Alden Mills, CEO of Perfect Fitness and Founder/CEO of GoalBud shares lessons from his time as a Navy SEAL, and chats about why trust is like a boomerang, putting on your “Terminator glasses”, finding your swim buddy, closing the C.A.R.E. loop, seeing possibilities in the impossible, hitting the positivity gym, and how to lead with love.

How are you?

I'm well, how are you?

I'm doing great. It's a little crazy over here.

But it's an honor to be here.

So I've got a silly question to start. How

many pushups did you do this morning?

Ha, oh, you know, probably five.

I appreciate the honest answer.

Yeah, I didn't do a lot this morning.

Well, first of all, thank you so much for

spending this time with us. Obviously, as you know, an

incredibly impressive background. Thank you for your

service. And this idea of discovering the vulnerability

that you can't do it alone. I think so many of us are trained

that asking for help is a weakness. Can you talk to me a

little bit about where that came from with you, etc.

The very first place that I discovered that you

definitely can't do it yourself. I had been diagnosed with asthma

at the age of 12. Well, that I should lead a less active

lifestyle. And mom had totally different ideas on that. And she

would say things like, no, no one finds what you can do. But

you you decide what you can do. And as I went down that journey,

and at the time, it was a physical goal that I was really

out there. I just wanted to be good at something physically.

Well, I was terrible at every ball sport I tried. And then I

find the sport of rowing, where I could sit on my butt and go

backwards for long periods of time. And I was like, Hey, I

could do this. But it was during that time period that I realized

it was such a hard training evolution, I really needed

support. It was only because a senior came down when I was a

sophomore. And he said he wants you to come train with me. And

it was because of him that I saw the power of what it was like

working together instead of alone. Fast forward seven years.

I'm in basic training and SEAL team. And we had this seal

instructor, the thick Boston accent. And he would say there

ain't no Rambo's and SEAL team, you think you're a Rambo, we're

gonna weed you out, every one of us got a weakness, we got to

find each other to take care of each other's weakness. And he

would keep going after us on this no Rambo concept. And it's

the polar opposite in SEAL team. Seal Team is designed SEAL

training, it's designed to find your weakness exploit it, you

confront it. And then you find and surround yourself with

people who don't have that weakness. And I found a lot of

those weaknesses was another seven years after that I'm

sitting in business school. And I find a whole bunch of

weaknesses. There were engineering and spreadsheets, I

couldn't even figure out what a spreadsheet was at first, and

how quickly I needed to build teams and teams that were based

around my vulnerabilities. And I had to be vulnerable enough to

let them know, this is what I am terrible at, I suck at this. But

here's the one thing I can do really well. And the faster that

we would come together, you were breaking through this

vulnerability layer of ice that all of a sudden, everyone felt

so much more comfortable. And from that I've built multiple

companies really based off of the vulnerability of being self

aware enough to know I can't do it all then you got the

opportunity to be on stop altogether.

is trusting other people. I mean, a lot of

folks, especially in leadership positions, they have this

reputation of being control freaks. So how do you build that

trust? And we know I mean, people are human, they're gonna

let us down. When they do. How do you keep going with that?

You can't have any team without trust. Trust is the

absolute number one single fundamental, when you are

meeting somebody for the first time, I want you to think about

the fact that they're all wearing a pair of Terminator

glasses. At one point the camera switches to be what you can see

from the terminators point of view through those classes right

and now you're seeing a heads up display for the first time and,

and facial recognition as she's walking into the bar looking for

Sarah Eric honor that his Sakana. Right, and then all hell

breaks loose. That's what people are doing. But it's not Sarah

Connor now. It's Can I trust this leader, and the number one

filter they're looking at is, can I trust this person? Can I

be safe enough to be vulnerable enough to tell this person, this

isn't the way we should go, or I have a better idea or, you know,

let me give you this suggestion. And the reason they're going to

be doing that is they're waiting for you to take the first step

on trust. And here's how I want you to think of trust. Trust is

like a boom array, you're going to have to put out a bunch of

energy, send it out into the universe, sometimes it's going

to come right back to you. And it's going to be overwhelmingly

positive energy. And sometimes that Boomerang is lost doesn't

come back. But if you can get comfortable with the fact that

if you lead with love, as your main driver of emotion, you'll

always give more trust, because you know that those that send a

boomerang of trust back to you, the force multipliers for you,

those that don't, they're wounded, they're insecure, they

have stunted their own gross, they will only always be about

themselves, they won't ever be able to team up to the level

that you're looking for. And maybe over time, if you remain

consistent, they'll come to the light with you. But if you

always grow freak, that's leading with fear. And when you

lead with fear, you are much more apt not to take the risks,

you're going to be worried so much about getting just the next

thing, right, you're going to miss the opportunities that are

around the corner, because you're too concerned about what

is going to happen to you, you must be concerned about how to

help others. When you add those components together, then

they'll understand. And they'll start daring, a little bit more.

I use the term daring because trust is built off of care, I

developed what's called the care loop. I made an acronym out of

care, which is connected Qi and respect and power. And it's a

loop and I think of it like a flywheel. And to get the

flywheel up and spinning. You have to give Forrest your care

to others when they may not care if you do that consistently

enough. And people feel cared for may feel like Hey, Stephanie

has gotten her back. It's okay, if I go out and try something

I've never done before. Because I know if I fail, she's got my

back. And she will take care of me. And that caring leads to

daring, builds the trust that allows people to dare for you.

Going in a little bit different direction.

So one of the things I learned in your background was from a

young age, you've always had this invention oriented mindset.

But your first I think major launching was the perfect

pushup, right?

No, I had two companies before that, that were

fantastic failures.

Okay, well, let's talk about coming back

from failure.

Well, let me tell you, my first big failure that I

thought I had done so spectacularly wrong was leaving

SEAL team, you know, when you leave SEAL team, they have you

stand up in front of the entire team, and they say, Hey, Bailey,

I cried. That day was awful. And about a week later, you know, I

jump out of a helicopter for my last day. And then a week later,

I'm sitting in a quantitative skills review program at

Carnegie Mellon University, and it looks Greek on the board. I'm

like, Oh, my God, what have I done. And I went back into

reserves. And my wife says to me, she's like, well, you know,

I'll support whatever you'd like to do. But if you really want to

be this entrepreneur that you keep talking about, now, it'd be

the time to do it, we don't have kids just have a dog. At that

point, is when, you know, I turned my first big failure of

this civilian experience into something where I figured I

could make it. And that turn was making the shift from Oh, it's

all about the money to know what's really important to me.

And what's really important to me, is the joy I got from

serving others. I then was sitting there as a civilian and

I was like, Well, how's the best way I can serve others. And that

became helping people take control their bodies, it was the

summer of 2006 when we invented the perfect pushup.

Very interesting. You know, you often

hear people say, hey, you know, you learn more from your

failures and your successes and so forth. And I think that just

speaks to that quite a bit.

I failed way more than I've succeeded. But if you

ain't failing, you ain't trying.

Talk to me about this idea of a swim buddy.

A swim buddy is a Navy SEAL term, or the smallest

team in SEAL team. You know, you never go in the water by

yourself. There's always another person who even developed a

stroke where you can look at each other. It's a modified

sidestroke and then you can switch sides. If one side of

your party gets more tired than the other But you never do

anything without your swim buddy, the swim buddy concept,

the real important element of the swim buddy is the the

emotional component of the moments when you're not thinking

you can make it. And the other ones putting their arm around

you going, No, no, we got this. That's that's typically how SEAL

teams started was, hey, we'll take the missions no one else

wants, and we'll figure out how to get it done. And so you're

constantly looking at the impossible. And having somebody

there to find the possibilities in impossible is really

critical. And no person is a fort. And yes, we get scared. I

get scared and forgive every public speech I get.

Well, you did a really good job of hiding your

nervousness and talking with me today. So I appreciate that.

Well, you know, that laser focus you're giving

me right now in a terribly beautiful smile...terrified.

Yes, I could see that. Oh, my gosh. Okay, let's

talk about mantras. Talk to me about some of the mantras when

you need a little mental motivation.

Let's talk about the positivity gym. Um, first of

all, I'm a visual learner, I think of everything and kind of

visualize the thing, whatever that is. And so I have this idea

that we all have a positivity gym. And if you think of it as

positivity as a gym, it's actually a great metaphor.

Because, you know, I'll stand on stage and ask people, Hey, who's

done 23andme? Or some genetic testing like that? Lots of hands

go up? Who got the positivity gene? Did you get it? You asked

to God? And I can tell you're smiling. And they're like, no,

nobody got it, because there's no screening for it. Because

there's no gene that exists for it, or positivity comes down to

us. It's up to us to drive that. So how do you do that, we got to

go to the gym, we got to exercise, one of the key

exercises in the positivity gym is a push pull exercise. So the

push pole exercise is really what I call playing the opposite

game, or in the opposite games means that the moment you got

something negative that you decided to switch your focus on,

you have to understand all of human nature, all of nature is

designed to meet at homeostasis, which is a balance, which means

for every negative there is a positive every time a failure

occurred. Well, there's some positives to that failure. And

the positive is, you know, like Thomas Edison, I learned 10,000

ways not to make a light bulb. So you do the push pull again,

another one is getting deeply curious about whatever the issue

is, if it's with another person, and you're struggling, give me

three ways that you can love that person. Now that person may

have done something really bad, but you get to drive that kind

of curiosity, it will flip a switch and force the brain to

get off of whatever the negative thought is you're attaching to,

and shift your focus to where that positivity is. Now, before

I give you a third positivity gym example, I really needed to

explain Focus. Focus is like a funnel, that funnels your energy

into taking an action, we control it. And we all have a

focus funnel. The key thing about dealing with any kind of

negativity is it's up to us what we're deciding to take our focus

model in funnel energy and do attach to that thought that's an

either hurtful or helpful until we take our energy and attach to

it. And we do it by using this focus funnel of ours. Now, give

me a third positivity gym exercise. And that's really

dealing with perspective. When you find yourself in a position.

Where are my gosh, we you know, we failed again, look, look

what's happened. That's the reason you keep a workout log.

As you can see, over time, oh, look, I'm actually getting

stronger, or I've lost weight or getting faster, whatever the

metrics are that you're doing. But perspective is so powerful

over that time period, if you can track your progress, no

matter how slight it is, that is your fuel to always move

forward. Your progress is your fuel for persistence.

And I really like that that fuel for

persistence.

That's the name of the game, Stephanie. It's

getting up and taking the next action. That's the whole point,

not 10 actions from now just the next one. It's all you have to

do.

These seem logical. You simplify them,

which is great. People still don't do them. Why not?

Well, my very first season instructor from the Deep

South. He walked with a limp because he was missing his left

buttcheek, because it got blown off by a rocket propelled

grenade, called instructor half-butt. You know, what my job

is, is to create a conversation and here that's going to drive

you to make a decision are what you're going to focus on, you're

going to focus on the pain and train it, or you're going to

focus on the pleasure that training can provide you. Now I

know for a fact over 80% of you, you're going to focus on the

pain, you know why? Because you're all focused on being a

seal on a sunny day, your country, she don't need seals on

sunny days, she needs them aren't scary days, when it's

cold, and it's dark, and it's wet. And that crack over your

head. Where that a thunder or somebody warning you did a bad

you want to see on that day, you all want to be a seal on a sunny

day. So the secret here is deciding what you got to focus

on it in complicated. It's just hard. It's hard to lead yourself

to decide what you're going to focus on. It ain't complicated.

It's just hard. I think people get things way too complicated.

And then they get overwhelmed and I can't do it. I don't have

enough time for this. Forget about it. Every person that I

coach, all about just giving them the confidence to take the

next action. That's the only action that matters. It's this

present moment, present moment. For instance, you and me being

together, everything that I can give that can be helpful to you.

It's this moment that matters. When people decide they can't do

it. Most of the time, they've made a decision to focus on just

the sunny day, and realize the moment and anything comes down

to the Heart Day. Well, that's I'm not here for those days, I

only want to sunny days, you know who doesn't want to be the

head of sales on a sunny day, who doesn't want to be an

entrepreneur on the sunny days. Those aren't the days however,

that gives you the greatest growth. The days that give you

the greatest growth are the days with the greatest friction,

right struggle builds strength, that's the only way we grow. And

until people flip the switch to realize, Hey, I gotta go to the

gym. Right? The gym is a friction home, it's there to

give you the resistance, metaphorically and literally, to

build the muscle strength that you need to be able to overcome

the obstacles. And then eventually, what I'm really

after is training people to look at the obstacle, the

celebration, because those are your opportunities. And when we

start getting that now we've got an unstoppable mindset. Because

every obstacle becomes an opportunity. Every problem is a

possibility. The struggle builds the strength, the mindset is

then bringing on. That's what we're after. But that's hard.

That's hard to get people to embrace the idea that they need

to do the hard things that they need to be comfortable being

uncomfortable. And when we get people to make the switch to

enjoy the struggle, well, then we've got the real opportunities

for building success. I wouldn't go just willy nilly for

everything.

Right.

We also need to recharge, putting yourself in

areas of friction is exhausting. And you need the energy. And if

you're out of balance on the physical side, because you think

well, it's not that important that I get sleep or good

nutrition, or exercise, which is what I call how you see sleep,

eat and exercise in that order, then your physical platform

isn't optimized, or the stamina, or the struggle, and the

struggle will come from the mental emotional side. And from

the spiritual side, you really need to be able to practice

faith because the world has too many things coming at us. We

can't handle all the things coming at us. And if you start

to focus on all the negatives of everything that's out there,

then you'll be so overwhelmed with fear that you'll never push

yourself beyond your horizon of your potential. So you have to

learn to practice faith. And I'm not here to tell you which faith

of religious doctrine practice that's second definition in the

dictionary. I'm after the first definition in the dictionary for

faith in that is having 100% confidence in someone or

something other than yourself. And when you have faith in

someone else, then you can let go and when you're able to let

go and only focus on the things that you can control and have

faith that the others have your back or some higher power has

your back and that you will deal with whatever comes down your

way. Then you can walk through the deepest shadows was valleys

of doubt. And you were like the way to your success.

You mentioned earlier in the call your mom

being very influential in helping you decide that, hey, we

get the doctor said this, I disagree, we're going to do

things differently. Did you grow up with this strong sense of

something bigger greater than yourself? Where did that come

from?

Mom was definitely my first leadership coach, no

doubt about it, Dad was close behind. He just had a different

tact. And it happened through a series of, of challenges where I

wanted to achieve something, but I kept falling short. And then I

got to this point in every one of these challenges where I saw

the opportunity, but I had to let go in give all of myself to

whatever the challenge was, in the first challenge, it would

have been rowing where my hands got so infected, and I had to

tape them up and came down this one last big race, or this final

seat as a sophomore in the pain was so overwhelming that all I

could do was cry, because I couldn't let go the or I taped

my heads and circles. When you're going through SEAL

training, you get to this point where you're like, oh, my gosh,

I could die right now. And I remember flipping the switch

going, well, this is what I want to do. So they're going to have

to kill me, because I'm not going to quit. And I don't think

I was alone there. I think there are lots of guys they get there.

You know, and I looked at bankruptcy three different

times. With my business, you get to this point where you're like,

there has to be another way I just am not going to go

bankrupt. And you get to that point, three different times. I

mean, could God we had 2009, which was some of the height of

perfect push up years. The bank decides they want to call her

loan in $15 million loan and I was personally guaranteed. I

don't have $15 million house. Yeah, and tend to that. And they

sent people out to value our home be like, well, how quickly

can we liquidate things with wall wall, whoa, we're gonna

figure out a way here. They wanted 30 days, I wanted 300.

And they thought I was crazy. 293 days later, I pulled him

back, I paid him back in full with interest. But that was a

trust game. We got him to trust us. If you get a banker to trust

you, you're doing something, right. So you practice this,

this faith, practice these opportunities every time you

keep pushing for something outside your grasp beyond your

horizon of what you can see to where you believe. And I often

talk about this horizon. And we're all the captains of our

own ships. But we can't see that far. You know, you're a six foot

tall person acting like Jesus standing on a dead calm day

looking at the sea, you can only see two and a half 2.9 miles for

the horizon drops off. But your goal is way past the horizon.

And most people are like, they won't even dream there is like,

well, I can only see you know, seeing is believing like No, no,

it's the total opposite. You have to believe in first, that

you can do something before you can see what you really want,

which is way past that horizon. That goes back to practicing

that faith, and you get yourself into that process. And over the

years, it will help you cement your confidence in your

capabilities. Great question, Stephanie.

So in the time we have remaining, just give me

a quick kind of preview on your books, the training that you do

the speaking that you do, because this has been really

good. And I can see a lot of our folks saying, Hey, that was a

great introduction. Where can I get more?

Well, I feel my highest use of helping others is

helping them be unstoppable achieving something they're not

sure they could do. I early on a catch myself to the word

unstoppable because to be unstoppable means you've been

stopped. You've been stuck. You can't be unstoppable. If you

haven't been there. You gotta be there. Right? You need the

struggle of being stuck, to get unstuck, to go from stop to

unstoppable so I have two books they're called Be unstoppable.

The essential actions to succeed in anything and unstoppable

teams, four essential actions to high performance leadership. And

I'll have a new book called unstoppable mindset, how to use

what you have to get what you want. I'm all about the three

levels of leadership leading yourself leading teams and then

leading the cultures of your organization. And you can find

me at Alden dash mills.com and I'm also the creator with a dear

friend of mine have a free app called goal bud and it's a place

where people can enter in their goals quickly form a goal team

and create commitments to help each other stay on track to take

the next action goal but that's where I hope to help 100 million

people achieve goals and success.

This has been so awesome, thank you so much for

your willingness to come and spend some time.

Thank you. And, you know, I just want to say, I'm

really excited to come on this podcast. I love the messaging

that you do for this podcast. More people need to hear and get

motivated and inspired, that it's inside of them. It's their

habit. They were built to be unstoppable. They just need

somebody's I love it. Just remind people that unstoppable

is a choice. That's their leadership decision. They get to

decide every day, all they got to do is take one action, they

can actually download in gold bug building their first gold

buddy swim buddy team, and then creating a commitment to like,

hey, let's do this. Just 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes a day and

watch how that will build their momentum.

Thank you.

Thank you. Keep caring, Stephanie. Go forth and

be unstoppable.

Yes, sir. You got it.