Letter To Myself
I was recently asked by a new SEAL officer for advice. He said, "What do you wish someone told you when you were in my position?"
I responded with a few thoughts, but then ruminated for the remainder of the day and ultimately to reframe the question. "What do I wish I could have told myself 25 years ago?" That is the genesis of this letter to my younger self. I envisioned sending it back to May 1, 1992, a week before graduation and commissioning at Villanova University.
Dear Jay,
In less than a week, you will be commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy. In less than 2 weeks, you will check into Navy SEAL training. The reality of the training will greatly exceed all of the rumors you heard. Training will challenge you, but you will be surrounded by the most incredible people in the world. Over the next 25 years, these men will become your brothers –– they will become decisive in your development as a leader and man.
23 years into your career, you will read a book called Lean Startup by Eric Ries, where he encourages entrepreneurs to conduct rapid prototyping; to gather feedback; to fail fast; to iterate; and to constantly improve. When you read this book, you will realize that Lean Startup is much more than a business how to –– it is a leader development methodology that develops you into who you become. Moreover, it is a leadership philosophy that successfully develops leaders throughout the entire military.
Lean Startup introduces the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP). “The MVP is that version of the product that enables a full turn of the Build-Measure-Learn loop with a minimum amount of effort and the least amount of development time. The minimum viable product lacks many of the features that may prove essential later on.” (Ries p. 76) In 7 days, the Navy will launch you as a Minimally Viable Product. The expectation is that you will be a rapid prototype who continuously learns, iterates and improves over your career. To do this, you will need to follow a few steps –– so pay attention.
#1 Caveat: Seriously, pay attention. While you see yourself as a 21 year old, soon to be commissioned Naval Officer, you are actually a testosterone pumping dumb–ass who does not make decisions well. Over time, you will figure this out, but not before you make a lot of mistakes; waste a lot of time and money; maybe even spend a night or two in jail; cheat death and learn that being lucky is often better than being good. Through it all, the good news is, you HAVE A BLAST, and figure it out....mostly.
So here are the steps to success as a minimally viable product:
1. Listen.
Fight the urge every time you want to talk, and just listen. Someone is always smarter than you –– you actually never outgrow this one. Figure out who the smart folks are and latch on to them. You need to find mentors to guide you through your career. Don't look for the coolest, loudest or funniest person –– find the leaders that have found purpose in their lives and believe in something bigger and better than themselves. It is actually easy, they stick out. They are usually married, often have kids, and are always helping people. These leaders are usually sticklers for routine, and manage a balance of work and play. No matter how hard things get, these are the leaders that remain positive and seem to actually be having fun. This part is obvious, but remember, you will soon be a Navy SEAL, so find the ones who look and act like warriors. They too stick out –– they are the leaders that you want with you if things go badly. Choose a diversity of leaders: senior officers, senior enlisted and peers.
(Note: Be wary of peers. They too are testosterone pumping dumb–asses. However, keeping a close network of friends is analogous to crowd sourcing –– you can learn exponentially more from a strong peer network. Just know that you will learn as much of "what not to do" as "what to do").
2. Figure out the end state.
The Navy SEAL Ethos won't come out for another decade, so put your thoughts to paper as to the kind of man and leader you want to be. Be explicit both professionally and personally.
Write it down –– you will find that when you write, your ideas become significantly clearer. Oh, and write first, then edit. You will read a book from your friends' mom that explains this later (Writing on Both Sides of the Brain). For now, focus on content first, then format and grammar –– this will make more sense later. Use your document as a framework for setting goals. In time, you will see how useful it is to set goals for all aspects of your life. You will find that the competitive nature of who you are makes you twice as likely to achieve goals you write versus the ones you just think about.
3. Find and leverage mentors.
Experienced leaders cannot help you if you don't ask. It will feel uncomfortable at first, kind of like asking a man on a date, but trust me, no one will deny you when you ask them for career help. Let them know you respect them and would like to check in periodically. **When you get older, and someone asks you to be their mentor, you will realize how cool this is and how it actually helps you improve your own game.
4. Be humble –– as per #1 caveat.
This testosterone thing will be really tough to manage early in your career. Over your career, you will find that owning your mistakes pays HUGE dividends. Early on, this attribute illustrates humility and willingness to learn. As you become more senior, it will actually help shape the culture where you work and will assist you in creating a learning organization. Personally and publicly admitting mistakes can feel awkward –– but once you establish the habit, it feels natural and actually a bit cathartic. In time, you will over–use the phrase "All my pencils have erasers"; even though you know, you will continue to overuse it.
Other favorite phrases include:
"Things are never as good or as bad as you first think"
And:
"If you don't have time to do it right, then when will you have time to do it over"
And your all–time favorite:
"Teams and Shit—Mostly Shit".
5. Lean–Startup Methodology.
Ok, this part is important. With an end state in mind, and mentor and peer networks identified, you need to establish your guard rails for success. Think of your mentors and peer network as guard rails that push feedback to you and that keep you on a steady progression toward your end–state. The slope of your growth is important. Don't over think this piece, just know that you do not want the line to be too steep (arrogance) or too flat (timid, not pushing yourself). Now imagine that around the sloping line is a corkscrew. The loops illustrate the iterative nature where learning takes place. In reality, some loops are large, indicating you were a bit off track, and other are tight. Don't be too confident on the tight circles. They were mostly luck and being part of a great team.
6. Self–awareness.
Overall, sticking to the slope of the line indicates your level of self–awareness. Your ability to "read" people, mostly by body language and facial expressions will increase significantly over time. This will be one of your key strengths that enables you to adapt and lead with juniors, peers and seniors. No number of mentors or peers can overcome a personal lack of self–awareness –– Lack of Self–Awareness is Catastrophic.
7. Mindset.
Stick to your gut on this one. As you work through tough points throughout your career, maintain a growth / learning mindset that is searching for continuous development. As you become more senior, reading will become a favorite hobby, especially about learning, leadership, and high performance. Carol Dweck's Mindset, Anders Erickson's Peak, Peter Brown's Make it Stick, and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Slow and Fast will be among your favorites.
8. Micro–Quits:
Throughout your career, you will face many challenges—Never Quit. This seems like an easy message, however, the challenge will be to avoid the Micro–Quits. These are the small events where you plan to run 5 miles but don't feel great and have the urge to cut it short; or plan to conduct a set number of training iterations, but begin to rationalize why you or your team can conduct fewer. This is different from procrastination –– this is an actual plan that you are working toward and have the urge to stop short or rationalize why you finishing early is OK‚—this is a Micro–Quit. Micro–Quits are the most dangerous type of quits because you often do not realize that they are happening, but over time, they build habits just like normal quits—avoid them at all costs.
9. Final Advice.
Stay Uncomfortable—do things you do not like doing every week. This will pay off over and over throughout your career. You will actually start to like the feeling of doing uncomfortable things.
No Shortcuts—Whatever you want to be good at takes work –– no pills or supplements will make you fitter, smarter or better at your job. Don't waste time looking for shortcuts.
Stay Ready—In every aspect of your life, no one cares what you use to be able to do, they care what you can do today. Be ready to be a dad, a leader, a SEAL, a friend, and a mentor.
Last thing.
Just so you know, you go grey early, but keep your hair...at least at the time of this writing. So, like I said, Things are never as good or as bad as you first think.
Teams and Shit –– Mostly Shit!
Jay