Finding God After a Career-Ending Injury - Joe Musselman
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: God has bestowed upon us a plethora of gifts and abilities that allow us to make a significant impact and change the world. Your presence alone has already influenced and improved the lives of many, even more than you can fathom. Every single day, through your actions, words, and the unique talents you possess, you have the power to influence those around you.
[00:00:33] Although you may not realize it, your light shines brightly and makes a remarkable difference in this world. Each and every individual matters, and it's God's desire for us to be our true selves and treat others with love, kindness, and humility. Just as we would our brothers and sisters, we should strive to be someone that others can rely on, someone who creates a space where people can be themselves.
[00:01:04] And on this week's episode of Relentless Hope, we are joined by Joe Musselman, an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist founder of The Honor Foundation. Joe teaches us these exact lessons.
[00:01:23] The Honor Foundation is a foundation that serves as the first ever career transition institute for US Navy seals and special operation forces, helping these brave individuals transition from one phase of their lives into the next phase.
[00:01:43] On this episode, Joe shares his journey of discovering his superpower
[00:01:48] and mission in life, which began after he suffered a career ending medical injury while training to become a Navy Seal. He encourages us to approach life with a spirit of service, noting that there are numerous ways to fill our bucket of service, some of which might not align with our initial expectations.
[00:02:14] We're inspired as people to become servant leaders, putting others first, protecting, and taking care of them, and always leading in service of others. Joe emphasizes this and he emphasizes the importance of living by core values such as love, faith, hope, and honesty and making decisions that align with your values each and every day.
[00:02:45] We're reminded that finding joy in our work is essential to creating an impactful legacy, and that the people who make the most significant impact are often fierce advocates with a soft touch. We hear about Joe's grandmother who left him with a legacy of vulnerability and encouraged him to be open and honest about his feelings.
[00:03:09] As Joe emphasizes every day presents incredible opportunities for us to make a difference, and although it is a significant responsibility, it is one that God knows we are capable of shouldering.
[00:03:26] When Joe Musselman enlisted in the Navy to become a Navy Seal, he was all in. But then when he suffered a spinal injury, he found himself questioning God's plan for his life.
[00:03:39] Joe Musselman: I can still remember the time when I looked up into the sky when I could feel the right side of my leg and my body going numb from an injury that was very serious. I remember looking up and I, I remember cursing and swearing and saying, you, you better have an effing plan for this, like this. Better be part of your plan and, and praying fiercely and angrily and emotionally, because I knew that that was my very last day inside of SEAL training, and I couldn't figure it out.
[00:04:17] I've been an athlete my whole life. I've never experienced any injury. I've never experienced any traumatic injury, never had anything wrong go wrong. My body was never something that w that I planned on failing me. I said, if there's something that's gonna break me, it's gonna be my mind. And my mind was totally intact and my body ended up breaking.
[00:04:40] Steve Gatena: On episode one of this three part series, Joe Musselman, the founder of the Honor Foundation, explains how we all have superpowers for Joe serving ex-military to find their passion was ignited when he experienced a failure himself. By being empathetic and vulnerable with the people around him, he was able to find a new calling for himself.
[00:05:10] Joe Musselman: My name is Joe Musselman. Uh, I am, um, entrepreneur, founder, uh, and VC, and I'd like to talk to you about a life hack that has to do with finding your superpower. And most people don't talk about a life hack in the sense of finding a superpower. And I never would've known what my superpower was if I didn't meet an unbelievable failure.
[00:05:38] So first off, I come from a very small town outside of the city of Chicago, uh, lower middle class. We never had a lot of money or things, but I always felt so wealthy and I felt wealthy with, with love and family and extended family and friends and community. Uh, from my church community to my family community, to the schools I I went to, I always felt so wealthy and I grew up with that perspective.
[00:06:08] Uh, so I grew up with two amazing parents who instilled values in me. Uh, one value in particular was the classic line of who can change that. And what that means is when I was growing up in that house, if I did something wrong and if I found myself, you know, in a, uh, in a situation where I was grounded or I was in timeout, or whatever it was that I was absolutely deserving of. Um, my mother would look at me and she would say, who can change that? And for me, growing up, that was a, that was a significant line that I, I kept in my life, uh, all the way up into the present day. But why did it translate into, how does this translate into a superpower and how does this translate, um, you know, into one of the greatest and most successful failures in my life to date?
[00:07:03] I'm, I'm wondering how many people that are listening used to wake up early to watch cartoons. And I used to do that, and I used to love watching the superheroes, the Marvel characters. Uh, I would get up early five, 6:00 AM uh, I would greet my father who worked a very, very late night shift. Um, and we would sit there and we'd watch cartoons together.
[00:07:22] It's some of my fondest memories of growing up. And I, I fell in love with Superman and Marvel characters and, and the, the reason for that was, is that they all had these interesting superpowers that my father would always translate into a, a, a message of, of gentilnes, so Superman was always, uh, the neighborhood hero.
[00:07:40] He would rescue a cat, he'd lift up cars, he would walk women across the street, he would, he'd be a great, uh, friend. Uh, and, and my father would translate those messages into being a good son and being a gentleman, uh, and always open doors and always be polite and treat all people with respect and waking up to those little morning lessons I was always so excited to do that.
[00:08:02] And my, my mother in the same regard, uh, would also, uh, lay a, a heavy hand on the responsibility and take accountability for your actions. The, the term boys will be, boys did not come into my mother's vernacular. She wanted me to take accountability and responsibility for, uh, for things that I was either mischievously doing as a child or not.
[00:08:24] Uh, and I had two parents where we may not have had a lot of money, but man, I felt wealthy with with, uh, with two parents. My parents raised me to, with so much love, uh, and empathy, uh, for the world and those people around me that I wanted to grow into a man that would talk about love and vulnerability and authenticity and genuine topics, uh, that, that are really at the core of everything we do.
[00:08:54] We're all walking around a bundle of stories, good and bad stories. And some from childhood are bad. Some from childhood are good, but every single one of them are shaping us into the people that we are walking around. And, and the real question that, that I had to ask myself, uh, you know, going into the Navy is what type of, what type of man did I want to be inside of, of this community?
[00:09:20] And, um, when I experienced in this injury, it took me to a really dark place because I felt like a failure. I felt like I did not live up to my family's expectations. I felt like I had let my father down. I felt like I had to make difficult phone calls telling people that I was injured and, and my body broke and I'm not gonna become a SEAL.
[00:09:46] Uh, I thought they would look down on me and I was really embarrassed. I felt as I walked out of the base and was walking through town, that everyone was looking at me, that everyone somehow knew that I failed. And of course, I, now I, looking back, it's so silly to think that that's where my mind went, but my heart and soul was only dedicated to one thing and I didn't achieve that one thing, so I didn't understand how to move forward.
[00:10:09] Um, I felt like people were counting on me and I had let them all down. When people feel like a failure, especially people with strong imaginations, like myself, they really go into a dark place, and I've helped so many folks kind of walk through their thinking when they do feel like they are failures, that the one thing I can say is the first thing you have to do is practice fierce empathy for yourself and look at the situation that you're in, uh, and remind yourself of, of what you set out to do.
[00:10:46] And, and the long game of going into the Navy was to begin my life of service. So I, I, I would argue that folks that would be transitioning out of the military community and into the next great adventure of their life, I would argue that you didn't join the military to become a, a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine. Uh, you didn't join the military to go off, uh, to war or to deploy or, uh, whatever.
[00:11:15] It's a deeper cause.
[00:11:16] You join the military because you have a spirit of service, and the spirit of service is a bucket that can be filled in many different ways. I want, I thought my bucket of service needed to be filled by becoming a Navy seal, when in fact my bucket of service was filled through serving Navy Seals into the next great adventure of their life by, by helping the them and their family find their next job.
[00:11:40] To me, that bucket was filled in the moment I kind of submitted to the idea, that it wasn't a failure, that it was God's way of opening up, uh, doors for me to see a new path. Uh, the right path. The, the pain, the suffering, the feelings of depression, they all just went away. They melted off my body. Uh, the more I thought about it, the more I prayed about it, um, the more the light was shown on a path that I was destined to be on.
[00:12:13] There were 16 men in my family who served in the United States military, uh, dating back to World War II, every major conflict, every branch. Um, I grew up seeing uniforms in every closet, in every home. Uh, bootcamp, photos, deployment photos, uh, and my family is deep inside of the service industry. We have service, uh, inside of our DNA.
[00:12:39] We have doctors, we have nurses, we have teachers, we have social workers, uh, and we have people who have served, uh, in our military.
[00:12:48] Uh, one day, uh, I was studying abroad in a random, random place, but I was, I was studying abroad inside of Iraq and Afghanistan through a D O D, uh, and Department of Army internship externship opportunity.
[00:13:05] And I met my first Navy Seal in a Ford operating base in the middle of Iraq, up in the mountains. And when I met this person, I was taken aback by the professionalism, uh, the, the, the team ability, as they call it, the way that he discussed how the team operated with each other, and most importantly, there was a sense of humility to him, um, that made me want to get to know him more.
[00:13:31] So I did and I stayed in touch when I came back home, it had impacted my life to a, to a great degree. I withdrew my OCS package at the time to become a United States Marine and walked down the hallway and decided to go enlisted into the Navy with every intention to become a Navy SEAL.
[00:13:49] And, uh, for the next year and a half, I, I went to town. I trained for nearly two years to try to become the, the both mentally tough and physically strong in order to accomplish the task of becoming a SEAL. And about two years into my pipeline, I, I suffered a spine injury and I was out, as quick as I was in training, I was out. And I did not have a plan B, and there was no way that you can plan for something like this and you don't kind of try to become a Navy SEAL. You either are all in or you are all out. And at that point in time, I was all in.
[00:14:28] And when that happened, I definitely went into a very dark place. I can still remember the time when I looked up into the sky, when I could feel the right side of my leg and my body going numb, from an injury that was very serious, I remember looking up and I, I remember cursing, and swearing and saying, you, you better have an effing plan for this. Like, this better be part of your plan. And, and praying fiercely and angrily and emotionally, because I knew that that was my very last day inside of SEAL training, and I couldn't figure it out.
[00:15:09] I've been an athlete my whole life. I've never experienced any injury. I've never experienced any traumatic injury, never had anything wrong go wrong. My body was never something that w that I planned on failing me. I said, if there's something that's gonna break me, it's gonna be my mind. And my mind was totally intact and my body ended up breaking.
[00:15:28] So with that being said, I then was put on a year to a year and a half, uh, rehabilitation pipeline inside of the Navy community. The United States Navy and the Special warfare community took care of me in a big way. Uh, they wanted to see me be successful, uh, in my rehabilitation. And while I was going through Rehab I met a someone that changed my life.
[00:15:51] Um, I was working inside of an office and I got to know members of the community intimately in a different light. Um, I was working inside of a little command store, so you have to imagine I went from wanting to be a Navy SEAL to now serving Navy SEAL's Coffee and Gatorade, while I was going through my rehabilitation process, and again, it's not sensationalizing my background in any way, but you know, I, I came in with, with degrees, I came in with cer certificates from top universities, and I was so ready to take on this challenge and, and then I went back to, uh, I was serving coffee and, and Gatorade while I was going through rehabilitation. It's, it's a powerful shift that happened instantly overnight, where even your uniform changes.
[00:16:43] You're in one uniform one minute, the next day you're in a totally different uniform and nothing internally or inside you has time to make a transition. The only thing that transitioned what was the world was seeing what was on the outside is that I was no longer part of that training. And I got to know this, uh, master chief, and for the audience that, that aren't familiar with military, a master chief is top of the food chain in the military community on the enlisted side of the Navy, uh, he was a command master chief four times over again. He had six bronze stars, all with combat valor. He was awarded the Navy Cross. He was up for the Medal of Honor and needed to be awarded the Navy Cross because they couldn't make public the things that he was doing in order to win the Navy Cross from or win the medal of Honor from the United States Navy.
[00:17:34] He could fly planes, he could fly helicopters. He had a master's degree. He spoke multiple languages. He had been to 60 plus countries all over the world. Um, and it's an, oh, by the way, he was a six time iron man. He parachuted into the world championships at Kona and then thinned his way, swam his way to the starting line once he, uh, parachuted in to the start of the race.
[00:18:01] So on paper, this is a total freak of nature in person, this person was a gentle giant. Commanded respect, quietly, uh, and truly paid me respect because he knew that I had been injured. And yet he still came in and spoke to me like a peer and a colleague and a teammate every day. And it made all the difference for me in that time of my life.
[00:18:22] And it's very representative of the community as a whole. I got to know this guy very well, and he, he invited me to his retirement ceremony, which is a very moving, private, intimate event, uh, at the Naval Special Warfare Command. And he had been all over the world. He had deployed, he was the iconic Navy Seal, the Navy made videos about this individual as almost like a recruitment tool, uh, because his story was so inspiring and I had a chance to be friends with this person for a while. I went to his retirement ceremony, standing ovations. People were in tears. His family was there. He was in his Navy whites confident, beaming with pride and, and humility about the service that he had done.
[00:19:06] And his speech was just remarkable. I watched him take his last walk across the deck and there he was. He retired after 26 years, uh, of being a Navy SEAL, many, many years of which we're at the, uh, Naval Special Warfare Development Group, otherwise known as Seal Team Six.
[00:19:23] The next day he walked into my office and he closed the door behind him and, which was strange cuz typically he just barreled in and we would start going at it politically about what was said the day before and what we agreed with and what we didn't agree with. And he looked at me and he said, Joe, with 26 years in the SEAL teams, what am I gonna do now? And he was crying and not just a small cry. He was, he was sobbing, he was crying.
[00:19:55] And I immediately stood up and I, I gave him a big hug and I said, master chief, like, how, how can I help? What can I do? How can I support?
[00:20:05] And then I started asking a little bit more deeper questions like, master chief, like your resume, where, where is that? And your, uh, networking, who are you talking with? Your career, uh, you know, goals, your, what's your passion, your why, your your mission, what, what do you want to do next with your life? And it was like a deer in the headlights. And the more I got to talk with him, I said, that's it, come tomorrow morning, we're making a resume, we're gonna build a career plan, and flash forward.
[00:20:34] So if I, if I didn't experience that injury and I didn't get put inside of a command store, and if I wasn't placed in front of him at that very moment in time, going back and connecting the dots of me cursing God and expecting a, expecting a response, um, you know, like some sort of close caption in the sky being like, oh, trust me um, I know what I'm doing. Uh, I started to see immediately the path that was in front of me and how special it was that I had the opportunity. And I'm a, I'm a big fan of a raving fan of Mother Teresa. I know that might catch some people like of really Mother Teresa. Well, yes, first of all, well, the servant leadership displayed by her is, is remarkable, but she used to say, you don't have to help tens of thousands of people. You just have to help the person in front of you.
[00:21:27] And at that moment I felt overwhelmed because here's a moment where a person in front of me is, is needing of my support and I have an opportunity through another skill set to help him develop a resume, get involved with the community, begin to network on his own behalf.
[00:21:44] And that's exactly what I did. And then I became addicted to the way that made me feel being a servant to this community. I was never meant to become a Navy SEAL. I was meant to serve Navy Seals in their transition and help them discover the next great adventure of their life. So once you find that path and you find that mission, and I came up with a mission and a why statement then, uh, for an organization that I created.
[00:22:10] And fast forward from that one interaction with that master chief, flash forward nearly five to six, seven years later. You know, we've raised millions and millions of dollars. We've put hundreds and hundreds of families through a dedicated program that successfully transitions the special operations community from a community they loved into another great community, the next great adventure in their life.
[00:22:37] And none of that would've happened for campuses later, hundreds of families through a dedicated program of 15, it's 15 weeks long, uh, and the placement is well over 95%. Um, our starting salary jumped from, you know, 80k a year to nearly 145 a year. Not that money matters, but when you put those individuals in the right place at the right time, you give them a compass, and as it turns out, the private sector deeply values the experience set coming out of this community. And that's all because of an injury. It's because of a failure. It's because of my failure that I was able to look at as a success point and a milestone in my life to continue serving, and we were talking yesterday about productive chips on our shoulder.
[00:23:27] There was a, there was a productive chip on my shoulder, which was I wanted to prove to this community in a very vulnerable and real way that I could still provide value to them as a teammate. And so I left this community after interviewing that one master chief, I then interviewed 250 more Navy Seals over, across seven states over six months, I asked them all the same 33 questions, and what I learned was there's no formal transition institute for our special operations community.
[00:23:58] And so I activated and I thought, let's go, let's build one. And we did. And we have four campuses now, uh, across the country serving these communities where they exit, and we've made it a simple transition process.
[00:24:12] Even now, as I sit here and I talk to you, it's, it's insane to think that I'm talking to you inside of a 10,000 square foot headquarters. That, in my mind, was nothing more than a, a dream at the time. And, and now this community has a home away from home and they have a community post the community, and it's all because of a failure.
[00:24:30] And that's one of the most meaningful, meaningful failures I'll ever have in my life. I'll always be engaged in meaningful work, but nothing will ever be as meaningful as helping that one master chief in front of me the moment that I had the opportunity to do so.
[00:24:47] And so wrapping that all up into superpowers, right?
[00:24:51] What if we looked at every person we came into contact with as they have a superpower, and I don't know what that is yet, and I'm gonna treat them accordingly as a brother or sister or neighbor, and I'm gonna learn about them. And that master chief threw his humility and his kindness towards me. He was able to pull out this superpower that became the mission of the Honor Foundation, which is to serve others with honor for life, so their next mission is always clear and continues to impact the world. Because he showed me kindness, because he showed me respect, because he showed me fierce empathy to my situation. Not sympathy, but empathy. He gave me an opportunity to show off a superpower of service that I had inside of me that I thought my service in the Seal community was going to bring out, when in fact it was through that attempt at service that led me to realize that serving a greater community is, uh, serving a greater community that is serving the world and empowering them so they can do their job actually is a superpower.
[00:26:06] And then I came up with my why statement, which is to light fire so others can see. If you are doing what you are designed to do, it's absolutely remarkable how the path in front of you becomes lit and you can bring light to those people. I don't do well advocating for myself, I don't, but I do really well advocating on behalf of other people who I believe in.
[00:26:31] So imagine walking up to every person in your life knowing that they are a superhero in some way, and looking at them as if they have a superpower that either they have recognized or the world hasn't recognized it yet. I feel that it's my mission in life to help everyone understand what their superpower is and, and how they can bring that superpower to the world to bring about tremendous impact.
[00:27:02] Uh, and one thing we focused on at the Honor Foundation was if you don't use the gifts that you've been given, we've been given these gifts on a lease. And if you don't pay into that lease, you, you lose it. And for me, losing it would be at the end of my life, I'm looking back and I did not use all the gifts that God has given me in every ounce that he has given them to me.
[00:27:29] What has the world now missed out? Because I would not take action on the gifts that I was given. And all of us are walking around with gifts that have been given to us, leased to us. How often do we sit back and analyze those gifts and how we can bring about the best change in the world?
[00:27:51] And so as we've wrap this up and think about your own, what you would categorize as a failure, have you taken time to learn about that failure? Have you taken time to examine who you are and what's, what strength you have gained from that failure? And how you can bring about learning and activity into the world that may change it as a result of your failure?
[00:28:16] So like I said, my, my mission is to light fires so others can see. The minute you put words to a mission statement is the moment the rest of your life starts to become very clear and go throughout the world looking to try to find the superpower in every single person around us, because you never know what type of impact they'll bring to the world.
[00:28:44] It's the little things that matter. And more importantly, from a family perspective, now that I'm about to have my own son in 58 days, I'm starting to reflect so much on all of the little behaviors that my parents used to do that have left a lasting impact on me forever. And it was never these big, grandiose gestures around leadership.
[00:29:07] It was the small lessons that I learned from them that are now translating into some of the greatest leadership lessons of my life.
[00:29:20] Steve Gatena: On episode two of this three part series, Joe explains that leadership is not about large gestures. By establishing and following your core values, you create habits that build others up, both inside and outside the home. However, as a leader, we need to understand that everyone learns differently, and then we need to recognize how to respond accordingly.
[00:29:48] Joe Musselman: So now moving on to a topic about leadership and how I've learned to lead and what it means to lead, I can refer back to a, a story that impacted it left an impression on me that I will have for the rest of my life, one of the most humble servant leaders I've ever met, um, we'll call him, uh, Rob and Rob was telling me a story about how people always say to veterans when they see them, thank you for your service. And most veterans, of course, extremely grateful for the comment, shaking their head. Yes. Thank, thank you for saying that. I appreciate you saying that. Of course.
[00:30:31] And Rob told me a story in passing where he, it wasn't his intention to have this be the purpose of the story. He said it in passing, and I took notes of the story, but he was telling a time when he was walking through the airport and someone said, thank you for your service.
[00:30:53] And his immediate response was, well, you're worth it. And the way that person responded to that was complete silence and had no idea like what, like how to even process that, that this person, who he does not know is out there serving for me. And he made it personal by saying, you are worth it.
[00:31:20] And that led me on a conversation with him, uh, to tell me more stories about those types of interactions, and he just continued on a story about, uh, his experience inside of an airport.
[00:31:33] Now how many people out there go to the airport with a sense of calm and they get to the airport and they're relaxed and they get through security and they're relaxed and they pace up to their gate and relax.
[00:31:48] Um, and they are trying to be what? First in line, what's your number? Gold status? Platinum Status? Board now, group one, all of this is so stressful when we go to the airport. And then Rob told me a story about his approach to the airport where he shows up hours and hours early. And he kind of walks through security and there's no rush. When he gets to his gate, he takes a seat and he lets everyone, purposefully, he lets every single person board the plane first despite his seat number, and he lets everyone board the plane. And once he feels it's the last, last moment, he'll then board the plane because he feels as a result of his service that he's kind of looking out for everyone and he wants to go in last.
[00:32:41] And one thing that taught me is one, it removed all the worry I have about going to the airport ever since I started this practice. And you let others go first. You don't get stressed about what your seat number is. And for the most part, uh, I travel on airlines with open seating anyways, so it doesn't really matter, uh, where you sit, and I always end up somehow getting the seat that I wanted.
[00:33:05] But there's a deeper lesson there about leaders eat last. They go last. They, they let the flock go in front of them and they are behind protecting it. And this is a, a side story to that much greater thinking of playing an infinite game where you are always protecting those around you.
[00:33:29] Like that's the other thing is you know, leadership when you're actually seeing it. That to me is the biggest thing where everyone's looking for these definitions and these, these categories to follow about leadership. It's not about that at all. It's about, your gut knows it when you see it. We, it's like knowing right from wrong, you know, you know what's right and you know what's wrong.
[00:33:50] You know, it's an interesting statistic. I won't use the university's name, but one of the top universities on the planet. It's always in the top three. There's one statistic that they never actually talk about. They never actually talk about the percentage of their MBA class that ends up in prison. And guess what?
[00:34:08] It's really high. It's way higher than you think. It's almost 5%. So that means that 5% of every MBA class, which are considered leaders in business and leaders in life, end up in prison. So why is that? Like, how does that happen? And like I said earlier, it's not about the big things you do all at one time. It's the little things you do over a long period of time.
[00:34:29] Nothing ever comes out of nowhere. It's actually been happening for a really long time. And so the, the one time that the business leader decides to, okay, it's not exactly fraud and it's within the confines of our business and our constitution, what we do, so we can, we can get away with that. Sure. Like we can charge small little transaction overdraft fees and, and sure we can do this. And then the next thing you know, someone's in prison. So the little decisions that we make every day and, and some of these people, they completely surround us all the time. The, the bagger that goes out of his way at the grocery store to always walk my wife to the door and make sure that she gets out safely.
[00:35:09] That's a leader.
[00:35:10] Like when you see people doing things that are extraordinary, surrounded in kindness and courage, that's a leader. And, and when people start to define leadership in their own sense, in their own way, right there, you begin to develop a sense of leadership because we feel the words that we say.
[00:35:28] We act around the words that we say, and we become our actions. And that's the next thing. You know. 20 years goes by and everyone else considers you a leader and you didn't even realize it because you've been following the small steps and the small signs in life and the pursuit of everything we do from family to friends, to business to life, that equals leadership.
[00:35:50] It's an action oriented thing. And, and if you find yourself, I read about leadership for a decade. I, I read my 1000th book this year. Big woo. None of that matters if I didn't take anything away from that and begin to act on that knowledge. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is potential power. And so you can read all the books you want on leadership when you know, on the inside, you know exactly what you're supposed to do.
[00:36:16] That's the thing that cracks me up about people who keep asking these deep questions about leadership. How do you do it? How does it happen? Well, you have to pay attention to the folks who've lived a life. And for me, let's use an example. I'd like to use an example.
[00:36:32] Did anyone else feel something? And I'm not, I am not being political. I'm being, right now, I'm being, uh, I'm bringing a real life example that I felt in my heart and soul that when John McCain passed away, we were saying goodbye to something much greater than just the United States Senator. In my heart, there's leadership qualities to this person that somehow everyone could admire.
[00:36:57] And when we think about just military in general and why I was drawn to service in the first place, it's neutral, it's le it's not left or right. It's these people are sacrificing on our behalf that, that we could not even imagine. Leadership for me is watching the spouse of a Navy SEAL, Skype goodnight to her husband while her three kids are saying goodnight to their dad overseas.
[00:37:24] That mother is at home by herself with three children under the age of seven. The father is in a barracks in a forward operating base surrounded by plywood and the enemy, and he's calling in to say goodnight to his family before he goes off in to do an op. Do you know how much leadership is in that exchange right there between the husband taking a lead to defend our country to that wife who's at home with those three kids six to eight months at a time.
[00:37:51] And then when the husband comes home, of course he's the, the, the hero and the victor and the mom is kind of over there now, and to me, that's her being a servant leader. That's her taking leadership into her own hands and stepping aside because she knows what a hero the father is to the son and to the daughter, and to the daughter.
[00:38:15] To me, that's leadership in its form.
[00:38:17] And then he walks over and hugs his wife and kisses his wife, and they leave as a family, as a unit, as one. These examples of leadership are all around us all the time. The ones who wanna become a leader are the ones who are paying attention to them and emulating that.
[00:38:33] The ones who talk about wanting to be a leader. Are the ones who watch those examples, take nothing from them and don't change their, the way they think that feel or communicate and behave to become a leader. And so, as you heard, the, the launch of the Honor Foundation was to support those that have supported us, to serve those that have been serving us.
[00:38:58] And up until 2014, there was no institution that was designed to serve the community that has served us so selflessly for 60 to 70 years, uh, inside of the special operations community. So to me, when you think about leadership, the first thing that comes to mind, it should be, how can you serve those around you?
[00:39:26] One thing that I know, uh, when it comes to the concept of, of being a leader of any organization, so much of it has to do with ensuring people are always focused on the vision of the organization and having absolute clarity around the vision, the mission, and the values and guiding principles. And I, I say that very specifically because I'm someone who needs, uh, you know, a framework and, and an action oriented framework to activate and, and head towards a, a much greater vision way down the road.
[00:40:00] And I always think of, you know, Martin Luther King is a big influence in my life. And you think about M L K, he, he said he had a dream. He didn't say, I have a 99 point plan. Like no one gets behind a 99 point plan. Everyone gets behind a vision and a dream. And there are times in every business, no matter what you are doing, where it's going to be hard and difficult.
[00:40:22] Even inside of military communities that are in the most elite category of of military on the planet, there needs to be a constant thought in mind that you are doing this for a much greater good and no matter what, when you think about that one leadership, you should be considering yourself as a servant to those around you.
[00:40:44] Those are absolutely the best leaders.
[00:40:46] And two, to keep yourself focused on the vision and the mission as much as possible. And then there's something too that is this, people think this is amorphous, this idea of core values and guiding principles, when in fact I, I think it can be broken out, uh, into something very important where core values think of that as is.
[00:41:05] If you were to walk into an organization, if I were to walk into your organization, how would the people in the organization define it? How would they define what their, how they think, act, feel, and communicate every day? Those are core values. And to give you an example of, of following servant leadership into a vision, into a mission, into your core values.
[00:41:28] One of the core values that I have, not only personally, but within every business that I will ever start, will always be practicing artistry. Practicing artistry, meaning that, I mean, even doctors practice medicine, right? No one, no one is perfect at it, and artistry is something that's on a scale that should be unachievable. But at the same time, we practice towards that perfection to, to be the best for those people around us.
[00:41:55] When you are focused on the vision of an organization, the mission, and you have clear defined core values, when you get to sit, when you, when you find yourself in situations where your character and integrity might be called into question, you revert back to the vision, you revert back to the mission, and you revert back to your core values.
[00:42:19] And you make decisions based off of that. And what we do some of the time is actually what we do all of the time. And it's the little things that matter most, especially when we're making decisions in a very difficult time, focusing on a set of core values that are unwavering. I have 10 personal core values that are unwavering.
[00:42:41] And when I'm faced with a character or integrity, uh, conflict, you just have to go back to your core values. I don't think that we can serve others, the way we were determined and destined to serve others, without first clearly defining what we value as individuals.
[00:43:00] My wife and I have defined values of our home. Those defined values of our home go into the defined values of business. They go into the defined values of who I want to be around in life. And you can, you start to pick up quickly the folks that you want to be around versus the folks that you don't, that you do want to be around. Uh, based off of shared value systems.
[00:43:24] My wife and I are entirely two different people, but our core values are the same. We're complete opposites in every way. Our core values are the same. When you move into business or you start a business, or you're running a team, if you, you know, your culture is strong and culture is another word for, for values. So just pair those together. You know, you've created a strong culture. When, when individuals begin to highlight themselves based on the behavior and the actions they're taking. And then the team starts to notice that because you've created a strong culture and those folks will highlight themselves as possibly not being a good culture fit.
[00:44:03] But in order to do that, you, you, you have to have these things drawn out first as you do in a leader. You have to have an ethos, you have to have a constitution, you have to have, uh, a kind of a declaration of what you stand for because how do you expect your team to understand the vision that you are putting out before they first understand who you are and what you believe in?
[00:44:29] To me, that was the biggest realization from a leadership perspective, and I'm someone who assumed a lot of responsibility and too much responsibility on my shoulders. And, and used to present ideas to the team is, okay, I've spent weeks working on this for the team. I'm so excited to present this to you, and I would slam this kind of plan down on the table and expect round of applause and, and standing ovations and look at how much work you've done for us, and this is fantastic, when they, in actuality, looked at me like I had 12 heads and, and asking me why I didn't take any of their advice or opinions into consideration, as I made that plan, now what I've learned is I still make the plan and I still put it on the table. And then my only question is, is, Hey everybody, can you help me make this better?
[00:45:20] That's something that you can't necessarily find in a, in an MBA classroom. You have to have the embarrassing look of employees staring at you in your face being like, hey, we would've loved to have had a, some contribution to this plan, uh, when I thought I was doing something phenomenal in serving the team.
[00:45:37] If you go into the concept of leadership, it all starts with service transparency and accountability to your team. People think leadership begins by doing great big deeds that it could not be further from the truth. Leadership begins with the smallest act and grows into great big deeds, and you don't even realize that it's happening to you.
[00:46:02] So one, an idol of mine is, and someone I look up to, who I feel is a superpower, a superhero in this world, uh, is is someone by the name of Admiral Bill McCraven. And Bill McCraven is one of, arguably one of the greatest four star. Admirals that has ever lived. And I would listen to the words that he would say so closely.
[00:46:23] And one, he just published a book and one of the things he talked about was making your bed in the morning and what a small discipline that was. That if you make your bed in the morning, even if you have the worst day, he jokes that you come home into a bed that's made and you immediately feel better about your day.
[00:46:41] To me, that's leadership.
[00:46:42] My father used to make his bed every single day. Granted it was from habits, from the military service, and, and it just became a habit. But seeing him do that made me want to make my bed, made me want to clean up the faucet in the bathroom, and he left a lesson of leadership to me, which was never leave something the way you found it. Always leave something better than when you found it.
[00:47:07] And that simple lesson always leave something better than when you found it, I recognized that there was no transition institute for Navy seals and special operators. I recognized it. I could have ignored it, but there's no way in any world that I would live in that I could know that I saw something and had the opportunity to leave it better than when I found it, and I could live with myself.
[00:47:31] So we have to take action. The one thing I can say about leadership, not just from the Admiral McRaven anecdote or, or even just starting a business, it's the little things that matter. And more importantly, from a family perspective, now that I'm about to have my own son in 58 days, I'm starting to reflect so much on all of the little behaviors that my parents used to do that have left a lasting impact on me forever.
[00:47:57] And it was never these big, grandiose gestures around leadership. It was the small lessons that I learned from them that are now translating into some of the greatest leadership lessons of my life.
[00:48:11] And something that's more profound is they didn't know, they didn't have self-help books. They didn't have parental guides. They didn't have the science behind why they were doing what they were doing. They were following their heart, they were following their faith, and they stuck to core values. They were consistent with me. And that's what a leader does, is they're consistent. They're consistently there. They're consistent with their values, their morals, their ethics.
[00:48:40] We all have an opportunity to do that all the time, and we walk around looking for a guide in a framework.
[00:48:48] Leadership is a verb, it's an action. And everyone has the opportunity to take that leadership role of taking action every single day.
[00:48:59] So I know that as I, as I grew up, my family had unspoken values.
[00:49:06] Be honest, be trustworthy, tell the truth. And I took that to another level with my own household where a home is actually a business and I want all of the businesses that I run to feel like a home. So I don't see any difference when it comes to creating a values, value systems for businesses than I do creating value systems for the home.
[00:49:30] And it's actually very helpful to look at the wall and and see, it's not, first of all, we were all given values, they're called commandments and there's 10 of them, and if we were to make our own value system for our family, what would it look like to have it up on the wall for everyone to see in the family?
[00:49:51] My wife and I are expecting our first baby in October, so I've been thinking a lot about this, that as my son is brought into my home as he grows up, what words, words matter. What words do I want him to see and begin to associate with me and my wife and the love we have for each other and the, the household that we want him to grow up in.
[00:50:11] And, you know, one, you know, one value that we have, um, as a family and it's been translated into business and back to my family is, uh, is be you, and that goes back to a, a lesson that I learned even as a child. Uh, my mother and father, uh, did all that they could. It's funny when we talk about family members, you know, it's the same in business as it is with a, with a, any family that you know, when your child begins to act up or your teenager isn't doing well in math, do you fire your child?
[00:50:49] Like, do you, do you fire them from the family business and, sorry, it's, look, it's not working out and, um, we're just gonna have to, uh, replace you and X, Y, and Z.
[00:50:59] It shouldn't be that way in business either, where you're just letting people go. It's no, you give your, you get your son or daughter a tutor. You get them the help that they need. You coach them, uh, into the value system of the family.
[00:51:12] And that was a lesson that I learned from my mother showing me true servant leadership where she would sit with me for hours and hours around the kitchen table and work with me on my math skills. And one day she showed me a little image back in the day, they weren't memes, they were, they were, uh, little newspaper clippings, right? And it showed, it showed all of these animals lined up in front of a very sturdy, stern looking formal man in like a suit behind a desk. And there was a monkey, a penguin, an elephant, and then a fish in a fish bowl. And a dog and behind them was a tree.
[00:51:53] And when I was talking to my mom and complaining and, and crying about my inability to take tests well as a child, uh, she had the servant leadership to present this to me in an image where the, the bubble that's coming out of the kind of the formal guy's, uh, mouth is for a fair selection, everyone has to take the same exam. So please turn around and climb that tree. And when I saw that, it made sense to me where the fish doesn't have a prayer to climb the tree, but the monkey does. So the whole point of the story is we're given these unique gifts and as a family, it's, it's the parents showing true servant leadership to the family, and bringing out the best qualities in everyone so that they can ultimately be who they are and be themselves and be powerful.
[00:52:48] You know, leadership is a practice that's, that's it should be activated all the time and inside of your home. And the people that you surround yourself with, how often do you take a people assessment actively and look at the people that you're surrounding, you and your family with all the time?
[00:53:08] Uh, I know that I always felt so protected with my parents. They would look around all the time to make sure that, you know, we were surrounded by people that believed what they believed and people who, who communicated with acts of service and love and kindness. And so that's something that I get all the time from, uh, from friends asking me, uh, questions around, you know, how to really build an ecosystem of support, uh, because that's what we did at the Honor Foundation, is we built a really caring ecosystem of support.
[00:53:42] We brought in thousands and thousands and thousands of people who believed what we believed that th this community deserved a level of support and care and kindness, uh, as they are leaving a service of, of, of service, uh, to, to us without ever knowing who we are and they deserve something when they moved on.
[00:54:03] So my question always is, is are you taking a people assessment of those that are around you? And do they have vision? Do they have impact? Do they have passion? Are these people that, that are looking to make a difference in the world? Um, I'm not saying everyone needs to run around finding friends that are Steve Jobs and, and, you know, um, other people.
[00:54:24] I'm, I'm saying to pay close attention to those that you allow into your ecosystem, uh, and, and pr and be an antibody to, uh, to things that are going to corrupt the values of your house, and are going to corrupt the values of your business, and corrupt, corrupt the values. And it always happens slowly.
[00:54:43] There's no such thing as, uh, it happened out of nowhere. Like, I don't even believe in that phrase. Nothing happens out of nowhere. It actually was there for quite some time and it wasn't recognized.
[00:54:54] So circling back to the, the concept of taking care of the flock and, and being a servant leader, uh, and looking out for those that are in your charge and having clarity around your core values is both a family and in business. Uh, and how does servant leadership interact with your family and your home, uh, I think we always have to remember that servant leadership in, in all of its forms, has everything to do with how you choose to bring yourself to every single day to serve others and never yourself. And lastly, how to design and develop a caring, meaningful ecosystem of support for those that you love.
[00:55:44] In the end, we're just not here that long. We're just not around that long. And to use the time that we have and to maximize the impact that we can use from the gifts that we've been given to lead those who need a leader to serve those who need to be served. And most importantly, to bring a set of core values to the world that incorporates all the things that matter, faith, love, hope, and your ability to, to make an impact in the world.
[00:56:15] And something that, you know, I've been toying with a lot is, you know, how is it that every individual around the world can leave a legacy? Like, how do you do that? And it starts by, by moving and pushing yourself into work that brings you joy. The only way you can bring joy to the world is if you are finding joy in the world of work.
[00:56:39] When people find what they love, the rest of the world feels that from that person. How many times have you met with friends over the weekend or, or even during the week. Hey man, so how's everything going? Like, hey, how's, how's work? Uh, you know, works work, work does not have to be work.
[00:57:01] Steve Gatena: On episode three of this three part series, Joe shows us that legacy is about doing what you're passionate about. A lasting legacy comes naturally by doing the work you enjoy. When you focus on what matters most, like teams, leadership and culture, life, will take care of you.
[00:57:22] Joe Musselman: So we're gonna talk about a term that means a lot to me right now, which is legacy.
[00:57:28] There are some words that are packed, filled with emotion, and when I use the word legacy, that is one of the words for me that, that immediately brings to the surface all these types of things, all these types of emotions. Like what do you want the world to remember you by? What do you want your family to remember you by?
[00:57:49] And are you living a life that's, that is with bringing your best self to the world to see? So I, I had to make, when it comes to legacy, people think that transition from one great adventure to a next in life has to have this calculated path. Like how many times have you heard the term career path, right?
[00:58:13] Like, what does that even mean? Like first of all, the world is not a ladder. It's more like a lattice. You go up, you go down, you go right, you go left, you, you, you take different strategies and approaches, uh, with your career based on how you are becoming inspired through as you walk through life. People had a interesting reaction to me moving from a non-profit space to a for-profit space.
[00:58:39] Now that doesn't make any sense to me because it has nothing to do about the profit that's being made or not made. It has to do with the work that's getting done and nonprofit, for-profit, that's like scratching the surface. And when you think about the legacy you wanna lead, it has to be about the impact and the work that you're doing every day and getting to the point where you don't even know what time it is, what day it is, what week it is, what month it is.
[00:59:04] All you know is that you are doing something that you love and you lose track of that. That's what leaves a legacy. Like I doubt that people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, mother Teresa, or the Pope, uh, you know, followed a typical career path. Like they were following their heart. They were following their intuition to what was guiding them and leading them to, to serve in such a profound way that they ended up becoming the characters that they became in life and in the world and the legacy that they left. And what I mean by that is to start the Honor Foundation. Let's break it down into something very simple. I was sitting in front of 15 to 20 Navy SEAL's and they relied on me and made me feel relevant in such a real way.
[00:59:53] They didn't know how to necessarily design and, and, and draft a, a resume suitable to their experience. I figured it out and I worked with them and nonstop, and they relied on me. I felt relied upon. They, they wanted me to help them get into new networks and build new networks. I felt relevant, I felt relied on.
[01:00:11] And when people talk about the shift from nonprofit to for-profit, it really has to go with the, again, the type of work that you wanted to do. So when I was thinking about what gave me joy, when I was thinking about what gave me happiness, it was. To light fires so others can see. And my ability to light a fire so that a community that has served us, and I could advocate on behalf of that community powerfully so they could go off and continue to do great things in the world.
[01:00:39] That gave me joy, that gave me, I felt empowered.
[01:00:42] And when I moved into venture capital, it's not about the title of venture capital, it's about the work, it's about the impact, right? So when we think about the work and the impact that we're doing, and when I moved into VC, it was interesting because I found myself doing the same work, meaning I had 15 to tw I, I now have, I will have 15 to 25 entrepreneurs who will be relying on me to provide them with networks and new connectivity and new ways to, to bring impact into the world.
[01:01:12] And I feel relevant and I feel like my message, uh, of, of hustle and hard work and, and meaningful work is gonna resonate with them. And I'm finding a community that's hard charging. And again, there, there are VIPs in my mind. They have vision. Uh, they're hoping to create impact in the world, uh, and they have passion.
[01:01:30] And I want to be around people like that. And I, it was tough in my own transition to think what community could, could technically even compare to working with our nation's most elite war fighters, the top 1% of veterans in the world are in the United States Special Operations community. So how do I even find that?
[01:01:48] And what I came to the conclusion of, there's only two types of people and two categories of people I'm, and what I mean by this is I'm not comparing an entrepreneur to a Navy SEAL I'm not comparing an entrepreneur to the sacrifice that a military community is willing to make on behalf of their country.
[01:02:10] But bear with me through this example. When I really thought about, okay, like I joined the United States Navy, I signed a contract that basically said, I will give my life for my country if that would be a potential option. And the, the type of people that a contract like that draws, especially not just to enter the military, but then to go another step further and say, I would like to be a part of Special Operations.
[01:02:38] And then to go another step deeper and say, I want to become a Navy SEAL, the people that you're going to interact with are a different breed. They're a different caliber, and, and yet the value systems are strong. Their faith is strong, their belief in country is strong. So I was like, how do I find another neighboring community to this community of Special Operations?
[01:02:59] And when I really thought about it, what's another community that's willing to put everything on the line to leave a legacy, to make an impact, to work towards something much bigger than themselves, to try to lessen pain in the world through whatever means necessary. To bring something from nothing, to make something from nothing so that other people may live better.
[01:03:26] To me, that's the, there, there's another contract, and it's the contract. A true entrepreneur, true entrepreneur, signs with himself and the world, and it's a self contract. These, these contracts don't exist. I'm saying that they're, they're signing a contract that they're willing to give their life to a mission until it's brought into a reality to cause impact in the world in a positive way.
[01:03:51] For me, then I notice that I recognize, okay, well there's this community of military who are uncommon breed, doing uncommon things in an extraordinary way around the world. That's who I want to be a part of. Their teams leadership and culture are on point, and when I kept using those same words over and over and over again, teams, leadership, culture.
[01:04:12] I thought to myself, what other community has to be about teams, leadership and culture. And that is the starting up community of entrepreneurs.
[01:04:21] Every entrepreneur that I've met are so dedicated, the, the true entrepreneurs, they are willing to literally sacrifice their life, they're, they're in a, in a sense of only focusing on one thing, passing up other opportunities, dedicating their life to solving a mission.
[01:04:40] Again, I'm not making the comparison that an entrepreneur is the same as a special operator and the sacrifice that they're willing to make, but the sacrifice is great and they have to sacrifice so much to bring about an idea and a dream and a vision to leave a legacy in the world. And something that, you know, I've been toying with a lot is, you know, how is it that every individual around the world can leave a legacy?
[01:05:06] Like how do you do that?
[01:05:08] And it starts by, by moving and pushing yourself into work that brings you joy. The only way you can bring joy to the world is if you are finding joy in the world of work. When people find what they love, the rest of the world feels that from that person.
[01:05:26] How many times have you met with friends over the weekend or, or even during the week, hey man, so how's everything going? Like, hey, how's, how's work? Uh, you know, works work.
[01:05:37] Work does not have to be work.
[01:05:39] Like, work doesn't just have to be something that is, that fills the time between nine and five, Monday through Friday. Work doesn't have to be that. And if you focus on one thing, if you're really dedicated to leaving a legacy in the world and you wake up every day and you say, what is my legacy going to be?
[01:05:57] You should ask yourself, well, do I enjoy the TLC at work? Do I like the teams I'm working with? Do I, do I like the leadership? Am I a part of a great culture? Not just even at work, but at home? Like the home is a unit, the home is a team. Every team has leaders. The parents are leaders. Culture matters. The culture at work matters. The culture at home matters.
[01:06:25] Constantly focusing on your TLC and getting it to a point where it brings, you don't realize you're working not just nine to five, but all of a sudden you begin working five to nine and you don't even realize the, the, the, the sacrifice that's happening because you enjoy what you're doing So much.
[01:06:45] Legacy is the equal sign after teams leadership and culture. And once you align those things in your life, your legacy will begin to write itself and you won't even realize it. So when I think about legacy, that's what I always equal it to, which is, am I working with the right teams? Do we have the right leaders around us? And are we creating the right culture to ultimately create something very special in the world?
[01:07:11] When it comes to legacy, how are you walking around actually thinking about what leads to legacy? What I mean by that is, you know, the, the, the Navy SEAL community has something called a quarter deck. And inside of every quarter deck, uh, when you go into the SEAL team, like the actual team building, there is a, uh, there's a legacy wall, right?
[01:07:34] And that legacy wall typically is a legacy wall, which infers you're looking backwards, meaning the, they're reminded every day of their brothers who have fallen. The Legacy Wall has individual portraits of all those who have given their life in service to this country, and it's at the entryway of a door.
[01:07:54] So every day when you come into work, you're seeing the legacy of your fallen teammates that's left behind. Now, there's two types of legacy. There's the, there's the legacy looking backwards, and then there's a legacy looking forwards. And as we walk around and, and the reason why I've learned so much from this elite military community in the six or seven years that I've been working alongside them to build this organization up is they, they, they move with urgency because they know that we are all going to pass on in some way.
[01:08:28] And what do I want my life to be about? What do I want my life and legacy to be about as I'm here? And when I think about the lessons that I've learned and, and when I've asked them about business and. And had conversations and they go, well, we're dealing with a different bottom line. I said, well, what does that mean in the teams you're dealing with a different bottom line.
[01:08:48] Well, our bottom line is loss of life. Your bottom line is dollars.
[01:08:54] So, you know, it's, it's uh, it puts things in perspective very quickly when you realize that if you focus on the things that matter most, the things that matter most will actually take care of you in the long term. You focus on teams, you focus on your leadership, you focus on the culture you're trying to create, and then all of a sudden people don't lose lives because teams are good, leadership's solid, culture's good.
[01:09:23] You don't lose dollars because teams are good, leadership's great, culture's on point. And, and when we think about these, these terms in the sense of. What type of legacy do I want my family to leave my son, to leave my, my wife or husband, uh, to leave? If you, if you put it in those terms, it really gives you something to put into perspective cuz we aren't here that long.
[01:09:46] A, again, back to the leadership point, that leadership is, is a verb and it's happening all around us. It's whether or not you choose to pay attention to it. Legacy is the exact same way where there are people in your life that you don't have to have an admiral or a general, or a CEO, or anyone like that to, to be inspired to help you leave your legacy.
[01:10:06] So for example, my, my nani. And my nani is, is just what we called my grandmother. And my grandmother was nothing short of an angel on earth, in this pla, on this planet, no question about it. Um, if there was a speed, um, you know, jet supersonic, something to get her to heaven faster when she passed away, she was on it first class, like with the Big Man Himself.
[01:10:33] There's no question about it.
[01:10:35] Um, and the way that we looked at her, she led by example every day. She, she, my, my nani used to command her presence with the gentle touch, and she used to always be singing and, and laughing and holding our hands and telling us about lessons, uh, from Mother Teresa and, uh, our Lady of Guadalupe and sister uh, uh, St. Francis of Rome and St. Vincent DePaul and all of these different people. Uh, and she'd leave these little notes for us to find as grandchildren and notes on our mirror. And to me, that was a legacy that she was leading for us. And it, it's, uh, you don't have to have these big command and control or these ideas.
[01:11:28] It's, it's the most people, the people that leave the greatest legacy were actually some of the fiercest advocates of the soft touch and, and treating others the way that you would like to be treated as a brother or sister and or neighbor. And, and I think back to my nani and the lessons that she left me is, it was okay to hold my nani's hand leaving sports practice. It was okay to, to tell her about our feelings. It was okay to, to be vulnerable and, and feel sadness and joy and discuss those things with her.
[01:12:02] It's, it's almost like the people who leave the greatest legacy are the ones who allow the world to be themselves all the time. And when we think about legacy, who makes us feel those feelings?
[01:12:16] Who makes us when we're around them, who makes us feel a way where we can actually be ourselves? We all have that friend, right? Where we, when something goes wrong, we call them. Like, you're all thinking of a name. Like everyone has someone they call when they have to talk through something, uh, whether it be good or bad, up or down, left or right, you, I might be talking to the person that feels they are that person, right?
[01:12:40] Uh, that, that they get all the phone calls and they deal with everything. Well, guess what? What an opportunity for you to be a servant leader and look at it that way and serve the friends and family around you who are calling you for guidance. And what an opportunity for you to, to leave a legacy of support and help, uh, when folks around you are in need.
[01:12:59] Are you the first to raise your hand, uh, when you may have to have a uncomfortable conversation, and I, I, you know, someone told me one time that I, and I'll never ever forget this, that, you know, you can tell the, you know, you can tell the most successful people are the ones that had the most difficult conversations and chose to have 'em with people, with friends, with life, about life and about the things that matter.
[01:13:24] And we all have those people. The question is, are you recognizing that person in your life that, wow, I actually do call X, Y, and Z person whenever I have a problem. And I don't think I've ever recognized that they are being a leader. They are leaving a legacy of kindness and support in my need. And when was the last time I thanked that person and showed gratitude?
[01:13:48] Uh, or do I just call them when I have a selfish need to talk out my problems and dump it on their table, and then I know that they're gonna help me put it back together again? Um, that person has a family, that person has problems, but they never talk about it with me. They're just there to listen to me, and that's a, that's a legacy.
[01:14:05] That's someone who is looking out for others around them and taking care of those that are in their charge without ever having any official capacity whatsoever. Those are the special people.
[01:14:16] That was my nani. You could talk to her about anything you felt in entirely yourself, and she allowed you to be vulnerable, she allowed you to bring those real feelings to the table, and no matter what, it was always responded, or I should say it was always received with just this gentle smile. And a touch she'd always hold whenever we were talking. Seriously. She wouldn't do it without holding your hands, which initially I, you know, I'd fight back against, right?
[01:14:43] Like, I don't Nani, I can't, I'm not gonna hold your hand. Just talk to me about this stuff. Right? And she'd keep slowly and guaranteed at the end of every conversation, she still was holding my hand and she was keeping everything calm and made me feel like I'd be myself.
[01:14:56] Those types of people are all around us.
[01:14:59] It's whether or not we are willing to be ourselves in front of that person to really get something in return from them. How often do you actually use the word vulnerable? Do you talk to yourself? How do you talk to yourself throughout the day? Are, are you ex, are you the, you know, there's, there's 10 million words a day are what we say to ourselves.
[01:15:23] Do you think those, those words have an impact on, on what you bring to the world, paying attention to your self talk and, and allowing yourself to be your own leader and to, and, and to understand that every move you make, you're leaving a legacy for people behind you. And you are being watched by your children and how you respond to things and, and it's, yeah, it's a lot of responsibility, but it's certainly one that I know we can all handle.
[01:15:45] We don't, we aren't ever given anything that we can't handle. And that's a consistent lesson my nani would always say, every morning, Corinthians right there on the kitchen table, there's, Lord, there's nothing you're going to throw my way today that we can't handle together. And she would bring that up all the time.
[01:16:01] Oh, it's okay. It's supposed to happen this way. Let's talk about it. And she would hold my hand and make, you know, allow me the space to be myself.
[01:16:08] How often are we doing that for other people in our lives? How often are we following nani's example? How often am I following my nani's example?
[01:16:16] But we all have those examples, the question is, is are we accepting enough of those examples to allow ourself the strength and the courage to be ourselves in front of people who we know are just there to help and support us? That's when we'll feel the real legacy, uh, and, and, and most, and change the behaviors that are inhibitors, uh, to, to, to feeling the right feelings at the right time and doing the right actions at the right moment.
[01:16:45] So I, when we think about life, when we think about leadership and legacy, all of these things are happening all at once. They're not separate topics and the moment we begin to realize the example that we can put out into the world. Christ calls us to a community. He doesn't call us to be by ourselves.
[01:17:11] That was a lesson that I learned the hard way, that the more I turned internal to my own faith and, and just expected my, my inside voice and my inside prayer to make the difference in the world. It was only until I opened up to the world and started praying openly and submitting openly and being vulnerable openly about my own life, about what I hope to learn about leadership, about what I wanted to leave as a legacy, and began to put words to it through prayer and action.
[01:17:43] Uh, there's an African proverb that says, when you pray, move your feet. And I believe in that. Like you can't just pray to yourself. You can't just pray and expect these things to just happen. Christ calls us to action. He calls us to become part of a community. And it was only until I started to really participate in a community that I realized the power that an ecosystem has that's directed towards a vision for good.
[01:18:11] We all have an opportunity to leave a legacy, to become a leader and to make the lives around us 10 x so much better. And if you're talking all the time, that means that you're not listening. As we go through life, it's, we do want to help and we do want to fix. Um, but I've, I've realized, especially in the last year and a half throughout my own professional transition, that it's, it's silence and having the ability to listen and being open for others to tell you stories, that was the biggest transformation of my life.
[01:18:54] And moving from a founder role where I had to be in front and talk and create and generate and build and, and, and receive blame, uh, for anything that went wrong. And then also to assume it and take it away from the team and all of that stuff. Um, I was very outward focused. And now this next phase, it's, it's almost like I can't wait to be quiet and be in solitude and listen to people around me tell me what is going on in their life.
[01:19:23] Uh, and as soon as I made that transition, I saw a remarkable change in the way people called me to speak. And I force myself just to listen, just like nani did. In some cases take the hand of the person in front of me and put my hand on their shoulder and show them that I'm, I am all theirs.
[01:19:43] Today. It seems like we're all alone together, like we're all around each other all the time.
[01:19:52] And we're looking at phones, we're listening to music, we're connected to something, we're alone together. And that is a bad place to be.
[01:20:00] Like, why is it that you are the freak of nature when you're in a coffee shop just drinking coffee, like people walk in like, what's that guy up to? He's just drinking coffee. He's not on a computer. He's not on a phone. He's not plugged in. He's not like all of a sudden you're the weirdo. Like that, to me, that used to be a place, a common ground to communicate and talk, it was a, let's go to the coffee shop. But we're seeing that too. And I, I see it sometimes when I visit other churches.
[01:20:25] I see people outside and they're just on their phones and they're not communicating to the other parishioners that are there. And it's like, stop. Let's listen. And I know that the moment people begin to listen to each other in a different way, and these are small steps that you can take with God first, with your family second, and then a community third, in that order just listening to what is around you and allowing inspiration to come in, I guarantee you that life will begin to change. I know it. I've seen it, and I know that leadership will begin to take root in your heart. And I know that a legacy will be left, one that you will be proud of.
[01:21:13] Steve Gatena: Every moment in our lives provides an opportunity to create an impact that can last a lifetime. It's a powerful realization that should make us all reflect on the importance of our existence. We do not require any grandiose titles or achievements to make a difference. All we need to do is be ourselves.
[01:21:36] Each of us has the potential to be a light that shines in the world influencing others in ways that we might not even be aware of. With the talents and gifts that God has given us, we're meant to serve others and make a difference in their lives.
[01:21:52] However, it's important to let go of our need for validation and recognition.
[01:21:58] We must trust that God will handle the outcomes and focus on being ourselves, using our unique abilities, and treating everyone with kindness and humility. This week on Relentless Hope, Joe Musselman, and entrepreneur, venture capitalists and founder of The Honor Foundation shared his wisdom on creating a tremendous impact in the world.
[01:22:23] He emphasized the importance of recognizing our superpowers and embracing them to create change.
[01:22:30] Joe also urged us to see everyone else as having their own unique abilities and potential for impact.
[01:22:38] To create an impact that lasts, Joe encouraged us to become servant leaders, always putting the needs of others first.
[01:22:48] We must also understand our values and what it is that's important to us, both in our personal lives and our professional lives, because our values will guide us in making decisions and saying true to who God made us to be.
[01:23:04] Finally, Joe emphasized the importance of finding work that brings us joy. When we're happy and fulfilled, it radiates to those around us.
[01:23:13] The people who leave the greatest legacies are often those who allow others to be themselves and create an environment where people feel safe to express and work hard. Joe encouraged us to reach out to those who've supported us and become a source of support, love, kindness, and advice to them and to others.
[01:23:35] God has given us this life to make a positive impact, and it's a responsibility that we must take seriously with every action, word and decision, we have the power to create a lasting impact on the world around us. And today, you can take action to share this podcast with someone you know. You never know the impact you can make by sharing one inspirational podcast.
[01:24:07] My name's Steve Gatena, I'm the host of Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast. And until next time, I want you to remember to give hope a voice.
Finding God After a Career-Ending Injury - Joe Musselman
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: God has bestowed upon us a plethora of gifts and abilities that allow us to make a significant impact and change the world. Your presence alone has already influenced and improved the lives of many, even more than you can fathom. Every single day, through your actions, words, and the unique talents you possess, you have the power to influence those around you.
[00:00:33] Although you may not realize it, your light shines brightly and makes a remarkable difference in this world. Each and every individual matters, and it's God's desire for us to be our true selves and treat others with love, kindness, and humility. Just as we would our brothers and sisters, we should strive to be someone that others can rely on, someone who creates a space where people can be themselves.
[00:01:04] And on this week's episode of Relentless Hope, we are joined by Joe Musselman, an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist founder of The Honor Foundation. Joe teaches us these exact lessons.
[00:01:23] The Honor Foundation is a foundation that serves as the first ever career transition institute for US Navy seals and special operation forces, helping these brave individuals transition from one phase of their lives into the next phase.
[00:01:43] On this episode, Joe shares his journey of discovering his superpower
[00:01:48] and mission in life, which began after he suffered a career ending medical injury while training to become a Navy Seal. He encourages us to approach life with a spirit of service, noting that there are numerous ways to fill our bucket of service, some of which might not align with our initial expectations.
[00:02:14] We're inspired as people to become servant leaders, putting others first, protecting, and taking care of them, and always leading in service of others. Joe emphasizes this and he emphasizes the importance of living by core values such as love, faith, hope, and honesty and making decisions that align with your values each and every day.
[00:02:45] We're reminded that finding joy in our work is essential to creating an impactful legacy, and that the people who make the most significant impact are often fierce advocates with a soft touch. We hear about Joe's grandmother who left him with a legacy of vulnerability and encouraged him to be open and honest about his feelings.
[00:03:09] As Joe emphasizes every day presents incredible opportunities for us to make a difference, and although it is a significant responsibility, it is one that God knows we are capable of shouldering.
[00:03:26] When Joe Musselman enlisted in the Navy to become a Navy Seal, he was all in. But then when he suffered a spinal injury, he found himself questioning God's plan for his life.
[00:03:39] Joe Musselman: I can still remember the time when I looked up into the sky when I could feel the right side of my leg and my body going numb from an injury that was very serious. I remember looking up and I, I remember cursing and swearing and saying, you, you better have an effing plan for this, like this. Better be part of your plan and, and praying fiercely and angrily and emotionally, because I knew that that was my very last day inside of SEAL training, and I couldn't figure it out.
[00:04:17] I've been an athlete my whole life. I've never experienced any injury. I've never experienced any traumatic injury, never had anything wrong go wrong. My body was never something that w that I planned on failing me. I said, if there's something that's gonna break me, it's gonna be my mind. And my mind was totally intact and my body ended up breaking.
[00:04:40] Steve Gatena: On episode one of this three part series, Joe Musselman, the founder of the Honor Foundation, explains how we all have superpowers for Joe serving ex-military to find their passion was ignited when he experienced a failure himself. By being empathetic and vulnerable with the people around him, he was able to find a new calling for himself.
[00:05:10] Joe Musselman: My name is Joe Musselman. Uh, I am, um, entrepreneur, founder, uh, and VC, and I'd like to talk to you about a life hack that has to do with finding your superpower. And most people don't talk about a life hack in the sense of finding a superpower. And I never would've known what my superpower was if I didn't meet an unbelievable failure.
[00:05:38] So first off, I come from a very small town outside of the city of Chicago, uh, lower middle class. We never had a lot of money or things, but I always felt so wealthy and I felt wealthy with, with love and family and extended family and friends and community. Uh, from my church community to my family community, to the schools I I went to, I always felt so wealthy and I grew up with that perspective.
[00:06:08] Uh, so I grew up with two amazing parents who instilled values in me. Uh, one value in particular was the classic line of who can change that. And what that means is when I was growing up in that house, if I did something wrong and if I found myself, you know, in a, uh, in a situation where I was grounded or I was in timeout, or whatever it was that I was absolutely deserving of. Um, my mother would look at me and she would say, who can change that? And for me, growing up, that was a, that was a significant line that I, I kept in my life, uh, all the way up into the present day. But why did it translate into, how does this translate into a superpower and how does this translate, um, you know, into one of the greatest and most successful failures in my life to date?
[00:07:03] I'm, I'm wondering how many people that are listening used to wake up early to watch cartoons. And I used to do that, and I used to love watching the superheroes, the Marvel characters. Uh, I would get up early five, 6:00 AM uh, I would greet my father who worked a very, very late night shift. Um, and we would sit there and we'd watch cartoons together.
[00:07:22] It's some of my fondest memories of growing up. And I, I fell in love with Superman and Marvel characters and, and the, the reason for that was, is that they all had these interesting superpowers that my father would always translate into a, a, a message of, of gentilnes, so Superman was always, uh, the neighborhood hero.
[00:07:40] He would rescue a cat, he'd lift up cars, he would walk women across the street, he would, he'd be a great, uh, friend. Uh, and, and my father would translate those messages into being a good son and being a gentleman, uh, and always open doors and always be polite and treat all people with respect and waking up to those little morning lessons I was always so excited to do that.
[00:08:02] And my, my mother in the same regard, uh, would also, uh, lay a, a heavy hand on the responsibility and take accountability for your actions. The, the term boys will be, boys did not come into my mother's vernacular. She wanted me to take accountability and responsibility for, uh, for things that I was either mischievously doing as a child or not.
[00:08:24] Uh, and I had two parents where we may not have had a lot of money, but man, I felt wealthy with with, uh, with two parents. My parents raised me to, with so much love, uh, and empathy, uh, for the world and those people around me that I wanted to grow into a man that would talk about love and vulnerability and authenticity and genuine topics, uh, that, that are really at the core of everything we do.
[00:08:54] We're all walking around a bundle of stories, good and bad stories. And some from childhood are bad. Some from childhood are good, but every single one of them are shaping us into the people that we are walking around. And, and the real question that, that I had to ask myself, uh, you know, going into the Navy is what type of, what type of man did I want to be inside of, of this community?
[00:09:20] And, um, when I experienced in this injury, it took me to a really dark place because I felt like a failure. I felt like I did not live up to my family's expectations. I felt like I had let my father down. I felt like I had to make difficult phone calls telling people that I was injured and, and my body broke and I'm not gonna become a SEAL.
[00:09:46] Uh, I thought they would look down on me and I was really embarrassed. I felt as I walked out of the base and was walking through town, that everyone was looking at me, that everyone somehow knew that I failed. And of course, I, now I, looking back, it's so silly to think that that's where my mind went, but my heart and soul was only dedicated to one thing and I didn't achieve that one thing, so I didn't understand how to move forward.
[00:10:09] Um, I felt like people were counting on me and I had let them all down. When people feel like a failure, especially people with strong imaginations, like myself, they really go into a dark place, and I've helped so many folks kind of walk through their thinking when they do feel like they are failures, that the one thing I can say is the first thing you have to do is practice fierce empathy for yourself and look at the situation that you're in, uh, and remind yourself of, of what you set out to do.
[00:10:46] And, and the long game of going into the Navy was to begin my life of service. So I, I, I would argue that folks that would be transitioning out of the military community and into the next great adventure of their life, I would argue that you didn't join the military to become a, a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine. Uh, you didn't join the military to go off, uh, to war or to deploy or, uh, whatever.
[00:11:15] It's a deeper cause.
[00:11:16] You join the military because you have a spirit of service, and the spirit of service is a bucket that can be filled in many different ways. I want, I thought my bucket of service needed to be filled by becoming a Navy seal, when in fact my bucket of service was filled through serving Navy Seals into the next great adventure of their life by, by helping the them and their family find their next job.
[00:11:40] To me, that bucket was filled in the moment I kind of submitted to the idea, that it wasn't a failure, that it was God's way of opening up, uh, doors for me to see a new path. Uh, the right path. The, the pain, the suffering, the feelings of depression, they all just went away. They melted off my body. Uh, the more I thought about it, the more I prayed about it, um, the more the light was shown on a path that I was destined to be on.
[00:12:13] There were 16 men in my family who served in the United States military, uh, dating back to World War II, every major conflict, every branch. Um, I grew up seeing uniforms in every closet, in every home. Uh, bootcamp, photos, deployment photos, uh, and my family is deep inside of the service industry. We have service, uh, inside of our DNA.
[00:12:39] We have doctors, we have nurses, we have teachers, we have social workers, uh, and we have people who have served, uh, in our military.
[00:12:48] Uh, one day, uh, I was studying abroad in a random, random place, but I was, I was studying abroad inside of Iraq and Afghanistan through a D O D, uh, and Department of Army internship externship opportunity.
[00:13:05] And I met my first Navy Seal in a Ford operating base in the middle of Iraq, up in the mountains. And when I met this person, I was taken aback by the professionalism, uh, the, the, the team ability, as they call it, the way that he discussed how the team operated with each other, and most importantly, there was a sense of humility to him, um, that made me want to get to know him more.
[00:13:31] So I did and I stayed in touch when I came back home, it had impacted my life to a, to a great degree. I withdrew my OCS package at the time to become a United States Marine and walked down the hallway and decided to go enlisted into the Navy with every intention to become a Navy SEAL.
[00:13:49] And, uh, for the next year and a half, I, I went to town. I trained for nearly two years to try to become the, the both mentally tough and physically strong in order to accomplish the task of becoming a SEAL. And about two years into my pipeline, I, I suffered a spine injury and I was out, as quick as I was in training, I was out. And I did not have a plan B, and there was no way that you can plan for something like this and you don't kind of try to become a Navy SEAL. You either are all in or you are all out. And at that point in time, I was all in.
[00:14:28] And when that happened, I definitely went into a very dark place. I can still remember the time when I looked up into the sky, when I could feel the right side of my leg and my body going numb, from an injury that was very serious, I remember looking up and I, I remember cursing, and swearing and saying, you, you better have an effing plan for this. Like, this better be part of your plan. And, and praying fiercely and angrily and emotionally, because I knew that that was my very last day inside of SEAL training, and I couldn't figure it out.
[00:15:09] I've been an athlete my whole life. I've never experienced any injury. I've never experienced any traumatic injury, never had anything wrong go wrong. My body was never something that w that I planned on failing me. I said, if there's something that's gonna break me, it's gonna be my mind. And my mind was totally intact and my body ended up breaking.
[00:15:28] So with that being said, I then was put on a year to a year and a half, uh, rehabilitation pipeline inside of the Navy community. The United States Navy and the Special warfare community took care of me in a big way. Uh, they wanted to see me be successful, uh, in my rehabilitation. And while I was going through Rehab I met a someone that changed my life.
[00:15:51] Um, I was working inside of an office and I got to know members of the community intimately in a different light. Um, I was working inside of a little command store, so you have to imagine I went from wanting to be a Navy SEAL to now serving Navy SEAL's Coffee and Gatorade, while I was going through my rehabilitation process, and again, it's not sensationalizing my background in any way, but you know, I, I came in with, with degrees, I came in with cer certificates from top universities, and I was so ready to take on this challenge and, and then I went back to, uh, I was serving coffee and, and Gatorade while I was going through rehabilitation. It's, it's a powerful shift that happened instantly overnight, where even your uniform changes.
[00:16:43] You're in one uniform one minute, the next day you're in a totally different uniform and nothing internally or inside you has time to make a transition. The only thing that transitioned what was the world was seeing what was on the outside is that I was no longer part of that training. And I got to know this, uh, master chief, and for the audience that, that aren't familiar with military, a master chief is top of the food chain in the military community on the enlisted side of the Navy, uh, he was a command master chief four times over again. He had six bronze stars, all with combat valor. He was awarded the Navy Cross. He was up for the Medal of Honor and needed to be awarded the Navy Cross because they couldn't make public the things that he was doing in order to win the Navy Cross from or win the medal of Honor from the United States Navy.
[00:17:34] He could fly planes, he could fly helicopters. He had a master's degree. He spoke multiple languages. He had been to 60 plus countries all over the world. Um, and it's an, oh, by the way, he was a six time iron man. He parachuted into the world championships at Kona and then thinned his way, swam his way to the starting line once he, uh, parachuted in to the start of the race.
[00:18:01] So on paper, this is a total freak of nature in person, this person was a gentle giant. Commanded respect, quietly, uh, and truly paid me respect because he knew that I had been injured. And yet he still came in and spoke to me like a peer and a colleague and a teammate every day. And it made all the difference for me in that time of my life.
[00:18:22] And it's very representative of the community as a whole. I got to know this guy very well, and he, he invited me to his retirement ceremony, which is a very moving, private, intimate event, uh, at the Naval Special Warfare Command. And he had been all over the world. He had deployed, he was the iconic Navy Seal, the Navy made videos about this individual as almost like a recruitment tool, uh, because his story was so inspiring and I had a chance to be friends with this person for a while. I went to his retirement ceremony, standing ovations. People were in tears. His family was there. He was in his Navy whites confident, beaming with pride and, and humility about the service that he had done.
[00:19:06] And his speech was just remarkable. I watched him take his last walk across the deck and there he was. He retired after 26 years, uh, of being a Navy SEAL, many, many years of which we're at the, uh, Naval Special Warfare Development Group, otherwise known as Seal Team Six.
[00:19:23] The next day he walked into my office and he closed the door behind him and, which was strange cuz typically he just barreled in and we would start going at it politically about what was said the day before and what we agreed with and what we didn't agree with. And he looked at me and he said, Joe, with 26 years in the SEAL teams, what am I gonna do now? And he was crying and not just a small cry. He was, he was sobbing, he was crying.
[00:19:55] And I immediately stood up and I, I gave him a big hug and I said, master chief, like, how, how can I help? What can I do? How can I support?
[00:20:05] And then I started asking a little bit more deeper questions like, master chief, like your resume, where, where is that? And your, uh, networking, who are you talking with? Your career, uh, you know, goals, your, what's your passion, your why, your your mission, what, what do you want to do next with your life? And it was like a deer in the headlights. And the more I got to talk with him, I said, that's it, come tomorrow morning, we're making a resume, we're gonna build a career plan, and flash forward.
[00:20:34] So if I, if I didn't experience that injury and I didn't get put inside of a command store, and if I wasn't placed in front of him at that very moment in time, going back and connecting the dots of me cursing God and expecting a, expecting a response, um, you know, like some sort of close caption in the sky being like, oh, trust me um, I know what I'm doing. Uh, I started to see immediately the path that was in front of me and how special it was that I had the opportunity. And I'm a, I'm a big fan of a raving fan of Mother Teresa. I know that might catch some people like of really Mother Teresa. Well, yes, first of all, well, the servant leadership displayed by her is, is remarkable, but she used to say, you don't have to help tens of thousands of people. You just have to help the person in front of you.
[00:21:27] And at that moment I felt overwhelmed because here's a moment where a person in front of me is, is needing of my support and I have an opportunity through another skill set to help him develop a resume, get involved with the community, begin to network on his own behalf.
[00:21:44] And that's exactly what I did. And then I became addicted to the way that made me feel being a servant to this community. I was never meant to become a Navy SEAL. I was meant to serve Navy Seals in their transition and help them discover the next great adventure of their life. So once you find that path and you find that mission, and I came up with a mission and a why statement then, uh, for an organization that I created.
[00:22:10] And fast forward from that one interaction with that master chief, flash forward nearly five to six, seven years later. You know, we've raised millions and millions of dollars. We've put hundreds and hundreds of families through a dedicated program that successfully transitions the special operations community from a community they loved into another great community, the next great adventure in their life.
[00:22:37] And none of that would've happened for campuses later, hundreds of families through a dedicated program of 15, it's 15 weeks long, uh, and the placement is well over 95%. Um, our starting salary jumped from, you know, 80k a year to nearly 145 a year. Not that money matters, but when you put those individuals in the right place at the right time, you give them a compass, and as it turns out, the private sector deeply values the experience set coming out of this community. And that's all because of an injury. It's because of a failure. It's because of my failure that I was able to look at as a success point and a milestone in my life to continue serving, and we were talking yesterday about productive chips on our shoulder.
[00:23:27] There was a, there was a productive chip on my shoulder, which was I wanted to prove to this community in a very vulnerable and real way that I could still provide value to them as a teammate. And so I left this community after interviewing that one master chief, I then interviewed 250 more Navy Seals over, across seven states over six months, I asked them all the same 33 questions, and what I learned was there's no formal transition institute for our special operations community.
[00:23:58] And so I activated and I thought, let's go, let's build one. And we did. And we have four campuses now, uh, across the country serving these communities where they exit, and we've made it a simple transition process.
[00:24:12] Even now, as I sit here and I talk to you, it's, it's insane to think that I'm talking to you inside of a 10,000 square foot headquarters. That, in my mind, was nothing more than a, a dream at the time. And, and now this community has a home away from home and they have a community post the community, and it's all because of a failure.
[00:24:30] And that's one of the most meaningful, meaningful failures I'll ever have in my life. I'll always be engaged in meaningful work, but nothing will ever be as meaningful as helping that one master chief in front of me the moment that I had the opportunity to do so.
[00:24:47] And so wrapping that all up into superpowers, right?
[00:24:51] What if we looked at every person we came into contact with as they have a superpower, and I don't know what that is yet, and I'm gonna treat them accordingly as a brother or sister or neighbor, and I'm gonna learn about them. And that master chief threw his humility and his kindness towards me. He was able to pull out this superpower that became the mission of the Honor Foundation, which is to serve others with honor for life, so their next mission is always clear and continues to impact the world. Because he showed me kindness, because he showed me respect, because he showed me fierce empathy to my situation. Not sympathy, but empathy. He gave me an opportunity to show off a superpower of service that I had inside of me that I thought my service in the Seal community was going to bring out, when in fact it was through that attempt at service that led me to realize that serving a greater community is, uh, serving a greater community that is serving the world and empowering them so they can do their job actually is a superpower.
[00:26:06] And then I came up with my why statement, which is to light fire so others can see. If you are doing what you are designed to do, it's absolutely remarkable how the path in front of you becomes lit and you can bring light to those people. I don't do well advocating for myself, I don't, but I do really well advocating on behalf of other people who I believe in.
[00:26:31] So imagine walking up to every person in your life knowing that they are a superhero in some way, and looking at them as if they have a superpower that either they have recognized or the world hasn't recognized it yet. I feel that it's my mission in life to help everyone understand what their superpower is and, and how they can bring that superpower to the world to bring about tremendous impact.
[00:27:02] Uh, and one thing we focused on at the Honor Foundation was if you don't use the gifts that you've been given, we've been given these gifts on a lease. And if you don't pay into that lease, you, you lose it. And for me, losing it would be at the end of my life, I'm looking back and I did not use all the gifts that God has given me in every ounce that he has given them to me.
[00:27:29] What has the world now missed out? Because I would not take action on the gifts that I was given. And all of us are walking around with gifts that have been given to us, leased to us. How often do we sit back and analyze those gifts and how we can bring about the best change in the world?
[00:27:51] And so as we've wrap this up and think about your own, what you would categorize as a failure, have you taken time to learn about that failure? Have you taken time to examine who you are and what's, what strength you have gained from that failure? And how you can bring about learning and activity into the world that may change it as a result of your failure?
[00:28:16] So like I said, my, my mission is to light fires so others can see. The minute you put words to a mission statement is the moment the rest of your life starts to become very clear and go throughout the world looking to try to find the superpower in every single person around us, because you never know what type of impact they'll bring to the world.
[00:28:44] It's the little things that matter. And more importantly, from a family perspective, now that I'm about to have my own son in 58 days, I'm starting to reflect so much on all of the little behaviors that my parents used to do that have left a lasting impact on me forever. And it was never these big, grandiose gestures around leadership.
[00:29:07] It was the small lessons that I learned from them that are now translating into some of the greatest leadership lessons of my life.
[00:29:20] Steve Gatena: On episode two of this three part series, Joe explains that leadership is not about large gestures. By establishing and following your core values, you create habits that build others up, both inside and outside the home. However, as a leader, we need to understand that everyone learns differently, and then we need to recognize how to respond accordingly.
[00:29:48] Joe Musselman: So now moving on to a topic about leadership and how I've learned to lead and what it means to lead, I can refer back to a, a story that impacted it left an impression on me that I will have for the rest of my life, one of the most humble servant leaders I've ever met, um, we'll call him, uh, Rob and Rob was telling me a story about how people always say to veterans when they see them, thank you for your service. And most veterans, of course, extremely grateful for the comment, shaking their head. Yes. Thank, thank you for saying that. I appreciate you saying that. Of course.
[00:30:31] And Rob told me a story in passing where he, it wasn't his intention to have this be the purpose of the story. He said it in passing, and I took notes of the story, but he was telling a time when he was walking through the airport and someone said, thank you for your service.
[00:30:53] And his immediate response was, well, you're worth it. And the way that person responded to that was complete silence and had no idea like what, like how to even process that, that this person, who he does not know is out there serving for me. And he made it personal by saying, you are worth it.
[00:31:20] And that led me on a conversation with him, uh, to tell me more stories about those types of interactions, and he just continued on a story about, uh, his experience inside of an airport.
[00:31:33] Now how many people out there go to the airport with a sense of calm and they get to the airport and they're relaxed and they get through security and they're relaxed and they pace up to their gate and relax.
[00:31:48] Um, and they are trying to be what? First in line, what's your number? Gold status? Platinum Status? Board now, group one, all of this is so stressful when we go to the airport. And then Rob told me a story about his approach to the airport where he shows up hours and hours early. And he kind of walks through security and there's no rush. When he gets to his gate, he takes a seat and he lets everyone, purposefully, he lets every single person board the plane first despite his seat number, and he lets everyone board the plane. And once he feels it's the last, last moment, he'll then board the plane because he feels as a result of his service that he's kind of looking out for everyone and he wants to go in last.
[00:32:41] And one thing that taught me is one, it removed all the worry I have about going to the airport ever since I started this practice. And you let others go first. You don't get stressed about what your seat number is. And for the most part, uh, I travel on airlines with open seating anyways, so it doesn't really matter, uh, where you sit, and I always end up somehow getting the seat that I wanted.
[00:33:05] But there's a deeper lesson there about leaders eat last. They go last. They, they let the flock go in front of them and they are behind protecting it. And this is a, a side story to that much greater thinking of playing an infinite game where you are always protecting those around you.
[00:33:29] Like that's the other thing is you know, leadership when you're actually seeing it. That to me is the biggest thing where everyone's looking for these definitions and these, these categories to follow about leadership. It's not about that at all. It's about, your gut knows it when you see it. We, it's like knowing right from wrong, you know, you know what's right and you know what's wrong.
[00:33:50] You know, it's an interesting statistic. I won't use the university's name, but one of the top universities on the planet. It's always in the top three. There's one statistic that they never actually talk about. They never actually talk about the percentage of their MBA class that ends up in prison. And guess what?
[00:34:08] It's really high. It's way higher than you think. It's almost 5%. So that means that 5% of every MBA class, which are considered leaders in business and leaders in life, end up in prison. So why is that? Like, how does that happen? And like I said earlier, it's not about the big things you do all at one time. It's the little things you do over a long period of time.
[00:34:29] Nothing ever comes out of nowhere. It's actually been happening for a really long time. And so the, the one time that the business leader decides to, okay, it's not exactly fraud and it's within the confines of our business and our constitution, what we do, so we can, we can get away with that. Sure. Like we can charge small little transaction overdraft fees and, and sure we can do this. And then the next thing you know, someone's in prison. So the little decisions that we make every day and, and some of these people, they completely surround us all the time. The, the bagger that goes out of his way at the grocery store to always walk my wife to the door and make sure that she gets out safely.
[00:35:09] That's a leader.
[00:35:10] Like when you see people doing things that are extraordinary, surrounded in kindness and courage, that's a leader. And, and when people start to define leadership in their own sense, in their own way, right there, you begin to develop a sense of leadership because we feel the words that we say.
[00:35:28] We act around the words that we say, and we become our actions. And that's the next thing. You know. 20 years goes by and everyone else considers you a leader and you didn't even realize it because you've been following the small steps and the small signs in life and the pursuit of everything we do from family to friends, to business to life, that equals leadership.
[00:35:50] It's an action oriented thing. And, and if you find yourself, I read about leadership for a decade. I, I read my 1000th book this year. Big woo. None of that matters if I didn't take anything away from that and begin to act on that knowledge. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is potential power. And so you can read all the books you want on leadership when you know, on the inside, you know exactly what you're supposed to do.
[00:36:16] That's the thing that cracks me up about people who keep asking these deep questions about leadership. How do you do it? How does it happen? Well, you have to pay attention to the folks who've lived a life. And for me, let's use an example. I'd like to use an example.
[00:36:32] Did anyone else feel something? And I'm not, I am not being political. I'm being, right now, I'm being, uh, I'm bringing a real life example that I felt in my heart and soul that when John McCain passed away, we were saying goodbye to something much greater than just the United States Senator. In my heart, there's leadership qualities to this person that somehow everyone could admire.
[00:36:57] And when we think about just military in general and why I was drawn to service in the first place, it's neutral, it's le it's not left or right. It's these people are sacrificing on our behalf that, that we could not even imagine. Leadership for me is watching the spouse of a Navy SEAL, Skype goodnight to her husband while her three kids are saying goodnight to their dad overseas.
[00:37:24] That mother is at home by herself with three children under the age of seven. The father is in a barracks in a forward operating base surrounded by plywood and the enemy, and he's calling in to say goodnight to his family before he goes off in to do an op. Do you know how much leadership is in that exchange right there between the husband taking a lead to defend our country to that wife who's at home with those three kids six to eight months at a time.
[00:37:51] And then when the husband comes home, of course he's the, the, the hero and the victor and the mom is kind of over there now, and to me, that's her being a servant leader. That's her taking leadership into her own hands and stepping aside because she knows what a hero the father is to the son and to the daughter, and to the daughter.
[00:38:15] To me, that's leadership in its form.
[00:38:17] And then he walks over and hugs his wife and kisses his wife, and they leave as a family, as a unit, as one. These examples of leadership are all around us all the time. The ones who wanna become a leader are the ones who are paying attention to them and emulating that.
[00:38:33] The ones who talk about wanting to be a leader. Are the ones who watch those examples, take nothing from them and don't change their, the way they think that feel or communicate and behave to become a leader. And so, as you heard, the, the launch of the Honor Foundation was to support those that have supported us, to serve those that have been serving us.
[00:38:58] And up until 2014, there was no institution that was designed to serve the community that has served us so selflessly for 60 to 70 years, uh, inside of the special operations community. So to me, when you think about leadership, the first thing that comes to mind, it should be, how can you serve those around you?
[00:39:26] One thing that I know, uh, when it comes to the concept of, of being a leader of any organization, so much of it has to do with ensuring people are always focused on the vision of the organization and having absolute clarity around the vision, the mission, and the values and guiding principles. And I, I say that very specifically because I'm someone who needs, uh, you know, a framework and, and an action oriented framework to activate and, and head towards a, a much greater vision way down the road.
[00:40:00] And I always think of, you know, Martin Luther King is a big influence in my life. And you think about M L K, he, he said he had a dream. He didn't say, I have a 99 point plan. Like no one gets behind a 99 point plan. Everyone gets behind a vision and a dream. And there are times in every business, no matter what you are doing, where it's going to be hard and difficult.
[00:40:22] Even inside of military communities that are in the most elite category of of military on the planet, there needs to be a constant thought in mind that you are doing this for a much greater good and no matter what, when you think about that one leadership, you should be considering yourself as a servant to those around you.
[00:40:44] Those are absolutely the best leaders.
[00:40:46] And two, to keep yourself focused on the vision and the mission as much as possible. And then there's something too that is this, people think this is amorphous, this idea of core values and guiding principles, when in fact I, I think it can be broken out, uh, into something very important where core values think of that as is.
[00:41:05] If you were to walk into an organization, if I were to walk into your organization, how would the people in the organization define it? How would they define what their, how they think, act, feel, and communicate every day? Those are core values. And to give you an example of, of following servant leadership into a vision, into a mission, into your core values.
[00:41:28] One of the core values that I have, not only personally, but within every business that I will ever start, will always be practicing artistry. Practicing artistry, meaning that, I mean, even doctors practice medicine, right? No one, no one is perfect at it, and artistry is something that's on a scale that should be unachievable. But at the same time, we practice towards that perfection to, to be the best for those people around us.
[00:41:55] When you are focused on the vision of an organization, the mission, and you have clear defined core values, when you get to sit, when you, when you find yourself in situations where your character and integrity might be called into question, you revert back to the vision, you revert back to the mission, and you revert back to your core values.
[00:42:19] And you make decisions based off of that. And what we do some of the time is actually what we do all of the time. And it's the little things that matter most, especially when we're making decisions in a very difficult time, focusing on a set of core values that are unwavering. I have 10 personal core values that are unwavering.
[00:42:41] And when I'm faced with a character or integrity, uh, conflict, you just have to go back to your core values. I don't think that we can serve others, the way we were determined and destined to serve others, without first clearly defining what we value as individuals.
[00:43:00] My wife and I have defined values of our home. Those defined values of our home go into the defined values of business. They go into the defined values of who I want to be around in life. And you can, you start to pick up quickly the folks that you want to be around versus the folks that you don't, that you do want to be around. Uh, based off of shared value systems.
[00:43:24] My wife and I are entirely two different people, but our core values are the same. We're complete opposites in every way. Our core values are the same. When you move into business or you start a business, or you're running a team, if you, you know, your culture is strong and culture is another word for, for values. So just pair those together. You know, you've created a strong culture. When, when individuals begin to highlight themselves based on the behavior and the actions they're taking. And then the team starts to notice that because you've created a strong culture and those folks will highlight themselves as possibly not being a good culture fit.
[00:44:03] But in order to do that, you, you, you have to have these things drawn out first as you do in a leader. You have to have an ethos, you have to have a constitution, you have to have, uh, a kind of a declaration of what you stand for because how do you expect your team to understand the vision that you are putting out before they first understand who you are and what you believe in?
[00:44:29] To me, that was the biggest realization from a leadership perspective, and I'm someone who assumed a lot of responsibility and too much responsibility on my shoulders. And, and used to present ideas to the team is, okay, I've spent weeks working on this for the team. I'm so excited to present this to you, and I would slam this kind of plan down on the table and expect round of applause and, and standing ovations and look at how much work you've done for us, and this is fantastic, when they, in actuality, looked at me like I had 12 heads and, and asking me why I didn't take any of their advice or opinions into consideration, as I made that plan, now what I've learned is I still make the plan and I still put it on the table. And then my only question is, is, Hey everybody, can you help me make this better?
[00:45:20] That's something that you can't necessarily find in a, in an MBA classroom. You have to have the embarrassing look of employees staring at you in your face being like, hey, we would've loved to have had a, some contribution to this plan, uh, when I thought I was doing something phenomenal in serving the team.
[00:45:37] If you go into the concept of leadership, it all starts with service transparency and accountability to your team. People think leadership begins by doing great big deeds that it could not be further from the truth. Leadership begins with the smallest act and grows into great big deeds, and you don't even realize that it's happening to you.
[00:46:02] So one, an idol of mine is, and someone I look up to, who I feel is a superpower, a superhero in this world, uh, is is someone by the name of Admiral Bill McCraven. And Bill McCraven is one of, arguably one of the greatest four star. Admirals that has ever lived. And I would listen to the words that he would say so closely.
[00:46:23] And one, he just published a book and one of the things he talked about was making your bed in the morning and what a small discipline that was. That if you make your bed in the morning, even if you have the worst day, he jokes that you come home into a bed that's made and you immediately feel better about your day.
[00:46:41] To me, that's leadership.
[00:46:42] My father used to make his bed every single day. Granted it was from habits, from the military service, and, and it just became a habit. But seeing him do that made me want to make my bed, made me want to clean up the faucet in the bathroom, and he left a lesson of leadership to me, which was never leave something the way you found it. Always leave something better than when you found it.
[00:47:07] And that simple lesson always leave something better than when you found it, I recognized that there was no transition institute for Navy seals and special operators. I recognized it. I could have ignored it, but there's no way in any world that I would live in that I could know that I saw something and had the opportunity to leave it better than when I found it, and I could live with myself.
[00:47:31] So we have to take action. The one thing I can say about leadership, not just from the Admiral McRaven anecdote or, or even just starting a business, it's the little things that matter. And more importantly, from a family perspective, now that I'm about to have my own son in 58 days, I'm starting to reflect so much on all of the little behaviors that my parents used to do that have left a lasting impact on me forever.
[00:47:57] And it was never these big, grandiose gestures around leadership. It was the small lessons that I learned from them that are now translating into some of the greatest leadership lessons of my life.
[00:48:11] And something that's more profound is they didn't know, they didn't have self-help books. They didn't have parental guides. They didn't have the science behind why they were doing what they were doing. They were following their heart, they were following their faith, and they stuck to core values. They were consistent with me. And that's what a leader does, is they're consistent. They're consistently there. They're consistent with their values, their morals, their ethics.
[00:48:40] We all have an opportunity to do that all the time, and we walk around looking for a guide in a framework.
[00:48:48] Leadership is a verb, it's an action. And everyone has the opportunity to take that leadership role of taking action every single day.
[00:48:59] So I know that as I, as I grew up, my family had unspoken values.
[00:49:06] Be honest, be trustworthy, tell the truth. And I took that to another level with my own household where a home is actually a business and I want all of the businesses that I run to feel like a home. So I don't see any difference when it comes to creating a values, value systems for businesses than I do creating value systems for the home.
[00:49:30] And it's actually very helpful to look at the wall and and see, it's not, first of all, we were all given values, they're called commandments and there's 10 of them, and if we were to make our own value system for our family, what would it look like to have it up on the wall for everyone to see in the family?
[00:49:51] My wife and I are expecting our first baby in October, so I've been thinking a lot about this, that as my son is brought into my home as he grows up, what words, words matter. What words do I want him to see and begin to associate with me and my wife and the love we have for each other and the, the household that we want him to grow up in.
[00:50:11] And, you know, one, you know, one value that we have, um, as a family and it's been translated into business and back to my family is, uh, is be you, and that goes back to a, a lesson that I learned even as a child. Uh, my mother and father, uh, did all that they could. It's funny when we talk about family members, you know, it's the same in business as it is with a, with a, any family that you know, when your child begins to act up or your teenager isn't doing well in math, do you fire your child?
[00:50:49] Like, do you, do you fire them from the family business and, sorry, it's, look, it's not working out and, um, we're just gonna have to, uh, replace you and X, Y, and Z.
[00:50:59] It shouldn't be that way in business either, where you're just letting people go. It's no, you give your, you get your son or daughter a tutor. You get them the help that they need. You coach them, uh, into the value system of the family.
[00:51:12] And that was a lesson that I learned from my mother showing me true servant leadership where she would sit with me for hours and hours around the kitchen table and work with me on my math skills. And one day she showed me a little image back in the day, they weren't memes, they were, they were, uh, little newspaper clippings, right? And it showed, it showed all of these animals lined up in front of a very sturdy, stern looking formal man in like a suit behind a desk. And there was a monkey, a penguin, an elephant, and then a fish in a fish bowl. And a dog and behind them was a tree.
[00:51:53] And when I was talking to my mom and complaining and, and crying about my inability to take tests well as a child, uh, she had the servant leadership to present this to me in an image where the, the bubble that's coming out of the kind of the formal guy's, uh, mouth is for a fair selection, everyone has to take the same exam. So please turn around and climb that tree. And when I saw that, it made sense to me where the fish doesn't have a prayer to climb the tree, but the monkey does. So the whole point of the story is we're given these unique gifts and as a family, it's, it's the parents showing true servant leadership to the family, and bringing out the best qualities in everyone so that they can ultimately be who they are and be themselves and be powerful.
[00:52:48] You know, leadership is a practice that's, that's it should be activated all the time and inside of your home. And the people that you surround yourself with, how often do you take a people assessment actively and look at the people that you're surrounding, you and your family with all the time?
[00:53:08] Uh, I know that I always felt so protected with my parents. They would look around all the time to make sure that, you know, we were surrounded by people that believed what they believed and people who, who communicated with acts of service and love and kindness. And so that's something that I get all the time from, uh, from friends asking me, uh, questions around, you know, how to really build an ecosystem of support, uh, because that's what we did at the Honor Foundation, is we built a really caring ecosystem of support.
[00:53:42] We brought in thousands and thousands and thousands of people who believed what we believed that th this community deserved a level of support and care and kindness, uh, as they are leaving a service of, of, of service, uh, to, to us without ever knowing who we are and they deserve something when they moved on.
[00:54:03] So my question always is, is are you taking a people assessment of those that are around you? And do they have vision? Do they have impact? Do they have passion? Are these people that, that are looking to make a difference in the world? Um, I'm not saying everyone needs to run around finding friends that are Steve Jobs and, and, you know, um, other people.
[00:54:24] I'm, I'm saying to pay close attention to those that you allow into your ecosystem, uh, and, and pr and be an antibody to, uh, to things that are going to corrupt the values of your house, and are going to corrupt the values of your business, and corrupt, corrupt the values. And it always happens slowly.
[00:54:43] There's no such thing as, uh, it happened out of nowhere. Like, I don't even believe in that phrase. Nothing happens out of nowhere. It actually was there for quite some time and it wasn't recognized.
[00:54:54] So circling back to the, the concept of taking care of the flock and, and being a servant leader, uh, and looking out for those that are in your charge and having clarity around your core values is both a family and in business. Uh, and how does servant leadership interact with your family and your home, uh, I think we always have to remember that servant leadership in, in all of its forms, has everything to do with how you choose to bring yourself to every single day to serve others and never yourself. And lastly, how to design and develop a caring, meaningful ecosystem of support for those that you love.
[00:55:44] In the end, we're just not here that long. We're just not around that long. And to use the time that we have and to maximize the impact that we can use from the gifts that we've been given to lead those who need a leader to serve those who need to be served. And most importantly, to bring a set of core values to the world that incorporates all the things that matter, faith, love, hope, and your ability to, to make an impact in the world.
[00:56:15] And something that, you know, I've been toying with a lot is, you know, how is it that every individual around the world can leave a legacy? Like, how do you do that? And it starts by, by moving and pushing yourself into work that brings you joy. The only way you can bring joy to the world is if you are finding joy in the world of work.
[00:56:39] When people find what they love, the rest of the world feels that from that person. How many times have you met with friends over the weekend or, or even during the week. Hey man, so how's everything going? Like, hey, how's, how's work? Uh, you know, works work, work does not have to be work.
[00:57:01] Steve Gatena: On episode three of this three part series, Joe shows us that legacy is about doing what you're passionate about. A lasting legacy comes naturally by doing the work you enjoy. When you focus on what matters most, like teams, leadership and culture, life, will take care of you.
[00:57:22] Joe Musselman: So we're gonna talk about a term that means a lot to me right now, which is legacy.
[00:57:28] There are some words that are packed, filled with emotion, and when I use the word legacy, that is one of the words for me that, that immediately brings to the surface all these types of things, all these types of emotions. Like what do you want the world to remember you by? What do you want your family to remember you by?
[00:57:49] And are you living a life that's, that is with bringing your best self to the world to see? So I, I had to make, when it comes to legacy, people think that transition from one great adventure to a next in life has to have this calculated path. Like how many times have you heard the term career path, right?
[00:58:13] Like, what does that even mean? Like first of all, the world is not a ladder. It's more like a lattice. You go up, you go down, you go right, you go left, you, you, you take different strategies and approaches, uh, with your career based on how you are becoming inspired through as you walk through life. People had a interesting reaction to me moving from a non-profit space to a for-profit space.
[00:58:39] Now that doesn't make any sense to me because it has nothing to do about the profit that's being made or not made. It has to do with the work that's getting done and nonprofit, for-profit, that's like scratching the surface. And when you think about the legacy you wanna lead, it has to be about the impact and the work that you're doing every day and getting to the point where you don't even know what time it is, what day it is, what week it is, what month it is.
[00:59:04] All you know is that you are doing something that you love and you lose track of that. That's what leaves a legacy. Like I doubt that people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, mother Teresa, or the Pope, uh, you know, followed a typical career path. Like they were following their heart. They were following their intuition to what was guiding them and leading them to, to serve in such a profound way that they ended up becoming the characters that they became in life and in the world and the legacy that they left. And what I mean by that is to start the Honor Foundation. Let's break it down into something very simple. I was sitting in front of 15 to 20 Navy SEAL's and they relied on me and made me feel relevant in such a real way.
[00:59:53] They didn't know how to necessarily design and, and, and draft a, a resume suitable to their experience. I figured it out and I worked with them and nonstop, and they relied on me. I felt relied upon. They, they wanted me to help them get into new networks and build new networks. I felt relevant, I felt relied on.
[01:00:11] And when people talk about the shift from nonprofit to for-profit, it really has to go with the, again, the type of work that you wanted to do. So when I was thinking about what gave me joy, when I was thinking about what gave me happiness, it was. To light fires so others can see. And my ability to light a fire so that a community that has served us, and I could advocate on behalf of that community powerfully so they could go off and continue to do great things in the world.
[01:00:39] That gave me joy, that gave me, I felt empowered.
[01:00:42] And when I moved into venture capital, it's not about the title of venture capital, it's about the work, it's about the impact, right? So when we think about the work and the impact that we're doing, and when I moved into VC, it was interesting because I found myself doing the same work, meaning I had 15 to tw I, I now have, I will have 15 to 25 entrepreneurs who will be relying on me to provide them with networks and new connectivity and new ways to, to bring impact into the world.
[01:01:12] And I feel relevant and I feel like my message, uh, of, of hustle and hard work and, and meaningful work is gonna resonate with them. And I'm finding a community that's hard charging. And again, there, there are VIPs in my mind. They have vision. Uh, they're hoping to create impact in the world, uh, and they have passion.
[01:01:30] And I want to be around people like that. And I, it was tough in my own transition to think what community could, could technically even compare to working with our nation's most elite war fighters, the top 1% of veterans in the world are in the United States Special Operations community. So how do I even find that?
[01:01:48] And what I came to the conclusion of, there's only two types of people and two categories of people I'm, and what I mean by this is I'm not comparing an entrepreneur to a Navy SEAL I'm not comparing an entrepreneur to the sacrifice that a military community is willing to make on behalf of their country.
[01:02:10] But bear with me through this example. When I really thought about, okay, like I joined the United States Navy, I signed a contract that basically said, I will give my life for my country if that would be a potential option. And the, the type of people that a contract like that draws, especially not just to enter the military, but then to go another step further and say, I would like to be a part of Special Operations.
[01:02:38] And then to go another step deeper and say, I want to become a Navy SEAL, the people that you're going to interact with are a different breed. They're a different caliber, and, and yet the value systems are strong. Their faith is strong, their belief in country is strong. So I was like, how do I find another neighboring community to this community of Special Operations?
[01:02:59] And when I really thought about it, what's another community that's willing to put everything on the line to leave a legacy, to make an impact, to work towards something much bigger than themselves, to try to lessen pain in the world through whatever means necessary. To bring something from nothing, to make something from nothing so that other people may live better.
[01:03:26] To me, that's the, there, there's another contract, and it's the contract. A true entrepreneur, true entrepreneur, signs with himself and the world, and it's a self contract. These, these contracts don't exist. I'm saying that they're, they're signing a contract that they're willing to give their life to a mission until it's brought into a reality to cause impact in the world in a positive way.
[01:03:51] For me, then I notice that I recognize, okay, well there's this community of military who are uncommon breed, doing uncommon things in an extraordinary way around the world. That's who I want to be a part of. Their teams leadership and culture are on point, and when I kept using those same words over and over and over again, teams, leadership, culture.
[01:04:12] I thought to myself, what other community has to be about teams, leadership and culture. And that is the starting up community of entrepreneurs.
[01:04:21] Every entrepreneur that I've met are so dedicated, the, the true entrepreneurs, they are willing to literally sacrifice their life, they're, they're in a, in a sense of only focusing on one thing, passing up other opportunities, dedicating their life to solving a mission.
[01:04:40] Again, I'm not making the comparison that an entrepreneur is the same as a special operator and the sacrifice that they're willing to make, but the sacrifice is great and they have to sacrifice so much to bring about an idea and a dream and a vision to leave a legacy in the world. And something that, you know, I've been toying with a lot is, you know, how is it that every individual around the world can leave a legacy?
[01:05:06] Like how do you do that?
[01:05:08] And it starts by, by moving and pushing yourself into work that brings you joy. The only way you can bring joy to the world is if you are finding joy in the world of work. When people find what they love, the rest of the world feels that from that person.
[01:05:26] How many times have you met with friends over the weekend or, or even during the week, hey man, so how's everything going? Like, hey, how's, how's work? Uh, you know, works work.
[01:05:37] Work does not have to be work.
[01:05:39] Like, work doesn't just have to be something that is, that fills the time between nine and five, Monday through Friday. Work doesn't have to be that. And if you focus on one thing, if you're really dedicated to leaving a legacy in the world and you wake up every day and you say, what is my legacy going to be?
[01:05:57] You should ask yourself, well, do I enjoy the TLC at work? Do I like the teams I'm working with? Do I, do I like the leadership? Am I a part of a great culture? Not just even at work, but at home? Like the home is a unit, the home is a team. Every team has leaders. The parents are leaders. Culture matters. The culture at work matters. The culture at home matters.
[01:06:25] Constantly focusing on your TLC and getting it to a point where it brings, you don't realize you're working not just nine to five, but all of a sudden you begin working five to nine and you don't even realize the, the, the, the sacrifice that's happening because you enjoy what you're doing So much.
[01:06:45] Legacy is the equal sign after teams leadership and culture. And once you align those things in your life, your legacy will begin to write itself and you won't even realize it. So when I think about legacy, that's what I always equal it to, which is, am I working with the right teams? Do we have the right leaders around us? And are we creating the right culture to ultimately create something very special in the world?
[01:07:11] When it comes to legacy, how are you walking around actually thinking about what leads to legacy? What I mean by that is, you know, the, the, the Navy SEAL community has something called a quarter deck. And inside of every quarter deck, uh, when you go into the SEAL team, like the actual team building, there is a, uh, there's a legacy wall, right?
[01:07:34] And that legacy wall typically is a legacy wall, which infers you're looking backwards, meaning the, they're reminded every day of their brothers who have fallen. The Legacy Wall has individual portraits of all those who have given their life in service to this country, and it's at the entryway of a door.
[01:07:54] So every day when you come into work, you're seeing the legacy of your fallen teammates that's left behind. Now, there's two types of legacy. There's the, there's the legacy looking backwards, and then there's a legacy looking forwards. And as we walk around and, and the reason why I've learned so much from this elite military community in the six or seven years that I've been working alongside them to build this organization up is they, they, they move with urgency because they know that we are all going to pass on in some way.
[01:08:28] And what do I want my life to be about? What do I want my life and legacy to be about as I'm here? And when I think about the lessons that I've learned and, and when I've asked them about business and. And had conversations and they go, well, we're dealing with a different bottom line. I said, well, what does that mean in the teams you're dealing with a different bottom line.
[01:08:48] Well, our bottom line is loss of life. Your bottom line is dollars.
[01:08:54] So, you know, it's, it's uh, it puts things in perspective very quickly when you realize that if you focus on the things that matter most, the things that matter most will actually take care of you in the long term. You focus on teams, you focus on your leadership, you focus on the culture you're trying to create, and then all of a sudden people don't lose lives because teams are good, leadership's solid, culture's good.
[01:09:23] You don't lose dollars because teams are good, leadership's great, culture's on point. And, and when we think about these, these terms in the sense of. What type of legacy do I want my family to leave my son, to leave my, my wife or husband, uh, to leave? If you, if you put it in those terms, it really gives you something to put into perspective cuz we aren't here that long.
[01:09:46] A, again, back to the leadership point, that leadership is, is a verb and it's happening all around us. It's whether or not you choose to pay attention to it. Legacy is the exact same way where there are people in your life that you don't have to have an admiral or a general, or a CEO, or anyone like that to, to be inspired to help you leave your legacy.
[01:10:06] So for example, my, my nani. And my nani is, is just what we called my grandmother. And my grandmother was nothing short of an angel on earth, in this pla, on this planet, no question about it. Um, if there was a speed, um, you know, jet supersonic, something to get her to heaven faster when she passed away, she was on it first class, like with the Big Man Himself.
[01:10:33] There's no question about it.
[01:10:35] Um, and the way that we looked at her, she led by example every day. She, she, my, my nani used to command her presence with the gentle touch, and she used to always be singing and, and laughing and holding our hands and telling us about lessons, uh, from Mother Teresa and, uh, our Lady of Guadalupe and sister uh, uh, St. Francis of Rome and St. Vincent DePaul and all of these different people. Uh, and she'd leave these little notes for us to find as grandchildren and notes on our mirror. And to me, that was a legacy that she was leading for us. And it, it's, uh, you don't have to have these big command and control or these ideas.
[01:11:28] It's, it's the most people, the people that leave the greatest legacy were actually some of the fiercest advocates of the soft touch and, and treating others the way that you would like to be treated as a brother or sister and or neighbor. And, and I think back to my nani and the lessons that she left me is, it was okay to hold my nani's hand leaving sports practice. It was okay to, to tell her about our feelings. It was okay to, to be vulnerable and, and feel sadness and joy and discuss those things with her.
[01:12:02] It's, it's almost like the people who leave the greatest legacy are the ones who allow the world to be themselves all the time. And when we think about legacy, who makes us feel those feelings?
[01:12:16] Who makes us when we're around them, who makes us feel a way where we can actually be ourselves? We all have that friend, right? Where we, when something goes wrong, we call them. Like, you're all thinking of a name. Like everyone has someone they call when they have to talk through something, uh, whether it be good or bad, up or down, left or right, you, I might be talking to the person that feels they are that person, right?
[01:12:40] Uh, that, that they get all the phone calls and they deal with everything. Well, guess what? What an opportunity for you to be a servant leader and look at it that way and serve the friends and family around you who are calling you for guidance. And what an opportunity for you to, to leave a legacy of support and help, uh, when folks around you are in need.
[01:12:59] Are you the first to raise your hand, uh, when you may have to have a uncomfortable conversation, and I, I, you know, someone told me one time that I, and I'll never ever forget this, that, you know, you can tell the, you know, you can tell the most successful people are the ones that had the most difficult conversations and chose to have 'em with people, with friends, with life, about life and about the things that matter.
[01:13:24] And we all have those people. The question is, are you recognizing that person in your life that, wow, I actually do call X, Y, and Z person whenever I have a problem. And I don't think I've ever recognized that they are being a leader. They are leaving a legacy of kindness and support in my need. And when was the last time I thanked that person and showed gratitude?
[01:13:48] Uh, or do I just call them when I have a selfish need to talk out my problems and dump it on their table, and then I know that they're gonna help me put it back together again? Um, that person has a family, that person has problems, but they never talk about it with me. They're just there to listen to me, and that's a, that's a legacy.
[01:14:05] That's someone who is looking out for others around them and taking care of those that are in their charge without ever having any official capacity whatsoever. Those are the special people.
[01:14:16] That was my nani. You could talk to her about anything you felt in entirely yourself, and she allowed you to be vulnerable, she allowed you to bring those real feelings to the table, and no matter what, it was always responded, or I should say it was always received with just this gentle smile. And a touch she'd always hold whenever we were talking. Seriously. She wouldn't do it without holding your hands, which initially I, you know, I'd fight back against, right?
[01:14:43] Like, I don't Nani, I can't, I'm not gonna hold your hand. Just talk to me about this stuff. Right? And she'd keep slowly and guaranteed at the end of every conversation, she still was holding my hand and she was keeping everything calm and made me feel like I'd be myself.
[01:14:56] Those types of people are all around us.
[01:14:59] It's whether or not we are willing to be ourselves in front of that person to really get something in return from them. How often do you actually use the word vulnerable? Do you talk to yourself? How do you talk to yourself throughout the day? Are, are you ex, are you the, you know, there's, there's 10 million words a day are what we say to ourselves.
[01:15:23] Do you think those, those words have an impact on, on what you bring to the world, paying attention to your self talk and, and allowing yourself to be your own leader and to, and, and to understand that every move you make, you're leaving a legacy for people behind you. And you are being watched by your children and how you respond to things and, and it's, yeah, it's a lot of responsibility, but it's certainly one that I know we can all handle.
[01:15:45] We don't, we aren't ever given anything that we can't handle. And that's a consistent lesson my nani would always say, every morning, Corinthians right there on the kitchen table, there's, Lord, there's nothing you're going to throw my way today that we can't handle together. And she would bring that up all the time.
[01:16:01] Oh, it's okay. It's supposed to happen this way. Let's talk about it. And she would hold my hand and make, you know, allow me the space to be myself.
[01:16:08] How often are we doing that for other people in our lives? How often are we following nani's example? How often am I following my nani's example?
[01:16:16] But we all have those examples, the question is, is are we accepting enough of those examples to allow ourself the strength and the courage to be ourselves in front of people who we know are just there to help and support us? That's when we'll feel the real legacy, uh, and, and, and most, and change the behaviors that are inhibitors, uh, to, to, to feeling the right feelings at the right time and doing the right actions at the right moment.
[01:16:45] So I, when we think about life, when we think about leadership and legacy, all of these things are happening all at once. They're not separate topics and the moment we begin to realize the example that we can put out into the world. Christ calls us to a community. He doesn't call us to be by ourselves.
[01:17:11] That was a lesson that I learned the hard way, that the more I turned internal to my own faith and, and just expected my, my inside voice and my inside prayer to make the difference in the world. It was only until I opened up to the world and started praying openly and submitting openly and being vulnerable openly about my own life, about what I hope to learn about leadership, about what I wanted to leave as a legacy, and began to put words to it through prayer and action.
[01:17:43] Uh, there's an African proverb that says, when you pray, move your feet. And I believe in that. Like you can't just pray to yourself. You can't just pray and expect these things to just happen. Christ calls us to action. He calls us to become part of a community. And it was only until I started to really participate in a community that I realized the power that an ecosystem has that's directed towards a vision for good.
[01:18:11] We all have an opportunity to leave a legacy, to become a leader and to make the lives around us 10 x so much better. And if you're talking all the time, that means that you're not listening. As we go through life, it's, we do want to help and we do want to fix. Um, but I've, I've realized, especially in the last year and a half throughout my own professional transition, that it's, it's silence and having the ability to listen and being open for others to tell you stories, that was the biggest transformation of my life.
[01:18:54] And moving from a founder role where I had to be in front and talk and create and generate and build and, and, and receive blame, uh, for anything that went wrong. And then also to assume it and take it away from the team and all of that stuff. Um, I was very outward focused. And now this next phase, it's, it's almost like I can't wait to be quiet and be in solitude and listen to people around me tell me what is going on in their life.
[01:19:23] Uh, and as soon as I made that transition, I saw a remarkable change in the way people called me to speak. And I force myself just to listen, just like nani did. In some cases take the hand of the person in front of me and put my hand on their shoulder and show them that I'm, I am all theirs.
[01:19:43] Today. It seems like we're all alone together, like we're all around each other all the time.
[01:19:52] And we're looking at phones, we're listening to music, we're connected to something, we're alone together. And that is a bad place to be.
[01:20:00] Like, why is it that you are the freak of nature when you're in a coffee shop just drinking coffee, like people walk in like, what's that guy up to? He's just drinking coffee. He's not on a computer. He's not on a phone. He's not plugged in. He's not like all of a sudden you're the weirdo. Like that, to me, that used to be a place, a common ground to communicate and talk, it was a, let's go to the coffee shop. But we're seeing that too. And I, I see it sometimes when I visit other churches.
[01:20:25] I see people outside and they're just on their phones and they're not communicating to the other parishioners that are there. And it's like, stop. Let's listen. And I know that the moment people begin to listen to each other in a different way, and these are small steps that you can take with God first, with your family second, and then a community third, in that order just listening to what is around you and allowing inspiration to come in, I guarantee you that life will begin to change. I know it. I've seen it, and I know that leadership will begin to take root in your heart. And I know that a legacy will be left, one that you will be proud of.
[01:21:13] Steve Gatena: Every moment in our lives provides an opportunity to create an impact that can last a lifetime. It's a powerful realization that should make us all reflect on the importance of our existence. We do not require any grandiose titles or achievements to make a difference. All we need to do is be ourselves.
[01:21:36] Each of us has the potential to be a light that shines in the world influencing others in ways that we might not even be aware of. With the talents and gifts that God has given us, we're meant to serve others and make a difference in their lives.
[01:21:52] However, it's important to let go of our need for validation and recognition.
[01:21:58] We must trust that God will handle the outcomes and focus on being ourselves, using our unique abilities, and treating everyone with kindness and humility. This week on Relentless Hope, Joe Musselman, and entrepreneur, venture capitalists and founder of The Honor Foundation shared his wisdom on creating a tremendous impact in the world.
[01:22:23] He emphasized the importance of recognizing our superpowers and embracing them to create change.
[01:22:30] Joe also urged us to see everyone else as having their own unique abilities and potential for impact.
[01:22:38] To create an impact that lasts, Joe encouraged us to become servant leaders, always putting the needs of others first.
[01:22:48] We must also understand our values and what it is that's important to us, both in our personal lives and our professional lives, because our values will guide us in making decisions and saying true to who God made us to be.
[01:23:04] Finally, Joe emphasized the importance of finding work that brings us joy. When we're happy and fulfilled, it radiates to those around us.
[01:23:13] The people who leave the greatest legacies are often those who allow others to be themselves and create an environment where people feel safe to express and work hard. Joe encouraged us to reach out to those who've supported us and become a source of support, love, kindness, and advice to them and to others.
[01:23:35] God has given us this life to make a positive impact, and it's a responsibility that we must take seriously with every action, word and decision, we have the power to create a lasting impact on the world around us. And today, you can take action to share this podcast with someone you know. You never know the impact you can make by sharing one inspirational podcast.
[01:24:07] My name's Steve Gatena, I'm the host of Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast. And until next time, I want you to remember to give hope a voice.
.jpg)
.jpg)
