What It Really Takes to Lead a SEAL Team: Former SEAL Team 2 CO Mike Hayes Tells All

Mike Hayes is a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer who served 20 years in Special Operations. A graduate of one of the toughest SEAL training classes—one of only 19 out of 120 to complete—he deployed throughout South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, including in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Hayes commanded SEAL Team TWO and led a 2,000-person Special Operations Task Force in southeastern Afghanistan. He also served as Deputy Commander for all Special Operations in Anbar Province, Iraq, and was selected as a White House Fellow (’08–’09). At the National Security Council, he served as Director for Defense Policy and Strategy, where he helped draft a proposed START Treaty and led the White House response to the Maersk Alabama hijacking. His decorations include the Bronze Star for Valor in Iraq, a Bronze Star for Afghanistan, and the Defense Superior Service Medal. After retiring from the Navy, Hayes transitioned to senior leadership roles in technology and investment, and authored Never Enough: A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility, and Meaning, donating all profits to support Gold Star families. He lives with his wife, Anita, and their daughter, Maeson, and most enjoys spending time and laughing with them when not mentoring others or speaking about leadership.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to soft web Radio Special Operations, Military Nails
and straight talk with the guys in the community.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to another awesome episode of soft Rep Radio. Insert
in the background right here. My name is Rad I
am your host, and if you are a first time
listener or a viewer, welcome to the program. I hope
you have a good time and enjoy my guest. If
you are a veteran of the show, thanks so much.
You know what I'm about to say, and that is

(01:02):
go check out soft rep dot com forward slash merch store.
All right. We have a merch store. It's got all
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(01:22):
I do Airsoft, but soft Rep mafia, all right, hashtag
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dot com for slash book hyphen Club, all right, that
is the gym for your mind. Read a book, gain
some knowledge. Knowledge is power. Your brain is a muscle,
So read a book, right, And so with that said books, Okay,

(01:45):
I have a book right here by my guest, which
you already know who it is because you see the link.
You clicked on it. You said, I want to listen
to Mike Hayes, former Seal Team two commander who wrote
Mission Driven and also Never Enough, Right, isn't it? Never
Enough was the first book it was.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
It was I'm so stoked stope to be here.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Read well, I'm so stoked to have you, sir, dude,
sir on the show. You know, when I saw that
I was gonna have my case on the show and
he has his book coming out, Mission Driven, you guys
got that out to me. I started to look at
it and the first thing I noticed was, of course,
like a page that had just a few words in
the beginning, and I was just like, Okay, what's this

(02:27):
guy all about? And can I ask you, Tony and Mason,
No words can express my profound love and appreciation. Could
you just elaborate on Yeah? Who?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
First of all, Rad, thanks for having me here.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Really appreciate an inspiration, all the impact that you have
for this great nation helping us be greater every day.
Thank you, Nie and Mason Knee is short for Anita
and my wife Mason daughter. They've they're the ones who've
lived through. Yeah, I think it was seven deployments of
six months or longer. And as anybody who's listening knows,
the spouses are the secret ingredient of the nation.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
One hundred percent. And before you and I start talking
on this conversation, I pointed in my dad's flag and
my mom's picture right next to it. Again, my mom
being the spouse, my dad going and doing deployments as
a Green Beret. She was always mom and Dad. She
was always like, oh, hey, everything's going good. I never
missed I missed Dad, I guess, but I never missed
Dad because I always thought, oh, dad's doing his job,

(03:23):
Dad's doing his thing. Mom's here, Mom's making sure everything's
going accordingly. And then Dad comes home wants to pile
up next to mom. Mom's like, well, I got to
take the son to school, I got take Aaron to
do all these things. You can fall into line by
doing those things, you know, And so that's very cool
that you put her in the beginning of your book
and your daughter. I just want to I kind of

(03:44):
figured that's why I wanted to shout out to them,
and then also something that also is right here. It's
just kind of chilling, you know, to my fallen Seal
brothers and their gold Star families. I'm so sorry and
thank you. I will never forget. I can only imagine
you're sorry, okay, and the thanks that you have for

(04:04):
the men that you led into harm's way under your command.
And uh, you know, uh, it's not an easy task
to call home and say hey, babe, everything's going great,
and then you have to hang up the phone and
deal with what you have to deal with as the
commander of a team of such elite athletes and personas

(04:28):
type A personalities all like shepherds. I don't like to
use sheep dogs. I don't like to use wolves. I
like to use shepherds. These guys are like they can
take care of the sheep dogs and the shed and
all that. Like you are a shepherd of your of
your of your crew. You guys are all a bunch
of fighters, and you've probably lost some guys, and so

(04:48):
I really appreciate that forward that that in your first
page right. I just want to point that.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
Out, and that's what it's all about. It's what it's
what drives me, and that is my mission. The title
of book is Mission Driven, but that is my mission.
I I, like every seal or soft member or military
member of my era, have been you know, shot at, rocketed,
gotten in vehicles and wonder if you're going to even
know that you died. You know, I've jumped out of
a building that was rigged to explode. I've you know,

(05:13):
amputated a teammate's leg on a mission. You know, it's
it's it's and I'm no different than anybody else, Just
to be clear, like we all in the veteran community
carry that weight. And what that means to me rad
is I live a life of saying, am I worthy?
Am I living my life in a way that's worthy
of my teammates who are not here? And am I

(05:34):
doing everything I humanly can to honor them? And to
help the families who who who continue to pay that
ultimate sacrifice every single day, every.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Day by looking at a photo of their lost one.
Every single day, some type of remembrance is brought to them.
And one thing that you do, I know you have
a book. I know we're here to talk about your
book and things like that. But another thing that you
do that I found out about is that you help
gold Star Families with five oh one C three, which
is a charity license right, And I'm not sure. I
think it's like eleven sixty two. I'm not sure the

(06:06):
exact name of your charity. I just kind of remembered
something along those lines. But you've like helped paid off
twelve to fifteen gold Star Families mortgages, right, which helps
free up the burden of the mortgage payment. Okay, first
of all, which is probably coming in from you know,
the husband helping out dude. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Look, I've lived a life now, very very fortunate, and
you know, twenty years in the teams and have have
been blessed with both wonderful days and terrible days and
everything in between. But what what I've done is started
a nonprofit, the eleven sixty two Foundation. Kennedy started the
Seals on one one sixty two. That's actually the and

(06:49):
there's a little bit of a double meeting behind that
because one to one it's like that's what renewal is.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
You know.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
January first, you know, we all kind of hit that
end of year and we're like, hey, what are we
gonna do and be.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
For next year?

Speaker 4 (06:58):
And so it really signifies ideally, after you pay off
a mortgage, ideally just lift a slight bit of the
burden that that these families carry. And and so that's
where I have my foundation.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
I have.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
We paid off twelve twelve mortgages now and those are
the twelve best days of my life.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, that's great. Probably to present somebody, hey, a letter
or whatever the deed is, or however you're doing it,
like hey, here's something for you. You know, We've got this
taken care of. And I'm sure that they're lost their
loved one, their lost loved one is is chill with that?
Like thank you?

Speaker 4 (07:33):
It's just I just imagine all of the all of
the teammates upstairs or you know, whatever you believe in.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
I believe in heaven, you know, and uh and uh.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
You know, I believe they're just looking down and saying
saying thank you, continued thanks not just to the foundation
that I have, but to all of us who are
who are still just trying to be the best we
can and do the best that we can't for the nation.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
And for our fellow citizens.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, and the probably up there just saying continue to
protect her and protect her at all costs, and you know,
continue to really might yeah, hunder set hundred percent. And
you know they're in a good company. My dad's up there,
you know, my mom's up there. Other people's parents and
family members are up there for eons, and so I
can only imagine that they're all just up there in

(08:20):
good company, watching down on us, making sure that we
join them as well. In that aspect. Now, my parents
believed in heaven, but it was a little different. There's
like Mormons have a like a planetary alignment, So once
you pass away, you go to a planet and you
get to like oversee that planet, and so hopefully my
mom and dad's on that cool planet and there's a Yeah,

(08:43):
it's kind of crazy because there's a tear process where
you have three tiers. So if you don't make it
to the planet, you make it to a different planet,
but you can't visit the top planet, but they can
visit you. So if I don't make it to the
top planet, hopefully mom and dad will come visit me
to the other three. So for those of you out
there that are Mormon, you probably know what I'm talking about. Okay,
we don't talk about planets enough in the Mormon Church publicly,
so I just want to talk about that, but just

(09:06):
try to make light of the situation where my parents are,
because yeah, man, it's wild. You know, you go out
into Afghanistan, you go out in ta Iraq, or you
go into some country that we don't even know you're
going into with a team, and these guys are going
in to try to, you know, take care of business,

(09:28):
and then you know you have to overwatch that whole situation. Right,
You're usually watching the movements of everything going on here
and everything coming through. You're getting the soft rep from
the guys, right, You're like, hey, what's the soft rep
with Team two's unit here? Right?

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, look, I mean absolutely, Like the when I was
the second in charge of a steal team, I thought
I knew what it would be to be overall in charge.
But until you're in that role, you just can't understand
how much how much weight that is you you carry
for the lives and the well being of everybody in
your command. Everybody listening who's had command completely understands what

(10:04):
I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
At all different levels and and.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
You know, one of the things that I really would
emphasize is like when I made it through seal training.
You know, I was one of nineteen graduates that of
a class of one hundred and twenty. And when I
was whatever, twenty two years old, I thought I was
the coolest.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Thing in the world.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
And the faster you learn that you're no cooler than
anybody else on the planet, the faster your path to success.
And the more you realize that it's a group of
people with different gifts and interests and abilities and skills
and that come together to make one one team. That's
what makes it go round.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I mean like you have everybody on a team
from all walks of life. Some people never had a
mom and dad. They come out the instructors yelling at
him and he's like, oh, you love me more than
no one ever did you know. It's like I'm gonna do.
I'm going to get through this, no problem. You're giving
me attention. And then you've got you know, people from
all races and creeds coming through and all different beliefs
to form this beautiful thing called US Navy. Right, the

(11:03):
US Navy. It's not my Navy, it's the un Yeah,
and even under like once he even.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Hits so calm like like I was privileged when I
had command a steal team tour around Special Operations Task
Force Southeast in Afghanistan for twenty twelve or nine months
in twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
And uh and you know I was.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
Privileged to work with green berets. You know, we we
cross pollinated, had marines here and there, and there's you
name it, it's civilians. Like we all joke around about
what what you're named?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
What your are you?

Speaker 4 (11:32):
Whether your Navy or Army or Air Force, Marine Corps,
Coast Guard, UH, Space Force. Now, which like everybody puts
on the uniform is signing a piece of paper that
says I will serve and protect And I don't care.
We're all we're everybody is uniquely special and uh and needed.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Let me ask you when you were going to college, okay,
because you can. We're talking about you being a commander.
That's an office, sir, that's a college degree, all right
for the military. What was your college degree in at
a young man? How old were you when you got
your degree? You said twenty two years?

Speaker 4 (12:08):
Well I was I did four years of College at
holy Cross in Western mass graduated with a math degree
was one of I think it was either like fourteen
or sixteen ROTC commissions who were accepted to steal training
that that year. And as I think everybody knows, steal
training is really the only military training where the officers

(12:30):
and the enlisted go through together. And so, you know,
just like in a gunfight, bullets don't give a shit
what your rank is.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Use my French.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
You know, it's just like we're all we all just
we're all just trying to solve a problem, and rank
doesn't really make as much of a difference when you're
What we looked at in the seal teams is things
like who is the person who is best suited to
carry out a task? And number two is who's got
the proximity to the problem or the opportunity generally speaking, Like,

(12:58):
you know, I joke around, but like I'm rarely the
right person to go do the thing because I know
somebody who's better at me than everything else out there, Like,
and so why would I call my own number when
I've got people around me who are truly better at
all the different things I like to say, I don't
I don't play an instrument. I conduct bands. I'm one
of the world's best band conductors. But you know that

(13:20):
I and now in the civilian world, in the business world,
it's no different. Like I build teams of people that
go rally around a vision and an out a set
of outcomes that you want to you want to produce
and for investors, for shareholders, whatever the case may be.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
And then you go and achieve that.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
And what is that that core general athleticism that military
members have, it becomes intrinsic in you. And in fact,
like a little bit morphing a little bit into the book,
you're maybe getting ahead of where you want to be.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
But the first half of the book is about who
you want to be?

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Like are my wife and I are? Our daughter's now
twenty four. But you know, for I was on a
deployment in Kosovo when she was born. I couldn't I
didn't get to see her born in two thousand and one,
and and anyways, as she was growing up, we didn't
say what do.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
You want to be? We'd say who do you want
to be?

Speaker 2 (14:12):
You know? The what you are is it?

Speaker 4 (14:14):
Really it's like the role that you're in is the
what and that's a lot less important than the who.
The who is how do you want to treat people?
How do you want to lean into hard problems? How
do you want to make sure that you maintain your
ethics and your morals and your standards when life gets
really difficult? Like those are like I could keep going on,
but those attributes of the deeper who are way more important.

(14:35):
And you know, that's what we learn in the military community.
I don't care what branch or or or specialty that
you're in, we all learn.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
That that's awesome. And so how would you define success?

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Well, it's a great question, and so like the like,
I never aspired to write one book let alone a second.
So my frist never Enough came out four years ago. Again,
I immediately, you know, I get overpaid to speak in
PubL book and I got a lot of money for
that book, and I donate every single penny of that
to the nonprofit.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
So I do not make a single penny on anything
that I do in this regard.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
And so, so the someone is someone who buys the
book today, this this book mission driven. All proceeds go
towards your charity for the gold Star Families. Right, So
so this is so you're getting a book that's going
to help you to understand maybe yourself a little bit internally,
and then you're also which is a positive thing. And

(15:29):
then also your money is going to go a little further,
and it's going to go towards, you know, helping gold
star families pay off a more.

Speaker 4 (15:36):
All of my and so so the reason that I
ended up writing Mission Driven was because I've had so
many people reach out and say leaving the steal teams
or or changing jobs in business and saying, hey, Mike,
you know I love never enough, but how do you
make it real? What does meaning really mean? What does
impact really mean? And how do you like have more

(15:56):
of a playbook for transitioning and whatnot? So I I
I don't have the I don't I don't have your
answer for you what's best in your life? I I
have certain gifts and abilities and interests and passions, and
my mind aren't yours, and yours aren't mine, and et cetera.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
And that's all what makes the world go around. And
it's great.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
So I think a lot of advice that people give
is is intrinsically that you should do what I did,
because I'm the smartest person I know.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
And that's not my advice.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Like like, what it is is more of a process
and a series of kind of things to think about,
interwoven with stories that make it real to bring it
to life. If, for example, if I had to say
you know, who are you rad and put you on
the spot and say you've got you know, three sentences
to tell me who you are, I bet you would
get at best a B on that answer, and.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
You might get an F. You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
I'm using you as metaphor for everybody because these are
hard things to answer. When I hire in the in
the private sector, I just think of three circles. What
gives someone energy, what are they good at? And what
does the business need. As a hiring manager, I already
know what the business needs, or I wouldn't be in
that conversation. If I ask you what you're good at,
You're going to know everything you're good at and maybe

(17:06):
even another thirty percent that you may not be good at.
Like that, But what people wrestle with is the circle
around what gives you energy. And the thing is when
you can align what gives you energy with how you
what your job is what your mission is.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
It's not work. It's not work, you know. And so
that is what we're really trying to align in life.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
And that's to me, what is the purpose of the
book is is not for me to find your mission
for you, but to help you find your mission and achieve.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
It correct Because like what you're saying is like, hey,
you may, you know, want to go down the life
of hot dogs, and I may go down the life
of Hamburger. But we can use like the same template
to achieve that goal, you know. And that's what you're
really bringing forward. I was writing down the circles, see,
I was just taking the circles notes here. I like
to say that when I meet a guest that inspires me,

(17:56):
I become a better person. And so today, already in
the last seventeen minutes, I'm already feeling the vibe from you,
and so I'm gleaning off of this. I get to
personally have this information from you. So you know what
gives me energy, I guess just proving myself to my
my father and my mother who raised me to be
the way I am. If I was define myself in

(18:16):
like three sentences, it would be loving, kind, father.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Friend, amazing, amazing.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
I just I just want you to know. I was like,
should I say it? And so I just want to
put it out there and and and that, and those
same things that make me who I think I am
are also what drives me.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
It's it's in knowing what gives you energy and what
drives you is the most important thing. In the business world.
It's a I get a lot of people transitioning out
of the feels or wherever that are like, hey, Mike,
you know, thanks for the taking the time. You know,
I really just want to continue to work with great people.
I want to have a great mission and have some

(18:54):
opportunity to to you know, to provide for the family.
And I'm like, man, that that describes everybody getting out
like that. I can't do anything with that. That's so broad.
I love you for saying it, but it's also true
for everyone. We need to narrow that down and let
me help you kind of like narrow that down. How
do you think about the different attributes of what's important

(19:14):
to you? Think about things like like the what kind
of firm do you want to move into? Is it
a sector, is it a is it what type of role,
what size of firm. Do you want to be in
the big three hundred thousand, you know person big enterprise
of fortune one hundred or do you want to be
in a three person startup? You know, how do you
think about quality of life? Geography, compensation, et cetera. And

(19:37):
and what I encourage in one of the like kind
of little exercisey thought provoking types of parts of the
book is is to also say, go go score those
for yourself. How important are they? Because a lot of
and then put them in force ranked orders so you
can kind of see what you value, you know, pick
two of the attributes geography and compensation. If I had
rad if I came to you and said, you can

(19:59):
go make ten minut million dollars a year in the
city you never wanted to live in, or make ten
thousand dollars a year in the city you always wanted
to live in. Like that map we just described would
have that answer for you.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, you're almost like six sigma in your situation, which
is like math of words where you're breaking down the
route and getting to the point of what makes you
kind of what the issue is. And so I mean
that's what I'm gleaning from what we're talking about and
so you know, I guess what you're trying to say
is we have to get comfortable with not just being Oh,

(20:35):
we all love each other, we all want to be
best fathers, we all want to take care of our families.
That's what you say. Like everybody kind of getting out says, oh,
I'm that same thing. It's you have to get comfortable
with making decisions about yourself that you may not realize.
And so now you have to like drill down on
those things and say, well, what exactly about being a
loving father? Is this going to be totally to get?

Speaker 4 (20:54):
And then like I actually, as we think about like
I am passionate about the military community trendositioning, well, you know,
and so if if so, think of it a thought exercise.
Let's just say I was a person in the world
who knew every executive in the entire private sector. And
let's say you're in an elevator and I step in
and and I say, Okay, hey, great to see you're
at It's been you know, a couple of years since

(21:16):
we served in Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
How the heck are you? Oh, hey, Mike, I'm looking
at transitioning.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Oh, great.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
Okay, rad I only have another thirty seconds for you, brother,
and then I got a run. But tell me in
seven sentences, what are you.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Looking for.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Snowboarding? Okay, well I got I'll go with you.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
I'm in.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
I picked up snowboarding last year. I'm a big wake surfer,
so anyways, I'd have a lot more fun talking about that.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
But let's go goofy for life. Bro, that's me. I'm
goofy for life. I'm regular.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Oh that's good. That's okay, it's okay.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
But anyways, but in that elevator, in those seven sentences,
can you give me something that narrows in on on
me being able to take everything I all my connections
that I have and say, who are the ones that
are going to help you the most? Because a lot
of what happens when people transition is they do it
in a bottom up way. It's like, Hey, I know

(22:05):
a person who has an opportunity, and I'm going to
go evaluate this opportunity instead of doing the thinking agnostic
of an opportunity and working in the abstract and working
top down to say, you know what, I really want
to work in finance. I really want to like Raleigh
North Carolina is super important to me, you know, or
or you know, whatever the case may be, Like, can

(22:26):
you help me take the prioritizations from before to really
help me map my network and then say, Okay, if
you just go talk to a bunch of people, for example,
in Boston in your in your job search, chances are
you're probably gonna land in and around Boston.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Could the person in Boston know someone in San Francisco?

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (22:44):
But like you're in mathematically kind of like driving your
next phase of your life by by have by by
choosing what conversations you have. And that's what I've tried
to do in Mission Driven. Besides being I know it
sounds very professorial or academic. It's a it's a book
with real stories and stuff too, but but that's what
I'm trying to One of the things I'm trying to
get across to people is help them to help themselves.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Well, and you can't help, but like kind of blend
your other book even together. You know, I think like
battlefill to the boardroom, you know, and so you just
have this jenesse Qua about it where you're going to
know you're lane and you know mission and so the
mission driven book here. I mean, you just you just
have it has got so much information because we all

(23:28):
do transition every point of every single day, and so
you know, we all wake up and we.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Choose our lives every single day, even if we're not.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Making it every single day, you know, And that kind
of stuck out to me in your book, you know,
just to kind of loosely quote you there, but it's like, yeah,
I wake up, you know, And I did start, you know,
after I was at General mcgraven that gave the speech
about like making your bed. And some people are like, oh,
I don't make my bed, I don't need to listen
to that whatever, But I started remaking my bed after him.

(23:59):
He's like, you know, why do we make our beds?
Why do we force people in buds who are gonna
be hardened, trained killers to go make their bed every
night before or every morning with hospital corners, So that
when you're done at the end of the day and
you're beat down and you're ready just to crash, you
don't have to go look at your bed and say
I gotta make it to lay in it or whatever.

(24:20):
You can just lay down in your bed and it's
ready to go. So you know, and then you got
to wake up the next day and you got to
like wash, rinse and repeat. But something has to kind
of tweak to keep going every single day. So I mean,
that's what you're talking about. You gotta make a decision.
You gotta wake up every day, you gotta transition your life.
Every day is a new day. And I guess, to

(24:40):
quote the Seals, there's no easy day like yesterday Street,
Damn dude. So see how that just flows right there,
you know. I mean, really you're just pumping out some
positive information and again the book being just you know,
charitable to you know, a positive good. You know, I

(25:01):
would just recommend anybody getting it just to help that mission.
Let alone read a book. At the beginning of the show,
I said, what's the gym for your brain? It's reading
a book. It's like, really, you know, I like to
hold a book. I know people have these kindles and
digital platforms that they read, but there's nothing like the
book where you can turn the page, you can flip
the page and go back and say wait a second here.

(25:22):
You know, I have a hard time doing that on
a phone, you know, zooming in to try to read it.
So I really appreciate the way this book feels too.
I get so many books from folks, and and so
the color and the and the and the whole thing
about it, it just it just kind of makes me
want to read it. And in fact, my wife's like, oh,
you're getting ready for your podcast. I was like, yeah,
I'm reading a book.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
And then you were, and then you were later.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Sorry, No, I usually kind of wing a lot of it.
I'm just saying, you know, but you know, there's sometimes
where I just want to read it. And so again,
you know, it does say in here, uh, mission driven
in the ways we spend our time. So I'm going
to say that. You know, my dad used to have
a whiteboard in his office as a Green Beret, and

(26:06):
on that whiteboard him and his guys would write five
years out of what's going down, you know. And so
I've kind of adopted a little whiteboard mentality myself in
my own company, right because we're trying to allocate what
we're doing. We're like, hey, okay, we're gonna scale up
our website. This is actually going down right now. So
we have forecasting basically what's gonna, you know, happen, how

(26:28):
it's gonna be doing and we want timelines and you know,
I want answers for my web guy in the twenty
four to forty eight hours. All this stuff is being
kind of like itemized so we can just get it done.
Otherwise we're like wishing one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
The one gift that we have is time and how
we choose our to spend our time. It has to
reflect who we are and what missions that we're on.
And one of the harder things in life is saying no.
And especially when people are wired like like I am,
and like I know your entire audience is wired. Is
like there are people who get things done and the

(27:04):
reflexive answer is is almost always yes.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
And I think one of the things to.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Really look at is say, how well can you say
no when something doesn't fit your you know your your
mission if you will. And you know, seven years ago
I had a vision for to make something that was
local really be national. Is that we opened the National
Medal of Honor Museum. I'm the founding board member of

(27:30):
the National Medal of Honor Museum, which opened in Arlington, Texas.
Seven years ago. I had a conversation to help somebody
and it was thirty minutes of a friend of a friend.
I'll give you some advice. I'll spare you the long version.
The short version is we uh. I'm the one of
the board members of the museum, and we opened up.
We raised three hunred million dollars, and seven years later

(27:50):
we opened the doors in this past march on Medal
of Honor Day. And to to be able to have
a place to recognize not just the you know, the
thirty five hundred ish thirty five hundred plus recipients of
the Congressional Medal of Honor and the sixty one living
recipients that we have today, it's it's actually how do

(28:11):
we take the values the characteristics that they that the
service members of spouse on the day when they were
recognized and for their day of action and tell those
stories not just in a way that are like to
impress or because that's not who they are. I'm obviously
not one of them, but with what I can say

(28:31):
from knowing most of them is there's such humility and
such grace and such inspiration, and all of these guys
want the nation to be as great as it humanly can.
And so the tag the mission for the Museums is
on a mission to inspire America, and that's what we're
trying to do, is inspire the world so that the

(28:51):
third grader who sees bullying on the schoolyard, who just saw,
you know, something that one of the displays that the
museum can step in and have the courage, the ability
to see wrong, identify wrong, and to step in and
make something happen. And that's really what we're trying to
do is use the examples to help all of our
citizens be better.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
You know, I never, you know, thought about Medal of
honor in the third grade as a way of life,
But now that you say that, there's probably many Medal
of Honor kids out there that have stepped into situations
that are just unknown as young kids before they ever
go to the military, doing difficult things that maybe you

(29:35):
know what I mean. That's another thing off the top
of my head, and someone can correct me if I'm
wrong in the comments down below. But regarding the Medal
of Honor, my understanding is the most medal of honors
are out of like Colorado Pueblo area. The Pueblo, Colorado
area has like the most medal of honors awarded to people,
and not just Ko talkers because that's where they're from,

(29:56):
but just other individuals from the Pueblo area. And I
was just like, Wow, what's in that water? Okay, so
whatever is going on in Pueblo, Colorado? You know you
guys have that's a hero tan.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
Yeah, I'm not up on my geography, like like I
should be with the Medal of Honor recipients, but but look,
it's it's really representative of the whole nation and so
got you've got incredible stories. I'd encourage anybody to become
familiar with the Medal of Honor Museum. It's right next
to AT and T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. If you're
ever passing through the Dallas Fort Worth area.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
You've got to go see this.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
The first five minutes are the most remarkable three D
video in a rotunda that you will ever see. I
think we're going through, you know, yards and yards of
Kleenex starting with me. You know, every time I see
that movie, it's just so freaking moving.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Already I need the clean X yeah, yeah, no, it's
I mean, I have it here because I already got
soaked up on your intro of you know, thank you
to my friends that may not be here anymore, you know,
let alone own those that have just you know, took
a grenade for their fellow buddy in battle to make
sure he goes home. You know. Uh, there's reasons why

(31:09):
people jump on a grenade, like Captain America, Kyle.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
Carlander tackling a suicide bomber, like like, the stories are
exactly remarkable, and and to say, like where in the
world did America find these people?

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Like wow, it's just really inspirational.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Well thanks to their mom and dad, Okay, because here
they are and they went and you know, and Kyle
is he's still living. Yeah, yeah, he took a lot
of damage from that situation. But the situation and uh,
I mean, dude, so many like Dakota Meyer right still
living youngest recipient. I think of the Medal of Honor,

(31:50):
these are.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
Heroes, you know, it's and and you know what what
I would say is again, I have I'm privileged to
know a lot of these guys. We got five of
them on our Word of the Medal of Honorn Museum.
And I've never met a hero who says that he or.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
She is one. That's That's what I'm getting at like
they just like you said, They're like, hey, I'm not cool.
You know, you think I'm cool, but I'm just like you, right,
It's just like, hey, you would have done the same thing.
Maybe that's probably what they think if they look at
somebody else, it's like, hey, if you were in the situation,
you would have probably done the same type of thing.
If it was your buddy out there, you would have

(32:26):
dodged enemy fire, you would have displayed orders, you would
have gone and got Bubba. Okay, you would have pulled
him out, you know, because you pulled everybody else out.
But where's Bubba? Right, So you go right back in
to go get that situation and you come back out.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
And you know, I've had some time to reflect back
on this, you know, I think that the real reason
that that military members do this is certainly, of course,
for the American flag, the Constitution in apple Pie, but
the real reason people take this risk is for the
love of their teammates. I didn't use the L word

(33:03):
when I was, you know, a twenty five or a
thirty five year old. Feel I'm fifty four now, like
I see it so freaking clearly. It is pure love
for your teammates.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
I would imagine it's just like if you or mere
shoulder shoulder, and something happened, I'd be like, well it's Mike, dude,
Like that's Mike. That's Mike right there. Okay, so who's
going I'm going, I don't care. You can say it's
shitty and you're gonna have to get me too, but
it's Mike. Bro. Yeah, like, hello, look what he's given me.
He gave me all of the point guard. I was

(33:35):
always I was always on point because of him. You know.
He always gave me the first shot, you know, you know,
and uh, that's awesome. And I'm sure you've probably heard
the analogy of like the bro versus the friend on
the team, like who's the bro, who's the friend? You know,
like you're sitting there typing up all of the orders,
you're getting all this intel coming down the chain of command,
and you crumble up your piece of paper, throw it

(33:56):
out of your way to throw it in your waistbasket
and it falls down on the floor and you're like, hey, bro,
will you come take this trash out for me? And
he's like, yeah, sure, no problem. Bro. You're like okay,
and he's like goes down the chain. Hey bro, go
take out the boss's trash. So the last guy comes in,
he's like, hey boss, I'm gonna take a trash out.
You're like, thanks, bro. But the friend on the team,
that friend would have already saw your trash being filled.

(34:18):
He would have already come in and emptied it. So
when you pulled that piece of paper, crumbled it, and
tossed it, it would have gone right in your basket.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
So you have the friend versus a course of course,
and it resonates. I would say, though, is like, is
there's the ability to be all of the above, you know,
is to have the military structure and at the same
time the friendship and the brotherly love, you know, like
it like it's it's just all can exist.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
It can all co exist.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
And I guess, I guess it's not like I'm kissing
the CEO's ass. It's that I'm giving him customer service
because I'm hired to be under him. And just because
it looks like I'm trying to like smooth him, doesn't
mean I'm just like him.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Yeah, let me get it differently, because I love what
you're saying. It's let me go back to hell. Week
in Seal Training class one ninety two back in nineteen
ninety three. And this is no different than any seal
going through steal training, anybody going through the Q course,
anybody going through any sort of like like crucible to
become the thing that they are. The thing I remember

(35:24):
very vividly thinking when I when I had a boat
under my head with my teammates, is the more I hurt,
the less my teammates hurt. And so the thing is
is that when when I'm speaking to my daughter's you know,
ages ago, but her seventh grade classroom on Veteran's Day,
and I said, hey, do it. Let's do a little
thought exercise.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Here.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
You're paired up with another person and you each have
to do an assignment. How much do you each have
to do?

Speaker 4 (35:45):
And all the hands go up, and I call on
the first kid and the answer is fifty percent? And
I said, no, wrong, wrong answer. All the hands go down,
and even the teacher looked a little confused. The thing is,
the answer is as much as you humanly can. Because
then when you have two people come to other and
their answer is that they're each trying to do as
much of the work as they humanly can.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
That's the ingredient.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
That's when you have like elite success and elite performance
in that mindset, that's what we really really like see
throughout the military military.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Excuse me, no please, that makes total sense. It's like,
you know, just put everything he got into the situation,
you know, uh and uh, you know, and just do
as much as you can. And you may not get
the answer to number two, but three, four, five, six,
and seven, and then maybe your battle buddy got number
two and you can work together to complete that. But
you do as much as you can because your number
six might be his number. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
And so if I'm the commander in your situation, like
I'm thinking, what can I do? I work for everybody
else who somebody might be emptying the garbage, but like
I am living a life that is trying to make
other people's lives better easier as that. And we're all
doing that for each other, irrespective of task rank.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Or role, right exactly. But the guy taking the trash out,
the friend while you're sitting there writing the orders, you
might notice the friend that did that, you might give him.
I'm gonna make you point guy on this mission. I'm
gonna give Bill his slot. He wants the sixty today,
so cool, you know, and you know he's always you know,
customer service, your performed because like you said, you're an orchestra.

(37:11):
You're you're You're a conductor of an orchestra, all right.
And so as a manager in business, as I've learned
is I can't know everything. I can't know everything to
do with all of what I sell in the tactical
world of war games. But I have people around me
who are super smart, and I can go, hey, Mitch,
subject matter expert on optics, why would I want this

(37:31):
optic over this optic? And then I kind of walk away,
let the customer talk to Mitch, and Mitch says, well,
this is why you want this optic, this is why
you do this optic. But I kind of led them
to Mitch. So you know, all overall, you as a manager,
surround yourself with good people makes you look like a
good mass.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
The average of the people we hang out with.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
And so my whole life, I've said, worked to hang
out with people who are smarter, faster, and stronger than me,
and that hasn't been hard to find.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
And that's what's pulled me up.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
And that can contribute to that, you know, one hundred percent,
And same way you know we our circles can be
you know, closed so tight, and people try to get
into them, and they try to like, you know, research
you and try to hit you up, and you know,
you've got to always keep your bearings about who you
hire around you. I just want to say that as
a business guy, you know, they're so again though, you know,

(38:21):
I can't help it. If someone in my business sees
me doing what I do and says, hey, I want
to be like what Rad's doing and have a little
freedom to go snowboarding, I can't fault them for that.
So if they want to step off and go do something,
I can only be proud that they worked with me
for as long as they did, and I was proud
to have them with me. And now I can see
them grow as well, and then maybe they'll come to

(38:41):
me and I can help them even grow further, as
long as just just stay in your lane, you know,
That's all I'm saying. So I just want to see
the people around me also succeed and rise to the top.
You know, whether they come into me working as a
young fourteen year old sweeper in my kill house to
earn playtime there, or they're my former Iraq infantry been there,

(39:04):
done that instructors at my shot. Those guys I glean
off of. They're like, oh yeah, rad, you want to
come around a corner like this, keep your wing down,
keep your elbow down. You know, you don't want to
keep your elbow up. You want to keep your elbow down,
just like simple simple things. I mean, your book's awesome,
You're awesome. I really love battlefield to boardroom mentality. You know,

(39:26):
of using what put you through all the ringers of
hell week and going through buds. But it's not just buds,
it's ASVAB and basic training and going through you know,
everything to get there. That helped create a culture inside
of you. Because you know, every time we join the military,
it starts to shape us. You know, you start to
adapt to the situation and we get you know, no

(39:46):
matter how long you spend it from the ASFAB to
your out process, you've been Rubik's cubed by the military
to be a certain way program. A lot of guys
transitioning out go and get last minute documents signed and
they go through this program to get out, and you know,
and they have these papers that really don't mean anything
on the outside, but they think it's so important to
go get all this stuff signed off. But they're like,

(40:08):
I'm gonna go not to be a civilian in transition.
And so I'm always hearing these stories of how do
I transition correctly.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
I'm like, well, I'm telling you this.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
I'm a passion and that is one of the main
reasons I wrote my book was to help that help
the community that I know and love. If anybody's thinking
about transitioning, Mission Driven is the book for you, it
really is. And again, the only reason I can like say, hey,
go buy it is because I don't make any money
on it, and it's going to like what like the
win win here is hopefully I help people who read

(40:37):
the book.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
The early feedback has been remarkable.

Speaker 4 (40:39):
I will say that it debuted as number four on
the top one hundred and fifty books sold in the
world the and and that's across all genres. Fiction sells
way more than nonfiction. Kind of speaks to who we
are as people, but we let but the so anyways,
top four in the world, and and for me, it's

(41:02):
it's not about like, it's not about anything other than
helping and influencing and elevating the conversation in order to
help us be better as individuals and as a nation.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, yeah, I love that. No, You're great. And I
use the word love a lot, and when I say it,
it's because I mean it. I'd rather tell you I
love you in person than at your funeral. I mean,
I'm a big believer in you know that today. I
see friends all the time, like even my employees. I'm like, hey, guys,
take this to HR, but I love you.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Yeah, no, yeah, no, I know it's.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
I'm a sorry. Yeah, I love it. I love it.
I love it. But I tell them, you know, I'd
rather you guys know that today, that that you matter
to me than at your funeral or at a wake
where you know, those aren't the reunions I want to
go to, But it's the reunions I have to go to.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
And so I like to say it like we're all
varying degrees of imperfect, just trying to be less imperfect
in the area we choose every day.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
One hundred percent. And so again, this is a not
for profit book, and this is mission driven. All proceeds
go to the eleven sixty two, which is very clever.
One one sixty two, very cool with Kennedy. One one
six two. Uh, I'm glad I remembered that number. Uh,
you know, and all you know to help pay gold

(42:22):
star families. And if you're listening and you don't know
what a gold star family is, which is very valid, okay,
because you may be like, what's a gold star family?
Rad Well, that's someone who's lost a member in battle
and specifically, you know, you know, they will hang like
a gold star on their window, a blue star if
they are deployed, but a gold star means that they've
lost a loved one family member in battle. And so

(42:46):
real quick, are the gold stars all seal families or
is it just kind of a spectrum.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
So one of my approaches with the eleven sixty two
Foundation is that we have no full time employees, where
all everybody's a volunteer.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
We have three people on a board.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
My assistant helps volunteers her time doing a lot of
the coordinating stuff, and that's it. We have five people
or excuse me, four people.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
And then.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
One of the premises that I see I'm not going
to judge any nonprofits, but some nonprofits when they do
something great, they take the picture and they put it
on the website and basically say, hey, look at how
great I am.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
I just helped so and so.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
The founding one of the founding principles to the eleven
sixty two foundation was that I don't talk about any
individual names. That's those women's stories to tell, if they
so choose to tell it. I have there are two, three,
two or three people on the planet who know all
twelve names collectively, maybe, and so each one that I do,
there's probably six or eight people that know. But there's

(43:47):
the people who know all of them. It's a very
very very small number. I will say that maybe a
little bit of a teaser here. The I read the audible,
So if you do down the audible, I can put
you to sleep in six seconds or less.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
But but but the when I got to.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
There, I received after I I don't ask for anything
in return for these mortgages that I paid off other
than just like just saying thank you and I'm sorry,
like I opened in the book. And and but the
thing I I received one of the most beautiful letters
of my entire life from one of the ladies. Uh,
one of the goals Star Widows and I I have,

(44:26):
you know, for years, just it's just been like me
and my wife and maybe one or two other people
have read it. And I have probably read that letter read.
I've probably read it maybe five hundred times in my life.
I I I get choked up every single time. And
and it really it's just the most beautiful words that
you'll ever read. I was talking to this lady. And
when I write a book, I also have a principle

(44:50):
of mine is I'm gonna reach out to you. If
I name you, I'm gonna I'm gonna get a hold
of you and say, hey, here's what I'm doing. Do
you want your real name or do you want your
name change? And I'll follow whatever your choice is. Maybe
ten percent of the people are like, now change my name, please?

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Fine. Absolutely. And but so I was telling gonna tell
a story about.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
One of the gold Star widows, and I called her
and I said, listen, I I'm living by my promise
of not using names and everything. And she said, no, Mike,
not only can you use my name, she said, like
that letter that I sent you, I sent that to
you so that you could share.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
It with the world.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
And in chapter nine read of Mission Driven, you know,
is an excerpt from that letter. And when I was
reading the audible, I kid, you know, I had to stop.
I could not make it through it. I paused and
just had real Jesus man. I mean even now I
just feel it, you know, but I I just couldn't
get through it, man. And so it's really really really

(45:46):
hard to get you'll hear me, you know. I think
I eventually got through it. But when you hear me
read that in the audible, if you listen to that version,
I get pretty choked up. But it's a really powerful,
one of the most powerful things that I think you
could read.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
And so.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
This maybe this is my plea on to try to
get people to go to go buy Mission Driven, the
real book or the audiobook. But trust me, there's some
really powerful stuff in here.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah, Mission Driven. Yeah, the Stages of Life chapter nine.
Yeah right, it's like, yeah, very cool. I'm very glad
to have this book. Okay, I'll finish it and get
through it and try to pull something out and glean
it in my own personal life to help myself in
the business aspect or just you know, as a father,
as a husband, and you know, as a friend, which

(46:34):
is what I like to focus on, right I just
said the three things that you know I really like
to focus on, and especially snowboarding, right, so you know,
as a snowboarding friend of yours, Now, if you ever
want to go snowboarding, I want to invite you here
to Utah where I'm based out of and we have
Brighton Ski Resort right here at the top of the world.
Twelve eight hundred feet is where we'll hang out at

(46:56):
Snake and we'll just go down that bad boy through
the trees. No trail for this guy.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
I'm I'm I'm going at eighty percent, not one hundred
and eighty is maybe even too high of a number.
I'm just keeping that you know, uphill edge, you know,
buried and so I'm never catching a toe side edge
and breaking this this body down.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
I'm very conservative, but there is fun.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
I'm very proud that you gave it a go in
your fifties, right, you sa start in your fifties.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
Maybe I'm ruined if my daughter actually listens to this,
but like we've both been wakesurfing for a decade and
we're both you know, just pretty good wakesurfers, you know,
I got yeah, and you know, tricks and stuff like
we're we're like quite My daughter and I are both
quite ill.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Sound like the.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
President of my own fan club here, but we're both
pretty down, good wakesurfers and yeah, but she's been snowboarding forever.
I've always been skiing. But last winter we have a
place in New Hampshire and uh and uh, I bought
a snowboard and she doesn't know that. I must have
gone maybe six or eight times last winter.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
So I'm decent.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
I'm I'm I'm like upper beginner or very lower intermediate
is where I would assess myself. But nonetheless, when I
get to go with her this winter, I'm gonna I'm
gonna go for the air quote first time, and I'm
just gonna rip it down and she'll be like, dad,
how did you like learn so fast?

Speaker 3 (48:10):
And I'll just be like, I don't know, this is easy.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah. No, my
snowboards sit right here. They're just waiting for some snow.
I even't got the fireplace all year just to make
snow happen. You know, it's like it's like, let's go.
I know I've had you for almost an hour of time.
And I know you're a busy dude, just got done
to another press and you know, with all these big
letter acronyms out there, and I'm so happy and humbled

(48:35):
that you came on to soft Rep Radio to speak
to me and speak to my listener and the viewers
out there. And you know, I mean there's guys all
over the world.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
Yeah, for those who are looking on, I'm yes, I'm
wearing a suit. I was just on the floor of
the New York Stock Exchange and doing an interview on
NYSE and so I apologize for being overdressed. But listen,
I say this from the bottom of my heart, like
this listener group, the soft the militar Harry community, the
soft community that is that that's my people and and

(49:04):
and that's who I will always be. And so it's
really like I could do a million things on the planet.
This is the most special to me, and I really
really appreciate, you know, not the opportunity not just to
have a fun conversation, but to really help, you know,
get the to elevate the conversation. Like please read Mission Driven,
recommend it to others. Please jump on Amazon, do your
review like there's a million books out in the world,

(49:26):
like should this should be the conversation help? Well, we're
all on the same team here, I would. This isn't
about me. This is about like the right books, making
it up and helping the conversations in the nation. And
then as as we've talked a few times through here,
all of that legitimately literally helps individual gold Star families,
and uh so, I'm just thrilled to be here. Couldn't

(49:48):
thank you more. You can find me on Instagram. This
is dot Mike hays on on X. This is Mike case.
There's no dot for for so again, this is dot
Mike has for for Instagram. This is my case for Twitter.
It's easy to find me. But I'm just really really
thrilled to be here and so appreciative of everybody who's
in this softwarep community.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
And I will have those tags for your handles put
down below for my listener and viewer. So if you're
watching this or you're listening to this, you can check
out you know soft reap dot com just click on
one of the links. Again, you can check out his Instagram.
I feel that Mike is approachable like I am as well,
so you know, I'll probably reply, He'll probably reply. Check

(50:30):
it out, you know, go check out the book Mission Driven,
The Path to a Life of Purpose. Mike. I feel
that you have always been that way. I know that
you have a mortgage to pay too, but that's very
cool of you to take care of the families and
just never let it go, okay until you can't. And
so I'm just saying, on behalf of everybody, thanks for

(50:52):
what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Oh no, thank you, thank you, thank you, appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
And to my yeah, and to my young guy out
there that never got to join the military because you
got asthma, or maybe you were born premature and they
wouldn't let you in, you know, go get this book.
You're a part of the community too, right. It's like
I don't think that Mike would disagree.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
With that, right, We all, we all serve in different ways.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
You don't have to wear a uniform to serve, you know,
we We've said this very like back earlier. All different
gifts and interest and abilities and skills and and and
it doesn't if you if you can't wear the uniform
or you haven't worned the uniform, that's okay. The question
is do you recognize that we all serve each other
because that is service. And do you get off the
sidelines and take ownership and accountability for this great nation?

(51:34):
Do you you know you getting plastics out of the ocean,
or cleaning up the forests, or teach for America, whatever
your thing is, are you taking ownership and accountability to
help make us better as individuals and as a nation.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
That's that's what the book is about. Really.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
I love that, and we're gonna let that be the
end of our conversation. And I just want to say
that you should go out and check out Mission Driven.
Go download the audible, Go buy the book, support the
gold Star families, support Mike Hayes and his mission. And
again Mike Hayes Man Sealed Team Commander, Seal Team Too. Hello,
you know we're bringing you the hints right here. The

(52:12):
rock stars are on the show. You guys like rad
when are you gonna bring me the Seal two Seal
Team two commander, Well, here you go, okay, and I
hope that you have enjoyed the show yourself. Mike and
on behalf of my boss Brandon Webb, you know, former
Navy Seal Sniper instructor and all the guys and gals
behind the scenes here at soft Rep. I just want
to say thanks for taking the time out of your

(52:33):
busy day to come onto our show and talk about
your book.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
Mission Pleasure's entirely mine has been my honor and I've
enjoyed it thoroughly. So thank you again, rad and Brandon
and everybody else on the team.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
All right, cool, And if I ever get out to Arlington,
I'm gonna go check out that Medal of Honor Museum
and you know, and pay my respects. So thank you
so much. And this is rad On behalf of Mike
Hayes and Brandon and everybody here at so Rep and
our nation. Peace.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
M you've been listening to self replada, mm hmm