The most lethal people I knew at CIA didn't have medals. They didn't have muscles.

The thing that made them so dangerous was one simple rule, a rule that you won't see in social

media, you don't hear about in your favorite podcasts, and you certainly don't read about

in best-selling self-help books. But that is one rule that I'm going to share with you today.

Elite operators at CIA and in the military understand that emotion is a liability.

Emotion is what distracts you. Emotion is what derails you. Emotion is what makes you doubt yourself.

So instead, we rely on consistency, consistency of execution, consistency of certain skills, consistency of a process,

because consistent inputs will result in consistent outcomes.

And it's the outcome that the mission is all about.

The mission doesn't need your emotion.

The mission needs your consistency. When I was a junior

officer in the U.S. Air Force, I ended up becoming the youngest commander ever in charge of 200

nuclear ICBMs. I didn't get there because I was creative. I wasn't promoted because I was

innovative. I followed the protocol exactly to the letter with consistency every time over time.

And as a result of that, I built the kind of trust and dependability that was needed in the nuclear missile field.

When it comes down to nuclear weapons, people understand that one emotional decision could result in global Armageddon.

So they have no space, no tolerance for emotional people.

That doesn't mean you're not allowed to have emotions or feel emotions, but it does mean

that if you're going to operate, you cannot operate from a foundation of emotions.

Don't get me wrong, 24-hour shifts underground in the missile fields of

Milstrom Air Force Base in Montana were not easy. They were not fun. The protocols were repetitive.

The boredom was mind-numbing. But that difficulty is also what made it all the more important

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