Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
About 10 years ago, a friend took me to an extreme ownership seminar.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
I think it was Jocko's first ever seminar or second, and there was only like 50 people in the room.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
And I read the book and I've installed that into my business for every ever since.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Right.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
And every business, every department, every person.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
How, you know, how much of that exists in the military in terms of taking ownership and responsibility?
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
And, you know, I always quote to my team when it's like the tech team hands off to the design team or the legal.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Right.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
It's like, hey, in the military, if you're, you know, moving for a combat zone, you can't just, you know, the guy covering the flank can't just forget.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Yeah.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Right.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
So I always use that sort of acronym and analogy is, is that something you see a lot of people?
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Love it.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
And, you know, last few questions I have now, like bridging into business, right?
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Now you do a lot of consulting work with big companies, CEOs, et cetera.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
And we've talked about a lot of it naturally, but what are those big bridges you see, you know, between the successful CEOs and when you come in and help work with companies?
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
What do you bring from that military service?
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
Yeah, yeah.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
I mean, just myself in the last 10 years, we've pivoted our business three big times, three different directions.
Living The Red Life
27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions
And, you know, every time you take a step back for a few months or a year in revenue, but every time, luckily, I've done that, the business has doubled or tripled over the next couple of years, you know, and it's, you know, I'm a very, I guess, I just go for it, you know, I just...