#27: Q&A with David Marquet (Bestselling Author) - Leadership is Language

February 03, 2020 by Cal Walters in Leadership

Today, I am bringing you an interview with former Navy Captain, best-selling author, and a true leadership expert, David Marquet.  Here are a few quotes about David Marquet: "I don't know of a finer model of this kind of empowering leadership than Captain Marquet." Dr. Stephen R.

Today, I am bringing you an interview with former Navy Captain, best-selling author, and a true leadership expert, David Marquet.

Here are a few quotes about David Marquet:

“I don’t know of a finer model of this kind of empowering leadership than Captain Marquet.”

— Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“To say I’m a fan of David Marquet would be an understatement. I’m a fully-fledged groupie. He is the kind of leader who comes around only once in a generation. He is the kind of leader who doesn’t just know how to lead, he knows how to build leaders. His ideas and lessons are invaluable to anyone who wants to build an organization that will outlive them.”

— Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last, and The Infinite Game

I can relate to Dr. Covey and Simon’s thoughts on David. He is a true leadership hero for me, so it was really special to get to do this interview.

A little bit of David’s story for those that are unfamiliar. He graduated in the top of his class at the US Naval Academy, graduated #1 from his nuclear power school class and the submarine officer basic course. David has always been a brilliant guy, but over his years in the Navy, he learned that being a great leader is not all about being the smartest guy in the room.

After years of proving his competence, David was awarded his very own command of a nuclear submarine. He was told he’d be taking over the USS Olympia, so he spent an entire year studying every aspect of the ship, becoming an expert on all the ship's capabilities. But about two weeks before taking over the Olympia, he was reassigned to take over the Santa Fe. He knew nothing about the Santa Fe, but its crew had a reputation for being the worst in the fleet. With only two weeks before taking over, he knew his typical leadership approach of being the smartest person in the room and just giving orders wasn’t going to work.

So aboard a nuclear submarine — a place that few would feel comfortable taking a lot of risk and doing experiments — David tried an entirely different approach to leadership. Instead of viewing his crew as followers that simply followed his orders, David empowered them to think, to take initiative, and he ultimately developed them into leaders. He moved from the leader-follower model he had been taught to viewing everyone as a leader. And the results were truly remarkable. His leadership turned the ship around. They went from worst in the Navy to receiving the best evaluation in Navy history.

Even after David departed the Santa Fe, it continued to win awards and promoted a disproportionate number of officers and enlisted men to positions of increased responsibility, including 10 subsequent submarine captains. When Dr. Stephen R. Covey visited the ship, he said it was the most empowering organization he’d ever seen and wrote about David’s leadership practices in his book, The 8th Habit.

Captain Marquet and Dr. Covey aboard the Santa Fe.

David first shared his leadership principles in the #1 Amazon Bestseller, Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders. Fortune magazine named it the #1 must-read business book of the year, and USA Today listed it as one of the top 12 business books of all time.

And, on February 4th, David is releasing his new book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't, which I have had the chance to read and it is truly an incredible book. Some books give you a nugget of wisdom here and there, but David’s books challenge me to take my leadership approach to a new level. His books are transformational and paradigm-shifting. Leadership is Language has been endorsed by Adam Grant, General (ret.) Stanley McCrystal, and Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers.

You can connect with David Marquet at his website, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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#26: Q&A with Justin Batt (Author + Founder of Daddy Saturday) - Intentional Parenting

January 23, 2020 by Cal Walters in Intentional Living

Have you read the book Daddy Saturday? About a month ago I picked it up and finished it in 48 hours. Not only did the book convict me as a parent, but it also inspired me to do better and equipped me with practical tools to be more engaged with my daughter.

Have you read the book Daddy Saturday?

About a month ago I picked it up and finished it in 48 hours. Not only did the book convict me as a parent, but it also inspired me to do better and equipped me with practical tools to be more engaged with my daughter.

After the book impacted me, I reached out to the author, Justin Batt, and asked him to come on my podcast. He generously agreed, and today I’m excited to bring you that interview!

As you will see, Justin has a lot of wisdom about parenting and is just an all-around inspiring guy. He’s a husband (his wife is an entrepreneur and runs a successful bridal boutique in Charleston, SC), a father of 4, and the Founder and Chief Dad Officer (as Justin likes to say) of Daddy Saturday and the Daddy Saturday Foundation, which is a movement all about intentional parenting and engaging your kids (which sounds simple, but it can be tough in a busy world). Even if you’re not a father, the principles Justin teaches may challenge the way you think about time and help you turn the mundane into more meaningful moments.

Daddy Saturday started in Justin’s backyard and is now an international movement. With an ambitiously awesome goal to impact 10 million fathers in the next 10 years and eliminate fatherlessness, Justin travels internationally and around the US (including speaking at TEDx) inspiring fathers to be more engaged. It’s important to note that when Justin refers to fatherlessness, he isn’t just referring to children without fathers; he is also talking about fathers (like me at times) who are physically present, but mentally or emotionally absent.

Somehow, Justin does all of this when he’s not at work. In addition to being a highly sought after business advisor and healthcare consultant, he is also the President of Growth and Revenue for Kameleon Partners, LLC, the global leader in Life Sciences Account Management and Electronic Health Records Enablement. Justin also has a retail startup that ranks in the top 10% of U.S. businesses, and he is a partner in the real estate app ZoomOffers.

Consistent with the principles he teaches, Justin competes regularly in Spartan obstacle course races and has inspired his kids to join him for the challenge. Check out Justin’s interview on the Spartan Up podcast, hosted by Joe De Sena, the Founder and CEO of Spartan Race.

“Justin understands that challenging kids to step outside their comfort zones will help them overcome all of life's obstacles. His views and practices on intentional parenting will make our kids better humans and set them up for success.” Joe De Sena, Founder and CEO of Spartan Race

I hope you get a lot out of this interview. I know I sure did Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Also, a special thank you to my good friend Ryan Brence for contributing to the content and questions in this episode. I sincerely appreciate Ryan’s assistance and couldn’t do this without his encouragement and support.

Connect with Justin and get updates on Daddy Saturday here. You can also subscribe to the Daddy Saturday podcast.

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#25: First Things First in a FOMO World

January 14, 2020 by Cal Walters in Intentional Living

In life, we face endless options about how to spend our time. With social media and the internet, we have never been so aware of these options, and the barrier has never been lower for people to share their opinions about what we should be focusing on (like this post!).

We also live in a world where everything is urgent, needs to be done now, and we ignore the fundamental reality of trade offs — saying yes to something invariably means saying no to something else.

With these obstacles, how do we decide what is important and remain focused on the most essential things in life?

On this episode, I share what I have discovered on my journey to live a life prioritizing the important over the urgent. It is not always easy, but it is absolutely worth it.

Wisely, President Eisenhower thought that we should devote attention and time to our activities in accordance with their importance and urgency. He acknowledged how we are too inclined to focus on the things that are both important and urgent, generating a reactive behavior based on what has to be done right now, instead of focusing on the things that are important and not urgent, which would be the basis of a more strategic behavior based on long-term goals.

In his classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen R. Covey popularized Eisenhower’s time management theory by organizing activities into four different quadrants (see below), based on their relative importance or urgency. In Dr. Covey’s book, he defined urgent as requiring “immediate attention.” Urgent matters “act on us” and they are often “pleasant, easy, and fun to do.” But urgent matters are often unimportant. Importance, however, is about getting results. Important matters contribute to your life mission, values, and high priority goals. But often these important activities are not urgent, requiring initiative, planning, and discipline.

The Time Management Matrix from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey

Successful people — meaning people whose lives are in line with their deepest values — spend most of their time in Quadrant II. Over time, small deposits in these important, non-urgent tasks of Quadrant II can produce incredible results. But the opposite is also true. Neglecting Quadrant II activities can lead to long term regrets and more urgent matters (e.g., health issues or relationship problems).

I hope this episode of the podcast will help you think more about the important things in your life, prune away the non-essential, have the courage to say no, and truly put first things first.

The books below have really shaped my thinking on this topic (and this episode), and I want to give credit to the authors for their thought-provoking work. I recommend each of them:

First Things First

By Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, Rebecca R. Merrill

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

By Stephen R. Covey

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

By Greg McKeown

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At the end of this episode, I mention the following article by Colonel Mark Blum:

#24: New Year, Same You - The Art of Reflection

December 30, 2019 by Cal Walters in Intentional Living

On this episode, Cal shares an impactful and replicable process he uses to reflect.  This is useful any time of year, but the New Year presents a natural time to reflect.   In less than 1 hour, you can turn experience into insights to grow and make progress in the New Year.  Check it out!

On this episode, Cal shares an impactful and replicable process he uses to reflect. This is useful any time of year, but the New Year presents a natural time to reflect.

In less than 1 hour, you can turn experience into insights to grow and make progress in the New Year. Check it out!

On this episode, Cal discusses being inspired by Ray Dalio and Adam Grant to be more teachable. Below are two resources on this topic:

Principles: Life and Work

By Dalio, Ray

Interview of Adam Grant by Tim Ferris

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Rajiv Srinivasan and his beautiful wife Chelsea.

#23: Q&A with Rajiv Srinivasan - How to Read 70+ Books in a Year

December 11, 2019 by Cal Walters in Intentional Living

Today, you will hear an interview I did with one of my best friends, Rajiv Srinivasan.  Rajiv is currently a Global Client Director at LinkedIn, where he manages a worldwide and multifunctional team supporting relationships for 3 of LinkedIn's top 10 accounts.  Rajiv was on the Dean's List at West Point and graduated in the Top 5% of his class in 2008.

Today, you will hear an interview I did with one of my best friends, Rajiv Srinivasan. Rajiv is currently a Global Client Director at LinkedIn, where he leads a worldwide and multifunctional team supporting relationships for 3 of LinkedIn’s top 10 accounts.

Rajiv was on the Dean’s List at West Point and graduated in the Top 5% of his class in 2008. He also earned an MS in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University and will be graduating with his MBA from Wharton this May. His amazing wife Chelsea is also a Wharton graduate.

After graduating from West Point in 2008, Rajiv deployed to Afghanistan as a platoon leader. In Afghanistan, Rajiv did over 300 combat patrols and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and received the Combat Action Badge. Rajiv transitioned out of the military in 2013 and moved to Silicon Valley, where he was part of the Founding Team at Morta Security, a cyber security company that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2013.

After Morta was acquired, Rajiv became a Enterprise & SLED Account Manager at MobileIron. In 2016, Rajiv became a Global Account Manager at VMWare.

Rajiv is also an Eagle Scout, avid snow skier (you’ll hear him talk about a scary incident he had in Lake Tahoe), musician (he plays guitar, ukulele, piano, and is a vocalist), he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, has completed the NYC Marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, and the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. Rajiv has also been a contributor for the New York Times and TIME on military and veteran issues.

Rajiv is someone that has inspired me ever since we met at West Point in 2005. In this interview, we discuss his love of books, how he has managed to read 76 books in 2019, his process of doing a digital declutter, and many of Rajiv’s favorite books, including a few surprising recommendations. I really enjoyed this conversation, just like every conversation I have with Rajiv, and I think you will, too.

Below is a list of books and resources we discuss during this interview:

Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Atomic Habits by James Clear (I also recommend subscribing to James Clear’s weekly newsletter here. It is short but packed with great information and no spam.)

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (This is one of Rajiv’s top 3 recommended books!)

Educated by Tara Westover

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

The Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Grant by Ron Chernow (Here is a LinkedIn Article Rajiv created about this book)

The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Give and Take by Adam Grant (This is one of Rajiv’s favorite books and it is currently high on my reading list.)

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan (This was a surprising recommendation by Rajiv. I obviously do not use or condone drug use, but Rajiv makes the point that reading this book really helped him understand a group of people he previously did not understand, which simply highlights the beauty and the power of books to give us understanding and empathy for other humans.)

Although Rajiv intentionally says “no” to many digital platforms (how do you think he reads so much?), you can connect with Rajiv on LinkedIn here. He has also taken the #PlusOnePledge at LinkedIn.

Rajiv also mentioned Gates Notes, which is a reading blog created by Bill Gates, and Goodreads. Rajiv uses these reading resources for inspiration and great book ideas.

A picture of Rajiv while deployed to Afghanistan.

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