This post has been fermenting with me for several months. Thinking about and writing “Living Heroically” (part 1) several months ago had quite an impact on me, but the essay didn’t resonate with many who read it. Re-reading it, I understand why – as I have a tendency to do, I got a bit lost…
Ok, what’s the “Fifth Factor?” That is the question I frequently get when I tell people I named my company “Fifth Factor Leadership.” This simple question seems to deserve a simple answer, but I don’t have a simple answer, except my standard wise-guy response: It comes right after the fourth factor. Which of course leads…
This essay appears in the current issue (Issue 23) of Naval Special Warfare’s ETHOS magazine. It was inspired by a story a journalist friend of mine shared with me about a panel he moderated with a group of military veterans. When he brought up the subject of fear in combat, there was a reluctance to talk…
What is a personal ethos? It’s not a term or expression most of us are familiar with. What is it and should it play any role in our lives? Do we need a personal ethos? Good question. All of us actually do have a personal ethos – we just may not be able to clearly articulate it. But we…
I posted an essay in this space a couple of years ago entitled Resilience (click for hotlink) , and in it I wrote about some of the standard methods by which people deal with adversity, one of those being ‘self-talk.’ I had an experience this weekend which gave me some insight, not only into self-talk, but also into resilience.…
This essay is a follow-up to my last post “What’s it REALLY all about?” in which I briefly looked at the quest for a simple, life-defining principle. As I worked through that essay, my two favorite quotes on simplicity came to mind: “Seek simplicity, and distrust it.” (Alfred North Whitehead) and “I don’t give a fig for…
“It’s so hot out there, the rattlesnakes wear sombreros and carry canteens.” This is how one of the U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter described a firefighting environment into which he was being sent. I recently returned from helping to lead a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) leadership course designed to be part of the curriculum…
This post appears in Issue 18 of Naval Special Warfare Ethos Magazine, and hopes to inspire some of the SEALs and SWCCs (Special Warfare Combatantcraft Crewman – part of the Naval Special Warfare community wtih the SEALs) to dive a little deeper into the profession they’ve chosen, and read the experience and perspectives of others curently…
The below is an essay recently published in the Naval Special Warfare Magazine Ethos, available on-line. They had asked me to write something about ‘The Family’ and this is what I came up with. I heard Radm Dixon Smith, Commander Naval Region Southwest, use the “Fighter, Family, Fleet” alliteration in a speech, and he tells me it is being…
I use this title partly in jest. ‘Mediocrity’ is, almost by definition, that which is not ‘praiseworthy.’ And yet in my comments that follow, I hope to point out that what appears to us as mediocre does not automatically warrant derision or embarrassment. There is an important place for mediocrity in this world, and often there…
