Marty Strong - Navy SEAL: Be Nimble and Be Proactive

Marty Strong has been a leader for decades, first in uniform as a combat-decorated Navy SEAL, and then in commercial business. In this episode, Marty discusses his career as a Navy Seal and prolific author – the rigors of Navy Seal training, and the transition from a military career to the business world.

After leaving military service Marty spent seven years as a successful investment advisor focused on high net worth clients, ending that phase of his career at the United Bank of Switzerland. He transitioned into business management as a senior vice president for a billion-dollar-a-year defense contracting company.

In 2009, he joined a small, early-stage growth company in this same industry as an equity partner. Since then, Marty has led first one, then two employee-owned healthcare startups as CEO, and Chief Strategy Officer.

He is a thought provoking guest with over 350 appearances to his credit on national cable TV. He is a popular Podcast personality and has conducted hundreds of stimulating interviews in large metro radio markets across the United States. Marty plans to continue writing business insight books over the next few years and is currently working on, Be Exceptional: Personal and Professional Leadership in the age of Optimization.

Learn more about Marty Strong
https://martystrongbenimble.com/

Find out more about GAIN THE PASSION Coaching
https://www.gainthepassion.com
Access past episodes and more of the GAIN THE PASSION Podcast
https://www.gainthepassionpodcast.com

Episode Transcript

Voiceover (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by GAIN THE
PASSION Coaching and Consulting.
Visit gainthepassion.com to findout more about our coaching,
consulting, training andspeaking services.
Welcome to GAIN THE PASSION withhosts Todd Foster, Alyssa
Stanley and Kelley Skar.

Alyssa Stanley (00:23):
Thank you for joining us today, Marty.

Marty Strong (00:25):
Thank you for having me.

Alyssa Stanley (00:26):
All right, let's take a minute and you give us
kind of an overview of who isMarty Strong.

Marty Strong (00:36):
I guess at the core, I'm, I'm a Nebraska farm
boy, even though I didn't growup on a farm, both my parents
were Depression era farmers,children, oh, farmers, and big
families, etc. And, in case mymom, she moved to Sioux City,
Iowa, pretty early in herchildhood, my dad ended up

(00:57):
moving off the farm, he was theyoungest of six kids, when his
father was killed in a tractoraccident at the age of like 26,
or 27. So he worked the farmwith his siblings for a little
bit, ended up moving to SiouxCity and my grandmother worked
in the Singer sewing factory for40 years. So I say that because

(01:20):
that is, you know, yourtraditional typical World War
Two, pop up generation.
Background and anybody it's ababy boomer that comes from that
background, you know, you, youalways return things and you
make sure they look better thanwhen you borrowed them. There's
all those cliche lines and youknow, you don't get an
allowance, you don't work here,you you're part of the family,

(01:42):
on and on and on. So that kindof that kind of start really
shaped me as a person. And Iended up leaving Nebraska when I
was 17 to join the Navy, andended up in basic SEAL training.
And eventually havingsuccessfully completed that
ended up in the SEAL teamsstarting out at SEAL Team Two on

(02:04):
the East Coast. As an enlistedman. I was enlisted for 10 years
and got to the rank of chiefpetty officer had been going to
school at night and was selectedfor Officer Candidate School. So
then I went to officerscandidate school and it was a
seal officer. For the next 10years for a 20 year career. I

(02:24):
finished that I went intofinancial services versus a
financial advisor for Legg Masonwood Walker out of Baltimore.
And then I moved after a coupleyears to United Bank of
Switzerland as a portfoliomanager. And all in about seven
and a half years and that careertrack, then 911 happened, sold
my book of business to anotherbroker, because I didn't feel

(02:46):
comfortable making money forpeople while the war was
starting up. And they wouldn'tlet me back in there was no real
capacity for me in thegovernment because of my, my
disability with my back. So Iwent ahead and started doing
consulting on counterterrorismand anti terrorism, did that for
a couple years as a consultantended up with a large defense

(03:06):
firm. And eventually with a verysmall defense firm, as a as an
equity partner. And I am CEO andChief Strategy Officer of a an
ESOP an employee ownedenterprise that has two
operating companies, theoriginal government contracting
company, I joined about 12 yearsago, and a healthcare company

(03:27):
that I worked to purchase aboutfive years ago. So there's
actually two operatingcompanies, and then I'm in a
management holding company about

Kelley Skar (03:38):
Wow. So first off, I want to thank you for your
them.
service. It's, it's amazing tome, I just I Todd and Alyssa
will tell you, I'm obsessed withthe SEAL mindset and it's just
it's it's such an interestingculture, you know, being on the
outside and having theopportunity to look at it from

(04:00):
you know, multiple books. Andobviously, it's become, I think,
more and more part of, you know,part of our kind of our culture
as a society as a whole, youknow, more popular Navy SEALs or
become you know, the movie NavySEALs with Charlie Sheen. I
think maybe it started there.
And it just kind of unfoldedthe, you know, the more and more
the seals were became part ofthe, you know, part of the

(04:21):
conversation part of the media,but I don't want to go there
just yet. What I'm reallyinterested to know is we're,
we're seeing a lot of seals, youknow, leave, leave the teams
leave the service, and enterinto corporate America and enter
into business. I'm curious whatthe crossover is between seal
mindset and success in businesslike what is it that no, I'm not

(04:43):
saying that every seal leavesthe teams and goes into
businesses and is a success, butthere are a select few that
either go into corporate Americaor they they write books and
they go on the speaking toursand all this stuff. What is it
what's the crossover? What is itthat that makes these people so
special that there is a certainlevel of success that they can
achieve outside of the teams?

Marty Strong (05:05):
Well, the first one would like think would be
the discipline that goes alongwith not being willing to quit.
And that's a selected charactertrait. It's not something that
they train you to do. It's, theytest you. And they run you
through all kinds of differentchallenges in the beginning to
weed out the personalities and Iguess the cycle, the psychology

(05:26):
profiles, that kind of grin andbear it. And and then later on,
they do they just keep amping upthose those experiences those
challenges, not so they'retesting to see if you're going
to break whatever. But just sothat you realize that, when
you're going to be used as aseal, that's going to be in a
really crazy dramatic andsometimes I guess, unsafe way,

(05:51):
because you're you're designedto go in and the Army Special
Forces and, and marine, SpecialForces MARSOC. Now the Marine
Raiders, same kind of pedigree,you're supposed to go out and do
something that the conventionalforces can't do for some reason.
And Mission Impossible is kindof kind of a quaint way of
putting it because if it can bedone by a jet, if it can be done

(06:13):
by an artillery round, if itcould be done by conventional
infantry force, they'd be there,they'd be the ones doing it. And
that's they have missions, andthey're well defined, and
they're equipped for that. Butgo find some guy in the middle
of nowhere, where there's badguys everywhere, and it's not
clearly a war, or it's not awell defined boundaries of, of,
of who the good guys are. Andthe bad guys are having

(06:36):
discretion and being able toexercise judgment on the scene
with what you see. And beingtrusted, to have the intellect
to have that judgment. These areall things that are unique to
Special Forces, SpecialOperations and to the seals. So
those character traits, whichyou have, I think they're
innate, when you're when youfirst come to the process. They,

(06:57):
they, they rise to the top andthen they get honed and trained
and sharpened. Now when you stepout of uniform, you may not know
how to apply them in the outsidecommercial context. And that's
usually the wandering part formost of the guys in Special Ops,
when they get out they go fromhaving a an intense, fulfilling,
very, very high value task inlife. Because nobody sends them

(07:23):
to do something that'sfrivolous. And suddenly, you're
out there and you ask, you know,you're being interviewed. And
you say, Well, what are youguys? What's your goal? Oh,
we're trying to get our EBITA upto so and so. And it just, it
falls flat. And none of the noneof that makes make sense it or
clicks. So the hard part of thisis, I'm actually working with
the seal veterans foundationright now, to define this

(07:44):
interesting question. Nobody'sever asked me that before. To
try to figure out is it one pathor multiple paths, and I think
we're at the point now, it's,it's like any other person in
the United States coming out ofhigh school, whatever, what's
going to drive your passion?
What's going to excite you? Youknow, what do you align with,
economically, because somepeople want a job, they can't

(08:04):
become a self made entrepreneur,that takes a lot of risk. And
maybe you're Hawking your homeand you maybe have little kids
and stuff. So there's there'sessentially the same approach.
And like when it color's yourparachute for seals, I like that
plan if the parachute jump. Andwe have to lay out all these
different lanes and all thesedifferent levels on the ladders

(08:26):
for each of these lanes. And,and then it's like anybody else?
Where are they going to sync up?
Where are they going to line?
Where are they going to feelcomfortable? But they're almost
everybody has that firstdisconnect I did to that. You
come out and it's you know, forGod country, you're always the
missions are always about realbad guys. You're you're
protecting you're rescuingpeople that would die otherwise,

(08:48):
and you go from this level ofwow, this has got to happen
because we've got to do thisbecause it's so important to
it's a paycheck.

Todd Foster (08:58):
Marty. I love your last name Marty strong. So when
you came out of the womb, youknew you're going to be a Navy
SEAL. And you probably thoughtto yourself I don't want to be a
Navy SEAL yet with a name MartyStrong. You must be a Navy SEAL.
At what point in your young lifedid you say you know what? With
a name Marty Strong, I'm goingto be a Navy SEAL.

Unknown (09:18):
I don't think I thought that until the day I graduated
from SEAL training. I I was avery undersized guy going in
there. And I mean, if you canimagine somebody who's 17 and
125 pounds, trying to do a walkon to the Cornhuskers or Notre
Dame's football teams. That'show bad he was like, you know,

(09:38):
the Rudy thing. And there wereother other guys my size but out
of our class of 126 probably 80%of them look like super
athletes, you know, and I was inawe and I didn't think there was
a chance in hell I was going toget through the whole thing. And
you end up getting a humilityalong with understand And what's

(10:00):
your, what's your risk toleranceis and what kind of your
internal drive is as you'regoing through the six month
process. And that humility keepsyou from asking that question or
assuming that until the day tillthe day, you actually hear the
bell ring when your class leaderrings the bell three times at
graduation, which brings yourclass out, and now you're going
off to be a seal the SEAL team.
And that moments when you stoplooking over your shoulder

(10:22):
wondering when they're gonna sayJust kidding you out of here.

Todd Foster (10:28):
What I love about it is that you clearly have
changed. Now you look likeyou're 350 all muscle and six
foot 10. For those that can'tsee you.

Marty Strong (10:37):
I'm sitting on a book. Yeah.

Todd Foster (10:42):
Yeah, when you think about the mental mindset,
because we've discussed the NavySeals and how it is all mental,
and who you are the guy that'snot the, I guess, typical
picture of a Navy SEAL. And I'mguessing there's also people
that were much bigger than you,who did not make it through the
entire seal program, becausethey were thinking that they

(11:04):
could get through it with theirphysical. And so their mental
abilities. My question for youis this I follow a lot about
military PTSD. And one thing Idon't see, at least from my
perception is that the seals andthe rangers and things aren't
having the issues that otherpeople are having, although it

(11:25):
sounds like you probably seeworse things than most enlisted
people do. Is that true? Or isit something that maybe the
seals and all these elite teamsare discussing or exactly what
is that?

Marty Strong (11:40):
It's not true?
Statistically, it's true thatPTSD for more for most units,
and most members of units thatweren't elite, is derived from
some other things. It might be atraumatic event, something they
did or participated in, orsomething they witnessed. And
that's kind of what the classicimages of being shell shocked

(12:01):
are or battle fatigue cetera,what is now PTSD. I think in the
elite forces, it goes to what Iwas saying about the fog and the
wandering, after you're out ofuniform, you lose yourself, you
are a part of something that'sextremely impressive, you come
right out of multiple rotationsof battle, and either because of

(12:21):
being wounded, and you can't gocan't stay. Or because the war
ends, whatever. And I when I wasin the Vietnam guys, we're all
kind of in the same mode, youknow, what do I do if I know
what I'm really great at, I knowI should be used for but there's
no reason for me, there's nopurpose. At least if I'm in the
team, I'm around guys like me.

(12:42):
But if I leave the team, I'velost all that. And I've left all
that behind me. And it's notthat it's not gonna be found
outside. So my understandingnowadays, it's mostly about the
lack of connectedness with theother guys, the other warriors,
the other people that they knew,first off the big feeling of

(13:04):
guilt, that you aren't back inthe fight. I was funny. I mean,
as soon as I saw the secondplane hit the tower, and I've
been retired for six years, Iimmediately thought, how the
hell do I get back in? Now I'vegot a guy working for me right
now. That's exactly what he did.
He quit his job. And he went,went right to the SEAL team on
base here and said, How do I doit? And four or five months

(13:24):
later, they'd gotten back in andlots and lots of guys did that
in all the service all theservices, but that's, that is a
psychological problem if youcan't figure out what you are
and what matters anymore. Andit's a little bit different than
the trauma related PTSD causeand effect.

Kelley Skar (13:45):
Well, it's almost like they it's not that they
train your personality out ofyou but they just they have you
so laser focused on you know,like that front sight focus,
right that that missionmentality. It's it's everything
to do with the SEAL teams,everything to do with the with
the mission, everything to dowith the training, and you're
just so immersed in it. And onceonce you leave that once that

(14:07):
once you leave that immersion,there's just like you said,
you're just kind of wanderingthrough life at that point. So
I'm interested to hear aboutyour work with with the the
seal, what is it the seal?
SEAL Foundation, SEAL VeteransFoundation.
SEAL Veterans Foundation, sowhat is it that you guys are
what's the focus there? Is ithelping guys transition out of

(14:29):
the teams out of special forcesout of those endless groups and
into regular corporate life orjust isn't managing life just
simply or is it kind of allencompassing?

Unknown (14:41):
Yes. Okay, that's the problem. That's the problem. I
spent three hours with one ofthe people from the foundation
last week. You can't be allthings to all people, unless you
have you know, $100 millionsitting in the bank. And then
you can you can try to be allthings to all be People, but
there are so many differentresources and so many different

(15:03):
channels and lanes out there,which, you know, weren't around
after Vietnam, but they're therenow, which is great. So what we
were thinking was that, youknow, is there a niche that that
the foundation can focus on. Andit's not transition assistance,
in the way it's practiced in themilitary, which is, you know,

(15:23):
how to wear a suit how to how towrite a resume, how to do an
interview, that kind of stuff,which that's, that's good if
you've never done all thosethings, but it's more about the
reality of the jobs outside thatare available to you. And I give
speeches and I and I give probono speeches to military
groups. And, and I've evolvedover the last couple of years

(15:44):
into more of a scared, straight,tough love kind of approach to
the speech. And I'll just askeverybody, you know, how long
did it take for you to become aseal? Or how long did it take
for you become a ranger Marine,where you are in good standing,
you are considered what theycall an operator, somebody would
go to combat, anybody wouldtrust that they wouldn't mess
up? And the answer is usuallythree years, on average. So why

(16:05):
would you expect if you come outof uniform that you can go work
for target, or you can go workfor IBM, or you can go work, you
know, start your own landscapingcompany, and it's going to
happen any sooner than threeyears. That's, that's the way
the universe works. You have tostart out as an apprentice, you
got all the drive you got, yougot so much more going for you
that you don't understand. Buteverybody has to start and

(16:25):
understand the business you wantto you want to own a restaurant,
go work in a restaurant, learnall the parts and pieces of
being in a restaurant, don't,don't just come in and say
because I'm a seal, and I hadenough money to buy a
restaurant, my restaurant isgonna be successful, you may try
to outwork that that problemsaid, it's not going to work
because you're not that you'restill an apprentice. Right? So
that's I think we're we're kindof honing in on is a high, you

(16:49):
know, highest and best use forthat particular Foundation.
Because and then the other thingis to be phone a friend and pass
it for find all these otherorganizations. And if you have
issues with your financialmanagement, if you have issues
with a medical problem, if youhave issues with you know,
getting a college education,something, be a link set up, set

(17:11):
up a structure that they cancome in there, and we're a hub
for passing the baton to theright, the right organization
that's doing it well in a nichefashion.

Todd Foster (17:20):
One thing you learned when you were in the
Navy SEALs was things don'talways go as planned, is that
correct?

Marty Strong (17:27):
Never go as planned. But we always have to
have a really cool plan andrehearse that plan, even though
we all know it's not gonna go toplan.

Todd Foster (17:35):
All right. And so you can have a crisis there. And
what I like about Be Nimble isthat you discuss crisis
management. Could you discussand tell our listeners what you
mean by that when it comes downto business itself?

Marty Strong (17:49):
Sure. So I put the word creative in the subtitle,
the creative Navy SEAL mindset.
Because in thinking about whatwhat was different Think, think
of this. Yeah, Navy SEALs, andthey all have to pass a certain
IQ, competency test. That's wayup there with other sailors that
are operating computers andmissile systems and everything.

(18:11):
So kind of like a college levelathlete with that kind of that
kind of capability,intellectually. And then they're
taught how to work together.
Because it'd be easy. If you ifyou didn't teach this, they'd
all be superstars. They'd all bealpha alphas and you know, and
I've often thought, when I wasbecame an officer, I'd have a
roomful of Napoleon's if Ibumped my head, all of them

(18:34):
would stand up. So I'm in chargenow, you know, no delay, no, no,
no hesitation. So the creativitypart of it, the way to really
kind of picture it, I think, isthink of like, what you would
imagine a really good superstarband must feel like when they're
right in the zone, and they'recreating incredible music, where

(18:55):
they're just you're thinkingeach other's thoughts, they're
anticipating they're, they'readding things that nobody
complains about, because it wasthe right thing to add at the
right time. That's what it'slike to have a bunch of guys
with that kind of pedigree in aroom. And there's a problem to
solve. And that doesn't matterwhether it's a problem to solve,
when you've got time, and you'vegot to put it into a nice pretty
plan and PowerPoint and torehearse it and then but also

(19:17):
when you're when he when you getoff of the boat, or you jump out
of the plane, and you're sittingthere in the dark and everything
they told you was gonna happenor be there isn't. And now you
got to do it all over again, youjust don't have the brief
anybody rehearse it, but thesame same creative creativity,
the same kind of and dealingwith a problem with challenge
requires that that kind ofapproach to the threat of the

(19:40):
challenge if if you see it as athreat that that you have to run
away from or defend against it awhole different set different
kinds of psychology and a lot ofcommercial people, employees
management doesn't matter whothey are, if they haven't been
involved in, you know, threatrecognition or they haven't been
confronted with a threat COVIDwould be open Perfect One, all

(20:00):
of a sudden, your supply chainshuts down. What if nobody in
that entire company had everseen a supply chain completely
shut down for even a day, letalone a month or two months?
That's devastating. So what doyou do, you can crawl in the
fetal position in the corner. Oryou can do that psychologically
as a management team. Or you canroll your sleeves up and say,

(20:21):
Okay, we got to figure somethingout here. And, and that's kind
of like the pickup game I wasdescribing, when the when the
facts that you base your plan ondon't turn out to be there on
the on the actual target site.
So those are the kinds of thingsthat, that I realized, both in
managing money, because there'sa lot of you have a lot of
clients, and when, like today,you know, today, you know, last

(20:43):
couple days, the market goesdown 2000 points, phones are
ringing off the hook emails areexploding, and there's guys
managing money, and people wantto know what's going to happen
to it, what's gonna happen tome. So it's a crisis. And if
that money management person iscomfortable with handling crisis
and chaos, they're gonna takeeach call and each email at a
time, and they're gonna reflecton the plan, they're gonna give

(21:05):
some historical context, they'regonna talk about the real true
long term impact or lack thereofon the United States, as opposed
to Europe, and he's gonna talkhim off the ledge, and then he's
gonna pick up the next call. Butthat's going to be 10% of them.
90% of them are going to justwalk away from the phone and
hope and hope Putin stopstomorrow morning. And it's all
goes away, the market comesback, that applies to any

(21:27):
business, any industry and anyteam of leaders, managers, and
technical experts within anindustry when they're confronted
with with crisis. And the chaosis usually created by the
people's reaction to the crisis.
Right? If COVID a pandemic is acrisis, maybe the chaos is the

(21:49):
government decided to shuteverything down, but not
everywhere in the United Statesequally, and not have the same
rules and change the rules everycouple of days. That's the chaos
part. So they reacted to crisisby creating chaos, because there
was uncertainty, but you canalso leave when that crisis
happens to try to try I guess,manage and master the chaos a
little. It's it is an achievableart, but it's a leadership art.

Todd Foster (22:12):
How does someone realize that crisis is actually
a crisis and not just smoke, orthere's no fire right now.

Marty Strong (22:19):
I think the there's a, you know, a phrase
has been tossed around a lot thelast couple of years, the zoom
in zoom out concept. If you'reif you're comfortable, and in my
second book is more about thatit's it's a be visionary, the
strategic leadership in the ageof optimization, it's basically
that strategy is the enemy ofoptimization, everybody in

(22:40):
business is focused on measuringand KPIs and all that, and so
they're not zooming out. If youzoom out, and look at the
horizon, that's when you see thelittle enemy heads pop up over
the horizon, and you go, Oh,I've got I've got some time,
I've got to figure out what I'mgonna do. I see them coming. If
you've never looked up. Ifyou're focusing on how we're

(23:00):
going to do this week, I thinkyou get what our where I'm going
here. Now the perception isbased on the the model that each
person uses to look at theworld. And if they look at the
world, in one day increments, ifthey're moving through life,
looking at the tips of theirtoes, they're going to be
surprised, and in crisis, almostall the time. So you can't you

(23:23):
know, one of the greatestlessons from all the military
books that I've read andrepeated often, doesn't matter
whether it's a war college, itdoes it or a scholar, one of the
key reasons you fail and war isfailure to anticipate that
simple sentence. And toanticipate means you have to
think through and game throughin your mind what the future

(23:44):
might look like. And thereforewhat the threat might look like.
Or the opportunity might looklike.

Alyssa Stanley (23:48):
Marty, you are the CEO for companies also a an
author of both be nimble and bevisionary. All of this is around
mindset and leadership lessonslearned. I can't help but wonder
if your view around mindset andleadership shifted from when you
were in the seals versus in theworld of entrepreneurship and

(24:13):
building these four companies?
How did that change?

Marty Strong (24:16):
I think the the biggest difference is the
materials you have to work with.
So for example, if I wanted tobuild a house and and in the
SEAL teams, I had steel andglass and I had a team of people
that were absolutely expert inbuilding, and they could build
it within a very short period oftime, it would be done almost
perfectly. Outside of the SEALteams, I find I have some old

(24:38):
bricks, I don't have any mortar,and only half the people that
are there to try to build it andI've ever built one before. And
the other half are arguing witheach other about how to build
it. And if it does get built,it's going to take a really long
time. So that's the challengethe actual principles haven't
changed as and objective is agoal for me ever, in any

(25:00):
company, whether it's my ownpersonal performance, as a money
manager, or, you know, as aconsultant, or any of these,
these different jobs I've had,you go in, and you take
inventory of what you have infront of you. And it really,
it's not the people's fault. Asthey come out of high school,
they come on to college. Andthere's so there's so few true

(25:23):
leaders that care aboutgrooming, and guiding and
mentoring and coaching. You'rebasically if your first couple
of jobs, it's you know, sittingcubicle 47, shut up, execute the
job that your resume said youcould do and go and then that's
it. And I'll tell you even inthe companies that I run, the

(25:44):
bigger the companies get, theharder it is to push it down to
all levels. If it's just me andfive people in a startup, I know
what's happening, because I'mwatching in and I only pick
leaders that work for me thatwould do the same thing and care
about the people holistically,not just did they do their job
today, back to that anticipationthing, you know, the future
look, invest in people because,you know, someday you may need

(26:07):
more from them than you, thenyou're asking from them now. But
when you get to the point whereyou're managing 600 people, and
you've got layers of leadershipbetween you and them, I
guarantee you, I don't care whatkind of leader you are, it's
eroding. And if it has, if it'shappening, it's happening,
because there's some other oddsituation where a leader who
cared popped in somewhere, itisn't by policy or by design,

(26:27):
because people always kind ofdefault as managers and leaders,
they default to whatever theythink the standard is, and if
they were mistreated, or if theywere treated neutrally, or if
they were, you know, reallymentored coached and given a lot
of insight into how to be a goodleader, they tend to reflect
that background, their ownexperience. And then that's what

(26:49):
you end up working for one ofthose three characters.

Kelley Skar (26:54):
So let's let's build on on the book, then a
little bit to be nimble. So oneof the parts of the description
talks about a clear andstraightforward approach to
decision making that can beemployed, regardless of personal
or business objectives. Can youkind of walk us through what you
mean, what you mean by that?

Marty Strong (27:09):
Sure. So the books focused on companies, situations
can be organizations can be anonprofit, for all that matter.
And people that are inleadership positions are
aspiring to be leaders in thosekinds of situations. Because
that's where all the dramahappens. Now, I'm talking about
real drama I'm talking about wecan't make payroll next week, or

(27:30):
we lost our one big customer,or, you know, all we have to do
is, is get the inspector in hereto clear the restaurant and
we're live but we're two weeksbehind schedule. And, you know,
trained those staff, all thosekinds of situations where the
dynamic is fluid, it's not yourset piece, big company,
everybody kind of knows whatthey're doing. You have 100

(27:51):
pounds, if one quits or breakstheir leg, you have 99 accounts,
you know, you have oneaccountant in a small
organization and that accountantquits, gets sick, or whatever,
you have zero accounts. Sothere's there's a, there's a
dynamic in those structures. Andsometimes it can be an
entrepreneurial division ordepartment in a bigger

(28:12):
organization, like a subsidiarybeing treated like a startup. So
you have the same kind ofstress, that kind of stress that
kind of dynamic, really requiresmore leadership and management.
And I make the point in the bookthat my my definition of
management is what somebody doesto maintain the integrity of the

(28:33):
processes and the systems andthe people the talent as
designed. And how that keeprolling forward nice and steady.
So if every time you you turn onTV with remote, it turns on, the
systems are working. If everytime the person that you hired
to be an accountant does whatthey were told to do as an
account, the standard, thesystems working, and if the

(28:56):
process works, the processworks. That static kind of
steady she goes maintenancething is kind of what management
is, in my mind. Leadership, forsome reason, fell out of vogue
about 20 years ago, and there'sa big push about management
being the be all end all. Butthere's a distinction in my mind
and in the book. You don't needleadership until everything's

(29:18):
falling apart. You don't needleadership until the one
accountant quits, you don't needleadership until the process
fails to perform and deliverwhat the process is always
delivered. When the worldchanges, either internally or
externally, and the system startto fall apart or can't keep up
or the people started to fallapart or can't keep up or the

(29:38):
processes do likewise. You can'tmanage your way through that.
You have to lead your waythrough that. And nine times out
of 10 the decision process frombeginning to end for managers
and leaders is to try toanticipate failures and people
systems and processes in enoughtime that you can start kind of
Wargaming amongst yourselves Wasthat we never ever get to the,

(30:02):
to the crisis moment, we neverget to the leadership
requirement, because we'rethinking this through and we're
being proactive. And we'remaking decisions in advance of
the problem. And thereforealways scaling, not just
scaling, when we run into aproblem, we're always changing
and adapting and being nimble,essentially, right. And that
should be an everydaymethodology for decision makers.

(30:23):
It just doesn't have to be whenthe buildings on fire.

Voiceover (30:29):
If you are enjoying this episode, please leave a
five star review at yourfavorite podcast provider.

Kelley Skar (30:36):
Yeah, I love the concept of decentralized
command, which is, you know, theconcept that you guys I believe,
is employed in Special Forces.
How does that translate overinto the business world then
exactly what you're talkingabout in terms of leadership and
management? And do you do yougive the managers the ability
to, you know, maybe lead andstep up and have that that
opportunity? Or do you give themdecision making capabilities

(30:58):
that would typically in atraditional business structure
where you've got the CEO topdown type management, where
they've got to go up the chainof command to get the get the go
ahead to go and do the thingunder decentralized that that
theory under DT centralizedcommand in business, you're
giving the manager theopportunity to go ahead and make

(31:18):
the decision now, obviously, notto spend a million dollars on
you know, that they don't have,but to make, you know, smaller
decisions, where it's taking itoff the plate of the the
ultimate leadership of thecompany, it might kind of
nailing that on their head.
Marty, or am I off base there?

Marty Strong (31:34):
Yeah, you're there. The, in the military,
there's leading and there'sdelegating. Again, leading is
something you do when you haveto lead delegating is something
you do and it's kind of fireforget, in, in the more high end
units, you know, enough, theRifai pilot isn't going out
there and micromanaging with themaintenance crew did or what the

(31:56):
the crew that's coming inputting the you know, the
weapons on into the aircraft,you know, sitting out there for
48 hours watching them, andtaking pictures on them, trying
to catch them doing somethingwrong, he trusts that they're
going to execute their role. Andthe same way in the SEAL teams.
And up basically, it's kind ofthat trust or trust but verify
thing, you watch, you look, youhope your subordinate leaders

(32:19):
are having the same mindset andthe teams they have to, because
it'll muck it up, you can't dolots of parallel activity,
through a central commandprocess of leadership, you can
only do one thing at a time heshut everything shut 14 people
down when you talk to the oneperson and don't let the other
13 people do anything untilyou're done talking to the one
person, it just doesn't make anysense at all. It doesn't make

(32:39):
sense in any kind of humanactivity, I believe. So we're
back to kind of the differenceof the culture in a company and
the mixed bag of prospects youhave when you step in, and
leadership. All the people thatyou have all your employees came
from all these differentbackgrounds. And I'm talking my
professional backgrounds, theymay have been abused, they may

(33:01):
they every time somebody sayshey, we're thinking of moving to
another building, three accountsmay quit, because that's always
in their past has been theforeshadowing of a merger. And
they're gonna lose their jobs. Imean, I'm not kidding, I'm not
making this up, this is the kindof feedback we would get.
Because someplace else they weretreated that way or someplace
else, they ended up with aphobia or fear that was

(33:22):
developed, and they werecarrying it forward like baggage
and leaders in the same way. Soif you came from a situation
where you were managing aleading, and you were browbeat
by the senior leaders aboutfailure, then failure is not an
option. And failure is you haveto be perfect. Essentially,
there's no no failureauthorized, you turn around, and

(33:44):
that lightning bolt comes allthe way down the chain of
command all the way through thatcompany. Everybody's concerned
about their job, everybody'sconcerned to fail. Now, if
you're doing brain surgery,there might be some room for
that, right. But if you're doingthings like strategic
development, nobody, nobodywants to take a shot, because
everybody's afraid to fail. Soin that environment, the leaders

(34:06):
are all going to give you littleincremental baby steps that have
zero failure attached to them,no risk, and therefore there's
no strategy therefore there's nostretch. So in both those
situations, tactical execution,or bigger picture thinking, you
have to let people fail. I havea really good as a chapter in a
my 85% rule, I tell everybody,hey, I figure you're gonna get

(34:29):
85% of it, right? Because you'resupposed to pay to you're
qualified to, you're not gonnaget 100% of it, right. And
because things move so fast, Idon't care about the other 15%
Because by the time you get tothe end of the 85, we may have
shifted, shifted focus, and nowwe're gonna work on something
else. And if you can't get thelast 50% on your own, and it's
critical that we do, I'm goingto pile resources on it. It's

(34:49):
not just you, all of us aregoing to jump in there. But it
goes he does go from the topdown. If if the CEO or the
president or the owner is astress bucket every day and you
know scaring the hell outeverybody and making them feel
like they're gonna, they'regonna get fired if they fail.
That you're gonna havecentralized control whether you
want to call it that or not.
They're gonna ask the boss everyday. What next boss? Yeah.

Todd Foster (35:11):
Do you believe that goes back to ego a little bit?
The reason I bring that up, it'syou're looking at elite teams
like you're a part of. And if Iwas a Navy Seal, I'd probably
put a tattoo on my foreheadsaid, I'm a Navy SEAL. And like
I won the Cub Scout. PinewoodDerby contests I won first
place. I don't tell the storythat was only 12 year old there,
my car was only one that wentdow the track yet I won first

(35:33):
place. How do you keep ego outof a role like that not just the
Navy yet. And any high positionleader or management without
having that fear, or people arefear base, and they're almost,
as you said, micromanagingwithout knowing they're really
doing that in the first place.

Marty Strong (35:50):
It's hard, it's easier. As somebody who's
mentored a lot of leaders, it'seasier from that perspective,
because you're outside here andyou know, potential victim in
the organization. Good place tobe like the number two guy
trying to, you know, set thingsstraight for the guy who's got
the problem. You know, I'll tellyou what, seals have huge egos.

(36:12):
Absolutely huge egos. And, youknow, when I was in, you didn't
talk about the seals, or theChoshi movie came out the year
before I got out. And there wasone book at that time. So, you
know, it was kind of frownedupon and, and amongst the peer
group, if you if you showed off,if you got too much, you you

(36:33):
heard about it really fast. Butwe all had huge egos I just told
you a while ago, you know, aroomful of Napoleon's right now,
the egos are purposeful, it'smore about I think I'm smart
enough and knowledgeable enoughexperienced enough to lead this,
or my idea is a good idea andshould be incorporated. It's
very functional kind of ego. Theother thing that offsets the

(36:55):
ego, though, what most peoplewould see as a negative of ego.
And I almost called the firstbook be humble, because I
realized that humility is alsokind of like the flip side of
the coin was most specialoperators. And it's definitely
there if you've been in combat,but it's, it's there even before
that, because you fail a lot.
They put you in all kinds ofsituations where you're mostly

(37:16):
failing. You know, for a longtime as an individual as a team,
small team, big team. Once in awhile you you succeed in every
way. If I had a group of sealsin a room with a case of beer,
and the four of you were sittingthere, and we started talking
about seal stories, you wouldnot hear I don't care how many
hours we're listening to thecase of beers gone. So let's say

(37:36):
20 minutes was kidding. But, butif you were sitting there for
two hours, you will not hear onesingle story about a success.
Because they're no fun. Andthey're not funny. So part of
the humility is you have tolaugh, the fact he screwed it up
as a team as an individual, youknow, you feel bad when it

(37:56):
happens, and then you doubledown. So how do I how do I keep
that from happening? Again, youseek help you ask other people
can? Did you see what I did?
What did I do? Can I fix that,because you're like a
professional athlete that wealways try to tune up to the
standard, and not let anybodydown. But what the humility part
of it is, you know, if you walkinto a bar, and you're six foot

(38:17):
three, and a five foot two guybeats you up, the next time you
walk into a bar, and a five footthree guy comes up to you, you
got a different mindset. You mayhave had ego before, but you
realize, hey, there's some guysout there that I got to be a
little bit more humble here,because I got really worked over
the last time. And that's howlife is you know, and you can

(38:37):
have ego until you run intoreality and reality such as
straight. The problem is ifyou're a co founder, and you
have no control, there's noboard, there's no other
mechanisms of restraint. That'susually where you see an ego or
you know, either the predominantowner and a big corporation or
something. You can, your ego canbe a negative or can be a

(38:58):
positive, it can be the light,you know, the jet fuel that's
making everything go. It can bethe insight, like Steve Jobs. I
know you guys don't agree withthis, but, you know, you
engineers are gonna build aphone. That's like a computer
the size of this pack ofcigarettes, you know? And they
all said, yeah, no, no, we'reout. Are you okay? But they're

(39:18):
not going to be here. Andeventually he got the engineers
that would do it. He's he's seenas an obnoxious guy, big ego,
but look at all the things hedid with the ego. I mean, he was
extremely creative. And what hewas really bumping up against
was a whole bunch of people thatdidn't want to take risks. A
bunch of people that have beentrained as engineers not to take
risks. And and, and they didn'twant to take a risk when the

(39:41):
boss was saying, I want you totake a risk. So ego is not
always bad, but that's the wayit happens in the team just gets
kind of balanced with thehumility part.

Alyssa Stanley (39:51):
In all your years of experience, have you
found that anyone can be aleader or are there certain
character Risk sticks that willmake someone maybe a better
leader or be more prone to be aleader within an organization.

Marty Strong (40:09):
I think there's an absolute natural percentage of
the population doesn't matterwhat your gender is, that
innately knows how to lead,without training being applied.
Now, I don't I what I mean isnot not overt leadership
training, it came from parents,it came from observing other

(40:30):
leaders and saying that's theright way to handle situations.
That's how I will do it wheneverit happens to me. It's other
influences, and a sense that,that good things need to be
done. And sometimes noteverybody wants to step up. And
so when that moment happens, Iknow, I should step up. Without
anything else, there's just, youknow, it's like a core value

(40:52):
system. And that's where youhear the, you know, the
anecdotal stories of, you know,every screaming in a room and
there's a fire or whatever, andthen somebody just stands up,
takes charge direction to thedoor calms everybody down, gets
him out. And it turns out, he'sjust a regular dude, you know,
or just, you know, a soccer mom,not an ex Marine colonel, you
know, with combat and just aperson, right. And then you go

(41:13):
back to being a regular person.
That's about 40%. I'd say theother 40%. That could be good
leaders are trainable. Andthere's probably 20% that
they're just their core, theirupbringing, etc. They're so risk
averse, they're so concernedabout self, they can't get into
a selfless mode, you have to bea little bit self, celibate,

(41:33):
selfless, to be a good leader.
Because you can't be focusing onhow do I look while I'm leading,
because you're gonna be leaving,or what's gonna happen to me,
you know, as I'm leading,because that's not really
leading. So where you have adisconnect, as maybe you don't
have a way of finding the first40% They don't You don't look

(41:53):
for my college, there's not atraining academy in college, you
know, to find the theinstinctive leader, group, and
then move them to an MBA programor something, you know, it's,
it's not like that. And theNavy, believe it or not, when I
went to officers CandidateSchool, it was four months, and
it was all naval engineering. SoI'm a seal enlisted guy. And I'm

(42:15):
being asked to go up on theboard and draw out turbans and,
you know, schematics frommemory, and then go through
tracing problems. Everyone elsein the room has an engineering
student, that's why they came tothe Navy, they're all going to a
secondary engineering schoolafter that, then they're gonna
go to a ship to be engineeringguys. And I actually asked the
guy in charge of officers KentSchool, at one point. Why aren't

(42:39):
you guys teaching anyleadership? This is these are
the officers, what he said, Wedon't have time and four months,
they teach the teacher that theacademies like West Point,
Annapolis, but they didn't feellike there was a priority in a
four month initial course, andlike the bootcamp roster, so you
have to, it'd be nice if theydid that, but they don't. So the

(43:00):
second thing is the kind oftraining people get for
leadership. If it's managers,teaching people to be leaders,
they're really teaching them tobe managers. So they're kind of
missing the target. Right. And Ihaven't had much problem. And
guys, I know, for morecollective in similar
backgrounds have not had muchproblem. A lot of it is it's

(43:24):
almost like you're, you're acoach and a little league team
or something, you come in, andyou're like, Hey, guys, this is
gonna be this is gonna be amess, but I'm gonna put some you
guys in charge, we're gonnarotate who's in charge. And
don't worry, if you screwed up,I'm here, you know, I'm putting
you there. And I don't care ifthis I'm talking to VPS, it
could be any group. And let'sjust go at this thing. And if

(43:45):
they came from weirdbackgrounds, they're staring at
me like it's a trap. Right? Butif you're consistent that way,
that becomes a way to wean themaway from their fear, wean them
away from their, their, theirpoor management or leadership
training in the past, and startgetting him to kind of an
exponential leadership trainingprocess because that's the only
place you get humbled becauseyou have to go in just like in

(44:07):
the seals, you have to go andtry fail, try fail, try fail,
get sharper, smarter, stronger,more resilient, and calmer and a
lot wiser.

Todd Foster (44:18):
How do you remain calm because my perception of
you is you have no bloodpressure, or a very small one.
And you think about everythingin advance like just walking out
the front door, you have 18Different escape routes. What
stresses you out and then whenyou do get stressed out, how do
you handle it?

Marty Strong (44:40):
Well, first off, Todd, if you're a Navy SEAL when
you're walking out your house,you don't need any escape
routes. The other guy guys needthe escape routes.

Todd Foster (44:55):
Yep, there's no ego there.

Marty Strong (45:00):
You know when physical stress has a lot to do
with your, your physical health,so I stay in really good shape.
As soon as this is over, I'mgoing in and doing a peloton.
Interval run, I'm going to do ahalf marathon here in middle of
March, you have to watch whatyou eat, those things are all
important because they alldegrade the foundation of your

(45:21):
ability to be anything. And I dohave a really low blood
pressure. But it's it's, I thinkit's the part I was trying to
allude to earlier where the moreyou fail, and survive, the more
calm you get, especially in veryspecific situations. So the
first time you get shot at and,and usually you don't realize

(45:45):
you're being shot out whenyou're shot out, believe it or
not, it doesn't sound like theydon't, they can't train you by
shooting at you and say, Oh,that sound you know. So you get
out there and you've heard shotsfired, you've trained, you've
heard that, but you haven'theard them maybe crack over the
top of your head, or you haven'theard them hit a bullet hit a
piece of wood or hit a piece ofcorrugated steel or hit dirt or

(46:06):
hit a person. I mean, I almostfeel like they should have
recordings of this stuff.
Because when it first happens,you're not really aware. And
then you start to become aware.
And then depending on what yourjob is, you start thinking,
okay, you know, am I ready wasAm I prepared for this? So after
the first time, the second timeis a lot easier. The third time

(46:27):
is like a non event. And by thefourth, fifth six times actually
guys who've been in sustainedcombat, you see it in movies,
you'll hear something that's anoutgoing mortar. That's not even
nowhere near us, guys. That'sbecause they've been there. And
now they've got they're tunedinto the environment that those
threats are identified. And, andthey've got it, it's the same
way in every other walk of life.
If I went in to something I'dnever been involved in before,

(46:50):
I'd have to go through thatfirst apprentice experience, I'd
have to react to it, I'd have todeal with my reaction and have
to think it through, and thenmaybe not do it ever again. Or
maybe do it again. And I'd bestronger work where you get
screwed up here as if youexperienced it. And you walk
back and said, I'm not gonna dothat again. Because all you've
left there is the fear and thebarrier that you were that close

(47:11):
to pushing through. And makingdecisions is another one of
those types of things. I mean,if you make a decision, make a
multimillion dollar decisionmake a hiring firing decision,
you make decision, like I'mdoing a real estate commercial
real estate thing with one ofthe companies, there's 50
different moving parts, everyone of them could go wrong, you
know, and so I'm sitting therelooking at it going, okay, at

(47:33):
some point, I gotta pull thetrigger, make it happen. And if
I never done any of that before,I would probably fret and
analyze it to death and notdecide. So that's a big part of
it, you the wisdom, the calmnesshas to do with, you know,
knowing what you can do, andknowing that if something bad

(47:53):
happens, you know, you canhandle it, because you what
you're gonna do is you're gonnasettle yourself, open your mind,
and think through exactly whatyou're seeing in front of you,
you know, without using kind ofold information to color it in a
way that was kind of skewed thenew information. You know,
that's the other part of beingnimble is when you get a crisis,
you get a challenge, you get athreat thrown in front of you,

(48:16):
trying to clear all that crapout, you know, all the good
stuff. You just got a bonus lastweek, you're not a superhero,
forget about that, you know, youyour wife dumped you last week
that doesn't have anything to dowith this, you know, clear your
mind and listen to whatsomebody's saying. Because if
you came in in a crisis modethat morning, and then something
happened, you're gonna treat itlike it's twice the crisis,
because you're in that mindstate. It just takes time and

(48:38):
repetition, quite frankly,

Todd Foster (48:42):
I believe and let me know if I'm wrong, that a
Navy Seal is a mix of reactiveand proactive in management
leadership. I've always thoughtthat leaders are more proactive
and managers I'm sorry, leadersare more proactive, and managers
are more reactive. Do you seethat's the case? Or am I just

(49:04):
all over the place? And I shouldgo take my blood pressure right
now?

Marty Strong (49:07):
Actually, that is a great question, Todd. It
really is because we actuallyare prep proactive all the time.
Almost never reactive. Andhere's the reason why when
you're being proactive, youtrain on how you're going to
react. That makes sense. So inmilitary units, infantry units,

(49:30):
etc. They're called immediateaction drills. You're walking
down a trail, somebody firesfrom the right or somebody spots
somebody with a gun to the leftand somebody else out contact,
right contact left, andeverybody is trained like a
football team to go through thefootball players, they know
exactly what to do. There's nocommands required. Nobody has to
tell you how to operate yourweapon. Now you can take that

(49:51):
simple example and go much muchfurther. So when we have in our
environment, the seals, we knowwhat we're going to be doing.
They're not going to ask us togo to war. straight and open up
a kiosk and start trading stock.
So within within our world, weanticipate we think through we
wargame, in our mindsindividually, down to what where
our gear is on our on our combatvests, you know, we think it

(50:13):
through we practice it, we try acouple different ways that
didn't work. So we're alwayspredicting and anticipating
something that's going to stopus from doing kind of a linear
progression of what we want todo. And then we have a whole
list of practiced reactions.
It's like, if you were a nuclearpower plant, you would have

(50:33):
thought through all the thingsyou have to do for all the
potential symptoms that aredisplayed on, you know, the
systems dashboard, or whatever,you wouldn't just call get in a
room and go, What the hell, whatdo you want to do first, you
know, you wouldn't do that, it'sall thought out, somebody would
get a big book, they whip itopen, they go through some kind
of computer, that would have analgorithm and says, it's in this

(50:54):
area, it's the water, it'scooling containment thing, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom,isolated, because it's all
thought on ahead of time, it'salready premeditated reaction.
That's more like what you see inthe SEAL teams. And I tell you,
it's very valuable outside, Itried to do it. I tried to
instill that in all theorganizations I've been involved
in, and actually takes a loteasier than say, leadership and

(51:17):
training, training, you'rementoring your people, everybody
gets that, you know, because itfeels like an insurance policy.
And so if they're risk focus,they're all in on that.

Alyssa Stanley (51:27):
I do have to say, I found it completely
fascinating. When I waslistening to you talk about
stressors, and you went frombullets whizzing by your head,
hitting wood and knowing whetherit's at you or whether it's not
at you to walking into aboardroom. Like, to me that

(51:47):
those are not interconnected.
Like do not put me in the sameplace where bullets are whizzing
past me walk me into a boardroomany day. But it's a real
testament to your ability tostay calm and kind of keep
emotions out of situations andhyper focus on what you're doing
right then in there, to be ableto even bring those two
components into the samecomparison. I found that

(52:10):
fascinating.

Marty Strong (52:13):
Yeah, well, emotion can emotions can either
be a distraction, or they can befuel. And I tend to, I tend to
focus on like rocket fuel, Istill feel all the emotions that
are there, whether I'm going touse I'm going to use this to
some good purpose.

Alyssa Stanley (52:28):
So So essentially, you don't let
emotions control you, you almostcontrol them.

Unknown (52:34):
As much as I can, yeah, well, I don't want to control
it, I just I feel the same kindof build up the pressure, etc. I
don't let it take over my brain.
So my brain stops thinkingthrough whatever it is, it
causes me to be emotional. Andthen I try to use that as energy
to focus on whatever it is thatmade me emotional. I mean, I
mean, I, I'm, I'm more of apositive emotional guy, I laugh

(52:56):
a lot. And I don't really getupset with people very often,
because I've seen a lot of weirdpeople. And so back to that,
three, three right here. Makesperfect. I mean, if you've had a
lot of people scream at youshout at you, if you lived in
New Jersey, in New York, andguys are yelling at you and
everything. You're used to it.

(53:17):
If you're from Oklahoma, andyou're walking down the street
and in in Manhattan, and someguy goes, Yeah, you're mad, you
want to go, you want to kick theguy's butt? Because you haven't
had that happen to you beforeyou know. So the more the more
that you have emotional eventshappen to you, you know, again,
you, you have a kind anyway,especially in business of
leadership, you tend to build upa reservoir of strength and

(53:40):
judgment and insight and theemotion isn't as out of control.

Alyssa Stanley (53:45):
Yeah. And I think so much can be learned
from you with leadership andmindset. Where can people find
your books.

Unknown (53:55):
So I have a author's website, it's
martystrongbenimble.com. Andthere's a there's a lot of
articles and things on thatsite. But there's also at the
bottom, the covers of my twobooks, be nimble and be
visionary, which are both onAmazon. And then there's also
two covers for my two novelseries, which one's based on the

(54:16):
seals. That's a four, fourvolume series right now. I'm
halfway through the fifth one.
And the other four or timetravel, that's a time travel
series, called the time TimeWarrior sagas, which there's a
lot of seals stuff in there.
It's a seal ethos, way ofwriting about the seal ethos and
the warrior brotherhood and allthat without guns.

Todd Foster (54:38):
I like to go with the time travel thing. Do you
see if we could go into thefuture? Do you see seals being
humans? And 50 years from now ordo you think it will be
completely all robots?

Marty Strong (54:49):
Yeah, if I was going to do that movie, it would
be the robots are in Space Forceand they're doing stuff and then
there they all get wiped outsomeplace and nobody knows why.
And they have to Greeno scroungeup a bunch of old seven year old
SEAL Team guys, because it's allabout being able to do the
impossible with without anyinformation. And they can't

(55:10):
trust the robots anymore becausethey obviously failed. And then
they'll go off and then you'llyou'll see what happens.

Todd Foster (55:16):
Well, I think the Rock will be proud to play you
in that movie.

Marty Strong (55:19):
I'd be happy.
That'd be great. Then I get anew nickname.

Todd Foster (55:26):
What was your nickname?

Unknown (55:26):
Well, my nickname would be Pebble if he was playing me
because I couldn't be the rock.
I didn't have I didn't have anickname. Everybody. Everybody
has call signs in the old deal.
You don't get to pick your owncall sign. And I had lots of
different call signs I hadthunder one was probably the
coolest one I had I was Yoda onetime. I was Plissken which I

(55:48):
thought was pretty cool forSnake Plissken and Escape from
New York. I actually liked thatone. And I was virus I was virus
one time and I got virusembroidered on a hat that
somebody gave me because I wasvirus for a while. They said I
was in to everything and I waseverywhere in the costume to get
rid of me.

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