The Gist Mike Hayes on Purpose, Grit, and Mission
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Sep 5, 2025 Mike Hayes, a former commanding officer of SEAL Team 2 and author of *Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose*, shares invaluable insights on purpose and leadership. He emphasizes defining 'who' you are before 'what' you do, highlighting that incremental improvements often outshine overnight successes. Hayes discusses the vital role of grit and emotional intelligence in both military and civilian life, the need to learn from failure ego-free, and the importance of calmness under pressure, which can be trained and developed.
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Define The Who Before The What
- Ask who you want to be before deciding what to do in life.
- Define yourself by core attributes like contributing more than you take.
1% Better Beats Overnight Breakthroughs
- Leaning into hard things is the path to consistent improvement.
- Small, continual gains compound into meaningful progress over time.
Use Failure As Fuel
- Treat failure as learning, not a binary loss.
- Do retrospectives to ask what you got right, what you got wrong, and what you learned.
