Mike Hayes - Never Enough: A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility, and Meaning

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This book is dedicated to my soulmate, Ni, who has been my rock and inspiration for more than twenty-five years. Heres to our next fifty years, and beyond.

As youll learn in these pages, being a SEAL means living a life of service and placing others before self. These principles drive everything I do. I resisted writing this book for years, feeling strongly about never profiting from my service to this nation or from the SEAL name. In that spirit, I founded the 1162 Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, named after the date President Kennedy commissioned the SEALsJanuary 1, 1962in order to help address the critical needs of families in the special operations community who have lost their heroic loved ones and spend every day trying to survive the best they can. Like every SEAL of my era, Ive lost so many incredible teammates, each of whom left behind equally incredible family members who were forced to find a way forward through loss as a result. At the time of this writing, several mortgages for Gold Star widows have already been paid off due to my efforts and the generosity of others. My primary intention in writing this book is to generate revenue to help many, many more families. To that end, I have pledged to donate a minimum of $250,000 from my royalty earnings from this book to the 1162 Foundation with the explicit goal of helping these Gold Star families. With your help, we can grow that number and do tremendous good in the world. This book is intended to share, teach, and inspireand, in the process, raise awareness of veterans issues and provide help to these families, who are in such need. It is my privilege to offer my lessons and stories, in the hope that it will help you find even just a bit more meaning and purpose in your own life. Together, we can help the brave families who have answered our nations highest call.

It was 2007 in Fallujah, Iraq. Three oclock in the morning, out in the streets. Darkness, dust, misery, dehydration. Potential danger coming from every direction. My Navy SEAL Team was on an operation to find a particular set of bad guys, and we had brought ourselves to a house where we had learned they might be hiding. Most of the team had entered the house, and I was one of a few SEALs outside, providing command and control for our teammates inside.

Suddenly, an Iraqi man wearing a traditional long white robe stepped out of a neighboring house. He reached quickly into his outfit, his hand disappearing from viewand this is the moment a life-or-death decision had to be made.

Ill jump to the ending of that story. The man was pulling an ID card from his pocket. He was an innocent bystander who happened to be in a dangerous place and unwisely reached for something in his robe. Fortunately, my team had the confidence to wait a fraction of a moment, to assess the potential threat and think about the bigger picture before reacting.

Was this man in fact a deadly threat? Maybe, but we werent sure. Did we have to shoot yet, or did we have time? Well, as it turns out, we did have just a little bit of timeto get more information, to watch his face, his eyes, to watch his hand as it emerged from his robe. We were aimed and readyeven if he had a weapon, he would have still needed to pull it from his robe, point it at us, and pull the trigger. It wasnt going to be minutes, or even seconds, but my teammates had the confidence in their ability to know they could wait until they saw just a little more.

Because we also knew the risks. Shooting innocent civilians doesnt help us win the support of the people, it doesnt help us find an ultimate path to victory, and regardless of the strategic implications, this was still a mans life.

It sounds, at first, like a simple enough storyinnocent man not killed by SEAL Teambut its easy to imagine things turning out very differently. And it may sound unrelatable, if youve never been on the battlefield, but the reality is that each of us makes these kinds of decisionsto take action, or notall the time, with varying stakes, and with varying time pressures. Should you take on a new project, or lower the risk of failure by sticking with something youre already comfortable with? Commit to growth within your organization, or jump to a different one, hoping itll accelerate your career path? Reach out to a friend in need, or decide you just dont have the time?

Ive spent my career trying to figure out how to make these kinds of choices most effectively, learning from the most successful people around me how to approach the world and our fellow citizens in order to live a life of the highest meaning, mission, and value. We get better, Ive certainly found, by reflecting on what weve done and listening to the journeys of others.

As for me, Ive lived a lifetime of once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Ive been held at gunpoint in Peru and threatened with execution. Ive jumped out of a building rigged to explode in Iraq. Ive helped amputate a teammates leg in Afghanistan. Ive made countless life-ending decisions to drop bombs on our countrys enemiesand sometimes Ive made those decisions in mere seconds. Ive made calls to parents that no parent ever wants to receive, and Ive written hundreds of emails to my wife and daughter telling them how much I love them, just in case those were the last words of mine theyd ever read. Ive prayed my men would survive every dayand Ive made the decisions to help make that happen.

Ive also run hundreds of meetings in the White House Situation Room. I led the process to create a new strategic arms treaty with the Russians, and went to Moscow for negotiations. Ive developed sensitive corporate strategy and been responsible for countless multimillion-dollar deals.

In sum, Ive spent the past twenty-five years feeling extraordinarily lucky to have the privilege to serve this country in a variety of waysfrom my very first days in SEAL training as a twenty-one-year-old to my service as a Navy SEAL Commander in Afghanistan, as a White House Fellow and Director of Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and in the boardrooms of public and private multibillion-dollar companiesand through it all, Ive found that the most successful, satisfied, fulfilled people around me have always strived to contribute more, and pushed themselves to do as much as they can across whatever dimensions are most important to them, wherever they believe they can make the most difference.

This continuous striving to make a bigger differencefor yourself, for your organization, or for the worldis what I believe holds the key to great outcomes in almost any situation, and its the mindset Im talking about when I say Never Enough. Its this push to realize that the goal shouldnt be to do just enough to get by, but to always look for more ways to make an impact.

I talk about Never Enough, and sometimes people get the idea that Im pushing for perfection, for someone to never be able to feel proud of what theyve accomplished or satisfied that theyve done the best they can do. But thats not it at all. Never Enough is about understanding that whatever youre striving to accomplishwhether thats becoming a SEAL, excelling in your current profession, or making a difference in the lives of the people in your family or communityyou can always grow your capacity, increase your knowledge and skills, and invest more in the people and causes around you. Its not just so that next time you take on a challenge, your best can be even better, but so you can push yourself to truly align your actions with the goals youre trying to achieve.