Backstory: Strategic Transformation

More Balance as a SEAL Than in the Marketplace

This might sound odd, but my personal life was more balanced and harmonious as an operational Navy SEAL than it was when I entered the marketplace.

And that was fairly devastating because a major reason I left the SEAL teams was to find true harmony, a life where I could care for every aspect of who I am: Mind, Body, Spirit, Family, Friends, Finances, and Fun.

And honestly speaking, I didn’t feel my role as a SEAL was the example I wanted to set for my kids. It handled what I thought was passion, but fell short on my financial and spiritual purposes.

What I Was Really After

I wanted to become the kind of man who could master all aspects of life, and show them how to do the same. I didn’t want to be the guy with a lot of money but an unhealthy body, nor did I want to be the fit guy who was also broke.

I was after being the kind of man my children and others could trust to lead. The kind of man who could use his passions to fulfill all of his professional, financial, and personal purposes in what has become known as the most competitive, dynamic and technologically advanced marketplace that this planet has ever seen.

I wanted to teach them how to live a good life and to do that, I needed to show them how to build wealth in ways that not only preserved their personal lives, but actually required them to excel in them.

What I didn’t realize was just how uncommon it was to live a life like this.

The Mindset Was Right. The Results Weren’t.

Now I knew that the kind of money I’d need to produce to live a dignified life, both now and during the 30+ years of old age when I could no longer work, would require me to outperform 99% of the population, so high-level training, coaching, and education were a must.

And as a SEAL, I didn’t know anything else but to train at a high level. Being a top performer was not only part of my job description, it was literally a matter of life and death.

So on the plus side, I had the right mindset. But I quickly realized that mindset alone wasn’t enough.

You see, before I left the Teams I had already begun personally investing $20,000 to $30,000 a year in education and training.

• • I went to an elite business school.
  • Took online courses.
  • Joined business networking groups and attended conferences.
  • Read countless books.

By common cultural standards, I was succeeding. I was ascending in responsibilities, status, and paychecks. I was getting better at everything they were teaching, but despite my progress, I still couldn’t strike a harmony between my personal and professional life. Each side kept breaking the other.

The False Choice

By this point, I was starting to suspect that I’d have to do what most ambitious people do and choose between professional success or personal success.

I was up against either making the kind of money that I knew my family required to survive and thrive now and well into the future, or living an inspiring life of purpose and passion that my children and others could model.

So I continued to live caught in the tension between the two options for years, and I was tempted several times to go back to being an operator and maybe do some work for the CIA again, or some other organization doing dangerous things in dangerous places. But I knew that would have been just a subtle form of quitting disguised as me chasing what, at the time, I thought was my passion.

I could already hear myself saying, “I just had to go back to being an operator to be true to myself.” It would have been so easy to do because others would celebrate a choice like that. I mean, isn’t that the very thing they make movies about? Former operators getting pulled back into their past lives.

But movies are not real life. In the movies, everyone gets to “be” whomever they feel like being, because somehow, in the movies, all of the bills get paid no matter what you do.

The Quitter’s Cliff

So I was sitting on the edge of a metaphorical cliff, ready to do what I’ve seen so many others do and jump back into what and who I used to be, when this old memory hit me. I thought back to a moment after I had quit SEAL training the first time I went.

I was in the front yard of my brother’s house when my nephew’s best friend introduced me to his mom as “the guy who was almost a SEAL.” When he said that, it was the first time I came face-to-face with the consequences of being a quitter.

In that moment, I realized that quitting doesn’t end the pain; it makes it a permanent part of your life, and the lives of those you love and lead.

I remembered how that realization sent me back to finish SEAL training, not because I couldn’t bear the burden of regret, but because I refused to place that burden on my kids. I didn’t want to show them that giving up on living out their passion and purpose was acceptable, even if it’s what just about everyone else eventually ends up doing.

So I stepped back from that quitter’s cliff, because I realized that if I quit trying to figure out how to live a life of passion and purpose, I’d be quitting again. And not just quitting on myself, but on becoming the kind of man that my son, daughters, and future generations needed me to be.

The Decision

So I decided right at that moment: I’d either show my children and future generations how to live authentically while also mastering and harmonizing their personal, financial, and professional lives, or I’d show them how to never stop trying. Either way, they would know that I never stopped fighting for them and their future.

So with a seriously renewed dose of hope, I went back to all of the training, coaches, books, and conferences with a new mindset and purpose. I was no longer fighting for my good life; I was fighting for the good lives of generations of Davises to come.

What I Found Instead: The Retention Machine

But I ran into something pretty nasty really quickly.

When I dove back into the world of personal development, which goes by many names (coaching, college degrees, books, seminars), I discovered that the content they were delivering wasn’t actually designed to progress me. It was designed to retain me in their programs. And not by way of continuous and meaningful progression, but by way of confusion and overload.

And, by the way, if you’ve ever been in training and felt like you’re drinking through a fire hose, then you know they got you on their hamster wheel also.

The reason they pressure you to train and learn at a pace beyond your ability to produce measurable progress is so that they can siphon your time, your energy, your creativity, and your currency away from progress and into dependency.

If you have notebooks filled with information that you don’t use to execute specific strategies and tactics in a very specific order, then I’m talking to you!

But I don’t want you to feel bad about this because really, it’s not your fault. There’s just this huge personal development and coaching marketing machine out there that people aren’t aware of. But now that you know, if you keep feeding yourself to it, it will be your fault.

The Gap

Now, this really started to stress me out because I knew that I needed access to training and coaching to perform at the level I was required to if I were to be able to use my passion to harmoniously fulfill the financial, professional, and personal purposes I was created for.

I mean, it would be foolish to think someone could live the kind of life I was after without really good help. So there I was, staring at this huge gap between where I was and where my family needed me to be.

If I didn’t find a way to close that gap, I’d be forced to spend the rest of my life living in unacceptable compromise, because I’d lose my ability to remain relevant, not just in my own life, but in the lives of others.

Worse, I’d lose the respect of my children and my ability to lead them through all phases of their lives. Because let’s face it, nobody is going to follow someone who isn’t living a passionate and meaningful life.

The Quote That Changed Everything

So needless to say, I needed to figure out what I was missing. Something had to change. And the spark for that change came one day when I highlighted a quote in a book by Jim Dethmer called The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, and it goes like this:

“But what if the world/universe/God/Supreme Reality isn’t just benign or agnostic? What if it is actually for us? What if, as Einstein wondered, the world is beyond benign to the point of actually being benevolent? Then what happens is not just a neutral experience, but rather a custom-ordered curriculum for our highest development as people and as members of teams and organizations.”

Jim Dethmer

And there it was. The missing piece.

“…for our highest DEVELOPMENT as people and as members of teams and organizations.”

The Word Was “Development”

It was the word “development,” which means growth or the addition of physical components.

Muscles grow. Cognitive function grows. The myelin fibers in our brain, which enable performance, are new physical components that form and grow in our brain.

Another way to say all of this is transformation. It was this idea of becoming a different sort of self, and a very particular kind of self.

The idea of entering into a discourse that was created by God and customized for me to specifically develop me into a particular type of human. The kind of human who could use the unique gifts and talents I was given to care for all of the purposes I was created to care for.

What Was Really Holding Me Back

This blew me away, not because of the opportunity for growth, but because it was in that moment that I realized what was really holding me back.

It was me.

I wasn’t the type of human that could live such an inspiring and unconventional life.

I simply wasn’t:

• Good enough
• Smart enough
• Strong enough
• Skilled enough

I realized in that moment that the secret to the kind of success I was after wasn’t learning more and more strategies and tactics,

• Or consuming more books
• Or taking more courses
• Or knowing more things
• Or even getting better at things

The Real Secret

The real secret was to change who I was. I needed to step away from who I had become and step back into who I was created to be.

I needed to transform into the kind of person who intuitively designs, builds, deploys, measures, and modifies the right strategies and tactics in the right order, at the right time.

The kinds of action plans that would allow me to fully live out my authentic self. The kind of self that could use the God-given gifts I’d been entrusted with to care for all the purposes I was created to care for.

The kinds of action plans that my kids could one day use to do the same for themselves.

This is strategic transformation. It’s what allowed me not only to develop myself into my highest self, but to become the exact kind of person I needed to be to live the life I was created to live.