How To Build Structure In Your Life | Jason Redman

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0:49I got really sick. I had a parasite and a blood disorder that attacked my central nervous system and I was super messed up. I thought I was dying to be honest. And at one point I was like, man, I wish I had a point, man, like when I was in the SEAL teams to lead me out of some of these bad situations. And it made me think, well, why? What made them so effective? And when we were talking about what makes the SEALs effective, it became really clear to me that a really good point, man, a lot of SEALs live their life in this way. And there's four principles. And I think this is how anybody out there can be effective and bring their game to the highest level.

1:23Number one, relentless belief in your mission. And there's a lot of people who don't know what their mission is. They've never written it down. They've never defined it. And if you write down your mission, it's got to be built on the foundation of your values. And there's a lot of people that don't know what their values are. They'll tell you cliche things. They'll say, you know, faith, family, finance, fitness. But when you hear those things, you're like, you haven't been in church in two years. I haven't seen you in a gym this year. You know, we just throw these things out there. Because whether you know what your values are not, they are driving you.

1:54And they're driving you decision making. If one of your values maybe is fame or recognition, that's okay. You should be aware of it. It doesn't mean it's a negative thing, but knowing that is important because now you can build your mission in this life upon it. Number two is a clearly defined destination and a set course. So in the military, we always knew exactly where we were going. And in life, people often don't. In life, people say, well, I want to be rich or I want to be in better shape. those are not clearly defined things. It's kind of like saying I want to go west if I needed to go someplace.

2:30In the military, we use something called the universal transverse Mercator system. It's a grid system that covers the entire earth and it breaks it down into a - Wow, it's the exact point. Yeah, exactly, a one meter square, almost the size of this table. Yep. So a very clearly defined destination and that enables us to not have any deviation, you know, and we're not going west, we know exactly where we're going. And then the second part of it is a clearly defined course. And that course is a bearing on how we get there or how we follow our compass to get there. Most people may have one, but they don't have the other.

3:03And you can't get to where you're going without having both. Because the course becomes the how-to. It becomes our waypoints. Like when I wanted to be a SEAL as a kid, I knew that was my destination. That was a very clearly defined destination. and the course was all the things that I had to do. So I had to enlist in the Navy. I had to get accepted. I had to get a SEAL contract. I had to physically pass the SEAL screening test. I had to academically pass the ASVAB score with a high enough score to get picked up for SEALs. I had to get a SEAL rating. I had to graduate from my A school. I had to get the SEAL training.

3:40I had to make it through SEAL training. I had to make it through Hell Week. Right. All these things were waypoints on the course. Number three of the point and principles is risk assessment and situational awareness. So many people walk through life totally blind. When we talk about will you be ready, they're not ready for the ambushes that are coming. And oftentimes they never see them coming, even though the signs were there. So one, are we regularly doing risk assessments of where we are in our life? Are we still balanced? Are we still taking care of ourselves, you know, both in the Pentagon at peak performance?

4:14Are we making sure that our destination is front-site focused, that we're on course, that we're hitting the waypoints we should? So we're consistently doing a risk assessment. We're also looking for the indicators that an ambush is on the horizon. Yes. And so many people don't. So then they walk into these ambushes and they're like, oh my God, I never saw that coming. And the fourth one? Is an overcome mindset to get off the X as quickly as possible. You can't prevent every ambush. I estimate that most people in this life will go through five at a minimum five major life ambushes and I define a major life ambush as anything that will forever leave physical mental emotional or deep financial scars.

4:54You will always carry the pain of that ambush. You will always look back and you will think, God, that was painful. Like, it hurts when we think about it. And I tell people that on the lower end of the scale, it can be the ending of a relationship. It can be the ending of a marriage, job, personal failure, professional failure, lawsuit, bankruptcy, the failure of a business. It can be life-threatening illness or injury, life-threatening illness or injury to someone you love. It can be sexual trauma to you or someone you love. And then at the higher ends, it starts to get into the loss of a loved one or one of the highest I've seen is the loss of a child.

5:29So having a mindset of readiness and knowing that unfortunately those things could happen. And I teach something called the REACT methodology. So REACT is an acronym for when an ambush comes, the very first thing we have to do is recognize that we are in a crisis. And it goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning. when you're on the X, there's a natural tendency to procrastinate and deny and look at the past or the future. It's hard to recognize, yeah. It's usually the hardest and depending on the level of ambush. So number one, recognizing you're in a crisis or recognizing the reality is what I say.

6:05Number two is evaluate your assets. When we are hit by a life ambush, by any kind of crisis or catastrophic event, it's natural to feel totally overwhelmed in the moment because your world has just come to a grinding halt for whatever it is. It's like you suddenly stepped into a raging storm. You're in the darkness. You're trying to figure out what's happening in this chaos with the wind howling and lightning and thunder and people beating on you. And it's overwhelming. And we tend to think, you know, there's no hope. There's nothing I can do. It's all outside of my control. But we have to, in that moment, figure out how we control what we can.

6:39And one of the first things we can do is evaluate what assets do I have to bring to bear to this project? It's like tools in our toolbox. So what can I either buy, borrow, use that I already have? If it's a business crisis, it may be an accountant or an attorney, or it may be advisors or a board that, you know, or maybe whoever that's helping you to get out of this crisis, maybe outsourcing someone that has specialties that help you deal with whatever problem you're in. If it's a personal crisis, maybe it's a relationship crisis. So it can be a marriage counselor, a priest, or, you know, Whatever it is, having those things, though, makes you suddenly say, OK, this is crisis, but I can deal with it.

7:17Sure. Number three is assess possible options and outcomes. The slowest part is a recognizing be starting to gather. Hey, I have tools or I have what's in my inventory to deal with this. And then there tends to be this tendency, if you will, to suddenly rush like, oh, my God, this sucks. I want to get off the X and I have these tools. So let me let me use these to get out of here as quickly as possible. I tell people you got to slow down. You got to take a tactical pause. And look at all the outcomes. All the outcomes. And also maybe there are things that are happening that you haven't seen yet.

7:50Behind the scenes, yeah. So getting your team together, whoever is helping you, whoever is part of this inventory, this is where we now assess both the short-term and the long-term impact of the decisions that we're going to make. And the C? Choose and communicate. So you choose the direction you're going to go and you communicate it to the people around you. You're never on the X by yourself. The X has its own gravitational pull, any kind of life ambush. If it's a personal ambush, your family, your kids, your friends get pulled on the X with you. If it's a business ambush, your team, believe it or not, even your clients can get pulled on the X with you.

8:26So it's important that we choose and then communicate because frequently as a leader, especially when we're in a crisis, sometimes we want to internalize and we don't want to. Even though everybody around us can see, you're in a storm, man, you're on the air. but it's important to communicate for three different reasons. Number one, when we communicate, we verbalize what we're going to do. There's that lead yourself level of internal accountability. When we say we're going to do something, now it's like, yes, this is what I'm doing. Number two, it tells others, and they're like, oh, my God, yes, we have a plan.

8:58This sucks. Let's go. And that third component of that is hope. It gives people hope. It's like a positive direction. Yes, we have a plan. This is where we're going. And then the last one is take action. Execute on that plan. There are so many people who will go through this process and then they're waiting for the perfect moment. And the perfect moment is never going to come. The time to act is now, you know, imperfect action is better than waiting for this perfect plan. Exactly. And it creates momentum. It gets you off that X. And you may go from one X to the next, and that happens sometimes.

9:28But use that momentum to keep going instead of just sitting there.

9:41Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

10:31Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.