Unstoppable Teams

Want to create an unstoppable team?

Alden says: It’s simple. CARE.

Connect.
Achieve.
Respect.
Empower.

His CARE loop forms the basis of his “four actions of high-performance leadership.” Each has its own chapter with compelling stories and wisdom. All of which leads to creating the 10x advantage. We’ll take a quick look at a couple aspects of the CARE loop in a moment.

But before we’re ready to lead others, we need to lead ourselves first…

Welcome to Chapter 1 called “Your Platform” in which we meet “Instructor Half Ass” aptly named for the butt cheek he lost fighting in the Vietnam War.

Alden brilliantly (!) shares this scene in his 101 class.

Once again: Before we lead others we must first lead ourselves. Which just so happens to be the theme of the 101 Mike Erwin filmed in our studios a week before Alden filmed his. Alden is a Naval Academy graduate and top SEAL commander. Mike is a West Point grad who served multiple tours as an officer in the Army before heading back to teach leadership at West Point.

His book/class? Lead Yourself First.

That book is all about using solitude to cultivate clarity, creativity, emotional balance and moral courage. What’s that help us do? Well, in part, it helps strengthens the lines of communication between our head and our hearts so we know how to show up as the best version of ourselves not just on the sunny days but on the scary ones as well.

Alden tells us we have two voices: the “Whiner” in our heads and the “Whisperer” in our hearts. We need to learn how to turn down the volume of that Whiner who’s constantly telling us all the reasons we should give up/etc. as we pay more attention to the Whisperer that’s encouraging us to stick with it and show up as our heroically best selves—ESPECIALLY when we least feel like it.

How often shall we plan to look forward to this experience?

Enter: The forging of that samurai sword.

We can expect to get pounded thousands and thousands of times. And then some more. (Have I mentioned that we’ll never be exonerated? lol)

Which reminds me of this +1 on Swords vs. Sporks.

And this wisdom from Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning: “How can we incorporate these ideas into the real world? … My response is that it is essential to have a liberating incremental approach that allows for times when you are not in a peak performance state. We must take responsibility for ourselves, and not expect the rest of the world to understand what it takes to become the best that we can become. Great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpen their swords in the fire. Consider Michael Jordan. It is common knowledge that Jordan made more last-minute shots to win the game for his team than any other player in the history of the NBA. What is not so well known, is that Jordan also missed more last-minute shots to lose the game for his team than any other player in the history of the game. What made him the greatest was not perfection, but a willingness to put himself on the line as a way of life. Did he suffer all those nights when he sent twenty thousand Bulls fans home heartbroken? Of course. But he was willing to look bad on the road to basketball immortality.”

Whiner vs. Whisperer.

Who’s winning that internal debate these days and how can you Optimize a little more Today?

Welcome to the A in CARE: Achieve.

Once we authentically Connect (see the book and class for more on that, of course), it’s time to Achieve. Achieve what? Big, hairy, audacious, “over-the-horizon” goals that are worthy of us and DEMAND an unstoppable team.

Imagine that six-foot-tall person looking out onto the horizon.

How far can they see before the curve of the earth limits your field of view? Alden tells us it’s not as far as we may think. Not even three miles.

Which reminds me of Marcus Aurelius and island hopping and Constructive Living.

First, Aurelius. In Meditations he tells us: “Never confuse yourself by visions of an entire lifetime at once… remember that it is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone.”

Now island hopping. In The Procrastination Equation, leading motivation researcher Piers Steel tells us: “This is an example of a success spiral: if we set ourselves an ongoing series of challenging but ultimately achievable goals, we maximize our motivation and make the achievement meaningful, reflecting our capabilities. Each hard-won victory gives a new sense of self and a desire to strive for more. It is similar to the way Polynesian explorers colonized the South Pacific. From their home port they saw in the distance signs of a new island—a new goal—reachable if they made the proper provisions. Setting sail, they eventually made land, only to see another distant island from their new vantage point. Every step forward is enabled by the step just taken.”

And, finally, Constructive Living. What does David Reynolds tell us to ask ourselves when we feel confused or overwhelmed? Simple: “Now what needs to be done?”

Want to hit your over-the-horizon goals?

Let’s dream big but remember to never confuse ourselves with visions of a lifetime as we island hop by focusing on what’s important now. With an unstoppable team, of course. :)

P.S. Another piece of wisdom from another one of my favorite SEAL commanders comes to mind. Here’s how Mark Divine puts it in The Way of the SEAL: “The tougher things get, the smaller your goals should become. These ‘microgoals’ should be laser-focused on achievement of a target or a refined subset of your overall mission—this is benchmarking at work. While my trainees’ arms are shaking, I don’t encourage them to focus on holding their push-up position for forty-five minutes but for just one minute. During Hell Week, I didn’t focus on getting my Trident but on finishing the current physical training round safely with my team intact.

Avoid creating too many goals at one time, which can defuse your front-sight focus. Remember, SEALs focus on one mission at a time—both at the macro, or overall mission, level and at the micro, or target, level. An unrealistic time frame can also lead to frustration. Unwillingness to modify your goals to meet reality (remember that no plan survives contact with the enemy) can indicate inflexible thinking, the opposite of innovation we’re trying to cultivate. If you lack process goals or a ‘being’ purpose, you can become absorbed in achievement without enough focus on actual, lasting improvement (but understand that it’s often necessary to include achievement goals on the way to a bigger ‘being’ purpose). Finally, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to check with yourself daily, measuring and probing your progress. This ensures you stay on track, maintain momentum, and hold yourself accountable!”

Let’s continue our Achieve theme for a moment longer shall we?

First, SMART vs. OTH goals.

As I read that I thought of Charles Duhigg’s Smarter Faster Better where he basically connects the last Idea and this one: “In short, we need stretch *and* SMART goals. It doesn’t matter if you call them by those names. It’s not important if your proximal goals fulfill every SMART criterion. What matters is having a large ambition and a system for figuring out how to make it into a concrete and realistic plan.”

Plus: “So one solution is writing to-do lists that pair stretch goals and SMART goals. Come up with a menu of your biggest ambitions. Dream big and stretch. Describe the goals that, at first glance, seem impossible, such as starting a company or running a marathon.

Then choose one aim and start breaking it into short-term, concrete steps. Ask yourself: What realistic progress can I make in the next day, week, month? How many miles can you realistically run tomorrow and over the next three weeks? What are the specific, short-term steps along the path to bigger success? What timeline makes sense? Will you open your store in six months or a year? How will you measure your progress? Within psychology, these smaller ambitions are known as ‘proximal goals,’ and repeated studies have shown that breaking a big ambition into proximal goals makes the large objective more likely to occur.”

Then we have Alden’s point that if we’re going big, we need a united, unstoppable team driven by CARE. One of the biggest threats to that ambition? Doubt.

Re-enter: That sword forging process and strengthening the power of your Heart-Whisperer in the face of the shouting Whiner in your head when confronted with the inevitable doubts.

Those are the final words of the book. (And the final (epic!) story Alden shares in his 101 class.)

Imagine jumping out of an airplane. Now imagine being a terrible folder. Now imagine jumping out of that plane after packing your own parachute for the first time. (YIKES!)

The first time he did it, Alden was literally PUSHED out of the plane. (Gulp.)

Then he learned to jump out HEADFIRST. (YES!!!)

Ready to be unstoppable?

Well… What’s your big, awesome, over-the-horizon goal?

I echo Alden and say that it’s time to CARE enough to do jump headfirst and lead ourselves and our unstoppable teams!