A recent review of my most requested keynote and coaching topics was no surprise to me: People are increasingly striving for resilience, balance and leadership in their personal and professional lives, and they see an advantage in adapting quickly as leaders — especially through change and adversity.
Meanwhile, I continue to develop solutions within three overarching categories — Overcoming Adversity, Leadership, and Elite Performance — helping others to cultivate a relentless Overcome Mindset, manage stress, increase resiliency and productivity, become more balanced and effective leaders, forge unbreakable elite teams, and create lasting positive change despite failure, crisis and even massive adversity.
For this first article in a series inspired by my current speaking topics, I’ll share two key concepts on resiliency from my popular Overcome and Pointman for Life models. Start applying them to your own goals today, and watch for more in upcoming articles.
Change, Resiliency and Overcoming Adversity
A brief on life ambushes
There is an incredible parallel between the real enemy ambush that I endured on the battlefield in 2007 and the traumatic events that every one of us will face in life. I call these life ambushes.
A life ambush is any attack, incident, crisis or catastrophic event that disrupts your life within any realm, personal or professional. I break them down into three degrees: micro, mini and major. Whatever the type, rarely do life ambushes attack without warning. Most life ambushes give signs or clues that we are entering a danger zone. There are exceptions, but even then often there were signs or indicators that we later realize we failed to heed. The problem arises when we walk blindly through life and miss, ignore or deny the indicators.
The goal is to best prepare ourselves to recognize and avoid those which we can and to quickly and properly manage those we can’t. This is accomplished by building a strong Overcome Mindset, leading yourself to balance and strength through the Pentagon of Peak Performance, embarking on self-leadership through an introduction to the Pointman Principles and, most importantly, learning how to assess your situation, be ready for life ambushes when they come, and immediately R.E.A.C.T., “Get off the X!” and begin moving the needle in your life.
Building the “Overcome Mindset”
This is an attitude of extreme resilience. It’s a relentless commitment to your life, your missions and your readiness to face, push through and overcome any obstacles you may encounter on your course. It starts with a serious shift in perspective about your own personal power and builds by practicing tenacity, fortitude and a positive, don’t quit attitude. First and foremost, you must understand and accept that despite what’s considered “fair” or “unfair,” you will encounter adversity. The toughest times are when we find ourselves, as we say in special operations, “on the X.” Ultimately the outcome will be determined by your choice: What are you going to do about it? The Overcome Mindset is the base concept to apply for growth and development in everything else that builds on it. Embrace this, and rule your world.
Become your own “Pointman”
In the military, the point man (or woman) is the leader, the navigator, the danger seeker. We rely on our point men to navigate our routes, identify the most efficient ways to meet our objectives, and detect and avoid potential danger points and ambushes along the way. And everyday life is no different.
We all have missions and objectives. To accomplish them we need a clear course, an awareness to detect and avoid threats, and the conviction to stay the course — even when everything goes wrong.
Use my four Pointman Principles to forge your path moving forward:
- Relentless belief in a clearly defined Mission: Take time to conjure your big-picture vision of your life’s or organization’s purpose, and then create a concise, well-defined mission statement that supports that vision based on the values that most resonate with you. Test its integrity by an honest assessment of your unwavering belief in the mission and your willingness to commit to it. Revise as necessary until it passes muster, and then be consistent in communicating it with clarity and confidence. For more on how to write a mission statement, see my article “Creating a Mission Statement the Pointman Way.”
- Specific Destination and set Course: Set your long- and short-term goals for accomplishing your mission objectives.
- Situational Awareness and Risk Assessment: Raise your levels of awareness and preparedness. Good point men do constant risk analysis as they walk their course, always attuned to the indicators and then using them to avoid ambushes by either altering their course or being ready for those they cannot avoid. If we recognize the indicators in advance, we can make immediate course corrections to avoid or lessen the impact of pending ambushes and stay the course of our current mission. Work on this is during the calm, when you’re removed from crisis mode and can be thinking about it and practicing it. What you learn and change now will shed light on the otherwise “unexpected” future and will be better positioning you for success.
- Overcome Mindset to REACT and rapidly “Get off the X”: Upcoming posts will feature the core elements of my REACT Methodology, a simple but highly effective model for getting out of crisis and “moving the needle” forward in your life or business, beginning with “R.”
There’s much more to the Pointman Principles, and they’re integrated at different levels within several of my courses, keynotes and coaching programs, including 72 Hours to Peak Performance, Pointman for Life, How to Build the Overcome Mindset, and Get off the X and LEARN to Lead. (My online courses 72 Hours to Peak Performance, $49.99, and How to Build the Overcome Mindset, $29.99, are available now at www.getoffx.com) Delve into how to apply all of these principles practically every day with my Pointman Planner, a bestselling daily/weekly/quarterly journal available at Amazon. Meanwhile, future posts in this series will expand on all of this, beginning with “Leadership and Change Management in Business Part 2: Recognize Your Reality.” Check it out. Until then …
“Lead Always and Overcome All,”
Jason Redman
Since retiring in 2013 from my 21-year U.S. Navy SEAL career, I’ve made it my mission to transfer my military leadership training, experience and skills to helping individuals and organizations to lead and launch themselves and their teams to elite performance. I accomplish this through an array of speaking topics, courses, books and coaching programs I’ve developed based largely upon proven SEAL and special-operations mission-centric and leadership techniques.
How can I be of service to you or your organization?
For information about my speaking offerings, visit www.jasonredman.com
Nearly all the topics covered in this series are also currently available or in development in an array of coaching programs, online courses and books, including bestsellers “The Trident: The Forging and Reforging of a Navy SEAL Leader” and “Overcome: Crush Adversity With the Leadership Techniques of America’s Toughest Warriors.” Visit: www.getoffx.com