Building Relationships and Personal Growth

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A division commander was inspired by a higher-ranking officer who worked out with paratroopers and treated everyone equally. He adopted this approach in his own organization, realizing that physical fitness can bring people together and foster camaraderie. He also emphasizes the importance of personal improvement and not comparing oneself to others. Additionally, he highlights the significance of spending time with and understanding one's team members in a standards-based organization. Finally, he stresses the value of getting out from behind the desk and gaining firsthand knowledge of what the troops are experiencing.

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Lieutenant General Jonathan Braga, the commander of United States Army Special Operations Command joins Joe to share lessons from his military career. Joe and LTG Braga cover a wide-range of topics to include:

Regrets and self-selecting out of opportunities
Not being satisfied with the status quo
Where great ideas come from
The performance triad
Managing the tension between work and personal life
Getting ideas from books
Staying curious
Myths about SOF

Lt. Gen. Jonathan P. Braga assumed command, August 13, 2021, of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Prior to commanding USASOC, Braga held the position of deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific in August of 2020. Previous to that, he served as the commander of Special Operations Command Pacific.

Braga was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts in June 1969. He attended the United States Military Academy and was commissioned as an infantry officer in 1991.

Braga served in multiple positions as an infantry officer as part of the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. Following these assignments, he graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course and went on to serve in multiple command
positions in the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and in Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico from 1995-2001. He completed numerous deployments and humanitarian relief operations throughout the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Upon completion of this tour he returned to Fort Bragg, to serve in a United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) Special Mission Unit (SMU) and completed multiple deployments as a task force commander to Afghanistan and Iraq for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Willing Spirit in Colombia from 2002-2005. He then achieved his master’s at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. Following this assignment, he served as the operations officer for the Joint Reconnaissance Task Force as part of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Washington, DC and deployed to lead a Special Operations Task Force across three geographical commands from 2006-2008.

He then returned to Fort Bragg and served in several command and staff positions in the same USASOC SMU from 2008-2012. Afterwards, Lt. Gen. Braga would go on to serve as an Army War College Special Operations fellow at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California.

Lt. Gen. Braga served as the garrison commander of the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, CA from 2013- 2015 and subsequently as the chief of staff at JSOC from 2015-2017. Braga also served as the director of operations, Combined Joint Task Force—Operation Inherent Resolve, Iraq.