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The Gist

Mike Hayes on Purpose, Grit, and Mission

The Gist

Mike Pesca

News, Politics, Arts, Daily News

4.43.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on The Gist. Trump’s push to rebrand the Pentagon as the “Department of War”. Then  a full-length interview with Mike Hayes—former commanding officer of SEAL Team 2, White House Fellow, and author of Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose. Hayes lays out how to define the “who” before the “what,” why 1% better beats overnight breakthroughs, and how grit, EQ, and team-first leadership scale beyond the battlefield to business and life. Plus: talent vs. credentialism, learning from failure without ego, and why calm thinking under pressure is a trainable skill.

Come See Mike Pesca at Open Debate

Produced by Corey Wara


Production Coordinator Ashley Khan


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

There's an exciting live event, a debate that I'm taking part of. It's part of the open to debate series.

0:06.7

And the question, to be debated is, is masculinity a prison? I think that's a little bit of a term of

0:13.9

art, but I'm not going to give away too much of my side of the debate, which is nah. Come on.

0:19.4

Masculinity is not a prison. I'm actually going to bring more

0:22.3

to the debate than just tone of voice. But if it's just on tone of voice, come on, masculinity

0:27.2

of prison? Things like that will be said. Details of the debate. Wednesday, September 10th,

0:33.8

doors open at 5.30. The debate starts at six at the comedy cellar village underground in Greenwich Village.

0:41.6

I will be debating Lux Altram. She is arguing yes. Masculinity is a prison. The moderator is Naima Raza.

0:52.4

And I think you're going to like it. I've been thinking a lot about,

0:54.7

is masculinity a prison?

0:57.1

And I think I will be able to convince you

0:58.7

if you're not already convinced.

1:00.3

Nah, it's not.

1:01.9

September 10th, New York City,

1:03.7

details for tickets in the show notes.

1:06.9

Or go to open todebate.org

1:09.9

for tickets and more details about the programs they put on.

1:17.6

It's Friday, September 5th, 2025 from Peachfish Productions.

1:22.1

It's the gist. I'm Mike Peska.

1:24.4

And Donald Trump has done it again.

1:27.2

The rebranding genius. Remember the Department

1:30.2

of Defense, which kept us safe, which allowed for the common defense, a founding document

...

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