Navy SEAL Mindset Tips
+ Leadership, Culture, & Communication Takeaways from John Barklow on BHP #113
During his distinguished 26-year military career, John Barklow was the lead instructor at the cold weather training facility in Kodiak, Alaska for the Navy SEALs.
Now he’s the head of product for the big game hunting division of Sitka, one of the largest technical clothing companies in the world.
A conversation with John is an amazing opportunity to absorb knowledge of all things mindset, communication, leadership, and performance.
This podcast with John was so loaded with valuable lessons that I thought about simply doing a bulleted list of all the key lessons.
Alas, I’m honoring the format and limiting myself to 3-4 takeaways. 😬
I hope you’ll listen to the full interview (HERE).
If you just want the takeaways, keep reading.
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Passion = A Prerequisite for Culture
Culture and team chemistry are discussed at length in leadership circles, but John added a new twist to the conversation.
He posits that passion is a prerequisite for high performance culture.
And I think he’s spot on.
At first glance, the stress test is: name an organization or team that has great culture, consistently outperforms their peers/opponents/competition, but doesn’t have passion for what they do…
I can’t come up with an example.
(If you can, post it in the comments. Let’s see if this theory holds water!)
Even if such a passion-less organization existed (or exists), they would soon be surpassed by a passionate, innovative, disruptive upstart.
That’s the beauty of passion. And that’s precisely why it just might be the missing element in most conversations about culture and team dynamics.
Yesterday Doesn’t Matter - What You Do Today Matters
I love this one.
It works for positive accomplishments (don’t rest on your laurels) AND it works as a reminder to put our mistakes behind us and focus on what we can control - this day, this moment, the task in front of us.
It goes hand-in-hand with another great one-liner from John in this podcast:
“Earn Your Right To Be There”
Every. Single. Day.
This mantra helps alleviate any sense of entitlement.
Yesterday doesn’t matter.
Today matters.
How can you make the world a better place TODAY?
How can you stack wins TODAY?
How can you show up for my people TODAY?
How can you Move The Chains TODAY?
Every. Single. Day.
Effective Communications
From Naval Special Warfare to Sitka, John has about 30 years of experience being part of high performing organizations.
He knows how to develop people, and he knows how to communicate efficiently and effectively to a wide audience.
We get into these leadership dynamics, the development of people and teams, and effective communication at length in this conversation, but I want to highlight
Two communication tips here:
What do they need to know?
Evolve the message to the audience
It is the responsibility of the speaker to ensure that the message is communicated clearly and understood by the receiving party.
When communicating, it’s easy to give too much, or too little information. We often do this because of assumptions (we give too little info) or excitement (we give too much info).
We can reverse engineer this process with the help of John’s 2 suggestions.
These tips help us create an easy, scalable, repeatable framework to make sure we’re delivering the right info, and in the right amount, in a way that can be understood and used/implemented.
If we’re making a post about an upcoming event, did we include date, time, location, how to access or register? Is there any information missing?
If we’re teaching a group of people how to sight in a bow, does the conversation change based on the experience level with a bow? Of course! —> Customize the communication to the audience.
Again:
What do they need to know?
Evolve the message to the audience
LISTEN to the full interview:
Keep Moving The Chains,
Munsey
P.S. Want to see John teaching cold weather survival? Check out this video to see how to survive hypothermia like a Navy SEAL: