cemetery and i'm going to be there and we're going to clean that cemetery up and we're going to
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demonstrate that this act of vandalism isn't going to define who we are as missourians well and then
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later that day brett i i called the jewish federation i called the archbishop i called the missouri baptist
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convention we called locally moms we invited everybody out to join us in service by the time i showed up to
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that cemetery the next day wednesday afternoon there are already thousands of people there
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there were jewish jewish day schools who'd let who'd canceled school so that their kids could come
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out and serve we had young people from colleges fraternities and circularities that came out private
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companies that had led workers off to come out and join us thousands of people and i just got up
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in the back of a pickup truck grabbed a megaphone and i just said to the crowd i said look when terrible
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things happen we're not going to let those things define who we are as missourians in fact what we're
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going to do is we're going to use these as opportunities to come together and to be stronger
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and then people went out and we cleaned up that cemetery we beautified it it looked you know even
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better than it had before the vandals had taken their action so i think it's really important in any
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leadership in any leadership whenever you're facing a tough challenge find ways to bring people together
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and get them to serve together if we do that together if we start making a difference together
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we will find ways to work together and to solve problems so you are a student of the classics
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i'm curious with that background did you have an ideal of of statesmanship leadership based on that
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background that you brought to your service as governor yeah you know well actually one of the things
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that i i i talked a lot about in the book resilience that you mentioned is that it's really important
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to have models in your life it's really important to have role models and a lot of the ancients always
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talked about seneca talked about this aristotle talked about this and in fact this was my boxing
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coach's philosophy in college was that you have to have role models you have to have people who you can
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look up to because they help you to see how you can can can serve yourself that in the the analogy that i
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would often use i'll give you two kind of quick stories on this the analogy i would often use
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with veterans was i would say look if somebody comes to you and handed you a giant trash bag full
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of jigsaw puzzle pieces and they asked you to put it together i say what would you ask for and the
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veterans would say to me well i'd ask for the picture right and these are men and women who might
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have lost a limb they might have lost eyesight lost hearing they you know lost limbs or they're they're
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in a difficult spot and what i always said to them is life hands you pieces you have to find a picture
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and what we would do at the mission continues is we'd work with incredible veterans who'd come back
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home you know my buddy tim smith the very first veteran to work with here in missouri guy who came
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back home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder he'd get up in front of this group and talk
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about his own struggle and the fact that today he's running a business called patriot commercial cleaning
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right he runs his own business he hires other veterans he's hired 50 other veterans he was a
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role model for all of those veterans who were there in the same way for me i always look back on people
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who i admired i admired for example marcus aurelius this is a guy who you know faced incredible hardship
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in his life but also provided strong leadership and also left a legacy in words that you know we're
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we're reading thousands of years later and marcus aurelius's meditation still provide sustenance
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to people thousands of years later so i always whether it was teddy roosevelt winston churchill i
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admired leaders who i thought of as leaders of action willing to do hard and difficult things
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who are also willing to think and to reflect on not only their own service but what that might mean
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for other people well going back to the stoicism theme i imagine you had to call upon the meditations
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during your campaign because yeah though it's the part of the jostling of being in the arena as
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roosevelt said so was there a moment where you had to you know read you know meditations or
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seneca or something to okay put things in perspective yeah it was so it was actually helpful i mean a lot of
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the stuff that i'd written about in resilience i used during the campaign so i'll give you give you
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some specific examples like in resilience i write about the importance of friends okay anything that
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we're going to do well in our life we have to have a good group of friends around us during the last
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couple weeks of the campaign my buddy who's a navy seal went through went through buds with me he came
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out and he literally joined me every single day during the last five weeks of the campaign and
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we'd wake up early you know sometimes five six o'clock in the morning we'd find even a crazy hotel
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pool and do this insane underwater workout that he'd developed okay that was first it was fun it got
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your mindset in the right direction good exercise in the morning but then this is also a buddy who's
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with me who's keeping everything in perspective making sure that we keep a sense of humor about this
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and making sure that in midst all of these different distractions all of the different
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things with people criticizing you in the media and whatnot that you keep your focus on the people
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who you're there to serve and good friends can be really helpful in that way so that was just one of
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the things that we did during the campaign that was it was essential so you mentioned teddy
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roosevelt he's sort of like the patron saint of the art of manliness yes i'm curious i mean is there a
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moment from roosevelt's life that you've looked to where you're like that's i want to aspire to that
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i think there's so many moments in roosevelt's life and i think one of the things that is important
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for all of us to look back on is remember roosevelt's early life remember those moments
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where his mother and his wife both pass away and this is a time of not only tragedy for him
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but also a time where he felt lost and then what did he do like that this is when he goes west
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and you and i were talking about how in a vocation you create yourself you challenge yourself you push
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yourself he was willing to do something that he hadn't done before he was willing to challenge
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himself and and the teddy roosevelt who we think of now as a guy who is boxer a boxer and spent all this
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time out west this is this is not who teddy roosevelt was as a kid right teddy roosevelt
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actively created himself he understood that we all can can create ourselves through a process of
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challenging ourselves but it's important when we look at teddy roosevelt to realize like he wasn't
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always that guy this was a guy who was often lost this was a guy who was not just as a kid but when he
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first got into public service was often laughed at was ridiculed was always always the source of
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tremendous criticism even when he was a president of the united states and i think it's important
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this is one of the great values of really good biographies so when you really understand those
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stories and for all of us in our own journeys when we reach those places where we are feeling a little
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lost when we have been been criticized when we're dealing with all this you look back at your at your
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your heroes and you realize they've all had to do the same thing nothing comes comes easy so were you
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like roosevelt as a kid so you know roosevelt he's this archetypal figure of just american manhood
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led this the charge up san juan hill etc but he as you said he had to get to that point and as a kid
00:24:18.840
he was sickly and he was a nerd for all intents and purposes and that's nothing wrong with being a nerd
00:24:23.160
but that's what he was were you like that did you have to learn how to be brave and like did being a navy
00:24:29.100
seal come natural to you or is that something you had to work into we all have to learn how to be
00:24:34.480
brave every one of us has to learn how to how to be brave and i think this is this is actually a
00:24:40.460
really important point because i think our culture often teaches the wrong lessons about courage
00:24:45.560
so i'll give you just one one quick quick story you know when i was boxing i used i knew this guy who
00:24:52.060
was once a trainer to one of the heavyweight champions of the world he tells me this story that
00:24:55.940
one day the heavyweight champion of the world calls him on the phone and the heavyweight champ
00:25:00.220
says hey man hey you got to get on the phone you got to talk to this guy for me i need you to talk
00:25:03.800
to him and the trainer said who is it who do you need me to talk to and the heavyweight champ
00:25:07.820
the world said i need you to do this for me you got to do it and the trainer said well who is it who
00:25:10.600
do you need me to talk to and the heavyweight champ the world says i need you to talk to my
00:25:15.620
gardener the heavyweight champ of the world says yeah he's got this bill and he's trying to
00:25:21.800
overcharge me. And the trainer said he realized at that moment that the heavyweight champion of
00:25:27.440
the world was absolutely terrified to confront his gardener over a bill. And he said to me,
00:25:33.560
he said, Eric, he said, that's when it really dawned on me that we all have uneven courage.
00:25:39.780
I mean, this guy's the heavyweight champion of the world. No one would question, right,
00:25:44.000
his willingness to step into the ring, his kind of physical courage against some of the
00:25:48.280
most dangerous fighters in the world. And yet he's afraid to confront his gardener over a bill.
00:25:56.360
And the point he made, and he's right about this, is that we all build certain kinds of courage in
00:26:01.720
our life. And we build that courage by doing things, by confronting our fears, and we all have uneven
00:26:09.060
courage. And so what we all have to do in order to grow is we have to push ourselves to do those
00:26:15.180
very things that we're afraid of, right? And you gotta, you gotta, you know, the first time I
00:26:20.180
stepped into a boxing ring, of course, I'm afraid to get hit in the face. I mean, who wouldn't be,
00:26:25.320
right? First time, you know, you're in the Navy SEAL teams, and they tie your feet together, and they
00:26:30.340
tie your hands behind your back, and they make you jump at the pool. Of course, you're going to be
00:26:34.960
afraid. But the SEAL team training teaches you to address that fear, to deal with that fear. When you
00:26:40.820
decide that you're going to run for public office, nobody likes having a newspaper write terrible
00:26:45.880
things about you, right? But again, this is one of those things that you just have to learn, you got,
00:26:50.540
you got to do. And so I think that the key lesson about courage is we all have to recognize courage
00:26:57.400
is not something that you necessarily have to have. It is something that you have to be willing to
00:27:03.300
create. You have to be willing to push yourself to build that kind of courage. And you can build
00:27:08.320
those virtues. And that fundamentally is one of the big differences between the way
00:27:13.320
our society thinks and the way that the ancients thought. The ancients recognized that virtues were
00:27:20.420
excellences that you built, and you built them through practice. You built them by following
00:27:25.180
role models. You built them by having the right friends. You built them by having the right mentors.
00:27:29.960
We often think that you either have these virtues or you don't. The great news is, you know,
00:27:34.800
you read Seneca, you read Aristotle, you read Thomas Aquinas, right? All of these guys,
00:27:39.740
they had points of difference, but what they all agreed on was that you have the power to shape your
00:27:45.780
own character. I love that. Well, speaking of character, there's a lot of folks who argue that,
00:27:51.040
okay, there's a, the politician has two lives. There's a public life and a private life. And
00:27:55.640
what he does in his private life is his business and his character. But like, do you think that's
00:28:00.140
true or false that character or your private life doesn't matter? It doesn't reflect in your public
00:28:05.240
action? No, I think that everything that you do is reflective of your character, right? And the work
00:28:11.220
that you do, the life that you live is reflective of who you are. And the fact is, the virtues that we
00:28:17.920
build, the virtues that we develop, they're important for me in my role as a father, right? Teaching
00:28:24.160
Joshua and Jacob, they're important for me in what I do as, as an athlete. They're important for me
00:28:31.540
in the work that I do as, as a governor. And so while you have the, it's required that we all build
00:28:38.200
different kinds of courage, right? Ultimately, all of these things do reflect on your, on your
00:28:43.500
character. I read a recent survey done amongst millennials. I'm in that cohort. And it said that
00:28:48.660
most millennials, like the vast majority would not ever run for public office. And it's because of,
00:28:55.680
you know, it just, from the outside, it looks like a circus. It's easy to be cynical. One of the other
00:29:00.340
things people gave is like, I don't want to be attacked, or I don't want my family to be attacked.
00:29:05.340
And just the scrutiny that, especially in the social media age, what do you say to those,
00:29:10.800
those young people who they aren't happy with the way things are, and they want to make a change
00:29:15.640
and do something more besides doing a hashtag, right? On Twitter, but they don't, they're afraid
00:29:21.080
of make, stepping into the arena. And it doesn't matter what party you are, right? What do you say
00:29:25.800
to those young people? I say, step in. I say, make a difference. And I say, the fact is, and this is
00:29:32.620
again, one of the virtues of reading biography, reading history. If you want to make a difference,
00:29:37.620
if you want to do anything worthwhile and worthy and difficult, you will be criticized. That's just
00:29:46.340
the fact. You know, I had an opportunity once. I worked in one of Mother Teresa's homes for the
00:29:51.020
destitute and dying in Varanasi, India. And what's interesting, you know, you read a good
00:29:56.360
biography of Mother Teresa, and you read that in the beginning of her work, when she is working to help
00:30:03.900
the destitute to die with dignity, she was criticized for it. There are all of these people
00:30:10.500
who are criticizing Mother Teresa for the work that she was doing. And this wasn't just at the
00:30:16.000
beginning of her life, it continued throughout her life. And I actually wrote in Resilience to my buddy
00:30:21.480
who's a Navy SEAL, I said, look, you and I aren't our Mother Teresa. But what this should do is give you
00:30:27.200
a lot of courage, because you have to recognize that if you do anything worthwhile, you're going to
00:30:33.480
bring out critics. And for me, I also think that, you know, the experience of having been a Navy SEAL,
00:30:40.640
the experience of having done humanitarian work, helped put a lot of things in perspective.
00:30:45.080
You know, so when I was 20 years old, I was living and working in refugee camps with Bosnian
00:30:50.880
refugees, kids who'd lost their parents during the ethnic cleansing. I worked in Rwanda with kids
00:30:57.480
whose parents had died during the genocide. I worked in Cambodia with kids who'd lost limbs to landmines.
00:31:02.740
In the SEAL teams, I were obviously taken on difficult, dangerous missions. And, you know,
00:31:07.600
unfortunately, I, like almost every veteran who served in the global war on terrorism, you lose
00:31:11.840
friends. And so when I think about public service, and I think about, you know, yeah, of course,
00:31:18.780
every time we put something out on Facebook, there are going to be people who write nasty things
00:31:22.900
to us. Like, is that going to allow me, am I going to be so afraid of what some person might say on
00:31:30.340
social media that I'm not willing to go out and help kids in the Missouri foster care system?
00:31:36.440
Am I going to be so afraid of what somebody says on Twitter that I'm not going to go out and fight
00:31:42.580
for jobs for people? At the end of the day, that would be just selfish. And the reason why, again,
00:31:49.620
we talk about philosophy, the reason why the ancients put such an emphasis on courage was
00:31:54.000
because you had to have courage in order to be of service to others. You had to have courage in
00:32:00.040
order to do your duty in the community. And what I'd say to millennials and to anyone who feels that
00:32:05.600
way is, hey, it's absolutely natural and it's fine. It's normal to feel that kind of fear. Nobody wants
00:32:11.160
to be criticized. Nobody wants to have a newspaper editorial written about how bad the thing is that
00:32:18.340
you're doing. But if you really want to help people, you're going to be criticized. So get used
00:32:22.940
to it. Do hard things, do difficult things, and find a way to serve other people.
00:32:27.000
So now you are governor. You've been at it for a year. I just got done reading the book about
00:32:30.400
George Washington and his reading habits throughout his career. He's a self-educated guy. A lot of people
00:32:34.740
don't know about the Washington. He didn't get any formal schooling. And the author talked about how
00:32:39.200
Washington would change his reading depending on his station life. So he read when he was general
00:32:43.740
of the Continental Army. He read a lot of military treatises. When he became president, his reading
00:32:49.700
habits changed. I'm curious, A, do you still have time for reading? Do you make time for reading?
00:32:54.720
And what are you reading to be an effective executive?
00:32:57.300
Yeah. So I make time for reading. I think that making time for reading is just as important as
00:33:02.960
making time for exercise. It is essential if you're going to lead well.
00:33:09.200
Because you have to always find ways to not just act, but also to reflect.
00:33:15.740
Right? If you're going to be a wise leader, and again, the ancients talked about this,
00:33:20.200
or something, you know, this idea of phronesis, of practical wisdom, that there's a certain wisdom
00:33:25.740
that comes from action in the world. It's not something that you can get from books, but it is
00:33:31.040
something that is aided by reflection. So you have to take action, and you have to think about it.
00:33:36.760
So, you know, every day, we are out doing stuff, and we're supporting law enforcement. We're meeting
00:33:41.620
with firefighters who just went down to Texas, and we're saving lives, and we're thanking them.
00:33:45.880
We're meeting with the folks on our public safety team, talking about how we can respond
00:33:49.760
to emergencies. We're meeting with a team talking about our agenda to make this the best state in
00:33:54.560
the country for veterans, or to help kids in foster care. So we're always acting, but then you also have
00:33:59.280
to make that time for reflection. And again, for me, I've always found that biography is really
00:34:06.500
helpful because it helps to put your own struggles in perspective. So right now, I'm finishing a
00:34:11.120
biography on Alexander the Great. Really, really good, good biography. I just finished the Andrew
00:34:16.880
Roberts biography of Napoleon. Before that, I read a biography of General MacArthur. Really,
00:34:23.300
really good, good biographies, good stories. In parallel with that, I've actually been reading
00:34:29.600
some Ernest Hemingway again, which I hadn't read for a long time. I mean, some of these books I
00:34:34.820
hadn't picked up since college, but I was moving a box of old books, and I saw some of the old
00:34:40.040
Hemingway stuff. I pulled it out, and it's just good to do that kind of reading, and it prompts good
00:34:46.980
reflection. Well, like, what have you—which Hemingway did you read? Was it Farewell to Arms?
00:34:51.460
So actually, so there's—no, I pulled out—I pulled out—this is, again, everybody's kind of
00:34:57.060
first Hemingway in high school, old man in the sea, right? It's just a classic story about a guy
00:35:04.540
who's engaged in one of the fights of his life. And it's difficult, and it's hard, and he's got to
00:35:12.680
reflect on his own purpose in the middle of this tremendous battle against terrible odds.
00:35:18.500
So from that Alexander the Great biography, what lessons on statesmanship or being an executive
00:35:25.540
did you pull? So look, I mean, one of the great things about the Alexander the Great biography is
00:35:30.060
if you think about the Macedonian, like, conception of generalship, it was very much a conception of
00:35:36.380
generals who went to the front lines. So Alexander was clearly the leader. He was clearly the general,
00:35:43.480
but he was also in many ways first among equals. This was a guy who himself was the first guy
00:35:50.980
climbing the ladders as they were, you know, assaulting—as they were assaulting cities,
00:35:56.800
right? At the very front. And everyone saw that kind of frontline leadership. In the same way, you know,
00:36:03.280
and this is something I've been doing not just in the SEAL teams at The Mission Continues,
00:36:07.240
but I also do as governor, I think it's important to go to the front lines. You have to go to the
00:36:12.800
very place where people are hurting. You got to go to the very place where there are problems. You got
00:36:17.700
to go to the very place where there are challenges, and you have to be present. So, you know, when there
00:36:23.480
is a tornado and it hits a state of Missouri, we go and we visit with people and we ask them what
00:36:29.800
they need. We talk to our first responders. We figure out what they need. We had historic flooding
00:36:34.340
in the state of Missouri. We went down and we visited county courthouses that had been underwater
00:36:39.080
and people who lost their homes. We just had another big incident in the state of Missouri around
00:36:45.520
this—around a trial. We had to support our law enforcement officers. We went out and we met with
00:36:50.860
all of these men and women on the front lines to shake their hands, to be there with them. And so that's
00:36:56.200
just one kind of lesson that comes from that, but it's just an affirmation of how important it is
00:37:01.760
that you have leaders who want to go to the front lines. You love biographies. I love biographies.
00:37:05.500
I'm always looking for new recommendations. What is like your all-time favorite, like two favorite
00:37:09.600
biographies? Man, that's a good question. God, that's a good question. Here's—I'll do the Tim
00:37:14.240
Ferris thing. If you were to gift a book, he does that. What book would you gift to somebody if it was
00:37:19.920
a biography? Man, if it was a biography. So the thing is, I'm going to—this is going to sound like
00:37:25.460
there's not just one answer, but what I always try and do is recommend books for people given the
00:37:32.260
specific place where they're at in their life. It's kind of like how George Washington was saying,
00:37:35.820
like, his reading changed. Like, I actually recommend different biographies for people who
00:37:40.300
are at different points. And specifically, what I try to do is—and this sounds like Washington had
00:37:45.360
the same philosophy—is, you know, if somebody were saying to me, for example, look, I want to be a
00:37:50.640
writer. Then, like, look at a great biography of Hemingway. Look at a great biography of F. Scott
00:37:55.920
Fitzgerald. Like, see how much trouble these guys had putting together their masterpieces. If somebody
00:38:01.340
said, you know, I want to be a great general, I want to be a great leader, like, read a biography of
00:38:06.540
General Marshall or read one of the biographies of General Eisenhower and General Marshall in World
00:38:11.400
War II. So I try—what I try and do is recommend books that I think are going to help people given
00:38:18.400
who they want to become. I like that. So let's talk about being a dad and being a busy executive.
00:38:25.640
So you got two young kids. I imagine there's not too many other governors who have—well,
00:38:30.280
how old are you? One of them's one years old, right? Yeah, yeah. So Jacob's one. He's actually
00:38:34.700
17 months right now. And then Joshua is three years old. Right. Are there any other governors that
00:38:39.480
have young children like that? Are you pretty much the only one? You know, I don't know if anybody has
00:38:43.320
kids who are that young. There might be a few who have a couple of younger kids, but most of them,
00:38:49.600
you know, most of the governors are— Didn't have a kid while campaigning.
00:38:52.500
...older than me. Most of them did not have a kid a couple months before the primary.
00:38:57.320
So I know we have a lot of dads listening. You obviously have a very busy, packed schedule. How
00:39:02.520
do you make time for family? So one of the great things, actually, about this job is that we're
00:39:08.340
very disciplined as a family about creating family time. So, you know, our schedule is pretty simple.
00:39:15.180
Almost every morning, I get up early with my buddy. I go. We crush a workout. I get back.
00:39:22.020
I get back just a little bit after—it's usually just a little bit after the kids have woken up.
00:39:27.600
And then I spend the morning with them. I wrestle with them. I play with them. I read books. I was
00:39:32.460
doing it just this morning with Joshua. We're reading a couple of books, Berenstain Bears and
00:39:38.240
Critter books. So we're doing that with them. And then I make them breakfast with Sheena. And then,
00:39:45.540
you know, like this morning, I took Joshua to preschool and then dropped him off at preschool
00:39:49.740
and then came over here to the office. Then I always try to get home for dinner. Now, occasionally,
00:39:55.900
we will have times when I travel. And when I'm traveling and if I've got an evening event,
00:40:01.160
I'm not able to make it back for that. But most of the time, Brett, even if we have an event,
00:40:06.360
say, at the governor's mansion or something like that, I will end that event with enough time for
00:40:11.400
me to go upstairs and put the boys to bed, to read to them, give them a bath, and put them to bed.
00:40:15.760
I just think it's really important that they get that time. I was so lucky. My dad really made being
00:40:22.060
a dad a priority. So my dad, my grandfather, my paternal grandfather, was a World War II veteran
00:40:28.100
who served in the Navy. He died when my dad was six years old. And so my dad grew up without a
00:40:35.940
father. He had a, you know, single mom and two sisters who worked as a shoe saleswoman who raised
00:40:41.480
my dad. And I remember waking up, you know, and I'd see every day, my dad would wake up at four
00:40:48.480
something in the morning to either take the bus or the carpool to work so that he could be home early
00:40:54.760
to be with me and my two brothers. And, you know, over his dresser, he always had that picture of
00:41:01.760
my grandfather in his Navy uniform with his World War II medals. And so my dad really treasured the
00:41:08.460
fact of the opportunity that he had to be a dad. And I'm so grateful for that. And I know that,
00:41:15.060
you know, my most important mission in life is to be a great dad to my kids.
00:41:19.960
So, Governor, this has been a great conversation. Before we leave, any parting words for our listeners
00:41:24.260
about, just based on the experience you've had campaigning, being a governor, you know,
00:41:28.980
for people who are still on the fence of being, you know, getting active in the, in public life?
00:41:33.200
Yeah. You know what? Just, I'd say to everybody, like, find a way to get involved that makes a
00:41:39.080
difference. And it doesn't have to be an electoral politics, but get involved in your community.
00:41:44.800
Find a way to get engaged. You know, Aristotle talked about politics as kind of the art and science
00:41:50.760
of creating and sustaining human communities, right? So how do, how do you find a way to do
00:41:58.540
your duty to your country, your duty to your community? Find a way to push yourself, to challenge
00:42:03.380
yourself. And what I would say is a lot of times people doubt whether or not they have something
00:42:08.960
to offer. And everyone does. Every single one of your listeners has some kind of wisdom,
00:42:14.960
some kind of experience, some kind of ability that other people need. Find a way, challenge yourself
00:42:20.540
to get involved in your community, challenge yourself to get involved in this, and you will
00:42:25.940
find a way to make a difference. And as you do, we will all be stronger for what you've contributed
00:42:31.260
to it, to all of us. Well, Governor Eric Rydens, thank you so much for your time. It's been a
00:42:34.560
pleasure. Yeah, you're welcome, Brett. Great to be on with you, man. Thank you. My guest today was
00:42:37.460
Governor Eric Rydens. He's the governor of the great state of Missouri. And if you haven't already,
00:42:41.320
check out his books, Resilience and the Heart and the Fist. They're both available on amazon.com and
00:42:45.440
bookstores everywhere. You can also find out more information about the foundation he started and founded for
00:42:49.960
veterans. It's The Mission Continues. And go to missioncontinues.org to find out more information
00:42:53.940
about that. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash Governor Greitens, where you can find links
00:42:58.640
to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.
00:43:12.620
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:43:17.300
make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy
00:43:21.180
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00:43:24.180
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00:43:27.240
please recommend the show to your friends. That's the best way to get the word out about the show.
00:43:31.140
The more, the merrier. As always, thank you for your continued support. And until next time,