Retired Navy SEAL and CEO Mike Sarraille | Becoming an Everyday Warrior

In this episode, Mike Sarraille, a retired Navy SEAL, Recon Marine, and Scout Sniper, shares his incredible journey from a young boy inspired by Hollywood and books on Vietnam to becoming a Navy SEAL and later navigating the business world as CEO of the Talent War Group. Sarraille discusses the lessons he learned about overcoming adversity, the importance of suffering and accountability, and how these lessons can be applied to everyday life and business leadership.

The episode also explores Sarraille's approach to failure, the concept of the 'Everyday Warrior,' and practical advice for becoming better versions of ourselves. Additionally, Sarraille stresses the significance of training, both in the military and the business realm, to prepare for high-pressure situations and achieve greatness. Mike's insights offer valuable lessons on personal growth, accountability, and the relentless pursuit of excellence.

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About Mike Sarraille

Mike is an established keynote speaker who works with small businesses and Fortune 500 companies on the principles of leadership, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and living a life of balance and purpose. He’s the founder and CEO of Talent War Group, a successful management consulting and executive search firm, and ATTA, a lifestyle and apparel brand focused on community and born out of his Everyday Warrior concept.

During his 20-year military career, he served as a Recon Marine, Scout-Sniper, and retired a U.S. Navy SEAL Officer. Much of his career was in the Special Operations community, including the elite Joint Special Operations Command. Along with careers in the military and business, Mike co-authored the best-selling book, The Talent War: How Special Operations and Great Organizations Win on Talent, and enjoys a partnership with Men’s Journal as columnist and host of The Everyday Warrior series and podcast.

Connect with Matt Mayberry
https://www.mattmayberryonline.com/

Transcript

Guest Introduction: Mike Sarraille

0:00

Welcome to another episode of Get Better Today. I'm your host, Matt Mayberry. I'm so excited to share with you today an extraordinary guest, Mike Cirelli, a 20 year military veteran, retired Navy SEAL, Recon Marine. Scout Sniper on this podcast, we talk everything about his journey of becoming an ABC or we talk about how he is contributing in the business world as the CEO and founder of the Talent War Group and all of the lessons he learned about overcoming adversity, the training that's required to suffer and come out of the other end as a winner. And how can you apply those lessons to life? I really think you're going to enjoy this episode. I know I sure did. Please enjoy this podcast episode with Mike Cirelli.

Mike Sarraille's Journey: From Childhood to Military

matt_mayberry 0:59

Mike, we're going to dive into a lot here today. everything from leadership, culture, high performance, a little bit of your background, I'd love to start, though, for everybody that might not be familiar with your incredible journey. Talk more about your backstory. the man that you are now, the man that Mike Cirelli is right now, and everything that led up to this moment for you in your life, both personally and professionally. Can you share a little bit more about your backstory and kind of where you grew up and really the values that were instilled in you as a man to help you get to where you are right now? Man,

Mike's Transition from Marine Corps to Navy SEAL

Mike's Post-Military Life and Business Ventures

mike_sarraille 1:28

incredible journey. It's my journey. Um, but born and raised in the Bay Area. We've been a long time Bay Area family. In fact, when we came from Italy 1899 to San Francisco My parents are still there and my sister and nephews are still there slowly moving out of the area unfortunately due to the state of California, which is a lovely state it will recover but didn't come from a military family and just the military and special operations somehow grabbed a hold of me and If you're going to trace it back to anything, it's probably Hollywood and the books I used to read on Vietnam as a kid. And I think there's a lot of young men that answer that challenge. Much like with, you know, you with football. Do I have to, do I have what it takes to make it to the NFL? And you did. I had the same question for myself. Do I have what it takes to serve alongside these heroes? And so did a short stint at the University of Colorado Boulder. I chose the outdoors over the classroom and quickly worked my way into the Marine Corps. Um, I came from a good Roman Catholic family, uh, really uneventful in a lot of ways. Parents poured into us while, while running their own businesses, uh, had us in a lot of sports, you know, music. Um, they had us engaged and, um, you know, I was a pretty unruly kid, uh, much as you were. Um, And even though my parents were trying to reinforce all the lessons, not only from their failures, but successes and just in line with Christianity. I just didn't want to listen. 15 to 18, I didn't want to listen. I met a force recon Marine who impressed the living hell out of me. I must've weighed 135 pounds, sopping wet when I came out of high school. And it was like, man, whatever part of the, or whatever organization you're a part of, I want in, help me enlist. And became a Recon Marine and Scout Sniper. The Marine Corps is There's a reason the Marine Corps never hits or fails to hit the recruiting uh, numbers. They do. It is a talent attractor. And boot camp was phenomenal for me. It really started me on the path of understanding what my parents were trying to teach me. Uh, really developed me into a man. Uh, became a Recon Marine, Scout Sniper, and eventually the Marine Corps said, hey, you're doing well, we want to send you back to school. and become an officer. And this was pre 9 11. And I looked at my other more senior enlisted guys and I say, Hey, what should I do? And they're like, dude, go. Go get an education, come back and effect more change because we're going to be probably sitting in the Persian Gulf on a ship for six months, um, and never do a thing. So I went to Texas A& M, which was not my first choice. Very, uh, very interesting shift in, uh, cultures from San Diego to a small, uh, farm town, college station. And made the decision to switch to the SEALs. And went to Marine OCS, um, came back, finished my degree, and then got commissioned in the SEAL team, spent 15 years in the SEAL teams. Started on the West Coast, mostly Iraq deployments during the heydays, as we say. And then made it, or tried out, and made it into JSOC, which is known as your Tier 1 Forces or National Mission Force. Uh, really a place that has a high bar, and I had to just claw and fight to stay there. As long as I could, and I stayed there for six years, but in that community, they call that being a guest. Um, because a lot of guys stay there for 15, 20, 25 years and have just an insane amount of combat deployments. And eventually, it was my time after my 10th combat deployment. Uh, my last tour was at the University of Texas, NROTC as an instructor, where I finished my MBA because I knew nothing about the business world. We run cost centers. Of course, when you enter into the, uh, the business world, they're profit centers. And so really had to build that, let's say, financial acumen, that business acumen. And I've started a number of companies, some failures by textbook definitions. Some are doing well. I've written two books, The Talent War, which was a bestseller in 11 categories in Amazon, and The Everyday Warrior, which you see behind me that Men's Journal picked up. And that was more in the self leadership category. Um, my books are not about me. It's usually what I've watched amazing leaders do. Um, and the habits that they had within their lives, the attributes, um, the character and really use a guided journal for people just trying to optimize themselves to, to, to lead from where they're at and become a better version of them, uh, themselves. And, uh, also started legacy expeditions where we do extreme expeditions, skydiving into areas like Everest, not onto Everest. Uh, people get that wrong. Uh, we did all seven continents in seven days. Um, which set four world records has never been done. Um, I'm having fun. I'm only five years retired and I'm still figuring out what is my path. I've got my fingers in a lot of pots, but there's pots by design are, uh, linked almost like a Venn diagram. So I'm enjoying free enterprise because in a sense we didn't go into the military for free enterprise, but we did defend it with our lives and the opportunity to partake in it. Is is amazing. It's a challenge. I would rather go back to war than start another business. Um, which means I'm just so new to business that I've gotta make all the mistakes I made as a young seal in order to get that experience and that tenure in the trenches we call the private sector. Um, I don't like taxes. I've, I've under, I've, I've, I've, uh, come to understand that, uh, I think it's theft by, by, uh, legal Uh, but hey, that's the system in which we, uh, we operate and I've gotta adjust.

matt_mayberry 7:08

one thing that really stuck out to me, obviously it sounds like that gentleman that you met when you were younger. And after you came through that really turbulent, challenging time, you know, the recon Marine that you mentioned, but what made you want to make the shift to become a seal? Was there something that just clicked that were, you know, this is, this is why I want to become a seal.

The Importance of Leadership and Accountability

mike_sarraille 7:27

So, you know, I wrote about this in the talent war and the talent war is how great organization or how special operations and great organizations went on talent. What people don't realize, and I was just speaking to a company, 4, 000 people in New Mexico, is you have to make your organization part of your DNA. You have to have some pride because you represent your organization when you're out in town. And Staff Sergeant Ben Post represented the Marine Corps extremely well. Humbly confident, kind, empathetic, respectful. And as a young man, who doesn't want to be just like that individual? Um, but Special Operations, and predominantly the book was about, uh, Army Special Forces, also known as Green Berets. So I got a lot of heat from my community, uh, friends for, for writing about them. But they created this process. They know what they're looking for and they designed the process around it so they could collect data. and evolve the process through, uh, through years. What was required of a Army Special Forces soldier, a Green Beret in the, in the GWAT, the Global War on Terror, is vastly different than what they require now in an even more dynamic, asymmetric, uh, you know, world environment. Um, but always represent your organization and you want your people to be the talent magnet that draws people in. Because basically Ben Post was a referral and there's no stronger hiring. Then referrals, when somebody says, Hey, we need to get this individual, this man or woman into the organization. Uh, I'm lining them up for an interview. I vouch for them. That usually goes a long way.

matt_mayberry 8:50

What is the number one lesson you've taken away from being a Navy SEAL? you hear a lot about, you know, like me being an athlete, right? Majority of my life, everyone talks about, you know, teamwork and culture and leadership. And, certainly a lot of the lessons I learned about business and everything that I have been doing for the past decade and traveling the world and helping organizations build a world class culture and, you know, really drive and cultivate transformational leadership. when I look at premier teamwork and putting it all on the line. And coming together as one single unified unit. There's no greater example than service, right? There's no greater example than our military, particularly Navy SEALs. What would you say is the greatest learning lesson that you've taken away from being a Navy SEAL?

mike_sarraille 9:34

There are so many, but if I have to get granular, uh, I type back to, uh, you know, Matt, you've got to understand. I'm still reflecting on my service. I'm five years out and I've evolved. People used to ask me, how did I lead the military? And I give the textbook definition of decentralized command and powering your people. And it was sort of insincere and it was actually my wife that led me to, to, to the final, what it would have settled on. Um, cause she hears me talk about it so much, but I led through love, but it's love rooted in accountability. And when you think about it, the highest form of compassion or love is accountability. If there's parents listening, You see your child do something wrong, hopefully with, with professionalism tact, you pull them aside, maybe using the Socratic method and say, Hey, what were you thinking right there? And how did you expect the outcomes to result in your favor? And my leaders in the SEAL teams, especially at JSOC, um, they just poured into us, but there was this overall, like they, they painted the picture of, of the culture of, Hey, we're a culture of accountability because without accountability, we don't have standards. And so they, they turned accountability across the culture into self accountability. And one of the amazing things, and you've heard of this before, uh, I mean, even Simon Sinek and Steven Kotler came to our command and they both wrote about accountability in a specific technique we use called the after action review. I like to call it the art of the debrief. It is a. Cost free, other than time, cost free, probably one of your greatest tools to both organizational and individual development. And after a mission or training, guys would pull in and say, okay, hey, what was planned? What really happened? What did we do well? Start, stop, continue. Let's, let's keep doing that. More importantly, where did we fail or where did we do poorly? And what do we need to do to fix that? And do we have information that needs to be spread across our entire organization? And people, again, if you want to go to Project Aristotle. of, of, uh, Google, you know, psychological safety and, and being, you know, the feeling of being able to be vulnerable. We would be vulnerable and we'd say, Hey guys, before I get called out on it, I made this mistake. I don't know if you saw it or not, but if you end up in the position, here were the circumstances. This was my train of thought and it did not end well. Uh, we still succeeded at the mission, but if you end up in my same position, don't do this. What do you guys think I should have done? And we're talking, nobody's saying, Hey, stupid idiot. No. Everyone wants to improve the individual performance because that leads to the aggregate performance of the entire organization and culture. And so we were high and of course self discipline, but extremely high in accountability. And it's no different than, uh, leading your children as leading your employees and pulling that young employee aside and saying, Hey, let's walk through that. And my legacy depends on making sure that you are so well trained that when I leave. You actually accelerate at a faster rate.

The Role of Love in Leadership

matt_mayberry 12:29

I love it. I love it. Absolutely. Love it. But one of the things that you really said that really caught my eye was love and accountability, right? And when you're laying it all online, I mean, you guys are putting your life on the line, mind you, right? It's not just a winner loss, like in sports, like, hey, there's a victor and someone coming out of there. That's losing the game. That's not what this is. So, uh, you know, when people hear you say when, hey, Mike, what is the number one thing that you've learned? From being a Navy SEAL, and you talk about love. I mean, what? Why do you think that that is missing in the business world? Right? Simultaneously, I call it the balancing act, right of loving your people, but also holding them accountable and driving high performance, right? It's a balancing act. It's not just loving on them and letting them get away with everything. It's got to be a balancing act every single day. You know, when I, you know, for me, like with the best coaches I've had in sports, they did just that, you know, engaging the heart and mind and they did it through love. And holding each other accountable. Most importantly, what you talked about, self accountability, making sure that they were leading the way, exemplifying the behaviors each and every day. But I really want to ask you, you know, why do you think in your experience, because now you've worked with plenty of organizations all over the world, why do you feel that love is missing in the business world? I will say that I think it's gotten better, but I still think a lot of leaders, a lot of leaders in business, they still missed the mark with that.

Mike's Reflections on Legacy and Impact

mike_sarraille 13:55

You know, I think what a lot of leaders fail to recognize is that, yes, you have to be outcome oriented. I've heard some bad narratives of, you know, getting away from outcome based leadership. No, if you don't put wins, especially I use college football, if a coach doesn't put W's on the board, that coach is not going to be in that position very long. But what a lot of leaders fail to recognize that, yes, you've got to drive results, but you also have to create more leaders. And the military is designed that way. I'm, I'm, I'm blanking on this general's name, but he wrote a good article and Matt will send it to you afterwards. Um, where he basically said, Hey, uh, per capita, the military produces more leaders in the private sector. We've got a process. The military is a leadership incubator. And even though it's one of the best leadership incubators in the world, we still have certain people that miss the mark. They just lack character. Um, and let me hit two other things. Uh, one, There's a difference between like and love, and this really is what comes down to, to, to, to professionalism. Did I love all my brothers and sisters in arms? 100%. In fact, I loved my men and women a lot more than hated the enemy. And that's what drove me on the battlefield, making sure that all our people come home. And we were, we're not always successful at that. But people ask, Oh man, you must've liked all your SEALs. My answer is absolutely not, and not all of them like me, but that's fine. Whether there was personality conflicts, we can come in on Monday. And despite those personality conflicts, we were 100 percent aligned due to, in large part to pride, self pride and unit pride, organization pride to get the mission done. We always say mission first, people always. Um, and then lastly, you know, you said about life and death on the battlefield. Business is life and death. And you know, my job is to translate what I did to the business world. If you want to look at December of 2021, I'm sorry, 2001. When Enron went bankrupt, total culture, totally devoid of accountability and integrity from the top down, because you talk about behaviors and people will be what they can see. So if your CEO is engaged in corrupt practices and everyone below him sees that, that's now the new norm. That's socially acceptable within that culture. But you 401ks were completely wiped out. So I, I, I try to bring that, that I don't want to say seriousness, but the gravity of when you have employees, they're depending on that money to put food on the table, to educate their kids. So, you know, for leaders out there, not everyone is fit. I, I, I totally believe in lead where you're at, no matter what role you're in or what level you're in, in an organization. But you have to realize the gravity of leading people. And if you can't love your people and pour into them, Then you're going to have a real rough go and they're going to know it. People will follow positional authority and that produces the bare minimum results. But if you actually go to relationship based leadership and then the Zen and the art of creating more leaders, people will go to hell and back to you. I mean, I, when I say there are leaders I would take a bullet for, I mean it. One of the best was a guy named Chris Fussell who helped pen the book Team of Teams with Stanley McChrystal and then wrote his own called One Team. He's the president of McChrystal Group, the consulting firm. That guy, in the first time, when I served under his command, he said, Hey, I want the four officers in my office every morning at 10 a. m. on Friday. And we have a lot to do. The Global War on Terror is going on. We need to train. And I'm like, What the F, man? Does this guy think we have the time just to sit around and talk? And so I went in with a chip in my shoulder. We sit down and after 30 minutes, I was like a school child leaning forward, my, my chin in my hands and I looked forward to those meetings every Friday because he was trying to give us all his mistakes and educate us and make us better. And when he would cancel those meetings, we would be like, whiskey, tango, foxtrot. What's up, sir? You can't cancel these because he had his own things that he, he had to knock out. Um, I, I'm concerned about my leg was my legacy always. What will my companies do when I'm gone? And I don't need my companies to flail to fill my own ego of saying, Hey, I was, I was irreplaceable. I want them to succeed. And I know I've done my job if they accelerated at a greater rate. But more importantly, what are people going to say at my funeral? Hey, that's a guy who poured it. You've heard the phrase, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And if you are just devoid of any kindness, empathy, respect, or developing relationships, you're going to produce the bare minimum, bare minimum results for your, uh, your organization.

matt_mayberry 18:36

Absolutely. I mean, I think it goes back to the lines of like leadership is a tremendous responsibility. I think everybody, everybody has their own reasoning or aspirations of why they want to rise up, you know, through the ranks and become a leader and, you know, advance their career. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's a tremendous responsibility. If you don't love people, if you don't enjoy being around people and developing people and prioritizing people's development, you'll never be a thriving, great leader. And I think, you know, it comes back to everything that you've talked about with the great leaders that change your life, right? That I mean, when they canceled the meeting, you were in, you were distraught, right? You were like, what's going on? We need this meeting. And I can relate to that from a football sense. Like the best coaches that I had, they were hard on me. They certainly were hard on me. And at that time, I may have hated their guts. Right. But 10 years, 20 years later, I couldn't be more thankful for them. I couldn't be more grateful for all of the lessons that they've really instilled in me. and one of the things that you just mentioned that really sparked and struck a chord with me was legacy. I know that you said that you're still working out your impact and your journey and navigating through that, even though I already think you're doing a hell of a job as we sit right now, Mike, what do you want your legacy to be?

The Challenges of Transitioning from Military to Business

mike_sarraille 19:53

You know, madam, I'm going to take that in an indirect way. Um, you know, you have to be a master of empathy. When you're in that role, and it's almost like, as my friend, Rich Davini, who wrote the book, The Attribute, says, uh, the 25 hidden drivers to optimal performance. It's almost like empathy on a dimmer switch. We've got to be high on empathy, loving fathers, loving husbands. But then when we go do what we do, the very dirty side of our job, you've got to dial that down to, uh, to zero. And I think when I left the military, it just stayed at zero. I want to make sure that I'm moving forward. And I'm having a rough go with some of my companies. Um, losing partners and recognizing that it just was not a good fit. You know, it's, it's like dating and you realize, yeah, we, we don't want to, we don't want to get married moving forward. That hits me hard. That hits me really hard. And I know some people have built up the scar tissue to say, hey, that's just business. Hopefully you handle yourself with professionalism and grace and can come back two years later and have a beer. But I'm having a real. Um, and a lot of them are special operations, you know, former special operations or retired special operations guys in recognizing that they did very well in the system of the military, but entrepreneurship was just, um, the lack of support in, in the tier one forces. We had like 15 support personnel to every one operator. We, I mean, whatever we wanted, we got. And I've never seen a more resource constrained environment than the business world. I have, and I've, I've now called them warriors within the private sector, warriors within their respective professions. And I don't see people with military backgrounds. I seek business leaders who've never served in the military that have been highly successful. And those are my new mentors and coaches, but my legacy, I want it to be one of impact that I helped people be better, uh, versions of themselves. That I helped organizations improve the culture so people are happier and more effective. But I want to make sure I'm doing it with grace and professionalism. And that is a big concern of mine. I've come to realize, but I'm still not over the hurdle of business. Sometimes certain relationships just don't work out. And when I have to terminate somebody to let them go, that still is hitting me hard. Because I look internally and say, What did I do? To fail them, to get them, as you just talked about your coaches, to get them to a high bar, to have high standards. The reason your coaches did that is they wanted you to have high standards. Much like, again, you take it back to parenting. What do we all want as parents? We want to produce kind, respectful, empathetic, strong, mentally strong, uh, contributing humans to society who have the ability to stand on their own two feet, to learn, and then pass it on to our grandkids. And, um Yeah. Legacy is always, always on my mind and partly given my profession. Um, I don't want to, I don't want to let the guys down who didn't come home because they gave their lives so that we could. And so you call that a little bit of survivor's guilt. Uh, I stop every morning and, you know, go through a little session of gratitude and remembrance that they gave me this opportunity and I'm not going to waste it. Whether I have 10 more years of my life, 20, 30, 50. Um, this is an opportunity I'm extremely thankful for because I've seen men, uh, give their lives for R today.

matt_mayberry 23:31

Yeah, the ultimate sacrifice. I mean, legacy is so important to me as well, Mike. And I think a lot of that is we can take everything that we do so much for granted, right? I mean, every single day we're, we're striving for a new goal. We're striving for a new milestone where we're reaching for achievement. We're go, go, go, go quicker, faster, jump higher. You know, something that really helped me in my life. I had a mentor once who. Who told me to really take a weekend, you know, really take a weekend all day saturday all day sunday and really just sit down with the journal and just Map out if today was my last day or if I knew that at sunday evening at 5 30 p. m It was going to be my very last day. My mother and father and younger brother and all my family members, aunts and uncles and close friends and relatives, they were going to be around the hospital bed or whatever it was. And they were going to say their goodbyes, you know, like really immersing myself. in that dramatic situation as hard as it is, but one of the best things that ever happened to me from doing that exercise was being able to reverse engineer that if that moment was to actually happen right here right now, am I living my life according to how I want to make those people feel, how I want to make a difference in the world, how I want to contribute to make an impact in other people's lives. And my answer at that given time, when that mentor told me to do that exercise. Was no, was no. And that exercise, it might not be for everybody, but for me personally, looking at death and thinking intimately about death from time to time has been one of the most extraordinary gifts in my life. Because what it does is it helps you to reverse engineer into the present moment and really ask yourself, are you living in accordance to your mission, your purpose, of how you want to leave this earth and the difference that you want to make? and just hearing you talk about, legacy, but also the ultimate sacrifice in in service, right? I mean the military there's there's no greater ultimate sacrifice than that So, you know, thank you and meet myself as well I've been where you're at. And quite frankly, I think we're all still where you're at, right? You said you're, you're five years out and still trying to navigate that. We're all trying to still navigate that, right? I, it's been 13 years for me removed from the game of football. And you know, I think one of the things that I want to talk with you about now is just that, you know, because I think whether you're coming out of the military or you're a professional athlete and your career ends like mine ended in an instant, I had a, I didn't have the eight year, nine year NFL career that I envisioned. You know, it was over in an instant and there's so many professional athletes and military service members that deal with depression and anxiety or, or people that may even have a career path change where they, they, they might lose a loved one and they don't know how to continue to move forward where you are right now. Mike, what has helped you kind of navigate and move throughout your journey from five years ago to where you are now? I know you said it's still a work in progress, but what are some, some best practices or insights that have been really beneficial for your life?

mike_sarraille 26:34

Well, everything you just described is the pursuit of excellence, which is a, you know, lifelong pursuit for continual involvement with no finite or end destination. And, you know, funny enough, you and I can name off people who we, we hold on pedestals. And if you asked them if they were satisfied, we know the answer would be no. And when they say that, you're like, my God, you're, you're, you've been wildly successful in business or whatever your profession is. How could you not be happy? I've noticed that amongst high performers. They're just always trying to, to excel, to go to the next level. And I wish, you know, you have an organization, you try to spread that. As you say, what is culture? Behavior at scale. How do we, how do we spread behavior and excellence at scale? And you're never going to get 100 percent adoption. You also did a parallel between athletes and military and it is like there is such a common thread there because we were part of a tribe and the culture of the military and sports teams is one of conformity, which I knew a lot of people you say the word conformity and they have this negative connotation. It's not a bad thing. Conformity to standards and accountability and the civilian world is just different. We put an emphasis on individuality. And so when you lose that environment of professional sports or the military and you switch over to, to, to the private sector, it's hard to find that again. And what I ultimately want to do is I want to recreate that in a company. It's never going to be the same, but can I get as close as possible? Um, but things I've done is you've also said it's reflection. You are not the same person you were five months ago. You're not definitely not the same person you were 10 years ago. We say on the battlefield, the most important piece of information is knowing where you're at.

matt_mayberry 28:18

Hmm.

The Power of Reflection and Introspection

mike_sarraille 28:19

Because you can't get to where you want to go if you don't know where you're at. It's like a ship without a rudder at sea. So, you know, taking the time to reflect, as you did during that weekend, enough people don't do that. To assess your strengths and weaknesses, am I still on the path to my end objective, knowing that, you know, every objective I've gotten to or we've succeeded, I didn't find the joy I thought that was going to come along with it. When we just finished the 777 in Australia and set four world records, it was like a shoulder shrug and what's next? But as I look back on the journey, how many lessons I learned over the 18 months it took to prepare and pull that off, I'm like, the lessons are invaluable. And so you've got to take that time to do that art of the debrief with yourself. So here's a general practice, um, I say for people on a personal level, three minutes every night before you go to bed. If it's written down or if you just want to go through it in your head, talk to yourself, that's fine. What was planned today? What really happened? What did I do well? But more importantly, what did I do poorly? And how do I change that moving forward? Am I still on track? Are we still heading in the right direction? Is it the right direction? Do we need to pivot slightly? What I thought was the end state goal is it's, you know what? I was wrong. The end state goal is actually 30 degrees to the left, and that's where we need to head. If you just take those three minutes every night to reflect, it's amazing how you start to become efficient in your motions, efficient in your effort. You start to learn what's wasted movement, what truly provides a return on investment in terms of your hard work and your effort. And that's been invaluable for me. And it's amazing. We did that after everything. In, in the military, that after action review, even after missions, we'd get back exhausted at 6am in the morning, having hunted at night. And we would debrief for two hours if that's what it took because amateurs do it until they get it right. Professionals do it until they can't get it wrong.

matt_mayberry 30:14

mm,

The Pursuit of Excellence

mike_sarraille 30:15

I just dropped it. Something that was so muscle memory to me after 20 years, when I transitioned out, I just stopped doing it because I didn't have my tribe. And it was again, my wife, my best mentee that. I said, you need to go back to the principles, core principles that the Marine Corps and the SEALs taught you and just implement those in business and figure out what works and what doesn't, or what needs to be adjusted to the new environment. So reflection and introspection have been invaluable for me. And I don't think that will ever stop. I don't think that will ever stop because I'm always in the pursuit of excellence and I never quite get there.

Leadership in High Pressure Situations

matt_mayberry 30:49

game changer. We, we all never get there, right? I mean, I think that's the big difference between people that, you know, they're, they're searching for a goal or a dream, which is fine. Right. I don't ever want to deter anybody from not setting a goal or having an aspiration or a dream or vision that they want for their future, whether it's in their business or their, their personal life. But, you know, one of the things that you just mentioned, right, when you are introspective, when you do have reflection, it's all about the process. It's all about waking up every day and how can I continually get a little bit better for this particular day? when you talk about excellence, that's where excellence is cultivated. Excellence is not a destination. It is a process every single day of getting a little bit better, right? One percent better. It's a common phrase that everybody's heard, but to a lot of people it may be cliche, but to those that are actively pursuing excellence every single day, it's lived. It's a behavior every single day, and it's a mindset. So, thank you so much for sharing that, Mike. And, you know, one of the things that I'm very curious about is, High pressure situations, particularly about leadership because as an athlete, right shirts, it's high pressure situations, but nothing like, you know, you mentioned from a team perspective is which I agree with. But I mean, obviously, you can't compare sports to military. You just can't. I think there's similarities, but there are no way shape and form similar. But what would you say from a leadership perspective in high pressure situations from the great commanders to the great Leaders that you've had throughout the course of your military service What has been some lessons that you've taken away from how do how do the best lead through change? How do the best perform in in very extreme high pressure situations?

The Importance of Adaptability and Flexibility

mike_sarraille 32:29

Yeah. Our high pressure situations were pretty severe and Napoleon actually had a concept of the power of the glance. Where, with more iterations, exposing himself to, to, to extremely difficult situations in training. It equipped him for what had happened in real life. And, and that's just experience. If you, again, are reflecting on each evolution of life you go through every single day, you start to get all these lessons, these common threads. Because in a high pressure situation, you never have all the information you require. You may have to Uh, as we say, make a decision with only 60 percent of the intelligence, but it's also learning what is wasted, what you can ignore and what you can truly affect. And what I've seen great leaders do is one, they take a breath. And of course, I'm using the scenario of we get contacted, the enemy ambushes us. It's a bad situation that that leader has the ability when all these guys are online, we're turning fire just to step back and take a breath, even if it's, you know, three to five seconds. Before he makes a call, just breathing, relax. What's the number one priority here? Okay, we're getting shot at by the front. I can take this element right here, have him flank left or right, and start to take the initiative on our obstacle. And that, really, the power to just take a step back, to breathe and relax, to remain calm and composed. And then assess what your priorities are and move COVID was the perfect high extreme situation, high pressure situation for all business leaders, because were getting conflicting information. We weren't getting any information at all being told to isolate our people. And we had to adapt. We leaders had to demonstrate high adaptability and high flexibility and make decisions with incomplete information. And if they started to head in the wrong direction, the moral courage to say, Hey guys, I was wrong. We started heading left based on what we're seeing. And I know I gave a directive. We actually need to start heading in the opposite, opposite direction. My apologies. And we're going to move forward. And you just prioritize as obstacles or opportunities come to you. And learn along the way. And the more iterations of life that you have under your belt, the really truly, you know, professionals. It's, they're like, it's, that's why we call it a general manager because they have a, wide breadth of experience under their belt, the good ones. And no matter the scope of the problem, if it's something they haven't even seen before, they can rely on all that experience and the power of the glance to say, okay, I haven't seen this before, but it's like other past situations I've been through. So based off the information I'm seeing, I've got to be timely and decisive in my call and then prioritize my people and get them to work.

The Journey to Becoming a SEAL

matt_mayberry 35:19

And I think that's right along the lines of like adaptability and high pressure situations. I always talk about there's brilliance in suffering. There's, there's brilliance and genius in suffering. And not, not relating to the battlefield. More of every day doing something that's out of your comfort zone. Putting yourself, right? Whether that's getting in the cold tub, whether that's committing to five days a week, you're going to run a mile or two miles. Something that I've personally always been intrigued by, and I'm, I'm so fascinated by asking you this. And I'm sure everybody else will find this fascinating. Can you talk about your experience with the training involved with becoming a SEAL? What, what are some of those learning experiences or just insights that you've taken away from that experience, but also applied them to your everyday life now and in business?

The Power of Shared Adversity

mike_sarraille 36:08

So the military as a whole, special operations included. Are very good at forging high performing teams through a concept called shared adversity, or if you want to call it shared hardship, the hardship. So for a average man or woman that watches SEAL training go on, it looks like it's sadistic. Like we like to put young men and women through pain that I assure you that's not the case. Sometimes it can be pretty funny to see how people react. But special operations assessment selection. For, for everyone listening, that's our hiring process and it's the longest behavioral interview, uh, probably in the world and guess what? We still get it wrong. But training is designed around sort of a concept of get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because when you push somebody outside their mental and physical comfort limits, that's where true character, uh, emerges. Additionally. What people fail to realize is that's also where true learning and growth takes place. Not in an air conditioned room, uh, set at 72 degrees. No, you put people in high pressure situations. And if you coach and mentor, you start to forge individuals. Or if you do it as a team, people have pride in going through hardship together. In fact, Sebastian Younger wrote about it in a book called Tribe. And he went back to, uh, Bosnia and interviewed people ten years after the war. And he got a common phrase as if it was almost Well known amongst everyone, they said at the very worst, we were at our very best. So the training is not meant to be sadistic, it's meant to make people fail. And when we see somebody fail, I'm using proverbial fall down, uh, it's a cue to the instructor, sort of like sharks, blood in the water. And we wait for that person to get up and metaphorically we find a way to push them down again. And they get up again and again and again until we realize, okay, this person has the mental grit, the resiliency and toughness to drive on. They're going to make an amazing seal. And it's just not as simple, simplistic as that. We're looking for other attributes, but that's why the training is so hard. And I can tell you this, there were seals that I went through training with that I never saw again in my career. It's a small community, but sometimes worlds apart. And we can see each other tomorrow. And you would think. We've been best friends for life that we saw each other a month ago because you have that common bond. There was a great guy who's a mentor, Dave Haygood, with IDEO, which is a innovative think tank in Silicon Valley. They are some of the most creative people. Companies come to them with their problems, uh, and they solve them in unique ways. Vietnam veteran, uh, he was a photographer and unfortunately developed, um, Parkinson's from Agent Orange. didn't slow him down a bit and he used to take his people to Lake Tahoe during the winter and they would do an off roading three day camping trip and he said the first time people were miserable. It's cold, they, you know, most of these people were not outdoors people but he said when they got back to Palo Alto and they came in on Monday people were bragging about that trip and the things, oh my god I was so miserable this time because they went through hardship together. And he said, I D I D E O by his design became a forged high performing team and again, personalities, not all the personalities get along, but they were 100 percent aligned to the mission. And even if they didn't like somebody, they saw them fumble. They'd be there to pick them up and drive forward with them.

The Role of Training

matt_mayberry 39:42

And how can business leaders incorporate that within their own organizations, right? How can they take some of that and create that shared adversity or challenges? You know, what is some of the work that you do with leadership teams, you know, to create that shared adversity? Can you share a little bit of light about that? Because I'm sure there'll be people either watching or listening that will say, yeah, but I'm, I'm not in the military. I never was in the military and you know, business is fast every day. It's, it's chaotic every day. It's moving quick. And you know, how can business leaders create that shared adversity within their own organizations?

mike_sarraille 40:13

You know what? Get outside the workplace and do things together. That may be going to a homeless shelter and serving food on Thanksgiving. And we call that mandatory fun. Uh, people are like, no, I want to, I want to be with my family the day before Thanksgiving. I don't want to be serving the homeless. Well, guys, we're going to do this together and we're going to come together as a team. It could be taking them to the mountains like David Haygood did. So talent or group, our company, which is leadership development, executive search. We run either a leadership reactionary course where we create these again with the help of psychologists to extract certain attributes and assess people and help them learn. We run them through different obstacles that force them outside their comfort zones in a fun way I know some people see there's like seals that get out or special operations guys that get out and run like these like Evolutions on the beach where they're yelling at people. We've had companies. Hey, could you yell at our people more? We were just we're not gonna do that. I was never a yellow yeller I was a hugger sort of the big brother love if somebody failed. I just told him. Hey, I'm not upset I'm disappointed walked away and just watch them go into self reflection Or we have something called, uh, ITWX, Into the Wild Extreme. And extreme for civilians, not extreme by our, our measures. We take them to, again, it could be Yosemite. And you put a map and compass in people's hands that don't have any outdoor, uh, orienteering experience. You see them get uncomfortable or they have to camp. And we switch the leadership roles up and we're assessing people. And at the end of the week, uh, you know, you have a Warrior's Dinner and you see different people. And they, during that we forced vulnerability, this emotional intimacy and we forced them not to share things that we don't want to go too far, but talk about some of the obstacles you're struggling with or your performance and share that to the group. Let's have a discussion judgment free. Um, and we've really designed that process to help teams forge. We can't do it at scale in terms of, you know, take 100 people up to Yosemite. But we can do it in smaller leadership teams, whether it's a senior leadership team, middle level management, um, even battlefield reviews. We've taken people to Gettysburg. We've got a great historian that actually knows the personalities. I don't care about the muskets and the cannons or the tactics of it. You talk about the problem sets that both the North and the South generals faced and the personalities. And you do that for two days. And we do an after action review at the very end. You've got people in tears. Because we did this at the SEAL teams and you had SEALs in tears at the end. Because what happened during that battle at Gettysburg were some of the things we saw in Iraq or Afghanistan or what business leaders are dealing with within their own personal settings of personality conflicts and bad leadership and making decisive calls. You gotta get out and do more things. And guess what? I know that costs money. But if you want to look at data For effective leadership development programs for every dollar spent. It's a ROI of 7 because you've just increased employee engagement. You've increased alignment. You've increased innovation and collaboration. And you can't put a price on that. And unfortunately, Matt, you're in the same industry as I am. During hard economic times, what are the first things to be cut? Training.

riverside_matt_raw-video-cfr_chicago_podcast stu_0029 43:30

It's

mike_sarraille 43:30

Leadership.

matt_mayberry 43:31

It's not, it's not a cost, you know, it's an investment. I look at it, I look at it for, you know, what is, it's not about the investment of the cost. It's about what is the cost of not doing it. When you start looking at it through that lens and that perspective, completely different paradigm.

mike_sarraille 43:45

Have you heard?

matt_mayberry 43:46

about how much it costs, right? What is the cost of not doing it?

mike_sarraille 43:50

If you heard the old story about Henry Ford, Ford was, uh, during his tenure, Ford was suffering from, uh, efficiency and, uh, independability with regression of their product, and the board knew they had a problem, and they were squabbling over what they should do, fire people and bring in new people, and somebody said, hey, we should train our people better, and, uh, Henry Ford replied, uh, I'm screwing this up, sorry, I usually know this by heart, he basically said, uh, Well, what if we train our people? Somebody said, what if we train our people, spend all this money on leadership development and they leave? And he said, what happens if we don't?

matt_mayberry 44:26

Mmm,

mike_sarraille 44:27

And they stay. Then we're, we're, you know, it's insanity. You know, trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. You have to train your people. Now, this is where I'm not here to denigrate the private sector. There are great organizations like Johnson and Johnson. Oh, it is a business case example. For small businesses to replicate in their own cost effective ways. But Johnson Johnson pours into their people from human performance, which you don't hear a lot of businesses talk about. And you know, as an athlete, sleep, stress management, executive burnout, they're addressing all those things. But you've got to find a way to invest into your people. And you've got to, you've got to take time. Nobody, Hey, well, we've got to turn out 10 widgets in the next hour. Hey, I understand that that's always gonna be there, but you've got to take time every day. And one of the things we do for our new employees and our employees in general is at least twice a week 30 30 minutes in the morning. New topic. We're gonna, we're just gonna have a philosophical conversation about accountability. Uh, what is your definition and how do you think we need to improve with accountability across our organization, both individually and organizationally? And the next topic could be about communication with clients. And we just have these little philosophical conversations for 30 minutes. And you see the performance of your people start to elevate as a whole. Some will elevate quicker than others, but everyone is sort of slowly stair stepping up.

matt_mayberry 45:51

To be great at anything requires training, consistent training and coaching, you know, I'm always appalled that I think you do see less of it now in today's world, right of organizations that don't prioritize training. I think now it's not about doing it. It's about who's doing it effectively, who's doing it efficiently and who's doing it consistently. Like you said, when the pandemic hit or when, you know, bad times arise, if it's one of the first things cut, it doesn't matter what you were doing three months ago or four months ago, right? It has to be a priority. It's got to be front and center. It's got to be consistent. It's got to be relentless. And that's what the best do. I mean, ask a Navy SEAL how, how, how important training is. Ask an NFL player how important training is. Ask a police chief commander how important training is. Right? I think any, any, to be great at anything requires training.

mike_sarraille 46:39

There's

matt_mayberry 46:40

Mike.

mike_sarraille 46:40

phrase, fortune favors the bold. I disagree. Fortune favors the prepared. Boldness requires usually extreme decisions in a bad situation. But if your people are so prepared and so well trained, no matter what situation or contingency they run into. They will overcome as a team. So, I know within the sports world, they say, uh, the game is won before you even step onto the, uh, the playing field. It's true.

The Everyday Warrior Mindset

matt_mayberry 47:10

Absolutely. And that, that's a great segue into. very briefly, can you talk about the everyday warrior mindset? Obviously you got the successful book, the everyday warrior, the podcast with men's journal. Can you talk a little bit about how that everyday warrior concept really came to fruition?

The Power of Failure and Growth

mike_sarraille 47:29

Yes. And it was personal, but again, the book looks at the amazing men and women I served with who mentored me, because sometimes peer mentorship is the greatest mentorship that takes place. Um, when I left the military, I fell on hard times because I lost my tribe, which was part of my DNA. And I, I wasn't emphasizing the positive and a great psychologist, Dr. Chris free, who is releasing a book called the operator syndrome about special operations and impact of high performance that applies to even those within the private sector, because executive burnout is a real thing. He was referred to me because I was falling on hard times and he worked with me for a year over the phone. Cause he's in Hawaii and he gave me time for free. And I said, I don't feel like a warrior anymore. And he said, why is that? And I said, well, I'm, I'm, I'm not in the, the, uh, a operational seal role anymore. And he also having worked with a lot of veterans said, Hey, there's a difference between a war fighter and a warrior. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive. Warfighters trained in the art of war, but did every warfighter you serve with, did they have that, that, that mindset, that, that unwavering optimism? And I said, no, they didn't. And he said, who are some of the biggest warriors, you know, I said, my mom. He said, then you need to transition from being a traditional textbook warrior to an everyday warrior. And so I stole that from him and then trademarked it. So I probably own some money, but he's not that type of guy. And I've come to recognize again, warriors within their respective professions. And there are so many good people out there that has never served in the military. A mom, single mom of two who's slaving and sacrificing. And no matter how hard of the time she falls into. She has this unwavering optimism, and she's willing to do what it takes to secure a better life for her kids. That's a warrior. It's more of a warrior than some of the men and women I've served with. And so, additionally, the book talks about failure. Failure, much like I have great peer mentors and traditional hierarchical mentors and coaches, failure has been my number one mentor. Of course, there's people there to help me sort of contextualize it. But it has been my number one mentor in life. And when you can switch this view, that failure is not an indictment of your character, it means you're human. And it's like telling you, say, let's try that again. Make adjustments. Let's try that again.

matt_mayberry 49:56

Absolutely.

mike_sarraille 49:57

it, it has been, it is what cracked me out of that downward spiral. When I left the military. Now, if I can share that with other people and again, help them become the best versions of themselves wherever they're at in life, that's, that's impact. And right now, if you ask me, I'm failing, miserable, failing, failing, miserably, um, hard to grow an audience. Uh, I, I'd struggle without, uh, with seeking the limelight. I don't want to seek the limelight. I don't want to be famous. I want to be renowned. And so I, I still am holding back and there's a great mentor, highly successful. Dude did happen to be a Marine and he's telling me, you need to re read your own book because you are holding yourself back. And so that's one of the struggles I'm dealing with right now is just let it go. Um, cause I always feel like I'm representing the SEAL community and I don't want to be that SEAL, uh, beating his chest out in town. Uh, I want to do it with empathy and love and kindness and I was a reluctant warrior. I don't think anyone wants to go to war. If you want to go to war, there's, there's, there's a high narcissistic gene. Uh, maybe a sociopathic gene in you. Um, and yeah, I'm trying to take the lessons I learned from that career now in the business world, and just simply give them to people for free and say, Hey, I hope this helps. And if you only take two, one, two, three things away from the book, I'll consider that a victory. Balance,

matt_mayberry 51:21

And speaking of the Everyday Warrior, what has been your greatest failure? Or, not greatest failure, your, your, your biggest failure that caused your greatest lesson learned?

mike_sarraille 51:35

balance. Uh, I had Shannon Sharp on the podcast. And I asked him, so how did you maintain balance? And we all know Shannon Sharpe's Hall of Fame, one of the best tight ends in history. He's got the records to prove it. And he looks at me and says, Balance? Balance? There is no balance when you're going for greatness. And I'm like, damn. Damn. But I don't want to get to the, the end zone. The proverbial end zone in life. Look back and nobody's with me. And so, My wife and I are still working on this because I know with your profession, we've got to be on the road. That's how, that's how we make our money and that's how we, we engage with our partners is at their locations and trying to identify some sort of balance in my life that allows me to give the time that my family deserves as well. Cause I was at war for 10 deployments, most of my career and they're very deserving of my time and I'm still working On that to this day.

Becoming an Everyday Warrior

matt_mayberry 52:37

That's beautiful. Final question for you, Mike, and this is really going to be a game plan for a project. Practicality of how people can start to be an everyday warrior. What are your top one to two items that for everybody watching or listening, what can they start doing right here, right now, this moment, this weekend, this very next day, what can they start doing to become an everyday warrior, whether in business or in their personal life?

mike_sarraille 52:59

Yes, great question. What I would say is what you did that weekend. Uh, know thyself. It starts with a personal diagnostics. And again, 99 percent of humans don't do this. Stop. I don't care how busy your schedule is. Stop and just take 30 minutes. To say, hey, where am I at in life? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? And what do I need to improve on to get where I want to go? In the most efficient manner possible. And so a lot of people don't know thyself and it starts with you. You know, in fact, one of the things that I had trouble reconciling with is we have this motto in the Marine Corps and it stuck with me to the point where I remember a SEAL Master Chief yelling at me is leaders eat last. And so I took that like the gospel of I would always wait for all my guys to eat and then I'd eat last. And a SEAL Master Chief, we were fresh back from a mission in a good manner. He yelled at me in front of the guys. He said, God damn it, get up front, get your child, because you've got to get to the jock and start these post operations products. And I was caught off guard. And he came to me afterwards and said, hey, sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you. But Mike, what you're failing to realize is that in order to be a better leader, you have to take better care of yourself at times. You have to be selfish sometimes. What you would appear to be selfish. To say, hey, no, guys, I want to give you this time, but right now I really need to take this weekend to myself. Uh, rather than giving my time up or my family's time up to serve you and that I'm still reconciling that of where the balance is with that. But you really do have to improve yourself in order to be the better father, husband, leader within your organization. And it starts with you. It ends and starts with you.

matt_mayberry 54:45

I think so many people that want to change their life or change their business, they look at what, what process can I do? What team member can I hire in without ever really looking in the mirror? You know, I always talk about transformational leadership, right? My next book is called the transformational leader, and it's all about everything changes and benefits when the leader Grows first. That that is the starting point of excellence within any team within any organization. Everything changes for the better when the leader consistently grows day in and day out and exemplifies the behaviors, the commitments, the attitudes, the mindsets that that organization wants to employees. Mike. Before we wrap up here, I know that I said that was the last question, but hearing you talk about leaders eat last and your, that phrase and mantra, my favorite mantra from the seals is I believe, correct me if I'm wrong. The only easy day was yesterday. Is that correct?

mike_sarraille 55:37

That is correct. And it is driven into you that each day should be a challenge. Because if you're not pushing yourself outside your mental and physical comfort limits, you're not, you're stunting growth. And so what people fail to realize is that, oh, SEAL training to get in is really hard. The training just gets tougher. It's, we would find ways to challenge ourselves, not, you know, being yelled at by instructors, but to say, hey, we're going to go to, uh, Patagonia. And we're going to put ourselves in the worst of conditions in Patagonia to learn. And, um. You see the organizations. What's interesting is you can have, you know, two SEAL platoons. One rises to the occasion and one falls and fails. Why? Because of the mindset and the subculture of those two different SEAL platoons. And this SEAL platoon was just training all the time. And of course they took a break to reflect. Learn and then start training again, and that's amazing. Not all SEAL platoons are great There's a lot of bad SEAL platoons, just like the Green Beret community, the Marine Recon community, or MARSOC You would think that there's this standard across the board and there is, but not all elements, not all units or organizations meet it And uh, it's interesting business case study Um, when, when business leaders come in and watch us train and say, why is that element so good? And that one's yelling at each other and arguing. And, uh, there just seems to be no, no alignment whatsoever. And so that's what I'm reflecting on now that I'm out of it and I can look, uh, you know, look in things are starting to make sense. I just did some things as muscle memory, um, or because we were told to do it. And now I have time to reflect and learn.

matt_mayberry 57:22

Love it. Mike Cirelli. Thank you so much for your time. I admire you. I admire your journey. Thank you so much for taking all the lessons learned throughout your military journey and all your. It's a great way for you to share your personal experiences and really your life's work of what you do now. I truly, I truly mean it when I say you do have an incredible journey. You have an incredible gift to give back to the world. Keep doing the great work, man. It was so great to have you on here and chat with you today.

mike_sarraille 57:44

Matt. Thank you. Uh, likewise, big fan of yours. I think I gave you a pretty big shout out on LinkedIn for culture and, and promoted your book when there's a good book that other people wrote. I will promote that thing. And I love, I find more joy and success of my good friends than sometimes I do for myself. So well done in the book. And I'm looking forward to the new book coming out. Uh, send me a copy.

matt_mayberry 58:10

Thank you so much, Mike.