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And that's another one where you can slow down and realize if you take a step back and take a deep breath and realize that it's in your mind. Stress is in your mind. Stress is a bag of bricks. And again, I give myself my own advice. Don't always take it every single day.
But it's a bag of bricks you pick up and if you want to start your day with a negative attitude, you can. Welcome to MICK Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement leadership. Henry Lentless Grove. No fluff, no filters, just hard-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest. Ready to break limits? Let's go!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to probably the most special episode of MICK Unplugged that we have had to date. We're talking with the Navy Seal who took out Osama bin Laden. He's a decorated combat veteran with over 400 missions under his belt and the author pulling back the curtain on the life of an elite operator. We're going to go from battlefield to bestsellers and from sacrifice to service. He's relentless. He's courageous. He's legendary, but most important. He's my freaking hero. We're talking
about the one and only Mr. Robert J. O'Neill and Robert. Hi, doing today, brother. I'm one. MICK, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's good to get a chance to sit down with him.
Man, I told you offline. I'm the honor one man. Just what you mean, not just to me, but I would say for all of the Americans here, man. Like, there's not enough thank yous. There's not enough. We love yous
that we could give you. So I just wanted to give you mine for me personally, bro. That does mean a lot. Thanks. And it was just an honor the whole time. There was a lot of stuff
that we did other than the bin Laden raid. But to be picked for that team was just a great honor. It was just a great group of guys and asked to do a really hard job that started off horribly, but we pulled it off because we knew how to work with each other. That it is, man. I just finished the documentary. Obviously, your segment, the third segment,
I probably watched 10 times. I have so many notes on that segment that I want to get to you about. But the first question, man, I like to go deeper than people's why. I call it your be cause. That thing that really is your motivator. That thing that really is what drives you. If I were to ask
you today, right? What's your be cause, brother? Oh, well, I mean, right now it's to just try to provide a better life, not that I didn't have a good life growing up, but I'm a girl dad. And I want to try to make their environment better than mine was just. And again, I was raised fine and not up, you know, nothing, nothing horrible happened. But I just want to be in a spot where I can help with,
you know, student loans or tuition. Because I've got I've got daughters, I've got, as of next semester, I'll have three daughters in college and then I have a one year old. So it's like, I got a pay attention to the older ones, but also I have free babies, maybe sitting when I need it. So I just I think it's important for everyone to realize that the core is family. And it's like anything when you build a base on the way up, you know, if you can take care, obviously family comes first, but in order to take care of your family, you need to have your own personal health, mental health, physical health, take care of yourself, take care of your family, get to know your neighbor, take care of your community, and that's going to build out just to make better people. And it's
everything like I would rather now I'm at a point instead of staring at my phone at Instagram or Twitter, I'd rather go with my neighbors, hang out and talk to real people. Because I think we're getting sucked into a place where we're looking at things that aren't real. And a lot of the forces out there want to try to divide people. And that's just not healthy. I find I'm a lot better off when I don't even look at my phone. Dude, I'm telling you, my like, my wife and I have this rule, like, every day
when we're done with our nine to five, we are close to only nine to five, we go outside, man. Oh, like, we literally just go outside, we go out back and we just become one with ourselves with nature. Sometimes our neighbors come over, we go, we walk next door, but just that, that oneness with each other, with the earth, with people, I feel like we have a generation that's following us, Robert, that doesn't understand that's what I try to connect with my kids as well, too. Like, hey, you got to be outside. Yes, I that's what the first key to, you know, as someone who deals with everything from a little PTSD to depression, the first key is to get out of bed. And that's like, if your alarm goes off,
great, if you get up without an alarm, good, get up. And then if I'm having a bad day, I'll like take my shirt off, force a smile and go stand in the sunshine, even if there's clouds, get some vitamin D, go and get outside here nature. And I think like you're saying, get outside with a walk, like, that is so good for mental health, like do, you know, 10, 20 minutes a day just outside, man, you're gonna, you're gonna find life a lot better. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I want to go to something
that I heard you say publicly in a keynote, man. And I want people to understand this. And I know you probably told the story a million times now, but for our listeners and viewers, you talked about when you got the notice that you were going to be on the team and that it was time to go, right? Still team six. And you had to tell your kids goodbye. And I don't think people understand the
brevity of that moment, man. Can you walk us through that, like from a father's perspective, but also the duty and service commitment that you had where it's like, you didn't even think about it, right? Well, it was, I would almost cheat a little bit because when we, and you know, not just a bit lot, but other ones when we say goodbye, we would try to leave at night. So that you did need to expect, I had young daughters at the time, and I didn't want to explain to them the gravity of what we're about to do. But I'd like to see them at night and be able to say, you know, and then I, you know, I'd have a 10 minute drive into work before we got on the plane. I can cry for those 10
minutes where no one's just to see me. But just as easily as I've been, I've been on the bin Laden raid was tough. My youngest daughter at the time was three. And nobody knew where we were going, because we just got back from deployment. So no one expected to go overseas, but I knew we were going somewhere where we this, the bin Laden raid was a high risk mission. It's a one way mission. And so I
told my three, and I, we couldn't leave at night. I had to leave during the day. So I told her, hey, dad's got to go to work and, you know, just a way to say a three year old goodbye. And she told me to wait, she ran upstairs to a room, and she grabbed a Hello Kitty suitcase, put a pillow and her Mr. elephant in it. And she left it by the door and said, when you get home, you're going to
take me on vacation. However, a three year old can form that sentence. And that's one of the hardest things I've ever seen. I actually just had a coffee with her because obviously it's been a few years, but yeah, saying goodbye to your family and getting back to the base, that's the hardest part. And it almost, it almost asked the question is what you're doing worth it? Is this worth it? And for us,
in that case, because so many families were affected by 9-11, and we might die, this is worth it. This is what we're here for. The passenger's on United 93 to not wake up that day to fight Al-Qaeda. I've been training to fight them. We found a lot and I'm going to go do it. And I mean, even as
morbid as it might sound, what an ending. He's going to die if we die with him. That happens. But we're going to do this. Saying goodbye to the family is hard, but once you get there, and that looks documentary, you can hear me say, I'm on this mission. This is the team and we're going to kill
him. Yeah, I love that man. Another really cool thing that I saw in the documentary was, and I had this quote written down, after the mission, or I should say after the mission, after you have done your deed to Osama bin Laden. Then you got to get out of there. And what most people didn't understand was, it wasn't easy to get out. You're trying to get to Pakistan, and you said, I'm just trying to get
to 90. I'm just trying to get to 90. It was a tough spot. You got to figure, when we went into Pakistan, we're going to a lot of Pakistan, which is actually a resort town. And we're not supposed to be there.
We didn't invade Pakistan. We're not at war with Pakistan. It's a first world country. And out of respect for people living their lives, the first people to show up would not have been Al-Qaeda or even the Pakistan military. It would have been the Pakistani police or locals that are armed, and the last thing I wanted to do was kill the policeman doing his job. So we had that very fine
line there, which means we got to get in and get out quick. But we found so much stuff there. We stayed a little bit longer together more, and tell just meanwhile, outside on our snipers, we're like, hey, the locals are gathering the cops. We'll be here. We got to go.
And so we're dealing with that. We don't want to get in a gunfight, especially there. A lot of that stuff can happen, but you got to figure, we might run out of fuel too. So we stayed extra minutes, so the helos are going longer. And then we get into helicopter, and we're leaving on a mission, we're supposed to die. But we have 90 minutes now. We got 90 minutes left on a one-way mission.
But if we can cross the border in Afghanistan in 90 minutes, we get 50 years. I get to see those kids again. And so that 90 minute flight, I found myself in a spot where, and I give myself my own advice every day, if you're worried about something right now that you're worried will not affect, you're wasting your energy. You need to get your mind off it because you're thinking the wrong stuff. So we could get shot down at any moment by a Pakistani jet that launched and justifiably, because we invaded, but worrying about a missile's not going to stop it. So I just started my stopwatch
on my wrist. And I was looking at that. I'm sitting next to guys I've been working with forever, and we're all in this together. One missile kills us all. We know that we probably wouldn't even feel it.
But it's been 10 minutes. That has been 20 minutes. Kind of looking around 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Now it's been 50 minutes. It's got to get to 90, 60, 70 minutes. And you can really, I can get
goosebumps right now. And I love sports analogies because I mean anything in life that you do successfully, you didn't really do it on your own. You got a team. Someone helped you. Someone supported your wife, your husband, your mother. Somebody supported you, teammates. So I started thinking about
Yankee Stadium's top of the seventh and no hitter. Like if you're watching it, you don't want to say anything. But I don't want to jinx it. And then it's been 80 minutes. I got to get to 90. And I started
thinking about the single greatest sporting event in American history in 1980 when Team USA, was playing the greatest hockey team ever assembled in the Soviet Union. And that team had lost, I mean, there'd be people by 10 goals. They won every gold medal since I think the early 60s and 50s. And these college kids have no business being on the ice. But now they're winning in the third period. You can hear the crowd counting down. You can hear Alan Michaels 10 seconds, five seconds,
you believe in miracles? Yes. And I'm thinking that stuff so close. And now I hear the pilot. He was flying a little faster than 90 minutes because 85 minutes in, he said, all right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're going to be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan.
Yeah. And that's I mean, that's the first time on a mission over 400, I actually started giving high fives out because this, this was good. You ever open the fridge and think what's for dinner? After a full day, that decision ought to be easy. That's where ButcherBox comes in.
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so you can choose the cuts and proteins that fit your routine. Whether you're grilling for friends, feeding the family on a Tuesday or trying to avoid another expensive takeout order, you've already got great protein ready to go. If you're looking for an easier way to get great meals on the table, give ButcherBox a try. Go to ButcherBox.com.com to get $20 off your first box, plus ground beef, steak tips, or chicken breast in every box for life with free shipping always. That's ButcherBox.com.com. Again, that's ButcherBox.com.com.com.
Make sure to use our link so they know we sent you. On Mic Unplugged, we talk about showing up with purpose. For me, that includes taking care of myself without over-complicating my day. That's what I appreciate about IM8. One drink makes my daily routine simpler and easier to stick with. IM8's daily ultimate essentials bring
16 supplements into one drink with 90 ingredients across 9 major organ systems for $2.61 a day. Co-founded by David Beckham, it was built by leading doctors and researchers. I use IM8. Give it a try. Go to im8health.com or click on the link in the description and use code MIC for a free welcome kit, 5 free travel sashades plus 10% off your order. That's code MIC at im8health.com.
Code MIC at im8health.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I got goosebumps just hearing you've retell that story that I've heard. Just hearing it in this moment, man. I still get there. Robert, you have 400 plus missions, man. I have this saying that I give to
leaders and athletes. You don't rise to the occasion. You rise or fall to your level of preparation. Yes. One of the things that I know about you and the missions that you've been on, most people don't realize is how, I don't even call it over-prepared, you guys are, but just how prepared you freakin' are and the things that you simulate and the things that you go through just because in that moment, you don't know what's gonna happen and you have to be able to react and not think. Talk to us about
preparation and why that's so important. Well, it's a fine line. You want to be prepared for contingencies. You want to think of all the stuff that could happen. If this goes wrong, what will their reaction to that be? But before you do any of that, you need to make sure you are the
master of the easy stuff. You've got to make sure you know the basics. And the easiest way that, I mean, we invent taxes. We meet Al-Qaeda. We fight the Taliban. We come up with other tactics,
but the further and more experience we got, we found ourselves getting, keep it simple, keep it simple. And what someone says, like, even after helicopter crashing in the front yard, how did you clear a compound's biggest Osama bin Laden's and the answer was simple? The guy in front of me went left, I went right and we did that over and over. And that's what we did. We mastered the basics. And the way that
I put that now is never talk yourself into an ass weapon. It'll come. You know, you don't need a nonsense. And then another key to our preparation, just doing it so much, you get comfortable not getting nervous and yelling because you'll see a lot of war movies or a lot of war footage people screaming, yelling, go, go, go, all this stuff. Pipe down. If you want to communicate very effectively with
the team, stop talking. When you're done saying what you're saying, stop saying it. If you're a salesman and your customer says, yes, shut up. Don't talk yourself into an ass whooping. Don't talk yourself out of a sale. He said, yes, sign the paperwork, shake your hand. Thank you. And that's just it. It's
just because you're talking does not mean you're communicating. An example too is some of the younger guys, because everything for us seemed to come down to a house. And so we call the close quarters battle or CQB. And a lot of guys just like to talk because they want to be part of the moment. I had a guy one time, I'll never forget it. In training, turn a corner and you pointed
up and he yelled, stairwell. And I stopped him. I said, Hey, dude, look, I saw you do that. I saw you point out I'm assuming you either saw a stairwell or an 18 foot terrorist. So we're gonna figure it out.
You don't need to yell because when you start yelling obvious stuff, you might as well be saying, here we come. Here we are. We crashed a helicopter in Bin Laden's front yard, explosion of media gun fight. We landed in the wrong spot. When that eight and a half seconds of complete chaos on the most important mission in modern history was over. And we went in his house quiet. And that's why we
were successful because they didn't know where we were or who we were. We had the enemy confused. They didn't even know it was us. They at first it might have been the Pakistan military or intelligence services coming to get them to move them. They weren't sure. And when we got in the stairwell,
especially moving up in close quarters, the only thing that was said, we ran into Khalid Bin Laden, his 20 year old son on the stairs. And actually the woman that found Bin Laden told us he would be there. She's very impressive, by the way, 100% right on everybody. But when we got the only words I really heard spoken, it was when we got to a place where Khalid was hiding and the guy up front, the number one man, the point man just whispered to him, he said, come here, come here in too differently in Urdu and Arabic. And he said, Khalid, come here, come here and confuse him. So he just
leaned down. That's how the fights start because he whispered to him right there and confused him. And then I mean, that's again, with preparation, that guy was so smart. He was prepared how to say something in two languages. He knew the number one terrorist in the world's son spoke. That's
preparation. That is wild, brother. I never would have done that. He was way smarter than me, man. I was smarter than I was scared to scare the sledgehammer and gun. I just followed people.
No, I love your analogy of keep the simple things simple, right? Like again, I tell leaders all the time, you're trying to beat down a door or a wall. Well, maybe the door was just unlocked and you could just turn them off, right? Did you try opening it? It's almost like when you get to people like in a hotel or stand up there, you can't kind of like, did anyone push the button or we just stand here like a bunch of assholes? When it is that simple, just that's one of the steps in getting to a house.
The first thing you do is check the door. And we ingrained that because when bullets are flying, that's we do with muscle memory. When bullets are flying, you might forget some of the simple stuff, like checking the door. So what we would do is if you want to be good at something, do it 10,000 times. If you want to be great, do it 100,000 times and do everything like you do anything. Little stuff like
when we're on the range, if you drop like the pistol range, rifle range, if you drop something, you don't pick it up until it's cold. Because you don't want to get in that spot wearing a gunfight. Oh, I dropped my water bottle. No, you don't need to pick it up. You need to get rounds at the enemy.
When the fighting's over and we're about to head back in the halo, then you can grab your water bottle or your magazine and you drop. And that's just good. Just good business because when the bullets are flying, you want to do it like you've been doing it. You want to everything from if you're wearing a sports code, how do you move the code to get your pistol? Which parts fast? Which parts slow? And then the muscle
memory that's slow is smooth, smooth as fast. If you want to be fast, slow down. I love that, brother. I love that. You're talking a lot faster than you realize. Think about the first time you talked in front of people
and it's like, I got a 45 minute speech. I've rehearsed it. Then you get up in front of them and you're done in 15. Because I just ran through it. It's like, oh, man, okay, I got to slow down.
I train speakers and I tell them all the time, your first five speeches that you do, if they tell you you have 30 minutes, you need to build a 50 minute speech. They're all like, what are you talking about? I'm like, just trust me, you need to build a 50 minutes speech. Like, I'm going to train you. I'm going to coach you. But there's nothing like being live for the
first few times because you don't understand your pace and you're going to blow through this. And I see folks do it all the time where it's like, okay, I have 15 minutes. What do I do? I know, right. And the key there is along with preparation, if you forget what you're talking about, just talk about something that you know. And just assume that you know more about the subject than
the audience. It was funny, my agent, when I first started my very first speech, no experience whatsoever, I was about to get ready in front of like a thousand airline captains. And I called her. I'm like, I've never given a speech before. I've been a gunfight. But am I going to faint out there? And she goes,
this is great advice for right before speech. Okay, here's what you do right now. Go have two glasses of red wine, not one, not three. Two, you'll be fine. There you go. I'm writing that down. I don't want you to
say bourbon. You just said bourbon. I was with you. Okay, I mean, well, she knows me. And if I had two burgers, I'll hit four before the speech and then I'm like, Oh, there you go. There you go. So,
you know, I call you but Montana's finest, right? Robert, I knew you got to keep it on evil, can you go from butte? Evil, can you was not my hero? Thank you. Thank you. You are growing up.
Did you envision this? No, no, I'm not from a military family. And I was never a tough guy. And this was just not an option. I knew dudes that immediately joined the Marine Corps. And then I
knew some guys that joined the Army. That's what they always wanted to do. But for me, again, it's okay to have the perfect plan. But realize if you want to make God laugh, tell them what your plan for tomorrow is because stuff's going to change. The only time the perfect plan exists is why you're planning. Once you leave stuff changed, that's why you got to be ready for contingencies.
But my perfect plan was to play college basketball, get a degree and work with my dad. And that's how the plan was going. I was in my freshman year. I was playing basketball at Montana Tech, had a bad relationship and it was one of those moments where you know what? I want to get out of town now.
And two of my buddies that were Marines, the ones I mentioned earlier, they were two years ahead of me, I'd see them when they came home. And they looked like US Marines, they looked great. Uniforms, top notch physical specimens. And I was like, you know what? I want to do that.
And I can, the Marine Corps will put me on a bus right now and I can go to Paris Island and join the Marine Corps. I got to leave town. And that's how it started. And then I went to the Marine recruiting station. But again, it's sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. The Marine recruiter
was literally out to lunch and the Navy guy was there. So I went over to the Navy guy because my two Marines told me the Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy. It's just the men's department, which is kind of cool. So I walked in there just to ask the Navy guy, if it's part of Navy, where's the Marine? He said, why do you want the Marine? I said, I want to be a sniper. He said,
look, go further. We have snipers in the Navy. You need to be a seal first sign right here. And I didn't know what a seal was. Didn't know how to swim. And I was thinking, I'm kind of
naive at 19, but here's a professional recruiter. Why is he going to lie to me? And so I signed. And that's it. And but the cool thing about that is I love referencing the butterfly effect decision you make right now good or bad in 30 years is going to have a profound effect on your life.
I mentioned my daughters. I was just talking to them a couple of minutes ago. And I'll remind them if that Marine recruiter was not at RVs at 1130 on a Wednesday, you would not be alive. Because I would join the Marine Corps and go on to North Carolina instead of Virginia. Wow. Is that crazy? Think about that? That's crazy. So you didn't know how to swim, right?
And knowing what I know, yeah, some point you had to go to Buds, right? So what was Buds right, man? Well, my first thought is I should have joined the Navy als, just Aaron Land instead of Sierra and Land. But I did have someone show me how to swim before I left. I'm just briefly a couple strokes.
Again, just being lucky and a fool with a guy that was having to be going on a swimming scholarship somewhere. And he taught me, but that was going to be I'm not going to quit, but I'll probably fail to swim. But being positive attitude, I get to live in Cornell for a while, then I'll get sent to a ship and then back and do Montana in four years. But the advice that I got, and I've said this before, and it just stuck with me, is an instructor told me before SEAL training, you've probably read the books at this point or seen the movies, regardless of what you've been told, this course is not impossible. People actually graduate. Look at me. I'm living proof. So I'm never going to ask you to do anything
impossible, but I'm going to make you do something very hard, follow by something very hard, follow by something harder day after day for eight straight months. And that sounds like a lot to get from now to eight months from now. But don't think about it that way, because that's not how you achieve a long term goal. Do it like this. Wake up in the morning on time, make your bed the right way, and then brush your teeth. That's three wins. You just started your day with three victories.
Good start. Make it to the four AM workout on time. As I'm beating you, don't think about the pain, concentrate on your next goal in life, which is breakfast. Now, after breakfast, get to lunch, after lunch, your next goal in life is dinner. After dinner, do everything you need to do to get back inside that perfectly made bed, because you took the time for yourself in the morning to make your bed the right way, regardless of how bad today was. And it will be bad. Tomorrow's a clean slate,
and tomorrow's a fresh start. And when you feel like quitting, which you will, do not quit right now. That's a motion quit tomorrow. If you can keep quitting tomorrow, you can do anything. And you simplified it. And that's what taught me. The short term goals
equal long term goals. Don't overwhelm yourself with the skyscraper at the top of the empire state building. Get to the second floor. Don't quit today, quit tomorrow. Just quit tomorrow. And even say to yourself, well, this sucks. I'm definitely quitting tomorrow.
And then tomorrow come the man. This is horrible. I'm definitely going to quit tomorrow. And you can even tell your friends that, hey, tomorrow, you're going to join me. Then, see you tomorrow. Hey, tomorrow, come join me. We'll ring that bell tomorrow. We're quitting.
And that kind of helps with admitting. Yeah, this is really hard. Not impossible. I mean, look at him. He graduated. I don't know why that instructor gave me good advice because
ceiling structures are pretty mean historically. Man, man, man. So, so buds was literally about just getting to tomorrow, getting to the next goal. And I guess it wasn't even tomorrow. The next goal is four hours from now.
Yeah, the next evolution that finishing the swim five minutes before someone so that you have five minutes to rest before the five mile run, little goals like that. But I'm just learning the short term goals, not worrying about the stuff you can affect you. I mean, buzz was so hard. That's it. Buzz is a basic underwater demolition. Seal training. It was so hard. I remember knowing I had a pass.
I know I came from somewhere, but I do not have a future. I'm just going to be in hell. And I accepted them to the point where, you know, there's evolution, evolution, meal, evolution, meal. But then Monday came around after 40 days on San Clemente Island. And they're like, okay, you need to go to dental and medical, get your records and your service record. Check out. You're going to be heading out to Seal
team two and graduating on Friday. And it's like, wait, I'm graduating. And it's almost like, oh, man, I got to be a Navy SEAL. Now, you guys haven't taught me anything. What am I supposed to do now?
And it's kind of scary, but that's it's almost it's cool because this is good for life too. No matter where you are, you're going to get used to it. So don't freak out off the bat. You get used to it. And one of my favorite things, I can't even for living in the moment, I can't take credit for this. But
somebody said, wherever you are, be there. And if you make yourself available, stuff can happen. I mean, look at me, my wife calls me the luckiest unlucky man in the world, because I've actually, I had an army, a special forces guy say, I remind the forest gump of the Navy only I'm not as good looking. I can't run as fast, which is kind of funny. But just because I was available, I found myself on the mountain after the Lone Survivor marks the trail. I left my four year old daughters
preschool on my birthday, good Friday, April 10, 2009 as the lead jumper to rescue Captain Phillips. And we get on Easter Sunday, 16 hours from Virginia into the ocean, I found myself on the bin Laden raid. I was on the base when Bullbergol walked off. And it's not like I'm a hero, I just was available. I didn't, I didn't slack off. I'm gonna do this to the fullest. And just just be in there.
You might get picked for the team. You ever open the fridge and think, what's for dinner? After a full day, that decision ought to be easy. That's where ButcherBox comes in. ButcherBox delivers 100% grass-fed beef, organic chicken, wild caught seafood, and more. All source to standards
they can actually tell you about. They've already done the research and made the tough sourcing decisions. So all you have to do is decide what's for dinner. When it's time for Hibachi, my protein comes from ButcherBox and ButcherBox only. Every box is customizable, so you can choose the cuts and proteins that fit your routine. Whether you're grilling for friends, feeding the family on a
Tuesday, or trying to avoid another expensive takeout order, you've already got great protein ready to go. If you're looking for an easier way to get great meals on the table, give ButcherBox a try. Go to butcherbox.com.com.com to get $20 off your first box, plus ground beef, steak tips, or chicken breast in every box for life. With free shipping always, that's butcherbox.com.com. Again, that's butcherbox.com.com. Be sure to use our link so they know we sent you.
On Mic Unplugged, we talk about showing up with purpose. For me, that includes taking care of myself without overcomplicating my day. That's what I appreciate about IM8. One drink makes my daily routine simpler and easier to stick with. IM8's daily ultimate essentials bring 16 supplements into one drink with 90 ingredients across nine major organ systems for $2.61 a day. Co-founded by David Beckham, it was built by leading doctors
and researchers. I use IM8. Give it a try. Go to IM8health.com.com or click on the link in the description and use code MIC for a free welcome kit, 5 free travel sash 8s plus 10% off your order. That's code MIC at IM8health.com.com. code MIC at IM8health.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the
Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey, there it is. That's my leadership lesson number one actually for leaders. Be present.
That's it. Be present, be available. That's what your team needs the most out of you as a leader. Present and available. You know what else is a leader too? Because I do tell people that
panic is contagious. Like if we see an airport all the time, but we all complain about why is everyone lined up and why we box up and we're getting on the plane. Why do we always do that? Because we're herd animals and panic is contagious. That's why we ran out of toilet paper in 2020.
Because someone bought it all. I don't know why I can panic. But as a leader and people don't think of this, as a leader, you know what's really contagious is calm. Because nobody knows what you're thinking. They don't feel you're adrenaline or you're fear. But if they see you calm, they will
become them being calm will calm you down. So that comes back to slow and smooth. Talk slowly, take a step and breathe because you're actually moving a hell of a lot faster than you realize. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You know, you just dropped the quote. And here's what I'm going to give you a
shout out. So a book that has changed my mentality from a leader perspective. And I always felt like I was a great leader. But great people get better, right? The operator, right?
Love, love, love, love, love that book. You have some amazing quotes in there. The first one is what did you say? Nothing is scary and stress is a choice, man. Like talk to people through that a little bit. Yeah, it's I mean, you don't need to be afraid, but you do need to realize being afraid
is not a problem. Fear is healthy. It makes you make you think more clearly, you know, without fear there wouldn't be courage. But what was the second part of my quote? I know I talked about fear. What was
the second part of that one? Stress is a choice. Stress is a choice. Yes, it is. And that's another one where you can slow down and realize if you take a step back and take a deep breath and realize that you're it's in your mind, stress is in your mind, stress is a bag of bricks. And again, I give myself
my own advice. Don't always take it every single day. But it's a bag of bricks you pick up and if you want to start your day with a negative attitude, you can, or you can throw stress out the window and you should, because it's in your mind. And it's like the example is a guilt. What's the point of guilt?
It's that plays over, man. You're not getting it back. You learn from it. You learn from failure. Stop being guilty about it. Learn from it. Try not to do it again. And if you do try to learn from it again,
there's stuff in the past of the past. When I talked to football teams, I will tell the offense, it doesn't matter why it's second and 15, guys. It just is. Right. So you can, you can bicker about it all day long and blame someone. But the thing we all have in common right now is
that clock is ticking. What are we going to do? We're just here. It's like they've been laundry helicopter crash. We didn't know what we're outside. They opened the door for us when we were going to
try to blow it up. Didn't know why they were in there. My guys, but they just were. Let's talk about it later. We have a job. Right. Got a job to do. Got a job to do. Another quote, man. I went
just briefly go through. You said the scariest thing you ever did was leaving the Navy. Yeah. Because again, that was the unknown. And I actually know veterans that would rather go to combat and fill out a resume because combat makes sense to them going into a job. I mean, it's that's not normal
for a lot of special operators, especially. And we work mainly with dudes. So we're, you know, it's little things like, Hey, a job interview spit out the dip, wear different parachutes. Here's how you tie a wins or not, you know, dress for the job you want. Because like seals will show up. I
call a tank top and flip flops, Navy seal business casual. That's not the case. But see, it doesn't make sense to them because they can show up and kick someone's ass that's their job. But when you get out of the comfort zone, that's it, you're going to be good at it. And you got to realize the skills you've accrued along the way, just as simple as the stress management team building, problem solving, and, you know, listening, leading and being led, you bring that to a company, you just got to get to the front door and sit down with someone. And that's, it's a fairly unknown,
like anybody else. It's almost refreshing to know that guys like Navy seals will be nervous about an interview with no Merrill Lynch. That why would that scare that it's kind of funny? But it's true. And again, it's because that's something else we all have in common is there's unknown to all of us.
But once you get into it, you're going to get used to it. It's going to be normal eventually. Yeah, man. Really good stuff, brother. You know, I told you Robert Irvine, celebrity stuff, one of my really good friends and my mentor, his passion is all about helping, supporting and giving to veterans and servicemen and women. And that has become a passion of mine. So one shout out to Robert
Irvine for that. But one of the things that I've learned always being in front of veterans in particular is while they appreciate the thank you for the service, the conversation should really be about how was your service, right? Like thanking them is one thing, but talking because what I've learned is sometimes just being able to talk for you for a veteran is like a dream, right? Like it's one of those things where like thank you for allowing me to share what my service was like. So I love your take on that a little bit too. That's really good because yeah, a lot of people don't know how to
respond to thank you for your service. It's like, okay, thank you. I actually had one guy that instead of saying, you're welcome, he would say, you're worth it, which is a good answer. But saying to someone how was your service? That's a much cooler way to open the door because it does open a dialogue and let's talk about it because I mean, I mean, my experience in the middle here, even at the top of the top, we can make anything suck. So a lot of the jobs suck. I mean, if we can make skydiving and
scuba diving suck, we can make a lot of things suck. So it's not, you know, it's almost like that poster of the poor dude throwing a grenade at someone saying, I just joined for the college money. But but saying, how was your service? That's almost a better way to do it just because it gets people talking and they get to explain because none of our veterans have like a platform like I do, but they definitely had a more dangerous job than I did. Because you know, we, as Navy SEALs, we were able to fight on our terms and we could fight at night and we can see at night the enemy can't imagine being that 20-year-old dude from Georgia who's driving down route Irish in Iraq wondering, am I going to blow up now? Am I
going to blow up now? Am I going to blow up now? And he does that for 13 straight months every single second. That's going to wear on it. And probably you've seen your friends get blown up. That's going to
wear on you. So there's a lot of people out there that have done a lot of stuff that no one even realizes. But if you did something as simple as how was your service? Even in an airport. That's a conversation starter, like you said. Yeah, that's been my conversation starter and my way of showing
true appreciation. Getting people to talk. So Robert, man, you've been so gracious to your time. I'm like, where can people follow, find you? I know you don't. You don't clam on social, but you are a great
follow on Instagram. I'll just tell you, you know, you can. Yeah. So my, well, Robert J on eel.com is my hub. And that's right, my apparel. I'm actually the only one that has a hard coverage of the operator
left where reprinting the publisher is. But I will, I personalize and sign them that Robert J on eel.com, which is fun because I'll put anything on there. Again, more being more personal instead of like a tough guy. I will within reason put whatever you want. My favorite one to this day was a dude bought one of my books for one of his like a guy he worked with. And he had me sign, dear Jeff,
you kill it selling mattresses like I killed bin Laden, love Rob, like super stuff like that. But it's more of a human element type stuff. But also my apparel, I'm wearing one of my shirts now because I've gotten into the cannabis business because that helps me with post-traumatic stress, helps me with sleep deprivation, things like that. So this was a headline that said, seal theme split. It's kind of so I have an apparel line. And again, a lot of it's tongue in cheek because I'm a big believer when
you're running a team, if morale is high, people want to be at work, they're going to work harder. There's nothing wrong. Never lose your sense of humor. It's okay to have a good time. But yeah, so right there has all my social media is Mikuya, MCHOOYA. And that's a funny story because people ask me
why is it that? Well, I was still in the Navy when Twitter came out and my buddy said, hey, there's this new thing. And if you make up a name, you can just mess with people and no one will ever know. So just make up a name. And I'm like, well, I'm Irish so Mick and who I buzzed Mikuya. Now, and then I woke
up with like 15,000 followers and I guess I'm Mikuya. But also at the operator podcast, and by the way, and that podcast comes out usually weekly. So yeah, an amazing podcast, by the way, I like calling you the truth because when you're comical to you, like you talk about situations, you talk about news and you give it the truth. Like there's no angles, which is why I love that. Because you know, a lot of times I'm a podcast or two and I like to think I'm the truth. But a lot
of times people like angles to try to garner attention or praise, like you are the truth. You're going to give people the truth, whether they might hear it or not, it's the truth. I'll give them my version of the truth. But also in the comments, if someone calls me out on being wrong and I am, I'll admit it. Because I think that's how you learn to. No one's ever learned from being in a room with everyone
that agrees with each other. You know, the way you learn is conversation not by shutting someone down or canceling them. Unfortunately, though, we do live in a time where it might be coming out of it where you can lie and lie and lie. You won't get called out. But if you tell the truth and defend someone, you can get canceled. So but the truth, I mean, even with my, you know, my college age,
daughters, we have conversations about everything from current events to socialism to Donald Trump to go by and they have different opinions, but I listen to them and I want to hear, you know, how are you going to learn from someone if you don't attempt to put yourself in their shoes? Where are they coming from? That's right. That's right. Nothing wrong with having a conversation.
That's right. Cool. So Robert J. O'Neal, I need everyone to go there now. You can get a personalized copy of the book. There's some apparel. I always do this with books that I enjoy. So here's what I'm
going to do. I'm going to do it for five. And here's what I'm going to do. Give me what you want personal from Robert as your inscription for him to sign. I'm going to pick the five ones that I think are the best and I'm going to order them on your behalf. So the first five. That's so cool. Thank
you. Yeah, because one again, you're my hero. I can't, there's nothing I could ever say or do that could show my appreciation for what you've done for us. But I want for five of my viewers and listeners, we're going to get a book personalized. Cool. Well, Robert, I appreciate you more than you know.
Thank you for taking time out of your tremendously busy schedule to spend time with us. This news is a lot of money. I'm humbled you gave me the time. Thanks so much. We can do this again. This is fun.
You got it. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go on, we should. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Nick Unplugged. If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it. And most
of all, make a plan and take action. Because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello at mittunplugged.com. Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.