# JYLP 0109 Retired Navy SEAL combat veteran, Author, CEO - Marty Strong - Adapt, Move, Be Different.

- Episode: 0109
- Date: 2024-12-25
- Duration: 1:24:17
- Guest: [Marty Strong](/guests/marty-strong/)
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NulVdcSeGo
- RSS: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4e470b07
- Spotify (show): https://open.spotify.com/show/45J7CBdM8j29doqyBp2bFs
- Apple (show): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-junkyard-love-podcast/id1489118788

## About

I sit down with Marty Strong, former Navy SEAL, and we explore his unique approach to life and work, characterized by his openness to opportunity and his ability to adapt and thrive in unexpected situations. Marty shares lots of great stories, perspectives, and some key highlights from his latest book. We talked about embracing opportunities, cultivating an open mind, taking risks, adapting to change, practicing discipline, finding pull motivation, and a whole lot more. For more on Marty, head here - https://martystrongbenimble.com/

BIO:

"His passion is influencing change. Change in people, change in organizations. Most of his themes are based on the power of creative thinking and acknowledging the number one rule in the universe - everything is changing! Retired Navy SEAL officer, former UBS portfolio manager, and currently CEO of a middle market healthcare company. Currently serves on the board of BEST Robotics, Inc., Metal Raptor, LLC, and is the president of BEST MindLab. Marty has a BBA, an MBA, and is a certified Master Blackbelt in Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of nine published novels and three published business books. Marty's articles on leadership and creativity have been published on CNBC online, Fast Company, CEO World magazine, and Chief Executive Magazine."

## Chapters

(none published in episode notes)

## Quotes

(none published in episode notes)

## Guest links (from published notes)

- For more on Marty, head here - https://martystrongbenimble.com/

## Tags / keywords

marty strong, adapt move be different, navy seal, be nimble, be visionary, leadership, opportunity, discipline, pull motivation, junkyard love podcast episode 0109, JunkyardLovePodcast, MartyStrong

## Archive picks

Extracted from the YouTube auto-caption transcript and published About / links already on this episode. Labeled separately from Jacob’s published About / Chapters / Quotes / Hashtags. Published notes have no chapter timestamps and no quotes — leave those `(none published…)` markers unchanged; Archive picks add `#t-…` timestamps, chapter beats, keywords/hashtags, and a short bio.

## Memorable quotes

- [00:00:09] Marty: “my life is more of a zigzag of jumping through Windows of opportunity”
- [00:00:09] Marty: “it's kind of like punch buggy … suddenly see … beetles everywhere … up until that point you didn't see any because you weren't thinking about it … that's the same thing with opportunity”
- [00:04:13] Marty: “Chance favors the prepared mind”
- [00:04:13] Marty: “you're kind of like this snowball that's rolling down the hill picking up everything that's on the ground”
- [00:04:13] Marty: “if you're open-minded if you're intellectually humble it's amazing how much stuff you see”
- [00:04:13] Marty: “if you're so risk adverse that you've mitigated all opportunity away you're just a stick stuck in the ground”
- [00:17:44] Marty: “that allows you at any age … to be creative to take chances to think big to have a sense of awe and wonder we just been taught not to do that as adults”
- [00:18:50] Marty: “the universe abhor stasis … everything she was looking at was in a constant state of turmoil and change and adaptation”
- [00:19:45] Marty: “what's the first thing everybody's going to flash in their mind … what's going to happen to me … frontload what's going to happen to you”
- [00:27:27] Marty: “scenario Based training … we just lost our number one supplier … biggest client … gaming this out”
- [00:29:04] Marty: “we train much harder … for combat than combat tends to be”
- [00:32:25] Marty: “200 to 300 words at a time per day … doing whatever it is has to be done over and over and over and over again to get the result that you're aiming for … that is the definition of discipline”
- [00:34:28] Marty: “Baby Steps little tiny baby steps to achieve each element or increment of growth”
- [00:38:25] Marty: “pull versus push Motivation … you're being pulled towards that light and that light is your objective”
- [00:47:05] Marty: “thank you for your service now what”
- [00:49:44] Marty: “I'm an apprentice in this new thing I'm not the master”
- [00:55:58] Marty: “that's just the Universe telling your ego to just … shrink back down”
- [01:00:27] Marty: “don't rest on your laurels you can appreciate them but don't ride them into the future”
- [01:04:07] Marty: “if your brain's not defeated if your mind is not defeated then you're not defeated”
- [01:12:21] Marty: “it's okay to paint outside the lines it's okay to think differently but to think differently you have to basically convert yourself and be different”

## Chapter-style timestamps

- [00:00:00](#t-00-00-00) — Opening — Junkyard Love check-in
- [00:00:09](#t-00-00-09) — Zigzag opportunity / punch-buggy awareness / SEAL→UBS→CT→contractor→books arc
- [00:03:40](#t-00-03-40) — Jacob on intuition — how a 17–18-year-old said yes
- [00:04:13](#t-00-04-13) — SEAL recruitment as “football camp” / snowball learning / open mind + humility + risk / Pasteur
- [00:15:11](#t-00-15-11) — Continuous self-learning / no arrival point / frictions when people try to change
- [00:16:47](#t-00-16-47) — Brain science — safety/stability switch vs explore/risk switch
- [00:17:44](#t-00-17-44) — Be Different beat — creativity & awe available at any age
- [00:18:50](#t-00-18-50) — Madame Curie — universe abhors stasis / conditioned for safety
- [00:19:45](#t-00-19-45) — Frontload “what’s going to happen to me” / change as threat
- [00:21:10](#t-00-21-10) — Hire for temperament — fragile vs open mindsets under change
- [00:27:27](#t-00-27-27) — Scenario-based training / role-play lost clients & suppliers
- [00:29:04](#t-00-29-04) — Hire + mentor + drills / train harder than combat (SEALs)
- [00:32:25](#t-00-32-25) — Discipline defined — 200–300 words/day → habits → books
- [00:34:28](#t-00-34-28) — Baby steps / eat the elephant one bite / reinforce before leaping
- [00:38:25](#t-00-38-25) — Pull vs push motivation — horizon light as objective
- [00:41:24](#t-00-41-24) — Own your goals / break year goals into weekly word counts
- [00:44:37](#t-00-44-37) — Military→civilian transition / culture shock & diminished “pull”
- [00:47:05](#t-00-47-05) — “Thank you for your service, now what” / put medals on the shelf
- [00:49:44](#t-00-49-44) — Apprentice mindset — research 6–12 months before the leap
- [00:55:14](#t-00-55-14) — Atlanta keynote rock-star moment → airport plastic seat
- [00:55:58](#t-00-55-58) — Name-tag gone / ego shrink / athletes & vets Fall From Grace
- [00:58:33](#t-00-58-33) — Intellectual humility / school of life / don’t rest on laurels
- [01:03:03](#t-01-03-03) — Freedom of mind — Hanoi Hilton / Frankl / help others to stay sane
- [01:04:36](#t-01-04-36) — Imagination & storyboard freedom without leaving the chair
- [01:05:17](#t-01-05-17) — Adults taught not to dream / conformity & cancel-culture note
- [01:09:46](#t-01-09-46) — Be Nimble / Be Visionary / Be Different — who the latest book is for
- [01:12:21](#t-01-12-21) — Creativity collapse research / paint outside the lines / be different
- [01:15:01](#t-01-15-01) — Nine novels + three business books / A Time for Glory / Death Before Dawn
- [01:19:52](#t-01-19-52) — Closing gratitude / challenge your thinking / Merry Christmas

## Keywords

Marty Strong, Adapt Move Be Different, Be Different, Be Nimble, Be Visionary, Navy SEAL, retired Navy SEAL, combat veteran, author, CEO, UBS portfolio manager, middle market healthcare, BEST Robotics, Metal Raptor, BEST MindLab, Lean Six Sigma Master Blackbelt, BBA, MBA, opportunity windows, punch buggy, zigzag career, open mind, intellectually humble, risk-taking, Chance favors the prepared mind, Louis Pasteur, snowball learning, business doctor, change management, universe abhors stasis, Madame Curie, frontload communication, hire for temperament, scenario-based training, train harder than combat, discipline, baby steps, 200-300 words a day, pull motivation, push motivation, big audacious goal, military transition, thank you for your service now what, apprentice mindset, name tag ego, intellectual humility, school of life, don't rest on laurels, freedom of mind, Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, Hanoi Hilton, imagination, creativity decline, institutional learning, paint outside the lines, A Time for Glory, Death Before Dawn, martystrongbenimble.com, martystrong.com, Junkyard Love Podcast, JYLP 0109, Jacob Rhines

## Hashtags

#JYLP0109 #JunkyardLove #MartyStrong #NavySEAL #BeDifferent #BeNimble #AdaptMoveBeDifferent #OpenMind #PullMotivation #Discipline #Creativity #Leadership #RiskTaking #JYLP

## Short guest bio (from published About + episode speech + published links)

Marty Strong is a retired Navy SEAL officer (10 years enlisted + 10 years as an officer), former UBS portfolio manager, counterterrorism returnee after 9/11, and currently CEO of a middle-market healthcare company. He serves on the boards of BEST Robotics, Inc. and Metal Raptor, LLC, is president of BEST MindLab, holds a BBA and MBA, and is a certified Master Blackbelt in Lean Six Sigma. Author of nine published novels and three business books (*Be Nimble*, *Be Visionary*, *Be Different*—with a 10th novel shopping to agents), his articles on leadership and creativity have appeared on CNBC online, Fast Company, CEO World, and Chief Executive Magazine. On this episode he frames a life of “zigzag” opportunity windows (Nebraska → mistaken orders into Coronado SEAL training → money management → contractor “business doctor”), and teaches open-mindedness + intellectual humility + risk-taking, comfort with change (universe abhors stasis), discipline as tiny repeated behaviors, pull vs push motivation, military/career reinvention via an apprentice mindset, freedom of the mind, and why *Be Different* asks readers to paint outside the lines. Published notes point to https://martystrongbenimble.com/.

## Transcript

[00:00:00] Jacob: Junkyard love podcast at what age do we learn how to have better convers a real junkard love podcast

[00:00:09] Marty: It's kind of a dichotomy I ended up in Nebraska that's where I'm from trying to get out of Nebraska by joining the Navy and I joined the Navy to be a radar air traffic control specialist and through a mistaken orders I ended up at the uh SEAL training center in Coronado after I completed Air Traffic Control radar school and when I got there they talked me into volunteering for the Seal program so I that's pretty much my life in a nutshell the every time I kind of think I've got a strategic plan or an idea you know gained out some Opportunity a window opens up and I W Say it's a gut instinct but sometimes I can just see it for what it is especially if you're looking for it which is something I talk about a lot in my books and my speeches if you're open to it's kind of like punch buggy soon as somebody plays punch bug you suddenly see vots wagon beels everywhere right but up until that point you didn't see any because you weren't thinking about it you weren't aware of it so that's the same thing with opportunity so my life is more of a zigzag of jumping through Windows of opportunity um I you know I was in listed the seal for 10 years then I decided to become an officer so I was an officer for 10 years in seals and then I went to manage money as you noted in the intro and then 9111 happened and then I got pulled out of the money management thing after eight years into counterterrorism using some of my old skills the US government uh and then I ended up in a Government Contracting large Government Contracting Company and started doing um basically business management of operations but then I got pulled because I was pretty successful at marketing and growing my Division I got pulled into being the business development marketing corporate Communications guy for a billion dollar company and about seven sub subordinate companies so and I wasn't that person I didn't have that training I wasn't that wasn't my background but all of a sudden I was trying to figure out how to pitch and position Aviation companies and vehicle companies and digital and Virtual training companies all kinds of odd mixture of these different these different entities and initially to try to figure out how to position them everything from their brand awareness and position for success but then I got sucked into the operations of the company companes so just because I said yes and went into that particular position I ended up with about two or three years of being the doctor going into a company to look at their marketing piece and some getting pulled into everything marketing but distribution production their Staffing levels do they have a strategy do they have any kind of planning at all and that actually became my forte for quite a while it wasn't so much what I started with I end up segueing into this whole other piece so That's just kind of how my life happens uh the books same kind of thing I decided I was going to write a science fiction OB and I wrote it and uh I was going to donate all the all the proceeds to the seal veterans foundation and Then uh and then I ended up writing Three more science fiction books and then five SEAL levels and I finished a 10th novel about two months ago which I'm shopping to agents and somewhere about four years ago I started writing business books basically because I thought that would be interesting and also would be helpful if I wanted to be a consultant or a uh a business coach

[00:03:40] Jacob: Executive coach Etc so yeah okay well it sounds like you're kind of life is stumbling you stumbling you into positions that you're that you're fit for in some way tell me more about this so at the beginning you had a Different intention and then you ended up at this at the seals office um I'm Drawn to like use the word intuition in here too I want to explore more of that like how did you just follow these little instances to listen and start talking to certain people at 17 years old well just about

[00:04:13] Marty: 18 when I showed up in California and I didn't know anything about the SEAL Teams back in those days it was totally classified there were no movies there were no books nobody knew anything about them so I really went in there thinking they were going to figure out how to fix my orders and send me to a ship to be a radar guy and being you know basically about 18 years old I was very malleable so it was very easy for it's very easy for this gentleman um very nice guy he didn't lie to me or anything but he just started asking me qu questions you know and uh and I answer him I wasn't intimidated by him it just sounded like a really fun thing to do the way he laid it out and he actually you know he'd ask a question like well did you ever play sports like team sports yes what did you play there like basketball football oh so you were in football did the coaches ever yell at you when you weren't doing performing correctly oh yeah that's how the instructors are here if you're not performing they're trying to do the best thing they're help to coach you and get better so they'll yell at you and everything did they ever punish you if you didn't do something right oh yeah what were the what were the punishments oh we have to run laps or run up the stadium stairs or something El or doing Wind Sprints oh yeah well that's the same kind of thing here the punishment is really reinforcement of what they're trying to teach you so it made it sound like I was going to football camp right um and then you know do you know to swim yeah I swim competitively for eight years okay so you're okay with the war oh yeah and by the time he was done I thought well H this seems like a perfect fit for me it wasn't like I had this Intuition or I didn't have a sense of the universe of myself yet for sure but I think I was always had an awareness of it wasn't it wasn't something developed I had an awareness that something seemed right like a fit and having gone through 17 weeks of air traffic control radar school and I did that because my dad did that in the Korean war in the Navy I'm not a tech guy although I said on Tech boards and I'm not a uh you know Electronics wiiz or anything but I had to go through some Electronics schools for that other that other uh Vocation but I knew that didn't seem as fun as what this guy was saying so it's kind of like signing up for prison or war camp and not realizing you think you're signing up for you know soccer camp or something yeah but it did change the course of my life in a really big way yeah hats off to that recruitment guy he did his job really well relating things that you've experienced to uh potential Futures you could see in the military um okay so what um so what so as you started working with these other people um you were saying that it sounds like you became the person who had all the answers in some ways uh it sounds like you just were an incredibly useful um mind to have around and they were floating you to where you were best used what was that all about what was that like um did you intentionally come in with like I'm gonna I'm going to have a bird's eye view on this and have kind of a little bit to say about everybody's individual or uh you know jobs or I guess I guess how did that start let me let me talk about how that ability kind of developed so again part of kind of me you know my pitch is to be creative you have to be open-minded and you have to take risk you have to kind of jump through that hoop and see what's on the other side and maybe it's not perfect and maybe it's not even that great but you gain an Experience and Lou Pastor has this quote Chance favors the prepared mind so it's kind of like the thing that luck is when you know opportunity meets hard work kind of thing it's one of those kind of deals but it's true so and I've told my kids five kids all grown I taught them the same thing there's no bad job that bad job that bad boss is teaching you what not to do if you're ever a boss it's teaching you how to communicate better than that boss you're G you have to suck every bit every ounce Of information intelligence about the world life workplace um working with your co-workers maybe the business that you happen to be in and then you're going to move on because you know this is trauma if you're a 16-year-old kid working in a fast food place and then it's trauma when you're 26 years old and it's your first big job and it's trauma when you're 44 and you just got laid off it doesn't change because we're all human being so I learned early uh as a kid I worked in lots of different jobs I detassel corn I bailed hay I worked in a warehouse I uh for one day I manned the high pressure hose and a meat packing plant I was too late to make that work so it was a one day job but you learn what you're not good at too right so what you end up with if you kind of see life that way is you're kind of like this snowball that's rolling down the hill picking up everything that's on the ground the snowball is getting bigger and more powerful more capable and you got all it reflects all these different dimensions of the path you took and that makes you a better Problem Solver because the open-minded approach and all this kind of disparate goofy experience that isn't aligned with a course or a certification makes you very comfortable with the unknown and very comfortable with a scener where all the assumptions are not there laid out perfectly in front of you and also operating with parts of those assumptions being missing completely and then you have to make the decision and take a leap of faith so if you have a life like that which is kind of how I started and the SEAL Teams kind of think that way too the creativity is driven that way open mind throw all the all the whatever you did before the formulas and everything get that out of your head because every mission is a separate problem set and you're going to get in big trouble if you keep doing the same football play over and over again even if it's successful 10 times it's the 11th time it's going to blow up on you to look at the problems in real time assess the information in real time have lots of contingency thoughts about what happens if this doesn't go through or that doesn't happen the weather's different so that just reinforces what I said through 20 years of that kind of experience and training so it was easy when I get in the business scenario I outlined I didn't go in there thinking I was going to be a business doctor you know like Bar Rescue or something I thought I was going to go in there look at their website I was going to look at their marketing materials I was going to see what are they doing for promotion because that was my job at the time and when you start talking to business owners a smaller companies they start confiding in you about all the other elements of the business because all it all ties right if you don't have enough money to run an ad I better tell you why I don't have enough money and that leads to I can't sell anything or that lead my product sucks or my service sucks or my competition's kicking my butt next thing you know you're sucked down the you know business 101 rabbit hole and you end up being a mentor and a coach and a consultant for the whole sweep of issues all the categories because they're all inter intermingled and they're all related and I was actually solving problems that were fixing things had nothing to do with my primary purpose and then people I worked for said hey there's this other division that's having problems and the biggest the big billion dollar organization I want you to go into that Division and I want you to do an assessment so now all of a sudden I'm you know the business doctor after two years but it was it was a ramp up and a learning curve and it was me learning to um not try to solve everything right away but to listen and hear what all the issues are because I didn't know anything about Aviation not Not the art of buying planes or fixing planes or moving planes across the planet logistically I didn't so I couldn't give them an answer right off the top of my head and be a know at all I had to sit back and just absorb so what so what do you think it is if you had to pinpoint you know one solid sentence or two of what it was about you at that time like what did you have that it seemed that other people's didn't other people did not uh Two things uh the open-mindedness because if you're open if you're open-minded if you're intellectually humble it's amazing how much stuff you see it's like the punch buggy thing all over again you see things clearly you see things even the people that you're talking with don't see because they're too close to it I'm on Boards of technology companies because I have an objective Viewpoint because I don't know anything about robots or I don't know anything about um high-speed uh drone Operations so I'm the one person in the room that goes hey you know you got a booger hanging out of your nose because nobody's looking for that and that's valuable to a lot of people that they have somebody that actually sees the truth but to do that you have to have an open mind the second thing is and this Happens with experience but also that experience is formed by being comfortable with taking a chance With taking a risk because if you're so risk adverse that you've mitigated all opportunity away you're just a stick stuck in the in the ground you're not going anywhere the world's swirling past everybody else is changing you think you're safe because you think you really your job is to mitigate and make everything perfect well guess what your product your service the way you run your company um it's all changed maybe everybody in the neighborhood I've got a friend that had a training school and it was fantastic because it catered to kids after a decade the revenue started going down the head count started going down and he wasn't sure why so he threw money into advertising it turned out that where he planted that school was perfect when he when he put it there because the demographic of the surrounding five to To six M radius were parents with kids In elementary school and then the kids as they were shifting from elementary school and middle school were flooding his school but as they started to get to high school right and the opposite was happening and then if you took it like another five years later he's surrounded by empty nesters so the entire PO he served the population but they had evolved in left so he basically had to shut the school down there and find another location like that but it happened so slowly that he had no conscious awareness that was happening and so you know you have to be able to take risks but you also have to realize that you know trying to trying to mitigate those risks can actually uh cut off your opportunities so those are two things ability to uh have an open mind and uh be intellectually humble coupled with Risk-taking yeah uh well it seems I mean change is actually a pretty profound uh change is even a continuous learning process for me you know uh a lot of a lot of like kind of my world in this podcast has been started from me trying to learn about myself and uh I had some mental health things that

[00:15:11] Jacob: I was like man I got to get this stuff figured out I've got to understand how my own mind works um and that's a pretty profound fact is learning about change you think you're going to get to this arrival point of like I'll learn about who I am and exactly why I am this way and then it'll be that same way until I'm you know 95 years old or whatever but no it's a you know every day you kind of have to accept who you are that day um you have to accept in every different transition and all of your life when you start a new job when you get into a new relationship any of the stages of our life we kind of have to take account uh who am I why am I this way um and is it serving me going forward because sometimes we're met with we're understanding oursel we're learning about ourselves um but we but there's not necessarily an arrival point I feel like I found that a lot with myself there's not necessarily a place where I get to where I Know Myself 100% I'm continuously learning about myself um I wonder in your world Marty where do you what do you see in other people I mean you've worked alongside a lot of other people I mean I would love to hear what your own experience about it is too um what happens when people start to try to change what are the frics that come up when we when we want change um what are the things that are difficult for us to look at about who we are now and that need changed uh what I guess uh suppose what are some things that come up commonly in your world when it comes to people trying to assert change in their life so there's a lot of brain

[00:16:47] Marty: Science now that has identified kind of

[00:16:50] Jacob: The primordial original intent of

[00:16:53] Marty: The brain to keep the human species

[00:16:56] Jacob: Alive and there were two things one was stability and safety essentially full Mitigation Of All risk you know you don't want to get eaten by a saber 2 tiger and you want to be able to find food all the time right um and stay warm and all those kinds of things the second thing was the willingness to take risks and explore because if you didn't do that in the first case if you living in a valley you'd eventually kill all the deer eat all the fruit you know everything would be you' um Denude all Poss I food sources and you starve to death and die so you were had to be compelled and be willing mentally to pick everything up and take it into the unknown over the hill and there's actually two switches in the human brain that they located

[00:17:44] Marty: That are functional parts of the human brain which is part of what I write about in and be different because that allows you at any age unless you have a medical problem to be creative to take chances to think big to have a sense of awe and wonder we just been taught not to do that as adults that's not an adult thing to do six-year-olds that's okay but adults so that I think is a

[00:18:08] Jacob: Premise to my answer to your question if

[00:18:11] Marty: That's the way we're designed and if in

[00:18:14] Jacob: Modern time say since the late 1800s mostly through public schooling we've been conditioned to not take risks to

[00:18:24] Marty: Hug safety and stability as the be end all you know the objective is stability and safety then what happens is we are leaving ourselves open to greater and greater and greater emotional and psychological shock when that reality turns out not to be reality um Madam Cy who discovered radium has a quote that says the universe abhor stasis in other words it

[00:18:50] Jacob: The universe hates stability and she's saying because she was a scientist and she realized everything she was looking at was in a constant state of turmoil and change and adaptation and evolution or de Evolution or complete destruction and just disappeared and she goes okay then what I'm going to stop trying to contain this and control this and codify this and catalog this because that's not the way the world works so if you think of what I just

[00:19:14] Marty: Said and take your question and there's two people in a room and they hear Hey the company is going to

[00:19:22] Jacob: Um uh reduce the staff by

[00:19:26] Marty: 10% well usually when I tell my people I've been a CEO for now 15 years everybody's about to communicate change I said but what's the first thing everybody's going to flash in their mind the second you start to talk or and you send out of communication what's going to happen to me so the best thing to do is to

[00:19:45] Jacob: Frontload what's going to happen to you you can start off with all kinds of wind ups you know we've had a strategic Retreat we did this and that and the markets are changing and everything and they're all going you know they're hyper Ving because they're waiting for the other shoe to drop right and the longer they have to wait or the more vague your communication the worse the outcome is going to be as far as their mind's concerned that's because any change even before it's announced and maybe it doesn't have anything to do with you any change is perceived as a threat to their stability their security their stasis and you could take even down a notch you can you can go to in accountants and linear kind of trained professionals are uh they do this all the time you go up to an account and you say hey I want you to be part of a project team that's going to be developed pricing for a bid we're putting in and if they've never done that before they break out in sweats they go pale and they stare at you because all they see is failure because they haven't done it before because what they are good at is incremental repeating of rules and laws related to accounting and they went to school for that and they were attracted to that and what you just basically said is I want you to go on there and show your ass and look like fo and then you'll never be the same again as far as we're concerned because we'll remember how bad you were they think it's like you're going to go in there and film them doing karaokey or something that's the psychological reaction so if you don't

[00:21:10] Marty: Hire people with a with a more comfortable

[00:21:15] Jacob: Mindset a willingness to work with other people a willingness to roll with some of the changes and you've had a really interview for that kind of temperament right if you don't do that what you have is you've actually on purpose brought a whole bunch of fragile mind mindsets into a room and the only thing that hasn't happened yet is you haven't announced your first change because then once you do you're going to get what you bought basically that labor force is going to react how each individual reacts and the majority of them we're going to get freaked out now of course the opposite is true if you bring in a bunch of people that have been identified as openminded uh comfortable with some change willing to work in Project teams you know in uh multi-disciplinary groups you know well then what's going to happen is when you start talking about change a lot of them are going to think this is the opportunity and how can I how can I how can I help so that's a lot of prep you know prep stuff environmental stuff every it doesn't matter I can't I've never been able to control every single hire that's come into groups that I've been put in charge of um and so you have a mixed bag of all those all those types of people um some of them step up and go what can I do to help and some of them were in the corner in the fetal position and some people have already dialed up you know a head hunter I need another job I think I'm going to get fired nobody's even announc anything about firing and you get all the whole Gambit and all you can do afterward is try to manage everybody's psychological reaction now the more you've been through that the more you're kind of a veteran Trooper of those kinds of experiences you build up psychological resilience to the moment and you still May pick up the phone and dial Your Head Hunter put them on St stand by because you're not sure how this going to turn out but you're not necessarily going to go into panic mode yeah I mean it does make sense to have a plan in that moment but uh you know I think we all deal with potentially making things worse when they don't need to be uh as a big of a deal as they as they currently are um I wonder in that moment I think about the difference between growth mindset and fixed mindset a lot um I'm sure you have like some great examples of those but uh I think that it's something that can be learned like if you think of someone with a fixed mindset uh maybe they kind of always been the certain way I don't think that it's a death sentence by any means I think that it's a it's an active thing that we can invite ourselves to do um and see where we're being in a kind of a fixed mode of wanting comfort and safety but life or whatever uh you know is inviting us to have a growth mindset I think it's something that people can change into um in those moments especially when there's big changes happening at corporations in uh places that you're working at what do you see because it seems like you have a pretty natural growth mindset do you see other people with fixed mindsets is there like some Lynch pin that you can give them that opens them up from a fixed set to a to a growth mindset um I know my questions are a bit rambly Marty but I hope there's something that I can hand you they're fine it's uh so we're talking about Behavior and we're talking about modifying the behavior for a particular purpose in this case to be able to have more of an open mind in a less reactive negative uh response to some kind of an announcement or change or something and a more proactive and positive reaction right so behaviors are all about training coaching mentoring um I give you a perfect case in point if uh everybody that's listening to this unless this is something you're practicing all the time just stand on one foot in time how long you can stand there before you lose your balance now there are hundreds and hundreds of little muscles and tendons and ligaments that are involved in stabilizing your leg including all the bones of your feet and your own mind the way it perceives its sense of balance and you may find that you can't keep it up you can't balance from more than like five seconds but is that your human your human constraint does that mean all humans can only balance on one foot for five seconds or is that a self-imposed uh constraint because you've never practiced I guarantee you if you practice that a little bit every day randomly you get a sense of what the stability feels like when it's right and you do that for 30 days and you probably have know a two minute three minute balance period which if you like numbers the percentage of improvement is you know ex exponential right it's the same thing with this kind of human behavior it's practicing and flexing and exercising all these other types of thoughts the open-mindedness is a huge one because if you don't have open mindness you won't even you won't take a go on the train you won't listen to anybody you know you just block it out which again is kind of that stick in the mud thing you're trying to protect yourself from the risk of change because in your mind all change is bad all change leads to karaoke night um and you have to have it as a cultural thing you have to have your leaders thinking this way again you have to this is a big part of creating and establishing and sustaining a culture you have to do it at the hiring point you can't just hire people that on the resume can do exactly technically what you're looking for and if you do it in a panic because you're just trying to fill a hole and you're bypassing all these human behavioral um uh what do you call it uh when your compatibilities that you really need in a culture then you're just you're just bringing in a problem you're bringing in a psychological grenade that's going to go off down the road they not going to help in a group project they're going to react violently to every little piece of new information so you can control a lot of this by how you hire and then you need to improve upon it by evolving everybody through this kind of mindful behavioral excuse me transformation from wherever they are to

[00:27:27] Marty: A Comfort level with change and there's ways to do that you can do it through scenario Based training because it's a game it's role playing you get in a room and you say hey we just lost our number one supplier we just lost our top salesperson we just lost our biggest client or customer now these are real things I have five kids and some of them you know they're in different businesses but this pops up all the time hey we just lost our number one client excuse me management team's freaking out right happens every day in business happens it happens in small businesses and large businesses and middle-sized businesses somebody moves in across the street and sets up a pizza parlor and you've got a pizza parlor but they've got more room and they've got more money to throw at advertising and they're putting everything at 25% off and they're having a kids night or Monday Night Football night you're caught behind the curve right that's the

[00:28:22] Jacob: Way the world is that's that whole point of the universe constantly changing because you can't see everything but you have to anticipate things are going to change and gaming this out sitting in a room either doing it as a

[00:28:33] Marty: As an exercise and brainstorming all the possible things that could go wrong and all the possible opportunities that might be out there with your team more you do that the more everybody opens up and starts throwing something into the mix you can't do it once because

[00:28:49] Jacob: Everybody that thinks you again it's that karaoke night thing they don't want to look stupid in public they'll just sit there and clam up you'll get one or two people that are just real comfortable with flap on their lips and everything but that's you know 2% of the input potential so you have to cultivate

[00:29:04] Marty: It you have to hire for it and you have to maintain it by mentoring and doing these practice drills that way when the real thing comes up and this how you do it in the military you train harder least you know seals for sure we train much harder um for combat than combat tends to be right if we push ourselves harder and we have more Things Fall Apart and radio broken now how you going to communicate or the helicopter never showed up to pick you up now you have to walk you know 15 miles through mountains or sand whatever it that happens you all the time and then you go to do the real Mission and everything works and helicopter shows up on time you go boom and you're out if it's anticlimactic yeah because you train to a much worse set of pro um probabilities same you can do the same thing in business you do same thing in family could even do this yeah I

[00:29:54] Jacob: I like that a lot I um I have experienced a lot of my work is in uh I work in live event production and I work with a lot of nonprofit organizations that do um leadership training so if you ever heard of uh like HOSA or Deca or fbaa their like high

[00:30:09] Marty: School leadership um organizations they do a lot of mock trials and uh like mock competitions and it was very profound for me uh when I was young when

[00:30:18] Jacob: I was originally enrolled in Deca in one of these organizations just having that mock interview like the first time you go in and have an interview just shaking someone hand and introducing yourself and being offered a problem or trying to sell yourself and tell them why you know you're worthwhile for them to hire you at this job whatever um doing those mock

[00:30:39] Marty: Competitions a few times made me just so cool and calm and collected when it actually came time for real job interviews it took away the anxiety and so yeah it totally makes sense it's you know you run 15 miles with a 25 pound weight vest and then the next time you run that exact same time without the weight vest it feels pretty light and big deal so yeah that's pretty profound um set setting people up in these positions to where they're not shocked when something that is an evitably going to happen happens um what do you so I want to talk about discipline how do you see discipline um I think that's probably an Ever growing Factor uh I liked uh I'm sure you're familiar with like jao willink uh he has he has the popular saying discipline equals Freedom um it's It's a short simple thing but it's a great one man it's I think that's a pretty profound one so I guess I want to just open that door to you Marty what do you think about when I say discipline or how do you think about discipline that may be different than the way other people do well I think I think people over complicate the discussion of discipline the problem with discipline is it's simple but it's so candidly difficult that everybody Gets about halfway or 25% the way there and realizes how hard it is and then they stop so I'll give you an example so with the novel I just finished in the three business books I about 13 books and there are most of them around 90 to 95,000 words so that's

[00:32:14] Jacob: 13 times 95,000 words and if I tell somebody that they're like how the hell did you ever do that and I did it basically about 200 to 300 words at a

[00:32:25] Marty: Time per day which sounds not like a big number but if I did it for seven days and I did it for the next seven days and I kept doing it until the book was done then I've created a set of behaviors that become habits and those habits repeated over and over again to get the result that you're trying to get which is in this case is incremental momentum and movement through a project that is the definition of discipline from the outside looking in everybody looking at me says oh he so disciplined he gets up at 5:00 in the morning he start trying at 5:30 he always puts down at least 300 words and he's every single day bam he's got a book bam he's got another book he's so disciplined yeah okay fancy word what it really means is doing whatever it is has to be done over and over and over and over again to get the result that you're aiming for it may be nothing more than then getting up and not watching you know looking at your screen on your phone psychologically difficult people have a really hard time with that right um I I've turned my phone off or left my phone places and walk around and had that same freak out everybody has I'm missing all this I mean I know a CEO and I got all this other stuff somebody's calling me somebody just sent me an email that I have to respond to and you experience the Freak Out you go this is how bad my I am right now this is me not having this thing in my hand right but if I did that every day if I gave myself three hours or you know four hours of the day that I'm awake where I don't have this thing like in front of my face in time the discipline of doing it over and over and over again repeated Behavior to achieve a positive

[00:34:08] Jacob: Result reduces my anxiety eliminates my anxiety and suddenly I realize I'm coping without having to look at the stupid phone which was the end State I was aiming for you want to lose weight you want to gain weight you want to you know get bigger biceps you want to run faster I mean there's physical limits to physical goals and there are Maybe some

[00:34:28] Marty: Limits like I can't I can't dunk a basketball I'm just too short to dunk a basketball um so you have to you know look at what your objective is and before you start watering down the objective set the objective and give yourself a reasonable amount of time to reach it and then break it up into these little mini steps with the seals that training technique was called Baby Steps little tiny baby steps to achieve each element or increment of growth whether it's knowledge growth or whether was skill attainment grow it's a you know eat an elepant one bite at a time kind of thing and if we do it that way and I don't know how you were math I sucked at math but whenever I had a math teacher that taught that way I was never left behind whenever I went into a class like the next year and the guy went and then the next day he jumped to the next concept if I hadn't picked up the day before Concepts and been able to practice them and figure them out I was a day behind all a concept behind next thing you know I'm halfway through the school year and I'm way to Hell behind because that teacher didn't care they didn't teach in a way it was incremental and reinforcing incremental and reinforcing that was a discipline of learning and then evolving into the next concept and then evolving into the next concept they were just throwing it out there and say execute so you can't do that to yourself either you can't set a goal and say I'm gonna make I'm gonna achieve that goal in Leaps and Bounds because that's not the way we learn and that's not the way we change right yeah my uh chemistry was that for me it felt like I missed one day or I was like nodding off one day or something and like you said before you know it halfway through the through the semester I'm like I don't know what's going on so I feel I can't catch up um but yeah I like that a lot I uh it kind of reminds me of uh Dr Jordan Peterson he talks about sometimes it could be so daunting to look at the giant staircase of like you know what you want to accomplish or what you know needs done to get to where you know point A to point B um but it can also be easy to for some of us to kind of like our own responses of doing anything if we're too much staring at the big the big staircase uh so he talks about just hey you know if you can't you can't write your novel this morning what can you do you can go into your office desk drawer and you could take a piece of paper out and put it on the desk cool maybe that's all you got today and then tomorrow you grab a dang pen and you put it on there maybe you write the first sentence maybe you don't whatever um but that was it was really helpful for me man CU I uh sometimes when you have all these like creative amazing cool ideas you're like that's awesome I want to attack that I want to go on that I have this uh excitement I have this momentum I have this uh motivation I want to attack this thing that I know I'm going to be good at I want to write this book whatever it is um and then we realize you know we only have 24 hours in a day and your excitement doesn't match what you're actually able to do in that day so rather than just sitting down and accomplishing nothing uh keeping that momentum going I feel like it fits into what you're talking about with the um the snowball analogy to where like you run into different things and they just become your snowball um I think what happens often with a lot of people is we hit those things and instead of keeping the momentum of our snowball we like we got to stop and check out what we just ran over and we got to Define ourselves by that pick it out of the snowball can't see why we have any value we toss it out to keep it clean and pure and safe and

[00:37:50] Jacob: Yeah ex exactly okay so

[00:37:54] Marty: What separates what separates us from I guess what keeps our momentum as the snowball you know how do we notice when we've been stopping to take our report card I say that often like you know we want like how am I doing right now who am I right now does this Define me as a whole and we give our letter number grade and sometimes it's defeating so how do we keep the momentum of the Rolling snowball I suppose I'm an

[00:38:18] Jacob: Advocate of um of pull versus push

[00:38:25] Marty: Motivation and so push motivation is you're either threaten yourself or somebody else is threatening you with some downside consequence if you don't push forward and move forward and

[00:38:37] Jacob: Keep doing everything to some volume of completion and then if you don't do that then you feel like you're starting to fail it's like the chemistry thing you're falling behind it's all on you sure what are you doing this for you just stop right but the pull motivation approach is you think long and hard about the end State you think long and hard about what you want to do what you want to be how you want to look this could be a personal thing it could be a professional thing it could be if you if you're in a company you could be what do you want the company to look like or your division or Department to look like and then you have to solidify that out there in the Horizon kind of like a light you know and you're in the desert or you're in the frozen tundra and you see that light and what happens is you're compelled You're motivated to move physically psychologically emotionally and Direction and of course it takes forever for that light to look like it's gotten any closer or any bigger but you're being pulled towards that light and that light is your objective that is the cleanest purest and I think the most powerful motivating factor for people the problem is there's so there's so many programs and there's so many books and there's so many you know infomercials and all that and it's more about pushing you it's pushing you towards something and you haven't really defined whether you want to go there yet so if you don't want to go there you're bound to fail because you're not going to you're not going to incorporate all the little micro Behavior changes and the disciplines because you don't you don't proceive the value yet or there is no value for you so somebody else can't set a goal for you like you're going to be a lawyer so you're a sophomore in high school I want you to get good grades I'm to ground you because I want you to be a lawyer you know how that works you know and if you look at the statistics of how many people quit the first year law school how many people that actually graduate law school never actually go to take the bar and go off to do some other thing in industry it's amazing if you saw it I mean mind numbing it's kind of sad because you're thinking well if those people quit the first year of law school and they and they quit right after they finished law school they probably never really wanted to be lawyers yeah so who decided that who

[00:40:47] Marty: Made that their goal you know parents

[00:40:50] Jacob: Family members peers so yeah push

[00:40:54] Marty: Doesn't work and it's probably a

[00:40:58] Jacob: Cliche in any profession if you get in your third year of college and you realize you never really wanted to go to college it was your parents dream or you never wanted to be the work in the in the family business and take it over that was your parents dream and you just kind of stopped one day like four scump ago I'm done and you and he wasted all this time

[00:41:17] Marty: Sacrificing to achieve somebody else's

[00:41:21] Jacob: Goals so figure out the goal and you

[00:41:24] Marty: Know if the goal is just next week that's fine too you know I was talking about before the baby steps you basically set Big Goal way out there and you say okay I think it's going to take two years you know you don't go crazy if it was gonna write a book you said it's gonna take a year for me to finish the first draft okay that's 12 months and then you say all right so if I got 12 months then that's you know 52 weeks and you start breaking it down into the time chocks and you say so I basically have to write 500 Words a week or something you know and that means that I write 100 100 words a five day work week or you know 67 words you know a day for seven and then you're saying well I should do that because you broke it down into the increments and so your short range goal is to get to the end of the month and have achieved whatever that count

[00:42:15] Jacob: Is it'll feel like slow motion later but in the beginning it feels like it's taking forever because once you get used to the Habit then you feel like the increments are they too small and the short objectives are too short and you could actually do a lot more because now you're getting into the pull part of it you're getting sucked in you actually start to get the confidence that and the uh the courage I can actually do this I'm in month two and I've written this much or I've built this much or I've achieved this much my one-year goal is achievable I can do this one step at a time I can get that done but you have to have that big go to end you know I can't remember what was uh the B ious goal you know there was a book Business book back in the 90s I think you have to have a big audacious goal for the organization that is worthy of sacrifice and worthy of that discipline Behavior change and repeated activity yeah um okay so what do you think about uh I suppose this might be aimed towards more younger people but I think we all probably have our own instances of it throughout our life um you're just talking about you know what we want to do versus the voices of our parents the voices of our influences um I think sometime I mean I definitely find in this world of kind of the mental health self-development self-help uh you know

[00:43:43] Marty: Um setting scenario uh nowadays kind of

[00:43:47] Jacob: Like this whole self-help world I think a lot of people come up against that is they get to a certain age and they realize man I have a lot of momentum towards things that I don't truly want to do I did not realize it until I was 28 but I was trying to please my mom this whole time and now I got to reset and go what do I what do I really want um what do you think about or what has come across in your path Marty um and even for you as

[00:44:12] Marty: Well those times where we notice oh geez I've been working towards someone else's goal I'm I need to reset I need to take stock of what I actually want to do um how do we kind of find our own centers I guess how do we

[00:44:27] Jacob: Take those moments settle reset and

[00:44:31] Marty: Align with our values not our

[00:44:35] Jacob: Influences

[00:44:37] Marty: So I work with a lot of military people that are transitioning out of doing you know a 20 plus year career and it's a culture shock to come out of uniform because that's a that's a that's a very fixed culture and their expectations are unrealistic because they haven't been a civilian for so long and they don't understand what it's like to have a job and you got to do something pretty bad to get fired in the military because everybody's trying to train you to be the best person you can because you're part of a team and we have to rely on you so there'll be a lot of effort put into correcting whatever the issues are to get you at least to the medium standard right that so unlike the regular

[00:45:23] Jacob: World if you were failing there may be nobody that cares and nobody's going to try to help you and you'll fail to the point they'll just get ready and replace you're like you're like a um a bad

[00:45:33] Marty: Car part right so they're so they're used to a loyalty system and they're also used to this audacious endstate goal or objective so they train hard and passionately and they're pulled towards these things because they're it's God in country it's you know protect United States citizen that's all okay now they get out and they're working as the Regional Manager of

[00:46:00] Jacob: Walmart little Goden country decisions aren't related to the loss of life and limb everything's diminished the uh the pole part feels like it's not there it's just a job it's just a paycheck so you feel like you're just stuck in paying the bills mode where you used to have this life and then the other part of it because you know patriotism kind of waxes and waines in US history but for the past 10 years at least 12 years since 9/11 if you walked in uniform in a in a in a bar or any place in the United States pretty much somebody would buy you a beer say thank you for your service wasn't always that way it wasn't that way for the Vietnam guy wasn't that way for the Korean War guys it was definitely that way for the World War II guys and so guess what you don't get all that big love hug kind of stuff going on every day when he get out so nobody really cares it's I actually have a presentation that I call thank you for your service now what and it's to shock the these guys

[00:47:05] Marty: And the fact that you know the flag and the medals and the box and all that kind of stuff it's kind of like the trophies from high school football or swimming whatever you know are you still walking around saying I'm the you know first string left pulling card on the varsity team no you're not you aren't that person and that is no long that's no longer what defines you know you kind of put this in a place in your mind this is a part of my life that I did great things and I was successful and I was respected and now I'm going to put that word it is I use all the skills that I attained and all the knowledge and wisdom and all that but I can't go from being a fighter pilot or squadron commander and go right into being a Fortune 50 corporate executive it's not going to work that way so when you look at

[00:47:54] Jacob: Anybody and they have to transition from who they are to some other kind of person they have to first this is kind of back to intellectual humility thing they basically have to sit down and say themselves I've got to shred myself of all this negative and positive baggage the positive baggage is important too because if you think you're the bomb diggity be all and all then you're arrogant you're arrogant about what you think you are and what you're capable of doing and if you're really arrogant you think you can do it anywhere kind of back to the pilot thinking they can be a Fortune 50 executive you're a you're an Olympic boxer and you think you can go and be a swim coach or you can be you know the head of a the head of a restaurant they're totally different things it's like I can speak Chinese I'm gonna go ahead and speak farsy too just because I can speak Chinese it's lunacy but psychologically because we want to hug what we know makes us feel good and feel stable and feel loved and

[00:48:53] Marty: And uh accepted and respected we tend to think it's going to be a horizontal transition to the next to the next big

[00:49:02] Jacob: Thing it's not so what I usually explain is you have to create this Apprentice mindset and don't jump off of your day job before you've done the research and put in the work to figure out what you want to do next because it takes time and that's what I tell the military guys too I said you got six months to a year and you know you're have retiring it up that's where you start going out there and whatever you think you want to do learn everything you can about that particular thing you'll find that you don't really want to do it or you really do want to do it then how do you want to get involved in it so research that talk to people will help you all day long you know you want to run a restaurant the restaurant owners and operators will tell you know they'll help you out and but you have to

[00:49:44] Marty: Get into a mindset that I'm an apprentice in this new thing I'm not the master it's not a transition of I'm the fighter pilot I'm the Navy steel and I'm

[00:49:52] Jacob: The Army commander and suddenly I'm in charge of all restaurants because just CA and what I'll say to these guys in the needle form I would say to anybody if you are honest and you think back to whatever you're doing now that when did you start and what was it like in your first week or first month or first year what didn't you know how many mistakes did you make think through that learning curve that's the learning curve you have in your next new thing you're not going to start out kicking ass and taking a going to start out as an apprentice now like I said in the

[00:50:32] Marty: Interview if you've been smart and you've absorbed all these different weird kind of things that you're learning you're in the

[00:50:41] Jacob: Trucking distribution business and you want to go into the oil industry well they're both linear movement of product so there's a lot of things you learned over here that are transferable and you you dealt with people and you dealt with technology and you dealt with uh time and space issues and weit and load issues we the same thing over here so there are things that will transition over but you don't know how to sell oil or you don't know how to do all the calculations so you're not an expert yet so be an apprentice as much as you can start studying before you go make your leap in the military obviously there's a date certain if you're not then it's the same I tell my kids I tell everybody give yourself six months to a year to go from not knowing anything going through The Apprentice mode to where you think you've got a pretty good handle what you need to do get the certifications you need for this new thing you know save the money you need for whatever you're going to need if you have to do a startup or something like that uh you can even go out and work in some of these industries for free on this you in your spare time and and don't come in there and say I want the corner office I want to observe everything come in and say can I work on the loading dock or can I work out in as a bus boy and then can I go back and work as the fry cook can I can I want to see the whole operation because I want to start my own restaurant see and that like said you're going to get you're going to get there you're going to you're going to evolve and all the totality of all your other experiences and knowledge and capabilities will all come with you and you'll be better than the average person because you have all that it's kind like a like a booster rocket yeah to help you with your success yeah and I imagine it's you know after that first few weeks of first few months of the initial learning period where you're just kind of figureing out what you don't know after you really kind of get a you know a what do they say like a hip in your get up or whatever the saying is like you feel comfortable with where you're at then your access to all your old info and all the other skills that you have are able to like have a place you found comfortability and you found kind of your place in the hierarchy at your new spot and then now all of your uh other info can find its way in into that new

[00:52:49] Marty: Job um I was thinking about uh there's

[00:52:52] Jacob: This dude called Simon cynic he's a

[00:52:55] Marty: Leadership motivational you've heard of him yeah he's a he's great man I've loved his books Leaders Eat Last is one of my favorites but uh he talks about I think it's in that book how he was a speaker at this event um and he was kind of the main speaker the main keynote one year and they got him a car like picked him up from the hotel they like brought him his own uh coffee they like handed it to him and he was a speaker and he's like this important guy right this way Mr synic blah and then the next year he wasn't the speaker at the event but he was just going to the event and he talks about the difference with his basically like name tag wasn't there he wasn't the speaker nobody sent a car to pick him up uh he asked about coffee and they're like yeah there's maybe like some old Dale coffee in the back get it yourself type thing and so he was just kind of talking about um I thought it was really profound how he pointed out the differences between you don't really get to take your name tag with you in every room you walk into you know you kind of got to start from right you know and it's a profound lesson it's probably a lot of humble pie that people got to eat you know throughout I had the same experience I was in Atlanta last year and I did a speech to uh a bu big business organization 1,00 people and it was actually it was supposed to be 1,600 seats but they had 200 standing in the back and when I came out they had a guy following me with a float camera thing and there was rock music and I came out and there like four minutes of just cheering just like you know and I don't normally do venues that big so I really know what it's like to be you know Axel Rose and come out you know the lead guy in a in a powerful rock band or something and I stood there kind of like oh and then and then I said okay I'll I'll just go ahead and start and when I got done the same thing and they're all reaching up to shake my hands so I'm going down thing like I'm Elis shaking hands and everything and they did the same thing they picked me up at the airport they El me El me to the uh Atlanta Hilton I get in there they' already prepped everybody and there were 2,000 people at this conference so they all knew my face and everything already this was the day before the speech and people rang up to me um security had to help me get into the elevator because there was too many people crowding around me and um I

[00:55:14] Jacob: Actually then I called my wife and I told her about it and she joked she goes who did they say you were you know like they said I was you know something else you know and so then you know I do the I have the meeting with the executives all that stuff and then I go and I do my speech and I'm done and the next morning I go to the airport and my flights are all screed up and I end up sitting in Atlanta for 12 hours and I'm just some dude on a plastic seat and it doesn't matter who I am I'm not going to get anything done you know the name tag is right the name Tag's gone and my wife goes well that's just the Universe telling your ego to just you know shrink back down to

[00:55:58] Marty: Yeah but that's a that's reality and again it's kind of back what I was saying about if you're Navy sealer or fighter pilot you know you got all chest full of metals all this stuff it's really it's really a big Fall From Grace in a way it's the way it's the reason why so many military people have trouble getting out it's the reason why professional athletes that have spend a considerable amount of time as professional athletes have a real difficult time transitioning when they get out I mean they're walking out there and they're the center of attention everybody in that town knows they pay for the play for the Pittsburgh Steelers every restaurant they walk into people are like running up I mean they're like rock stars right and then a year after they get out yeah it's a big mind it's a big mind

[00:56:41] Jacob: Game yeah I mean it's uh I think that moment is you know it's funny I come at it with this kind of silly comical side just because I've experienced my own versions of it you know in uh in my different jobs and as I'm getting um just involved in different environments uh you know one year I'm the important guy and the next I'm you know nobody knows I'm there whatever um I think that

[00:57:08] Marty: The transition is I don't know I know I'm kind of something I'm poking fun at it like it is kind of silly but it's actually deeply painful it's actually deeply um to like come to a point in our lives you know male or female where we have to reinvent ourselves suddenly like the end of a chapter the end of a book closes and it doesn't have to be necessarily sorrowful or sad or a loss necessarily then we have to reinvent ourselves and we have to now insert ourselves into this new hierarchy where you know just a week before we woke up in the morning we knew where we sat in the hierarchy we knew what we had to do every day to prove that uh we knew what it took to feel fulfilled when we laid our head down and now we've got to restart that um what uh

[00:57:57] Jacob: I don't know anybody going through those transitions I suppose what advice would you have for them Marty what um someone who and I guess I may be speaking to the people who are having a hard time with this they're having like genuine sorrow they're having trouble finding this new version of themselves uh what do you think you

[00:58:17] Marty: Would you would talk to them

[00:58:21] Jacob: About well and this sounds kind of like

[00:58:24] Marty: A you know Yoda or something

[00:58:28] Jacob: But and I mentioned intellectual

[00:58:31] Marty: Humility

[00:58:33] Jacob: So it's great you have a spike in uh in self-esteem in an event that you know you're the center of the universe um and there's something to learn in that but mostly you experience it especially it's a positive thing and then when it's all gone even if it's only going to be gone for a period but maybe you never have that experience again then you have to basically clear your mind and be humble and

[00:59:02] Marty: Realize there's something to be learned

[00:59:05] Jacob: By I mean you can learn you can learn when you're Ling on the ground after you fell you can learn while you're up running and looking great you know you can learn in almost any situation you just have to be aware you have to be aware that and back to what I told my kids when they were first going into jobs and everything that's happening to you good or bad is a learning experience every it's a it's the school of life so if you aren't sure

[00:59:33] Marty: And something comes up I'll pick up the phone and call me but I guarantee I'll squeeze some value out of it that will help you down the road and you won't remember it but when you're 20 or when you're 30 you're going to say someday you know what that thing that yeah guess what it's happening here but it's not a shock to him because it's part of life it's part of human nature it's part of whatever so if you take what life gives you and you accept it and then learn from it which sounds TR but I mean really accept it

[01:00:03] Jacob: And really learn from it and not go through the emotional of I'll never be that big a deal again or wow I am the big deal and I'm going to be that way every day you know that's not reality deal with your the reality in the moment and learn from it and circumstances in the context of the moment and like that big that big speech I mentioned or having a chest full of metals after

[01:00:27] Marty: 20 years um thank you for your service good job now what's next what do you got for me what we gonna do next don't rest on your laurels you can appreciate them but don't ride them into the future thinking that's going to give you some kind of a pass on reality it doesn't the doesn't care yeah that's uh that's pretty powerful stuff I mean that's uh again not easy but it's valuable it's useful I uh I work in a lot of Realms of uh I like a lot of Buddhism stuff a lot of stoicism type stuff um and acceptance is something I'm always learning it's not easy but it's a constant reminder it's a constant daily thing of acceptance cool yes I did

[01:01:05] Jacob: Serve that yes I did accomplish those things but now it's time for a new chapter let's accept that let's not dwell on where I was and how upset I am that I'm not there anymore you know the sun still came out today and what can I do today so um yeah it's pretty powerful stuff man I wanted to ask you um uh there was a couple things that you said in your book that just kind of made me want to ask you about uh just freedom in general freedom of speech freedom of thought um you kind of had like a mention uh about cancel culture in there I think that's kind of a fun a fun thing to bring in um I suppose just broadly man what do you think about why is freedom important what does freedom mean to you um and I'm definitely thinking freedom of thought too not just like the law freedom I think you know my ability to think of whatever it is that I'm thinking of is involved in that so I suppose just big old Circle that for you Freedom question mark Marty what comes to mind man so there's a lot written on on this and the power of your mind and the power of being able to think freely within your mind and range far and wide without physically moving so um there's lots written about the um the pilots that were kept in Hano Hilton during Vietnam for many years and how they stayed alive but really how they stayed sane how they used their minds to basically live a life that was worth living and to contemplate all kinds of things and to make it day to day Victor Frankle in his book on man search for meaning about his time in the Nazi and Turman camps um same thing and it points to those that were able to be free in their mind as opposed to those people

[01:03:03] Marty: That um took the consequences and interacted only with the consequences and got so depressed that they ended up basically dying of depression you know they basically died because they couldn't handle the circumstances where the people that survived understood the circumstances and then said okay the rules were different I'm no longer a banker I'm no longer this no longer that I need to learn this universe I need to learn these rules in this place and then I be have to become a master of these rules I have to St stay alive and the best way to motivate yourself in those situations is to help other people around you because you stop thinking about yourself all the time so those are mind games but they're important mind games and it's a freedom of the mind so if you're sitting in a Cell in Hanoi or you're sitting in a in a Cell in uh in Nazi Germany if your brain's not defeated if your mind is not defeated then you're not defeated so those are extremes right

[01:04:00] Jacob: And as extremes they're great because they show that if you're physically constrained and you think

[01:04:07] Marty: You're constrained in other ways financially uh geographically

[01:04:13] Jacob: Whatever you think your constraints are your mind isn't so you can conceive of almost anything and work it through and storyboard it in your mind and play it different five different ways color it any color you want to color it stretch it out shrink it down compress it add players take players out you can do this all day long as long as you realize that your mind has the freedom and the capacity to do that and that is

[01:04:36] Marty: Actually a really positive thing and humans are unique of all species on this planet to be able to do that and that's

[01:04:44] Jacob: Imagination that's creativity that's

[01:04:47] Marty: Using a sense of wonder and um and taking a not knowing and trying to convert it into someone understanding and knowing

[01:04:59] Jacob: All without getting out of a chair so if you can do all that in your mind then you could probably handle almost anything that comes at you as long as you have the freedom of intellect to deal with it intellectually I don't mean like academically inally I mean like

[01:05:17] Marty: Applying your brain and the mechanics of your brain what I mentioned in the book is that we''ve all been told we can't do that we've been told not to do that there's very little reward after you're about six or seven years old to think freely to dream to wonder to awe have a sense of awe if you raise your hand when you're 14 years old and say I think I want to be an astronaut the social

[01:05:44] Jacob: Reaction is going to be almost immediate and you're GNA say oh then you go home and you say I want to be an ason and your parents want you to be a lawyer so immediately it's going to be they're going to pound that astronaut thought out of you and get back on track this is what you're this the only thing you're supposed to think about so your intellectual Freedom starts to get compromised and you start thinking that's the only way you're supposed to think like an adult and like a sober adult meaning you're not supposed to think paying Outside the Lines the path has been set go to school get good grades get good grades to get into another school get good grades to get a good job get a good job stay there keep your nose clean have tenure you'll start advancing up the ladder you know and then you retire somay it's that linear American Dream thing but when you look at the people that everybody talks about when they talk about the American dream it's not those people it's the Risk Takers it's the people that take chances and think big and act big and fail and get bankruptcies and start all over again and usually they come from other countries because they don't know that there's a linear plan so they just go for it right because their mind says I

[01:06:46] Marty: Have nothing to lose

[01:06:51] Jacob: And I don't have a preset battle plan my parents didn't say to do it a certain way so soci didn't say to do a certain way so and it takes you're when you're B your time you're an adult and you're sitting there and you're your first or second job and you're confer table and somebody has a problem and you raise your hand every looks at you and you don't have the right title you don't have enough time at the company and everybody just looks at you like you have three heads and they don't call on you because you haven't paid your dues yet that suppresses and compresses your impulse to think big or to be creative or to even participate in solving these are not mechanical brain problems these are not human constraints these are constraints of society and all the constructs that Society has put around us and you know I make a point in the book that's why I think you know the cancer culture thing uh and it may be over by now but that is a social reaction but really looks like the same thing that I just said it's don't think a certain way don't talk a certain way you know and there was a time where

[01:07:55] Marty: You don't dress a certain way when I was you know like in the late 60s 7s you know if you wore jeans to school you're in trouble MH you had to wear you had to wear you know chinos or something so you um these things were these things were imposed on you to stop you from expressing yourself but they weren't about breaking laws that the freedom we're talking about isn't about you want to be able to do whatever you want to do however you want to do it physically and impact other people this is about intellectual freedom and the freedom of the so yes I'm a big advocate of it I think it's something that's it can be relearned than adults I think it's um it's back other things we were talking about it takes a little bit of practice to build the Habit to not react immediately by constraining and containing your thoughts and conforming but to instead you know take a shot put the hand up and that they don't call on you go ahead and say it out loud anyway um and if you're an organization where they just keep stomping on you and everything anything find someplace else to work yeah I love that what a great answer man I think about that a lot because I uh I spend a lot of world in a lot of time in the world of creativity I do a lot of uh some sort of musician I do a lot of artist Artistry stuff writing poetry whatever and so I'm often I spent a lot of time contemplating what it really means to have free thought and how amazing it is that we that we have it like how cool it is that we're able that I'm able to sit in my apartment and think about and talk about the things that I'm able to talk about the fact that I'm able to record this conversation and I can kind of collectively say whatever I want I mean that's pretty cool um well

[01:09:35] Jacob: So uh Marty we're getting up here in time um I would love to just kind of round us back on uh your latest book um I found that one thing that I

[01:09:46] Marty: Really loved about it was I think just as a quick thought my brain doesn't accompany military with creativity or like being rebellious and joining the military um but I feel like you laid it out in such a nice way it kind of changed my perspective a little bit um and your book was very enticing so I would love to just kind of uh at the end here just for anybody who's listening who's kind of thinking about checking out your book who's your book for um what are kind of some mind mindsets that you would like to uh who would you like to attract to your book I suppose well you know I the first two books were focused more on organizational issues like the being able was about leadership and crisis and be uh be Visionary was about strategic thought and development of strategic thought into an actual plan of action um the be different especially the subtitle of how Navy Seals and entrepreneurs Bend break or ignore the rules to get results it's kind of what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes it's the I I saw that you know the first two books are useful to Business Leaders doesn't have to be a profit business leader it can be an organizational leader but what's was missing was and I've in working with these technology firms there's a lot of creativity there's a lot of rapid prototyping Innovation a lot of experimentation which means there's a lot of failure and it's a mindset related to Leading Edge technology but they human beings are exercising these things and I'm watching why are we doing that in the clothing business where doing that in the car business why are we doing that in you know the medical business that I'm in why are we just kind of stuck in the status quo it's because we're missing this creative

[01:11:36] Jacob: Engine this willingness or the Comfort

[01:11:39] Marty: To exercise and practice creative thinking and then that's where I started getting into the Conformity thing I found some research uh that was done proving exactly the same thing they tested kids from like six years old to 40 and uh their creativity score went from like the high 90th percentile down to like 5% and it was almost a 45

[01:12:01] Jacob: Degree Decline and then I thought okay so it's going to be based on age or something they said no it's based on the amount of exposure to institutional learning and institutional management and it was exactly and I had already written the book first draft when I read the research and it basically conf confirmed the first couple of chapters U

[01:12:21] Marty: Of my book focus on which is this obedience the blind obedience formity and compliance intellectual compliance and they say that's the problem you know they're not allowed to think anymore they're not allowed to dream they're not allowed to do all these things so that was cool and I thought all right so what really what the book is going to be about is to tell people it's okay to paint outside the lines it's okay to think differently but to think differently you have to basically convert yourself and be different because you're going to have to change your whole mindset about life and work and yeah there's going to be it's a little bit about your mindset about risk because being creative and Innovative is a big risk-taking uh Endeavor people are going To not like what you say there's going To be a social cost to it small social like in an organization or big social sometimes but if you start looking back at all the people that we point to and say wow they're so creative and so Innovative they were so brilliant Einstein was like 21 years old he came up with the special theory of relativity Alexander conqu conquered most of the new Known World before he was 30 um Tesla I mean almost anybody You point to we see pictures of these guys especially in the last hundred years as old men because that's when when cameras in photography and film you know like Ford those guys look like the little men but they all they all invented and created what they created when they were in their 20s and the reason they're such icons is because they did what other people weren't doing wouldn't do you know so we've been talking about that theme through the whole the whole conversation is you know set your goals create an incremental plan to achieve those goals focus on the goals let the goal pull you there and the book basically tells you to do that but also to allow yourself and to train and prepare yourself to think and Then act and be different as a result yeah what a way to wrap it up man that was great I love that had this my like 10th 11th and 12th grade in high school my uh drama or theater teacher he would always say darare to be different he was kind of the first one to impose that on us and uh it stuck with me I feel like I use it as this little um this little uh bit of encouragement in moments where I'm like what am I doing I'm being weird right now but it felt like the right thing to be done for me it felt like something that I could do um and I looked around clearly other people are not thinking the same thing as me but it feels like it's the right thing to do so I'm going to act on it and I never regretted acting on things

[01:15:01] Jacob: Like that so um wow Marty uh man I want to thank you for your time uh I really appreciate this I want to thank you for um the most recent book I think we're GNA have to crack into your other ones too as well I'm kind of curious to read your so you have so you have non-fiction books and fiction books how many non-fiction do you have three and then you have nine other ones I have nine published novels and then the 10th one that I'm shopping to agents right now okay anybody who's kind of interested in checking out your novels what do you think is like the first one you'd probably send them to ah well if they like science fiction

[01:15:37] Marty: It's called um a time for Glory and

[01:15:38] Jacob: Thanks go to Martyr strong. com the two uh fiction series The Books are at the bottom of the home of the landing page and also the coverage of the three business books so if you click on that it'll take you right to the information or for a point of sale um the first sealed book in the series is called uh Death Before Dawn and bul

[01:15:38] Marty: Books takes a kind of naive Young person and evolves them through the series until they're a much more evolved and more powerful personality not necessarily perfect or anything but uh you get to track how they how they evolve over time yeah cool it sounds like it hits on the old hero's journey I'm always a big fan of that um cool man well thank you thank you so much I will definitely include all of that info in the so we'll be able to click on your link and everything below so listeners check that out um and then just the last thing I'm just kind of curious what do we have coming from you in the future it sounds like you're definitely someone who uh you know chips away at it day by day but uh do you have anything on the horizon we could be looking out for I actually don't I think I'm gonna start writing some articles just to keep you know warmed up with writing the um when you write a book you know you're kind of in it deep and then you finish it and then you have to start I use beta read readers so people that are interested in sci-fi or people are interested in the whatever the genre topic of the book is to read chapter by chapter give me feedback I do the same thing with the business books I got a group of CEOs and people that have a lot of business experience who give me feedback chapter by chapter so I do a stream of Consciousness writing in the first draft and then I go back and I look at all the input for by chapter of three to four beta readers and uh Sometimes like it's mechanically good you know the character had was left-handed in the second chapter now they're right-handed in chapter 15 you know little weird things like that sometimes it's my voice like in the business books I shifted from my books are very uh conversational people said it's like a mentoring program and I'm definitely I'm audible when you listen to it um but if I start to get too Tech Technical and it starts to on to textbook I get called on by those guys and I've had to rewr rewrite an entire chapter because I shifted into technical writing mode and that's more like here's the information instead of kind of weaving back and forth like a Storyteller teacher you know guide which is the way the books are written so um but when you're done with the this inputting all that information that's your second draft and then I get it edited by a freelance editor and that's the third draft and so you're pretty Much you don't even remember why you wrote the book by that time and you're kind of like numb and then if you publish the book like my business books for sure the publisher wants to wait eight months when it's ready so it can get on all the worldwide Distribution Systems and all that and so it just sits there in pre-sale for eight months and then when it actually comes out it's been 18 months since I started To write it yeah so what but I've had to do the business books no kidding as I was on a lot of interviews for the first book be nimble and uh they were asking me questions because I read the book and some of them had the book all you know marked up and everything and I'm like i' already I just finished being Visionary I'm like what the hell did I saying be nimble like I wrote that sound two and a half years ago or you know we like well that sounds pretty smart but you know but then when comment why did you say that so iidea back I went back and I got the audible versions I started listening to in my truck I did that and I did it I did it with be Visionary and I just pulled down be different for the same reason because you know you move on you evolve you know and so I don't really have a project because I'm just kind of numb from the finishing this 10th novel and in the search for the Aging right yeah I'm sure I'm sure there's novels being worked on every day in some subtle way though within your mind man I'm sure I'm sure that's going on well cool man uh yeah

[01:19:52] Jacob: That's really cool I'm looking forward to hearing whatever it is that you do uh come across next um I'll be sure to follow you on social medias and all those sorts of things um you and I will be in touch Marty as far as listeners um I hope you're having a good day I hope you're drinking some water I hope you're stretching a little bit I hope you're challenging the way that you've been thinking um and uh yeah click down below if you want to check out more Marty stuff I recommend his newest book I like it so far and uh yeah I thank everybody for your time Marty thanks so much again man uh we will be in touch and I'll let you know when this thing's releasing and all that so thank thanks again I really appreciate your time thank you have a great day cheers man Merry Christmas to you too as well same to you take care bye Everybody no knowledge is Power reality is junkyard love podcast