In the second part of his interview with Errol Doebler (@Leader_193), Mark and Errol talk about work with the FBI SWAT teams and his breathing practices with Wim Hof. Errol is the author of the newly released The Process, Art, and Science of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Confidence and Clarity in Combat, in the Boardroom, and at the Kitchen Table. He tells Mark about finding his own leadership philosophy from the different kinds of work that he’s done.
Hear how:
- The practice of breathing properly is the basis of learning how to lead.
- You’ll always need to make a plan when you’re confronted with a situation.
- You must understand the role of the SMAC process in planning.
Listen to this episode to hear more about Errol’s approach to planning and leadership.
Dr. Parsley’s sleep remedy was designed to help Navy SEALs to overcome some of the sleep challenges that they have as hard-charging individuals. Doc Parsley believes that proper sleep and recovery is absolutely essential to maintain our ability to perform at a high level. His sleep “cocktail” includes a number of supplements to provide our bodies with chemicals naturally produced by the brain to encourage sleep. Commander Divine is a huge fan and encourages members his tribe to try it out for themselves. Enter “unbeatablemind” at the checkout on www.docparsley.com to get 10% off.
During these times we’re all experiencing unprecedented stress. To help decompress, Mark recommends the BiOptimizer magnesium supplement. Magnesium is a major component of body chemistry and is responsible for many biochemical reactions. So you can supplement with Magnesium Breakthrough, the supplement from BiOptimizer. You can use it for 10% off because you are a listener. Go to https://bioptimizers.com/unbeatable and use the code unbeatable10 at checkout.
Listeners to the podcast, can save by using the code UNBEATABLE at checkout for 20% off the regular price.
Love the Unbeatable Mind Podcast? Click here to subscribe on iTunes.
We’d love your feedback, please leave a rating and review.Transcript
Mark: So you got bored and decided to join the FBI or what happened?
Errol: No, no. So the transition was 9/11. I was the city at 9/11. I was doing a business deal. And I was downtown – and I’m not making this more dramatic than it is – I was about a couple of blocks away from where the rubble ended. Right?
So I was safe, but walk a couple blocks south and then you would have seen it. So my brother-in-law worked in the towers, so I called my sister and I said, “hey where is he?”
And he had quit his job a couple of days before. He went in to pick up his final paycheck and say goodbye to everybody. Devastating.
So I ran to the upper east side where my sister was. We did the whole thing, went through the hospitals handed out the pictures… it was morbid.
Mark: So he lost his life?
Errol: Yeah. He died. And so that’s when I said, “all right, I’ve got to find a way back into this thing.”
So I went and got myself medically cleared, which is a whole ‘nother fun story – maybe for a different day. And then I applied to the usual suspects – the FBI and the CIA – and the FBI it was. And I got to work counterterrorism out of New York city. And it was awesome.
So that was the turning point. Because I was happy in the private sector, you know? I had changed jobs, I was selling software… so everything was fine, I was happy, but that was it…
Mark: So what were the key differences between leading a SWAT team versus leading a SEAL platoon? The cultures and the environment?
Errol: Yeah, so you know look… I’m very honest about my later experience in the FBI was… the FBI is struggling from a leadership perspective. They don’t have a good leadership culture.
That said – I always make the caveat – some of the best leaders I’ve ever met, and saw were in the FBI. And so that’s a fact. It’s just that they were a handful, right?
In the teams if you’re a bad leader you stick out like a sore thumb. In the FBI, if you’re a good leader you stick out like a sore thumb.
So from a SWAT perspective… that New York SWAT team… we were an excellent combat unit. What people don’t realize is, that’s a collateral duty. The primary duty is still an investigator.
So you’re required to work your investigative cases and then you’ve got to make sure that you have those cases you know up this up to standard, and up to snuff, so you can go out and do your training. And then the operations with the SWAT team.
So it’s people who are absolutely double committed, because they’re taking time that they don’t really have…
Mark: Most of your time in the SWAT was training, right? How much time was training versus an actual incident response?
Errol: We went on a lot of operations in New York SWAT. So you had to train every other week, and then we took one or two weeks out of the year – I think one week out of the year – and then did a full week training.
You know, I don’t know what the numbers were, but you know if two weeks went by where we didn’t have an operation that would be a lot. There was usually something going on. And as you can imagine, it’s New York city.
Mark: You’re on a pager or something like that? When it pings, you report to the team room? And you go?
Errol: Yeah, you know, we had cell phones. (laughing) not quite as cool, but we had cell phones… but yeah, yeah… that was it. And usually there was only a couple where you get that quick call out. Because you’re in the city, right? So I could be in Brooklyn which is as the crow flies five miles, and it’ll take me an hour and a half to get back to the office.
So there’s not a whole lot of quick hits. But you might get one Monday night to say we’ve got one tomorrow morning. That’s usually the way it went down. And sometimes you had a couple days…
Mark: Who were the targets mostly?
Errol: So it was mostly… we did a lot of organized crime – so a lot of Italian organized crime, and a lot of Russian organized crime.
And then gangs – violent street gangs. So the whole gamut ms-13, crips, bloods… the whole thing. So organized crime and gangs. We didn’t get called out on the CPA who stole a bunch of money or anything like that.
Mark: I see. Not the white-collar stuff.
Errol: No, not really.
Mark: And your primary role was an investigator, and so you were – you tell an interesting story in the book about how you were setting up… or leading – pitching and then leading an op to install some undercover operatives in the cartel basically.
And how you were having this great success, but the organization, the bureaucracy – or at least the bureaucratic leader above you – kept pushing back, and messing things up, and just not supporting you
So what were your lessons there? How to navigate that when you don’t have support from your entire chain of command?
Errol: Well and the point that I make very strongly is that – for better or for worse – the leader will dictate the environment.
And that’s what he did. He dictated the environment despite the successes we were having. We had… you know, in the SEAL teams you learn to have big ideas, right? “I got an idea. I know how we can do this.”
And that’s the spirit I brought to what I did, and I had a big idea for that gang that had just decimated a neighborhood for years. Certainly before I stepped into it.
And it was a lot of big aggressive drug buys, and gun buys. And I was convinced I could get an undercover in there. I had recruited a well-placed source. We had access to everybody.
And my plan was just a little out of the box. But for a good reason. Because the more conventional stuff hadn’t worked.
There’s a playbook to be done on some of these cases. And so my boss he heard what I had to say, and he very condescendingly went through the standard playbook for these types of operations and I said, “look, you’re right.” I said, “but there’s nothing but these things in the file. None of them worked and here’s why they didn’t work. We have to change it up. That’s not going to work because it’s never worked.”
And that was the beginning of the end, you know? He didn’t want me to do it. I convinced him to at least let me brief it. He was convinced it was going to get shot down.
It didn’t. That made him mad, right? So now we’ve got that ego jumping in. And then I told him how much money I was going to request and spend. And he said “that’s ridiculous. That will never get approved.”
And then it did. And then it made him even more mad. And then we were starting to have some success and he just… the example I use there is the emotional awareness and recognition, right?
Emotions drive our actions – and if we are not emotionally aware of what we’re doing or how we’re feeling then we are just going to act. And we’re going to act randomly, and the results might as well be left to the flip of a coin. Because you’re not making conscious decisions.
And that’s where he was. Now I take responsibility, because at some point I got so sick and tired of him doing this to me – he was he was pitting teammates against each other, and when that happens, you’re forcing people to take sides. Are they going to take my side or are they going to take the boss’ side?
You know, they have to persevere…
Mark: He poisoned the culture…
Errol: Poisoned the whole thing. So none of my teammates… none of the people who are assisting me in the investigation actively went against me, they didn’t. They’re like “good plan. We’re here.” They were professional across the board.
But the spirit was dead, right? They didn’t want to pitch in with the plan. Throw ideas out there. Be excited to try to do something else, because they knew the boss hated this whole thing.
So they just said, “we’ll wait till Errol puts the plan together and we’ll crush it, but then we’re out.”
So this is where I could have taken my own advice, right? Emotional awareness and recognition, for god’s sakes. We were having success. I just should have let it go, okay?
We were getting things approved. We were doing operations; we were collecting intelligence. So instead of just letting it go and absorbing his criticisms – for lack of a better term – I just one day said, “you know man?” I said, “I really need you to start disagreeing with me more.”
He said, “what are you talking about?”
I said, “because you’re always wrong.” I said so I’m looking at this as my good luck charm. Every time you say I can’t do something; it always works out?” I didn’t need to. That was immature and I just poured fuel… I just poked the bear, and I didn’t need that. It just was unnecessary.
And then that escalated things. And the and the shame of it is, is not just my sob story about I didn’t like my boss or get along with him. The end result of this thing is the case gets shut down – we make one arrest. We had video and audio evidence of the top leaders in this gang buying and selling drugs and weapons. Offering murder for hires.
And we finally were offered an introduction of our undercovers to the main person – who might have been overseas for all we knew, right? That’s where we were going.
Shut down with one arrest. That community still decimated.
Mark: The kind of story that taxpayers love to hear. Like yay. And how many hundreds of billions of dollars go into that organization?
Errol: I’m telling you; you know? But on the flip side, I do like to say look I also worked some great operations. And operations that were highly successful because of the leaders, right? And that’s what I talk about. You get a couple of really good leaders in the FBI, and there was a couple man I thought I had out of the box ideas and can work through a system.
Some of the best leaders I saw they’re like “Errol, don’t you worry about the bureaucracy. I’ll take care of that. You just keep coming up with your plans, I’ll figure out the other stuff.”
And then that’s when you make magic happen, right? If I had had one of those guys or girls on this operation who knows what we would have done with it.
Mark: Right.
Wim Hof
14:36
I did a podcast with Wim Hof. I noticed you talk about one of the tools that you’ve been using is the breath and cold exposure… the breath-work, cold exposure of Wim Hof’s method. And did you start that when you were at the FBI and go through his training? Or was that when you were out?
Errol: That was when I was out…
Mark: So that became kind of a breakthrough for you in terms of your own self-awareness, of your emotional patterns and how they were driving a lot of your behavior. That’s interesting.
Errol: Yes it was revolutionary, and fantastic… so the Wim Hof method – I got introduced to it… so I started leader 193 and I was doing for a client Sheldon Wolitski from the select group… I was doing a three-day leadership retreat for his group and he calls me one day and he says “hey, I want you to incorporate the Wim Hof method into the weekend.”
And I’m like “what’s the Wim Hof method?” I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, “just call this guy – Brandon Powell was his name – and just work it out.”
I said, “okay, yeah no problem.”
So I call Brandon, we work out the logistics and I said, “man what the hell is this thing?” Because I did a quick study of it and I see somebody in ice… and you can appreciate that, you see somebody sitting in a bucket of ice water… like “whoa, what’s that? I can relate to that a little bit.”
So it really turned me on, and he was great – we spent an hour or two on the phone and he was explaining what it was. And as soon as we hung up, I got on the website, signed up for the 10-week online course which is the first prerequisite to a three-stage certification process.
And so I just did it initially because I thought “this is super cool.” I start doing it.
I swear to god, Mark. This is no exaggeration. Just from the 10-week online course – about a week into it my wife says to me “I’m not sure what this thing is you’re doing, but you are never allowed to stop.”
And I said, “well okay.” I said “I won’t… I don’t think I’m going to, but why?” Now keep in mind I had just started a business; I left the FBI right all the benefits of leaving government work without the pension and all that stuff. Three kids and I’m dropping it all.
So stress is high. And she goes “look, the stress is still here, but seems like you’re handling it differently. Like you’re acknowledging it, but it’s not controlling you, it’s not owning you.”
Well now I understand why, because that breath work literally – science tells us – resets the nervous system, right? I mean, I’m sure you and I could go speak about just breathing for hours on end.
But that was it. So I started doing it. I enjoyed it. It was helping me personally.
And then I realized getting into the ice bath and then breathing to a certain degree, really played such a role in practicing kind of my leadership principles, right? So we talked about this very first one – emotional awareness and recognition. How do you practice something like that? There’s got to be some intention, you’ve got to understand it. But you’ll just forget about it from your day to day…
That’s right, you got to habituate it under pressure. We do it at our SEALFIT training – you know, our crucibles and sheepdog trainings. Just get people to begin the process of breath – you know, working with the breath and exposure to you know cold, and ice, and uncomfortable environments.
And then just work keep working habituating controlling their arousal response and also their mindfulness. So that they can you know disconnect from the negative reactive patterns. That’s what you were experiencing…
Errol: That’s exactly right. And so that’s how I use… so when we say, “how do you practice emotional awareness and recognition?” Which is basically what you just described. Well here’s one thing I can promise you before you step into an ice bath, you’re going to have an emotion.
Mark: (laughing) you’re not going to want to do it. Period.
Errol: (laughing) “this is stupid. What am I doing?” And you’re going to have an emotion when you get in. “well this is more stupid than I thought.”
So my point is I started to see that as a tool when I’m coaching people to say “look we’ve got to work on this for this week. We’re going to work on emotional awareness recognition. You’re going to get into the shower – cold shower, the ice bath – and here’s your intention. Just recognize your emotion.”
That will be a place to start the habit and people who buy in – and I know I don’t have to tell you; you can only help somebody if they’re buying in. But people who buy in, it changes their life too.
So I still use it for myself, I still do just straight Wim Hof seminars – because I love them, because they’re fun…
Mark: You mean you teach them?
Errol: I teach them yeah, yeah. I teach them.
Mark: Get you to come out here and do one for us. That’d be fun.
Errol: I tell you it’d be great. Because there’s the breathing technique is much different, right? And I know you’re into a lot of the breathing techniques, but it’s that deep aggressive breathing, right? And it’ll bring you to a really weird state fast.
And just to your point – because I’ll take you up on that invitation – if you have somebody who can walk you through it right somebody to really guide you – you always get a better experience. So even if you don’t find me, I’ll recommend somebody right near you…
Mark: Yeah, I’m anxious to do… I mean I’ve done some of the Wim Hof breathing from other certified teachers – and we run a 45-minute breath empowerment at all of our events which is all nostril breathing, really intense that that also leads to incredible emotional, and intuitive, and spiritual responses or breakthroughs.
And I’ve done one extended breath-work more like holotrophic – which is through the mouth – with a friend named Dan Brule – he’s actually presenting at our Unbeatable Mind experience this weekend.
But I’ve never gone through the Wim Hof method where I breathe and then get in the ice bath and continue the breathing. I know it works. I mean, the whole process came from the Tibetan monks – they had designed it to stay warm in these wickedly cold, Himalayan nights.
But I remember reading stories – and, you know, I devour every single yoga or Tibetan meditation book I can. I’ve read multiple stories about the monks basically being outside at night and the ice is all melting around them.
Errol: It’s unbelievable.
Mark: And they’re in the robe or a little blanket. And it’s all the breath – the power of that breath to change your physiology and to affect your immune system. And to heal your brain – like we were talking about from earlier with post-traumatic stress.
Breath is magic medicine and it’s free.
Errol: It is. It is the magic medicine. And Wim Hof is very clear on that point, because he doesn’t say “I’m the first one to do this.” He says everything you just said. But what he does say, and he’s right, he’s the first one to bring it to science. He finally got the scientists, saying “here’s what happens in your body when this happens.”
And it’s the reset of the nervous system. So we remove the inflammation. And we all know the inflammation is the key driver to all the bad things that are happening – depression, cancer, Alzheimer’s all this stuff we know that is a scientific fact now.
And when you can say “let’s just do this breathing technique to reset,” what else is there, right? People wonder like “oh, I know this person who exercises, eats right and even they meditate once in a while. And they got cancer. They died of a heart attack, what’s that all about?”
Well, here’s what it’s probably about. Because we’re not talking about the physiology that’s probably not being exercised, right? You can’t outrun the stress, you can’t out-exercise the stress, you can’t out-diet the stress, you can’t out-meditate the stress, right?
But you can out-breathe the stress. Because it’ll reset you. And it’s just a whole ‘nother element to our well-being… especially today, right? I mean, especially today.
So let’s link this or tie this into your five-step process right for bringing you know effective leadership – you call it the process, the art and the science of leadership. So the five steps… the emotional self-awareness and control – not your words but mine – and then bringing that into the team. So like the social or team self-awareness of their emotional states and how that’s affecting things. So just those two alone are transformative for a team, right? Just those two alone is transformative…
And then three is strict or clear – clearly articulated guidelines for behavior. So you can have that accountability for how people show up and behave.
And then a planning process, and I love that you use SMACCC, because I use the same acronym in my book ”Unbeatable Mind.” And straight out of military playbook, I love that. It’s so simple and so effective.
And then this made me think of Steven Pressfield, but overcoming the resistance which is inevitable. And he talks about that in the in the “War of Art…”
Errol: And that’s footnoted, right? The first time you see the word “resistance” in the book, it’s footnoted right to “The War of Art.”
Mark: So talk us through that process and how you link in you know the Wim Hof breathing and ice treatment and other tools that you’ve come up with.
Errol: So the reason… when I put my thing together, right? Just like you did I’m sure you’re gonna start your own thing – what do I believe? Can I articulate it in a true form that is repeatable…?
Mark: Got to be grounded in experience. And so I had to sit back and all the things we talked about, right? I just went through them.
What are the common denominators? What were the common denominators?
And emotional unawareness was a common denominator. Cultural unawareness – how I acted, right? Culture is – and this is at least how I say it – culture is made up of the things you do, not the labels you put on them. So you can say all you want “we have a culture of excellence.” I’m not telling you not to say that.
But if you can’t tell me the four things you do that create excellence, then I’m going to say “you don’t have a culture of excellence. You just have a label.”
So the unawareness of what I was doing based on how I was feeling, led to almost all my problems, right?
Mark: (laughing) pretty much say that for everybody, right?
Errol: (laughing) that was it. So that’s why I spent so much time on those… and it’s an awareness, right? If we are aware of how we’re feeling, what we’re doing, we can start making the adjustments.
And then when we talk about accountability, I used to call this thing the accountability funnel – I changed the name – but accountability needed to be in there somewhere. Because that’s such a big question for people who I work with is how do I hold people accountable?
My answer is “to what? Have you made it clear what they’re accountable to?”
“what do you mean?”
“well, let’s just start with behaviors – because I’m not going to go into your widget, right? I’m not going to go into like when I was in sales the nine-step sales process. Yes, we were accountable to that.
I wanted a bigger theme. What behaviors can we hold people accountable to that will make them better at everything? And that’s where the art comes in. That’s going to be different for everybody. The behavior that you need to get better as an individual is going to be different than my behavior.
Might say, “I need to act with more courage in my decision-making process.”
You might say, “well no. I’m good there, but I tend to procrastinate.”
So that’s the art, but let’s all agree that we need to identify a behavior. And the same thing then holds true for your teams, right? If you want people to act a certain way, behave a certain way… you have to tell them what it is. You just have to.
And I know the young leaders I work with have a real problem with that “well, Errol, that’s like I’m a dictator…”
No, no, no. You’re the leader. You have to define these things for your people. A good strong behavior, whatever it is based on an awareness of what you’re seeing – make it applicable, they’ll like it. Trust me.
SMACCC
29:57
Errol: So that was the next part. And then – like you said – SMACCC, the planning process. And I make it very clear because people love SMACCC, right? When I introduce it to them, they’re like “this is the greatest thing ever!”
I didn’t invent it. I just ripped it right out of the SEAL teams. So you can find it anywhere. But you modify it to everybody’s needs, because if you think about it if you don’t have a plan for everything you’re doing, what are you doing?
I mean, when I get done with you and I go downstairs in my kitchen and see my wife and my maniac kids – ages seven, six and 18 months – I better be thinking of a plan when I get down there.
What’s the situation, right? The situation is chaos. What’s my mission? Alleviate that chaos by pulling one of the kids out. What are my actions? Get down there quick… tell my wife… whatever it is.
If you have a plan and everywhere you go and you just make that part of your life, then all of a sudden it just becomes second nature.
Mark: Let’s go through the acronym real quick for folks…
Errol: So SMACCC. Situation – set of circumstances dictating a need for action, right? It could be a problem, it could be an opportunity. But if somebody says something to you, and your response is “well, what are we going to do about that?” You’ve identified a good situation. Right? You need to act.
It’s the most overlooked, because how often…
Mark: Well that sets the intention for why we’re going to do what we’re doing.
Errol: That’s right.
Mark: That’s the backdrop. That’s the context. Without context it’s hard to get motivated for a mission
Errol: Exactly. And then if there is a need to act what is your mission? What specifically are you trying to accomplish?
Mark – and again, I know you’ve seen it in your practice – these are the first two things that are missed in almost every organization that I work with. People are just doing stuff.
Mark: “why are you doing this. Well, that’s the way we always did it.”
Errol: Right or “that’s what they told me to do,” right? So again so the situation, mission, actions if you have a mission you have to identify which actions are going to need to take place to accomplish that mission.
Command, right? Command is not “I command you to do this.” Command is who is in charge of each action? Who is in charge of the mission? One person. So we have to identify who’s in command.
Contingencies. If you have actions you have to account for things that can potentially go wrong. Just have a pseudo-plan in case that happens if a) happens we’ll move to b).
And then communication okay not the soft skills of communication which are incredibly important. It is when are we communicating? How are we communicating? For how long are we communicating? About what are we communicating? And who are we communicating with? Okay?
That needs to be identified. You need to do those things, right? The premise behind it is we used this in the teams. I used it in the FBI.
If you do these things – if you make the plan, the plan will either tell you “don’t go,” before you go it’ll say “too many contingencies. You can’t account for all of them. We’re not taking that risk.”
Good – if you account for these things and you go, you’re going to find some success. It’s almost guaranteed. You just will.
So if you do these things to keep people alive and achieve victory on the battlefield, I think it’s probably good enough for the kitchen table. It’s probably good enough for the boardroom, right? Give it a whirl. And everybody overwhelmingly agrees.
However, it’s a simple concept… super-difficult to execute.
Mark: That’s right. What I love about the planning process like that is it could be a simple back of the napkin or one pager for something that’s like a project – let’s say I got a project this week to hit up.
Or it can be expanded with unbelievable detail you know for a whole joint venture or launching a new product line or something that’s much more detailed and complicated. Same framework.
Errol: Same framework. It never changes. It’s just difficult.
And you’ve seen it a thousand times, right? You’re out on patrol with your platoon. Something goes sideways – circle up, reset security, reset the plan – what’s the situation, right?
Mark: (laughing) no plan survives contact…
Errol: That’s it. And it’s as simple as that. So I bring that to the table, because again all this other stuff is good right? Awareness, cultural emotional awareness is good, behaviors to be accountable, good…
But in the end, you have to accomplish things, right? Leaders accomplish stuff. And to do that you need a plan.
Mark: I bet your clients are like “whoo, whoo! Finally, we get to take some action here. And learn the practical skill.” Because all that emotional stuff is tough work.
Errol: Yes. You’re exactly right.
Mark: But that’s the most valuable work, you know…
Errol: Those are the first two weeks, when I bring people through my program and I tell them I go “just get ready for some pain these first couple weeks, because it’s just about awareness and your emotions.”
I said “you have to trust me. We’re going to put meat on the bone, okay? Just we have to start with this stuff.”
Mark: Right.
Errol: And they get it. And at the end they’re like “hey, you’re right.”
Mark: Get self-awareness, cultural awareness, establishing strong clear guidelines for behavior… and then the SMACCC plan – the planning process – and then the last part is preparing or dealing with the resistance that comes up inevitably. Those are the obstacles. Those are the no plan survives contact stuff, right?
Errol: That and when you start presenting something like this right this is new, right? Not everybody does what we’re talking about here.
We did it in the teams. It’s intuitive to you. But what’s going to happen I tell people is “you’re going to start presenting people with some behavioral guidelines. Things you expect.”
You’re going to start requiring them to make a plan, before they act. There’s going to be a natural resistance to that.
Mark: Resistance to the actual leadership principles…
Errol: To the leadership principles, yes. Resistance to change in an environment.
And that’s where the science comes in. Because we talked about the neuroscience of how the brain works. And how we have x number of thousand thoughts per day and like 90% of them are the same as the day before.
So, therefore they will be the same tomorrow, a week from now… and that’s how we’re hardwiring our brain.
But we know now we can also rewire our brain, but it’s super-difficult. So what I tell leaders that I coach is when you see the resistance to what you’re doing, check your process first. Make sure you haven’t missed something.
Because if you’ve missed something, that’s probably where the resistance is coming from, right? If you haven’t made a good plan, if you haven’t established good guidelines, go there first, right?
If you’ve done all those things, and there’s still resistance, understand that you are rewiring people’s brains. Give them a little grace. Give them a little patience.
For the individual leader I say the same thing, right? You’re going to go through this yourself, you’re going to make personal changes. Understand you’re doing a whole rewiring it’s hard give yourself some grace. Give yourself some patience. That’s the resistance. You’re going to find it everywhere now, right?
Your diet. There are the cookies. Simple as that. That’s the resistance, to go get that cookie. Just one.
You know, you’ve got to understand… I’ve got a new behavior. I need to work here. That’s it.
So that’s kind of how I identify the resistance. The resistance that you’ll find that inhibits self-improvement, either as an individual or a team.
Mark: Nice. Awesome.
So the book you recently put this out – did you self-publish it, or did you have a publisher?
Errol: I did self-publish it. So it’s on amazon. And that’s where we get it.
Mark: “the process, art and science of leadership.” Good job. Very, very solid. I love it.
And your company is leader 193?
Errol: That’s it.
Mark: Leader193.com website. Okay.
So do you have any other things any places people can learn about you any videos on YouTube or social media stuff?
Errol: Yeah you know and we’re ramping all that stuff up now, you know? I found a guy named Mark Divine who’s got some really good videos out there. (laughing) I’m just ripping off all his stuff.
Yeah, we’ve got a YouTube channel and you know a lot of the videos are pretty raw. And as with any company, we’re tightening all that stuff up. We’re going to put out a more consistent message.
But yeah on YouTube everything Leader 193 you find on Instagram, on my website, on YouTube… and you can learn about the Wim Hof practice and learn about what I offer to folks as well… companies and individuals.
Mark: Well let’s follow up on that Wim Hof. Either you come out here and do something for a few of us or I’ll come out there – because I’m from New York… I’m going to get back there eventually.
Errol: Well, Mark, now you’ve done it. Because I’m going to be like “all right, we’re going to be doing this.”
Mark: We call it the “it’s been said” rule. It’s been said, now we’ve got to do it.
Errol: (laughing) and you said it twice. Now you’re definitely not getting off the hook. We will definitely do it.
Mark: I look forward to that.
All right, Errol. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks for your great insights on leadership and for bringing them out to the world. And stay focused and we’ll see you around. Hooyah.
Errol: Thank you. Hooyah.
Mark: All right buddy.
All right folks, that’s it. So, really interesting stuff. And we went a little long – maybe this will be two podcasts – but really cool. Great insights of just what it’s like to be an operator and to screw up as a leader in the seals. You don’t usually hear that, because most guys are out there beating their chest about how freaking awesome they are. (laughing)
And also FBI. Like, what a different culture. And then bringing these leadership principles to corporations and to leaders. So Errol Doebler, check out his work.
And thank you very much for your time and attention today. Stay focused, be safe and let’s get through this year with our sanity intact.
Hooyah.
Divine out.