Combat Story (Ep 43): Mike Hayes | Navy SEAL | TF Commander | WH | NSC | Author | Never Enough
Combat Story
Ryan Fugit
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2021
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we hear the Combat Story of Mike Hayes, a retired Navy SEAL Team and Special Operations Task Force Commander who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia over a 20 year career.
His time in uniform brought to key points in U.S. military and diplomatic history, including intersections with Operation Red Wings, the Mersk Somali pirate kidnapping, and an international treaty negotiation with Russia.
While in the Navy, Mike was one of the very few selected as a White House fellow, where he served under both Republican and Democrat administrations and as the Director for Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council.
Since leaving the military, Mike has gone on to senior roles at Bridgewater Associates, Cognizant, and VM Ware.
He’s written a fantastic book, Never Enough, that we’ll discuss during this interview and for which all proceeds go to Gold Star families.
Mike is a model leader and giver and I hope you enjoy his Combat Story as much as I did.
Find Mike Online
Instagram @thisis.mikehayes https://www.instagram.com/thisis.mikehayes/
Twitter @thisismikehayes https://twitter.com/thisismikehayes
LinkedIN Mike Hayes https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hayes-733688/
Book Never Enough https://tinyurl.com/ybv89rdh
Find Ryan Online
Instagram @combat_stories https://www.instagram.com/combat_stories/
More about Ryan www.combatstory.com/aboutus
Intro Song: Sport Rock from Audio Jungle
Show Notes
0:00 - Intro
1:10 - Bio on Mike Hayes
2:10 - Interview begins
2:53 - Gold Star Families
4:35 - Guam and Science Fairs
9:00 - Others Before Self
16:22 - Telling a General ‘No’
22:50 - What to do when you’re kidnapped
33:58 - Operation Red Wings
38:02 - When to pull the trigger and when to hold
46:55 - Holding people accountable
55:08 - The White House Fellow Program
1:00:20 - Working at Bridgewater Associates for Ray Dalio
1:07:50 - Building egalitarian teams in business
1:15:00 - What did you carry with you into combat?
1:16:45 - Would you do it all again?
1:20:10 - Comments from listeners (THANK YOU!)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know, so at age 25 or six, whatever I was, |
| 0:02.9 | I feel really fortunate because a lot of people |
| 0:05.5 | can say that they'd never leave their swim buddy |
| 0:07.8 | in a hard situation that's potentially life or death. |
| 0:11.0 | I can tell you, I could tell myself, |
| 0:12.9 | I don't care about anybody else, but from my own knowledge, |
| 0:15.5 | I knew that I was the kind of person |
| 0:16.8 | that when it really came down and got hard, |
| 0:18.7 | I would not leave my swim buddy. |
| 0:20.4 | And so while that was a very hard event |
| 0:22.9 | to go through, at the time, I started learning |
| 0:26.4 | to like, how does your brain become a supercomputer? |
| 0:28.5 | I had no fear, I had no, everything just slowed down, |
| 0:31.1 | what are all the things we can do? |
| 0:32.8 | And I got to think about, what does it really mean |
| 0:35.4 | to be a seal, what does it mean to be a teammate? |
| 0:37.4 | And I learned a ton from that. |
| 0:39.0 | And you can either, like anything in life, |
| 0:41.8 | you can have a hard situation and either feel bad for yourself |
| 0:45.9 | or you can learn and get better. |
| 0:47.5 | And that's what both Ken and I did. |
| 0:51.0 | Welcome to Combat Story. |
... |
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