Career Warrior Podcast #379) Creating a Mission-Driven Career | Navigating Tough Situations | Mike Hayes
Resources:
Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.
Follow us
Follow Chris on LinkedIn
Check Career Warrior Podcast on Instagram
Subscribe to Let’s Eat, Grandma’s YouTube Channel
Check out our Latest Product, Urgent Care Package
Subscribe
Shownotes
Mike is the former Commanding Officer of SEAL Team TWO, leading a two thousand–person Special Operations Task Force in Southeastern Afghanistan. In addition to a twenty-year career as a SEAL, Mike was a White House Fellow, served two years as Director of Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council, and has worked directly with both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Beyond his military and governmental service, Managing Director is currently managing director at Insight Partners. Mike was previously Chief Operating Officer at VMware.
So as you can see, Mike is going to be just awesome, and this episode is going to really help you take the next step in your career that is mission driven and full of purpose.
Episode Transcript
I hope that my listeners, my readers can ignite new or reignite old passions so that they can live lives of purpose and live lives that help them be happy and to contribute to others.
Chris Villanueva 00:18
Welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast, I know this may come out sounding a bit dark, but as you formulate your who, don’t hold back, think big. Aspire to do something worth dying for. Better yet, be someone worth dying for. What do you want people to say at your funeral? These are words from my case. My next podcast guest in his book, Mission-Driven The Path to a Life of Purpose, and this is the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast where our goal is not only to help you land your dream job, but to help you live your best life. So today we’re going to talk about what it means to be mission-driven and how to drive for purpose in your career. Listen, you may be at a crossroads in your life right now. Maybe you are applying for jobs, maybe you’re seeking out that promotion.
Chris Villanueva 01:09
Maybe you want to do something completely different altogether. Where do you belong and who are you? We’ll tackle the deeper questions with this podcast. Today’s guest, Mike Hayes, is nothing short of extraordinary. Mike is the former commanding officer of Seal Team two, leading a 2000 person special operations task force in southeastern Afghanistan in addition to a 20 year career as a Seal. Mike was a White House fellow, served two years as director of defense policy and strategy at the National Security Council, and he’s worked directly with both presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama beyond his military and governmental service. Mike is currently managing director at Insight Partners. Mike was previously chief operating officer at VMware, and this episode’s really going to help you to take that next step in your career that is mission-driven and full of purpose. Without further ado, this is the Career Warrior Podcast.
Chris Villanueva 02:10
Mike, Welcome to the Show.
Mike Hayes 02:11
Chris, thank you so much my friend. Let me just start by thanking you for all the incredible impact that you’ve had, not just bringing your wisdom to the world, but the wisdom of many other people. Hopefully we’ll do a little bit of that today.
Chris Villanueva 02:22
I appreciate it and I’ll be honest, I just read your bio clearly about a minute ago, and this is probably one of the most impressive ones we’ve had on this podcast. But in reading your book, one thing that I found fascinating was the part in which you talk about who you are. There was just a section in which you talk about your deeper purpose and who you are and what your impact is. So I would like to know just kind of coming straight from the heart here, who is Mike Hayes? Who are you?
Mike Hayes 02:52
Well, great. Not softball. Question to start us off, Chris. That’s how I like to do it. No, no, no, of course, man. Look, I deeply believe in the saying to those who much has been given much as expected, I’ve been very fortunate. The big man upstairs has given me lots and that has led to many great days, many hard days. As you noted, 20 years in the seals. Anybody of my era has buried many teammates and gone through hard, hard times. So who am I? I’m a person who is on the planet to make a difference for others. That is deeply who I am. We talk about what’s it going to say on your gravestone? Well, the most important thing of course is husband, father, brother, son, et cetera. But the only other word that I think of beyond that is just patriot.
Chris Villanueva 03:38
I love that. Love that answer. And so my transitional question here is talking about who you want to be. That’s essentially how you open up the book and you, you’re someone who’s led these war zones, you’ve advised presidents, and now you are well within this world of business acting in the C-suite here. So your book starts with asking, who do you want to be? Why is that the most important place to start?
Mike Hayes 04:06
The what is fleeting, the who is a deeper set of underlying values and character. Chris, my wife and I, we’re fortunate to have a lovely daughter 24 years ago, and she’s a beautiful 24 years old now, and when she was going to school and growing up, we never asked our daughter, what do you want to be when you grow up? We always asked her, who do you want to be? How do you want to treat people? How do you want to make a difference in the world? The what defines us, the who is really the explanation of the deeper characters and values that we hold.
Chris Villanueva 04:39
I think about who I am and a lot of that is foundational to what I do. I’m way more than managing director somebody who’s in charge of a resume service. It’s like if I were to go in and lead a conversation and to say that’s who I am, I think it would just would barely even scratch the surface. So I think it’s a really important question we ask ourselves is a hard one though. I think sometimes I look at who I am. I’m thinking, okay, I am. I’m a creative, I’m a person who, it’s important that I serve the underdog. I’m somebody who I’m a soon to be father, and I’m just kind of like I get stuck thinking about that. But your book, I know you delve into some exercises to help us to reflect upon these questions. So just for listeners here, I’m wondering if a, you can either preview some of those exercises or just tell us how do we even begin to think about who we are, who do we want to be, I should say?
Mike Hayes 05:35 (05:35):
Sure. I think first of all, by working backward from outcomes, a lot of people in life confuse activity with outcomes. And I joke around and the seals, the L stands for lazy. We find the easiest path to the goal. Our job is to do things as well and fast and efficiently as possible. And so if you think about in life, what impact do you want to have? What is the most important thing that you could do and look back on? And it’s a great exercise to think a little bit about legacy. We all obviously want to impact people. We want to help whatever organizations and institutions we contribute to, whether it’s where you worship or what school or nonprofit or getting plastics out of the ocean or just really doing the thinking around what is it that you want to have done while you’re here in our time on the planet and work backward from that. So I think when you do that kind of thinking and the outcome first, thinking from there, everything follows because the activities then become focused toward the outcome and all. If you do it right, support that outcome.
Chris Villanueva 06:36
We have a lot of career transitioners listening in on this podcast right now. A lot of folks who are at a crossroads, what sort of thinking would you give them if they’re still just practically in the middle of deciding what types of jobs they want to apply for? They might be kind of confused. How would you get very practical and telling them how to think about where they should look next?
Mike Hayes 06:55
It’s a great question and I have two kind of answers to it. You heard me say, I spent time in Washington DC and so I know how to not answer the question I was asked Chris. That’s okay. No, but mission driven is divided really into two sections. The first five chapters are centered around what we call the long game, and the second five chapters are the short game.
Chris Villanueva 07:15
The short game.
Mike Hayes 07:16
And so the long game is kind of the frustrating answer to your question because it’s very conceptual, very high level, very theoretical, and then the second half is much more practical. So I think you can’t be practical unless you’ve done that high level thinking that the a hundred thousand foot thinking. And so when you start there, the exercise that I would think through is finding the intersection of what are you good at? What does a business need? And then really what gives you energy When you can paint the center of those three circles, you’re good at what gives you energy and what a business needs. That’s when you’ve found the right role. When you do your deeper thinking around what are the aspects of a role that make you happy? One of the exercises that I enumerate, maybe it’s illuminate also of course, but it’s thinking in the abstract around what are the non-job specific kind of things that get you potentially excited or inversely that you’d run away from? Think about things that you value, like optionality or what type of industry are you in, what size of firm? What’s your personal connection to the mission of the firm? What’s the quality of life, the compensation, the geography. In the book, I list like 15 things like this.
Mike Hayes 08:26
And so if you can start out in the abstract, then one of the things I help people to think through is, first of all, let me just start with saying I don’t have your answers, I just have the questions to ask. And so whatever people give advice, the advice is that, oh, I’m so smart. I’m the smartest person that I know and therefore you should do what I did because I’m so cool. That doesn’t work. That just doesn’t work. So what really was important to me and mission driven was to say, how can I help you to find the answers from within? And the way that I do that is going back to that seven or eight things and 15 in the book, is to then force rank them and say, you’re not doing any sort of comparison to what firm you go work at.
Mike Hayes 09:06
You’re starting with how do I think about geography on a one to a hundred? You absolutely need to be in Kansas or you don’t care where you live. What industry do you want to be in? Oh, I have to be in tech or I have to be in finance, or I have to be in whatever is that important? Or thinking about the dimensions of a role is the first most important long game thinking because if you force rank and you put all of ’em in order, you’re going to be able to put together your elevator speech. So when somebody comes to me and says, Hey Mike, I’d like, could you give me some help and help me think about my next role? The answer that I give is like, okay, well give me your seven sentences in your elevator speech on what you’re looking for is so many people think bottom up like, oh, I know a guy, or I know a gal who has an opportunity. Here’s a thing, and you go evaluate that thing. That’s fine. That’s bottom up thinking, but do you start top down with these attributes? And so Chris, that’s kind of where I would begin in the long game ish thing, but then I can pause and see if you want to push back on any of that or question any of that.
Chris Villanueva 10:05
You brought up a very interesting point about you can’t just give people the answers and especially in a podcast, I think it’s important to understand that people have to do the deep reflection themselves. But one thing I think we can offer here is perspective and experience. And I actually wanted to kick it back to you and ask you more about your experience and coming from the military into all of these roles that you’ve had. It’s insane. So I’ve worked with a lot of folks who have been military transitioners on the resumes, getting those transferable things from military to civilian life. And I think even for folks who are listening now who aren’t coming from the military, I think that it’s a very good example of a tough career transition. I think it’s something that’s important to draw from. If you could talk about your own transition maybe from Navy Seals to working in the position after that, I think that would be useful for listeners and just any perspective you can offer on keeping that who you are, keeping that common thread going between these different roles.
Mike Hayes 11:11
Absolutely. First of all, with the who you are to work backwards, it doesn’t need to be defined by how you spend your 40 plus hours a week in a full day job, because we all get choices on where do we volunteer, what do we do outside of those 40 hours a week. And so while it’s best when you can go to work and feel really aligned with everything, it doesn’t need to be solve every variable in that multi-variable equation. So one of the things Chris I think is really important is when you do the deeper thinking that you just referred to, then you really know what gives you energy. Go back to those three circles, what gives you energy? What are you good at and what does the business need? Then the more you make an informed decision about your next step, the more you will be able to look back at your decision and say, Hey, things aren’t perfect, but I made the best decision that I could with the best information that I could at the time that I made the decision, and that reduces stress. Think about in the work world, where does the career world, where does stress come from? It comes from a desired way that you want the world to be and the way you perceive the world to be right now in the diff between those two. So the wider, the difference is between how you want the world to be and how the world actually is. That’s the space where stress and anxiety in the workspace comes in. If you can visualize things differently, you can close that gap. So if you do your deeper thinking, you’re like, okay, I went to Bridgewater right out of the seals to answer your military transition question. It’s the world’s largest hedge fund. I was privileged to be the chief of staff to a guy named Ray Dalio who is a fabulous on so many levels, but I joke around, I’m like, Ray, you have an IQ of a million and an EQ of zero.
Mike Hayes 12:49
The good news is that I have an IQ of zero and an EQ of a million. So together we make one really good professional. But Bridgewater was such an amazingly hard place to work and I’m so thankful for a four year chapter there. But when it wasn’t amazing, when it was super hard and I didn’t like it, I knew what decision that I made and what I was giving up when I went there and chose that and opted in, and that helps lower the frustration in the day and the week and the month and keeps you from feeling like sorry for yourself that you’re in a work setting that you’re not totally enjoying. And so I know I didn’t answer your military question. The thing I would say is that the most important thing is to do this deeper thinking, and the business world largely has trouble mapping military people to a role,
Mike Hayes 13:35
And that’s the biggest challenge. And so my advice to military people getting out is, number one, understand that you have the general athleticism to go anywhere that you want to go. If you can imagine it, it’s only a question of work ethic. Are you willing to pay the price, the work ethic to go do what you want to do? And everybody has different things that they aspirations around what role they’re going to go at post-military. The thing that I do now from the business seat that I’m in, the businesses that I’ve been in is to help my non-military veteran peers in the business community to map people to roles very simplistically like sales operations strategy because the military people do all these things in the military, it’s just hard to put it down and have business people really connect the dots between the military roles and the business roles.
Chris Villanueva 14:25
That makes a lot of sense. And I always consider the military transitional is probably one of the toughest changes, one of the toughest transitions you can make. But that’s why I like to use it as an example for folks who, let’s say they’re looking to transition from a life in sales to they want be a project manager. It’s about finding those commonalities. What are you good at? What are your strengths and the things that you’re passionate about? I got to ask you about fear and I have to do it because you, you’re probably one of the best people, I can possibly ask this, but job seekers are going through this intense period of stress and I’ve even been in positions before where I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m almost panicking because I need something to happen like tomorrow. Maybe I am short in just some task that I have to do. It’s really hard to kind of think about these deeper level questions like who am I? What do I want to become? If I’m like, oh man, I’m having trouble even paying the bills right now. I need a job tomorrow. But do you have any words of advice for people who may be staring fear in the face right now? I really panicking almost and trying to figure out what to do with their life next.
Mike Hayes 15:33
Absolutely. So first of all, Chris, let’s take the world into two buckets. The people who have the fear you just described and the people who don’t, for the people who don’t thinking ahead about your strategy for your career will keep you out of the former bucket. So my advice, first of all, starts with the people you didn’t ask about because that will keep you from being in the position that you just described because we can all agree that life will present really hard obstacles sometimes, and the more prepared you are, the easier it is to go through the life’s minefield that you just described. Now, again, that’s not the question you asked, but I think about it that way because then now when we go to the group of people who very rightly are struggling to pay the bills and are like, oh my gosh, I just need something to do number one, probably a frustrating part of the answer, but I’ll give it hopefully a less frustrating part of the answer in a second.
Mike Hayes 16:23
The frustrating part is fear is all in your mind when you talk to any Navy seal. I’m no different than any other Navy seal in this aspect. I will tell you that hundreds if not thousands of dangerous situations that we’re all in, we do not have fear. And fear is an emotion that will only degrade your ability to have success on a mission. And so we do really, really hard training in order to not have fear in the moment that comes from being built up over time. Look, I’ve been shot at, I’ve been rocketed. I’ve jumped out of a building that was rigged to explode from the second floor. I jumped out of the second floor. I’ve amputated a teammate’s leg on a mission. I’ve been held at gunpoint and threatened with execution, and I’ve gotten in vehicles countless times and wondered, will I even know that I died? The ability to compartmentalize that aspect of the bad outcome will help you achieve the good outcome. So my practical advice for the person who is having trouble paying the bills is try to put all of those, go make your list of everything negative that you feel like could be coming around the corner in your life, and then we as humans tend to overestimate the badness of those things.
Mike Hayes 17:34
If you don’t pay your power bill, guess what? The power bill is not actually going to cut your power off on the very next day after you don’t pay the bill. But we pride ourselves on being people who pay the power bill on time, but I’m using that as obviously a metaphor, which is the things that we think are really bad are never as bad as we think they are. And so my advice is take all those things that you’re perceiving as negative, shrink that box down as much as you can through breathing, through thinking, through slowing down. Because then what happens when we’re in these hard situations, and I’ve seen this with whether it’s young seals or people in business who are getting laid off, I have laid people off to be able to do this in ways that help people understand that you are going to find that next role when you’re not in that death spiral, when you’re not chicken with your head cut off or run around with your hair on fire. So when you can have that calming presence in those moments, I know it’s hard. I know it’s almost impossible and what I’m preaching is incredibly difficult, but I think that is the path through it and having faith that the reason that you’re going through something hard is because on the other side you’re going to look back and say.
Chris Villanueva 18:47
Need that? Absolutely.
Mike Hayes 18:48
Yeah.
Chris Villanueva 18:49
I’m thinking about the times where I’ve been panicked and clearly the question comes from my own desire to help the underdog here. It’s not all of our listeners, but I know that there’s someone listening right now who is like, gosh, I have to sell my house or something like that. I’ve talked to these people before. I love what you said about compartmentalizing. There’s logic that really has to take over at a certain point where you stop, you push those things to the side and say, okay, what do I need to do now? And I think the Navy Seals example is just awesome. I think it’s something that we all could take away from what I will do here. I was going to ask this question right here, but I have kind of probably a surprise question I’ll throw at you at the end just to kind of have some fun. But I do want to transition on over to the short game stuff here because I think that there’s so much value here for job seekers, but in your book second half you do shift to execution. How do we go from gaining that clarity to taking those action steps, but what do you think the biggest trap is that people fall into during that transition?
Mike Hayes 19:46
I think the biggest trap is failing to think about your activity as it maps to the outcomes you’re trying to achieve. If I’m trying to go do something different, I’m going to go try to have a bunch of conversations with people who will give me some advice. This is making the short game very practical. I hope people still feel like they need to potentially read the book when we’re done with this, but they will trust. I’m going to give away a good chunk of this right here. So the Reader’s Digest version is number one is think of conversations at three levels. A level one conversation is general advice. A level two conversation is an actual conversation with someone who could give you a role. And a level three conversation is really details about the role. It’s like what’s the job all the way to a contract that you’re going to be signing with those level of details.
Mike Hayes 20:33
So by definition, as you’re transitioning, think of it like a funnel. This is just like a sales funnel. The more that comes in the top of the funnel, the wide open part of the funnel depends. I’m saying that because it depends which way you’re looking at the funnel, but by definition, what comes out the bottom of the funnel is a function of what you put in the top of the funnel. And so the top of the funnel is made up of conversations with people who could give you advice. Those level one conversations, and the better you have your elevator speech on what you’re looking for prepared and ready.
Mike Hayes 21:03
Then you are going to shape what goes into that funnel. For example, if all I do is talk to people in the healthcare field in Boston, by definition, I’m kind of shaping my outcomes to be Boston ish or healthcare ish. Be intentional about that. So be intentional about the conversations that you have. I’ve found that most people genuinely want to help other people. If you come to me, Chris, and when you’re transitioning, I just want to hear your elevator speech because I know a bajillion people in my head. I want to map you to the best three that are most closely aligned to what you’re looking for. When you give me your elevator speech and I’m like, oh, Chris, a couple different things. Number one, I want you to talk to my friend Matt, my friend Sue and my friend Jerry. Okay, and let me tell you why those three people and why I’m mapping them to what you’re trying to do. But then at the same time, I’m also at a firm that could be somewhere that could be a solution for you. I’m going to help generate a couple of other conversations for you. And then what you’ll find is through these level one conversations, they can become the level two conversations and just be open. And so speak in the abstract, go have as many of those conversations as you can.
Mike Hayes 22:16
And some of the very practical advice that I’ve given there is at the end of these conversations, if people don’t offer somebody to connect you onward with ask them, Hey, you hear what I’m looking for? Can you think of one or two other people in your network whom I should speak with in order to get advice him or from them?
Chris Villanueva 22:33
That’s such a powerful question. So that’s a perfect segue and leading on to my questions about networking. First of all, and I ask this very facetiously, but you’ve had many different roles anywhere from I saw Dishwasher to managing director, of course, COO advisor. How many of those jobs would you say that you got through LinkedIn? Easy apply.
Mike Hayes 22:58
Zero.
Chris Villanueva 22:59
Okay. I have a lot of people listening right now who are just shooting out and they have a lot of potential who are just shooting out applications in a very quick manner, so zero. How about online, just in general.
Mike Hayes 23:12
Just zero. I know that’s probably not the answer to LinkedIn wants me to say, and I’m very good friends with the Microsoft leadership, but let me bring this to life a little bit. You used the word network, and I love that word, Chris. I think most people have a misconception about what a network is. Most people think of a network as a group of people from whom they get something from. That’s the inverse of a network. A network is a group of people in whom we invest.
Mike Hayes 23:39
When you call me at three in the morning and you’re like, Mike, I need some help, and dah, dah, dah, you don’t need to finish your sentence. My answer is yes. You see? And when I do that for you, I am thrilled to help you anytime you call me like that, Chris. Now what that does is when I live my life that way and I’ve got a hundred or a thousand Chrises in my life now when I need something, that energy that I’ve poured into that network is going to be ready to surround me and blanket me with love and help and affection and great intention because I’ve lived my life in a way that it’s time to kind of get some help. And so that network thinking is really, that’s where your jobs should come from. Now you could say, Hey, but I got to pay the mortgage and I haven’t lived my life that way.
Mike Hayes 24:24
I would say put that in two buckets. Number one is start living your life that way. You are never too old to live that way and never too young to start, so that’s what will help you in the future. One of my closest friends on the planet, his name’s Frank DeSousa. Frank, started a company called Cognizant and spun it out of Dun and Bradstreet. He built it from the ground up, 36000% total shareholder return. You invested a dollar when he started it, you had $36,000 back when he’s done. It’s one of the highest TSRs top three for sure in the history of the universe. Now, Frank is one of most the loveliest, awesomest human beings you will ever, ever, ever meet. One of the reasons we get along so well is because we both live the way that I just described. I met Frank first in 2008 when I was at the White House.
Mike Hayes 25:07
We were at a dinner with a bunch of senior leaders. I spoke for a little bit and Frank came up to me afterwards and was like, Hey man, I’m Frank. That was awesome. Would you mind doing that? And among other things, would you mind doing that for my senior leadership sometime? And I was like, absolutely, but I can’t travel. I can’t really leave dc. He’s like, great, we’ll do an event in dc. I spoke to his leadership team in 2008, then lots of more experience in the White House seals. Five years later, I retired from the Seals. I moved to Westport, Connecticut, go to Bridgewater, re-engage with a bunch of my friends. I started dinner group with five or 10 people. You read about that in the book, and we’ve started that eight years ago, and the 12 of us have been meeting every month since then. Frank’s in that dinner group, and then Frank had an activist Elliot management take 1,000,000,006 position in his stock and start agitating. I called Frank and offered him some advice that he wasn’t asking for and worth what he’s paying, which was zero. And it was just as a friend, how do I help a friend in a hard situation on a hard day? How do we proactively go help friends who are having a hard day?
Mike Hayes 26:04
It turns out a month later, I actually joined Frank’s leadership team at Cognizant and jumped into the mix with him.
Chris Villanueva 26:10
Great example. Yeah.
Mike Hayes 26:11
Dude, 2008, I’m talking to his team at the White House 2017. I go to Cognizant to help Frank Jesus I Life is long. You got to think about my goal was never to go to Cognizant. I know it’s a frustrating example for people who are in that like, oh my God, what about I’m paying the bills tomorrow?
Chris Villanueva 26:27
You need to be a little more transactional. But to your point, that is the way that people, that is the career warriors should live their networking life, I should say it’s value. First of all, it’s giving and not having this spirit of just take, and I’ve been there before, trust me, just like what can I get out of this too, especially earlier on when I’m trying to start a business, there’s so many things I really need, but living with that spirit is just so important and people need to realize who this is coming from. You’ve lived this life, you’ve had all of these amazing opportunities and roles, and I think people are going to look up to that just listening to this.
Mike Hayes 27:06
Thank you for that. I just want to help people is my goal, honestly. And so one of the things I would say though, for the people who are in the more exigent, demanding, pressure filled, like where am I going to make my next power or mortgage payment? And I know that’s not the bulk of the people who are listening, but that’s the hardest case. And when you can plan for the hardest case, everything else is easy. That’s what Navy seals do is always plan for the worst case. I would say don’t forget that you don’t need to make the perfect move in one step. You might need to take the job that isn’t your favorite job now so that you can make the mortgage payment and the power payment, but after hours, nights, weekends, whatever you’re doing what it takes to get yourself into the place where you want to be, it’s okay to make a sacrifice in the near term because that will help you in the long term. And so said more succinctly thinking in two steps or more is perfectly fine and might be the path through that you need to take in order to get to where you want to go.
Chris Villanueva 28:05
I love it. Mike, I’m going to ask you two more. I call challenging, more challenging questions, and then I’ve got to ask you about this book here. That’s going to be something that I would encourage every listener to check out, and we’ll make sure to leave the link as well. But okay, so this is a tough one because obviously we want people to spend more time in their career. I mean ideally, but let’s say somebody just has 30 minutes this week just to get started to living more of a mission-driven career. How would you invest, recommend that they invest their time? Just kind of like if you had to pick one thing that you’re recommending, what would it be?
Mike Hayes 28:41
Well, I can answer both questions at once. Of course, it’s to read mission driven might be, but let me not give you the flippant answer. That’s a very good question. I think there are, I’d say if you have 30 minutes, I’m going to give you two possibilities of answers. There are a million possibilities, but one possibility is go help someone. My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor in 19 December 7th, 1941, and lived a long life of just service and what it means to be a great inspiration. One of the things he told me was, Mike, when you’re having a hard day, the only thing to do is go find someone having a harder day and go help him or her.
Mike Hayes 29:23
And so if you have 30 minutes to think about your career, think about going to find somebody who has it harder than you and go help. I think I know that it sounds so counterintuitive, like, dude, I’m just trying to get out of advance my own career. I just feel like when you give, you can see it in a much different way. When I went to Walter Reed or saw Wounded Seals or Marines or army teammates, et cetera, man, you used to think it’s like, oh, I’m the senior leader going to visit the wounded Warriors and I’m going to bring them some appreciation and show ’em how much we care. No, any senior leader who’s walked the halls of Walter Reed Hospital with Wounded Warriors will tell you they actually got more than they gave. When you walk away and you see how amazing some of our wounded Americans are and how much deeply service runs in them, you walk away going just inspired. And so that 30 minutes of investment by helping somebody can light that fire to go spend the other six days, 24 hours and 30 minutes of your week to go be badass and kick down doors and go tear the cover off the ball. So that’s one answer.
Chris Villanueva 30:28
No, I was going to say that it’s so counterintuitive in the most beautiful way because I wasn’t expecting it. I feel like most people would lead with, okay, just sit down and journal. Nothing wrong with journaling. I do it all the time, but just I think your answer was so beautiful in itself by helping other people, we unlock so much freedom in our lives and it is not many people’s first instinct. So just thank you. That was brilliant.
Mike Hayes 31:04
I would definitely dispute that it was brilliant, but it was my best attempt at an answer the other bucket. Okay, let’s face it. Not everybody’s going to go out and spend 30 minutes helping other people while I do believe that’s the most important answer. Here’s a more practical one. If you don’t want to take door number one, door number two is go call somebody and just ask their advice. Be like, listen, I don’t need anything. I’m not asking you for anything specific other than tell me when you were at this junction in your life, how did you think about the logic around the decision you made? Or say, Hey, I’m in a spot where I’m dealing with this, that, or the other thing. I would love to just share what I’m going through in five minutes, but then listen for 25 on how you think that I should navigate it. And the thing is, we as humans love giving advice because implicit in our advice is probably not unlike this podcast is like people who are doing more of the talking EEG me think that we’re giving to other people, and that energizes us. It energizes me, Chris, to be able to take my good and my bad experiences and go help people.
Mike Hayes 32:08
How do you replicate or be better than me at the good things and how do you not do the bad things that I’ve done? If I can put you in either of those camps, man, I’m super energized personally, and so we down deep, our people who love to help people, the world doesn’t seem that way right now because social media and media largely is so polarizing, but the truth is shave off the extreme 10% or the two ends of the spectrum, 80% of the country, the nation, the world, whatever, really do love to help people. So long answer to a simple question, but just go ask for advice and listen.
Chris Villanueva 32:39
So if I can combine both of your answers, both buckets, go help other people and go ask for help.
Mike Hayes 32:47
Yeah, I guess my real answer is spend the hour, not the 30 minutes, the full hour. Right? Exactly. Go do both.
Chris Villanueva 32:54
Okay. So final question here, and it’s a deep one, and it was my favorite one I got from your book, but what problem in the world are you most excited to solve?
Mike Hayes 33:04
Oh, I love helping people to get off the sideline and take ownership and accountability in whatever it is that gets them excited. A lot of people say to me, Mike, thanks for your service. You don’t need to wear a uniform to serve my answer to that. I tend to cringe a little bit. I’ll say thank you and be stoic or whatever, but every veteran, but the truth is I like to turn that around and say, thank you for your service. Like Chris, if you haven’t worn a uniform, that doesn’t matter. You’re sitting there, we’re both sitting here in buttoned down t-shirts. We’re not wearing the nation’s cloth right now. That’s okay because we’re still serving.
Mike Hayes 33:39
You are serving just as much as I served in different ways. And so what I love to do is help people to understand that service can take all forms and fashions. Go create the fire break in the forest or go volunteer for Teach for America. Make your place of worship even better than it is. The elements of the world’s five largest religions are largely the same. It’s about the common principles, like how you treat other people and patience and forgiveness and love, and that can run through everything. So no matter you who you are and how you worship, how you learn, and how you teach others, I just want to see people get off the sidelines and take ownership and accountability of whatever it is that their passions are. That’s what will make the nation and the world a better place.
Chris Villanueva 34:23
So Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange said, mission-driven is more than a leadership playbook. It’s a reminder that the most impactful people operate with deep conviction, service and heart. So these are really, really convicting words, I think, and just that people are going to get a lot from this book. What is one thing that you do hope that listeners are going to take away from the book yourself? If you, I’m not going to make you pick, I’m making you pick too much, but what do you hope that listeners take away from your book?
Mike Hayes 34:53
I hope that my listeners, my readers can ignite new or reignite old passions so that they can live lives of purpose and live lives that help them be happy and to contribute to others. I really do deeply believe in the Gold Star community. Like I said, I’ve buried 75 teammates and probably 15 of them were legitimately brothers to me who I knew.
Chris Villanueva 35:19
What is the gold star community? What are gold star families? For people who don’t know.
Mike Hayes 35:23
A gold star widow is somebody who has lost her spouse. Well say her because they’re almost all female. A gold star is a person who has lost their spouse to service or suicide after the fact. And then of course, the children who have been left behind bear that cost every single day. The service member paid the ultimate sacrifice and isn’t here anymore. It’s the spouses and the children who carry that weight every single day. And so that’s where every single penny of profit from Mission driven goes to a 5 0 1 C3 that I founded several years ago and pays off mortgages for the gold star widows. And so my foundation’s awesome. Yeah, no, I can sound semi-normal, but listen, man, I carry a ton of weight. There’s not a day that doesn’t go by when it’s an anniversary of something. We recently passed June 28th a little bit ago, a couple months ago, and we lost 11 seals that day. We’ve got, I could go on and on with days where we had either matched casualties or we lost single seals here and there. And then the years after that, you see the daughters who graduate from college and get into work, the sons who do the same. Giving to this community that has paid so much is really my number one goal right now. And that’s again, all the profits from the book pay off those mortgages. It’s spent 12 mortgages to date.
Chris Villanueva 36:44
I loved the stories and the anecdotes and kind of bringing up certain things. I read a quote from the book in the beginning, but I would say either what is your most favorite chapter or the favorite aspect of writing the book?
Mike Hayes 36:54
That’s a really good question. First of all, I don’t like writing a book. It’s not like it’s fun. It’s work when I’m on.
Chris Villanueva 37:02
I’m not a writer. Yeah,
Mike Hayes 37:02
When I’m on my long haul flights or something like that, instead of binging the seventh season of something on Netflix, I’m heads down and being like, let me do some work here. And when I’m setting my day job aside, that’s what I do. And it’s a sacrifice in and of itself. I never thought I’d write one book, never Enough. Came out four years ago, and I’ll tell you that felt great to finish because I had had several near death experiences. And of course, you think about your loved ones, but you also think of like, oh, I had more to say and more to give. That’s how I felt in all of my near death experiences. And so this will sound really crazy, and I don’t know if I’ve ever said this out loud, but when I finished that book, I actually felt like, okay, I don’t want to die.
Mike Hayes 37:44
I want to go on living for my country, but if I am so unfortunate to pass away early, I know in those last moments, I’ll feel like I did a large part of what I was supposed to do. And so it kind of unlocked and liberated me a little bit. I know it sounds strange, and I doubt any other author would really say that, but the conversations that I had, because never enough helped a lot of people. I got hit on LinkedIn all the time and I can’t answer everything I get, but man, I just want to help people. But a lot of the conversations were centered around, sure, that was really great, but can you give me a more practical way to think about the future? And that’s why I wrote Mission-Driven because of the conversations I had.
Chris Villanueva 38:19
Well, everyone, Mission-Driven The Path to a Life of Purpose. This is the title of the book by Mike Hayes. If you’re listening to this podcast now, it is currently release week, so we’ll make sure to link how to get the book in the description of this podcast episode because we’re recording a little bit early in advance, but now you can get the book. So make sure to check that out when you’re not jogging or driving. I believe you will miss out if you’ve enjoyed this episode so far and you do not purchase this book. So Mike, any final words? Thank you so much for joining the show. I thought this was fabulous.
Mike Hayes 38:53
Chris, my final words were to be, to thank everybody who is listening to say the fact that you are listening indicates your own character and values and drive to contribute and be more. And it’s just a real honor and a pleasure to be able to spend time hopefully giving to the community who is listening. And I would just celebrate and thank everybody who is listening, and I genuinely, deeply say thank you also for supporting Mission Driven because it is a mission on many levels. It’s a mission to help you. It’s a mission all the way down to being a mission to help the gold star families. And so my thoughts and prayers, and thanks for everybody who is listening.
Chris Villanueva 39:25
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining the show, Mike.
Mike Hayes 39:27
Thank you, Chris. This
Chris Villanueva 39:28
Wraps up today’s episode of the Career Warrior Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I will, of course, as I mentioned, make sure to link the book within the description of this episode. Other things, how to get in touch with me. Mike, if you found this episode to be insightful, one of my favorite things, and you know what I’m going to say is posting this episode on LinkedIn. Tag me, tag Mike, let me know what you got out of this episode. It’s really what drives me and motivates me, and it helps me to figure out what best content to plan for you all as a listener. So thank you so much for tuning in and I’ll see you next week, Career Warrior Podcast. And before you go, remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at, Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search. And with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention, you’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ Thanks, and I’ll see you next time.