Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life (13 page)

Every military branch has its equivalent of the “week of hell,” a harsh survival and endurance course designed to test anyone to the limit. My test came at the end of the first year and we were airlifted to a bleak mountain in the middle of a snowy December.

After route marching for the third day in a row without much sleep or food while carrying equipment that was deliberately weighted down with wet sand, I saw grown men cry. Every few miles, a mental or logistics test awaited us. It was as diverse as building a bridge out of the equipment to cross an impossibly swollen river or walking naked through an almost frozen lake to get clothes and equipment across without letting them get wet.

The worst torture is the offer to end the endurance. All day and all night, our transmitters blared at regular intervals with offers of a warm bed and food if we were only to ask for it. Anonymity was assured, and each morning our group got smaller. During the night, several always left quietly and without prejudice. I never saw them again.

In that week, five of our group suffered exposure and were airlifted off the mountain. Two broke bones. One collapsed, claiming not to be able to move another inch. Although it was explicitly against the rules, we carried him and his equipment for the next two days until he was removed from the exercise on health grounds. We also had to carry the equipment of all those who had left for any reason.

At night, we slept for a few uneasy hours under a tarpaulin. Our breath froze on the inside of the tarp so that it took all our remaining strength to fold it up small enough to carry. Just as REM sleep arrived, an explosion, or a megaphone would always rouse us and we would have to break camp.

Sleep deprivation is a known method of torture and I lost all sense of place and time. My feet were so blistered that they
looked reptilian. Yet inside my mind, I felt calm and confident. The outside world ceased to have form or meaning. It was just a matter of taking one more step, then another.

When I finally reached the target destination after eight days with my few remaining colleagues, we were a day later than expected. I assumed the other groups had made it safely and were back at the college in the dry and warmth. The receiving officer, who was not too pleased to have been made to wait another day in that bleak landscape, informed us that our group was the only one to make the destination.

I often think about that week, and I try to find some common denominator in those who survived, and in those who gave up. There is nothing obvious. One was the son of a Right Honorable politician. He was fit, well spoken, and a hit with the ladies. One was a vicar’s only child, mild-mannered and introverted. One was the pragmatic son of a senior police commissioner. We were all different shapes and sizes, some more academically talented than others, all from completely different backgrounds and upbringings. None of us had ever been tested like that before. During the whole week, however, we all had an unshakeable belief that we would make the destination. None of us ever doubted it, and we never had to encourage each other.

We encouraged the others in our group, tried hard to talk them out of quitting, and carried more than our loads to give them a break. When the snow became a blizzard, we walked faster. When the pains in our empty stomachs caused some to double up in agony, we started singing. Whatever stimuli smacked our mentalities, we carefully chose our reactions. I believe that is why we made it to the destination. It is the only thing we had in common. We controlled our reactions to the extreme situations around us.

After a couple days to recover, I was called to the Captain’s office. As I expected, we had been followed and monitored every
step of the way by seasoned special troops. Our conversations had been recorded, and a report had been compiled on our performance under duress. It was like that all the time. Officers are constantly being assessed, inside and outside the college. The report was fair, and I had been assessed with average marks. The Captain told me that there was something in the assessment to indicate potential leadership skills, but he wanted to test some more. Just like that, I was promoted, not on merit, but as a test; the next morning I found myself in charge of a division of forty people.

I was still in the character-forming phase of my training and had developed no leadership skills or talent that could make me useful as a divisional leader. I was nineteen but with a baby face that made me still look like a schoolboy. Yet there I was with yellow bands on my uniform, addressing a room full of older, hardened personnel. Just like back at the high school, I was aware of the whispers behind my back from the veterans who thought me too green to succeed.

I was given a book of standing orders and personnel reports with a summary of the divisional performance. It was so much information to digest, that I mostly just scanned the pages. Even doing that, it was obvious that the division had issues. Out of five divisions, their performances placed them fourth, but historically they had regularly been at the top, and the hierarchy was not happy.

When I addressed the room, I could feel everyone’s tension. Initially, I was not sure how they would accept such a young, inexperienced leader, but I saw in their eyes a complete lack of confidence, not in me but in themselves. It felt as if they were ashamed. I realized that they needed someone to encourage them. They did not care so much who I was, where I was from, or how old I was, so long as I could help them look good again.

Initially, there was some complaining and finger-pointing, and everyone had a desire to analyze what was going wrong. Their mentalities were
against
many things, including their failures. In reading the biographies of great men and women, many attributed their success to being able to cut through the detail of complicated projects and focus on key points. Men like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie ran businesses for which they had no qualifications or history. Then they would hire experts in each key area to form a tight group of functional leaders. They also shunned too much analysis on the past for a focus more on what the company desired to achieve. Those tycoons were always
for
something. I used the same idea.

I broke the divisional tasks down to its three key elements of logistics, engineering, and seamanship. Then I read through personnel reports to find people who could be the expert functional leaders. Some of them took a lot of cajoling, but I encouraged them to follow my approach and break their function down to its three core elements, and recruit experts in each task, all the while encouraging each task leader to break their task down into its three core technical details and recruit skilled people to perform them, etc. I had no idea how to do any of the things I was asking them to do because I had yet to be trained for them.

I stopped the downward spiral of what everyone was
against
and got them thinking about what they were
for
, which was to be the best division again. To be the best, each had to be the best in his role, either as a functional leader or a technical worker. It was a success, and within six months the division was ranked number one in all parameters.

All of the hard work was done by functional and task leaders. All I did was change their mentalities a little. At no time was I popular because it was a new approach and a lot of hard work. I was not used to leadership and realize now that I was not at all flexible or considerate of feelings at the time. I was told by one
of my peers that I was even the subject of restroom wall graffiti for my strict discipline in the turnaround. I was not there to win friends, however; I was there to win. The cynics in the division did their best to disrupt the program, but I was able to shut out their negative energy sufficiently to focus on what we were aiming for. Without even knowing it back then, I was becoming a master of my mentality.

The benefits of this success paid off almost immediately. Suddenly, the hierarchy saw promise in this pauper made good. I started to get my pick of assignments, and I chose anything that meant travel. I spent six weeks as a guest of the British Embassy in Paris. I took command of a picket boat and sailed up the Rivers Seine and Marne. I spent two weeks as a guest of a famous champagne family at their chateau. On my first trip at sea, I visited Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Italy, Madeira, Gibraltar, Greece, and Africa.

I got to play soccer in every country and made many foreign friends. All the time, I kept reminding myself that if I had not controlled my mentality, I would have let others talk me out of this adventure before it began. I could see the power of mentality control with every step I took. I remember a gloriously sunny day in January, standing on the flat-topped rock that holds the Acropolis of Athens, 500 feet above sea level, and thinking to myself, “I did this. I made this happen.”

That ability to control mentality was soon to have its hardest test. After I graduated, with the award of college colors, two experiences combined to change my life quickly. Both shocked me. Having been so immersed in my adventure, I had given little thought to the outside world. For the graduation ceremony, I had arranged to meet my parents at a local hotel. I walked straight by Audrey without recognizing her. In the time since I had last been home on leave, her cancer had worsened. She looked like a wizened old lady, barely able to hobble along with the aid of walking sticks. Not only was the sight of her a shock, I
was stunned that I had become so self-involved with the navy project that I really had given her condition very little thought. It was like a slap in the face.

After the ceremony, I took compassionate leave, and on the first day that I took her to the hospital for her chemotherapy, the second experience slapped me even harder. I saw my future wife and fell head over heels in love.

My leave lasted six weeks before the navy started to insist that I return. I had been assigned a terrific job at sea on the newest frigate. My four fellow graduates were green with envy. In those six weeks, however, something had changed inside me. I realized I was intoxicated by the travel and glamour, but not necessarily dedicated to the service as much as I should be. Instinctively, I knew I would resign my commission, because the navy demands that it become your mother, wife, and family. There can be no half measures or partial commitments.

Even during my brief naval life, I had seen so many servicemen suffer broken hearts while away on duty. The “Dear John” letters, as we called them, happened every week. The thought of my mother dying while I was away, after all she had done for me, was too much. Additionally, I couldn’t get the image of my future wife out of my head. I knew I was going to marry her. It is impossible to explain that feeling, but for any cynics reading this, I can tell you for a fact that love at first sight is as real as the American dream. Don’t let anyone try to tell you different.

After weeks of sleepless nights, and with my bosses heaping pressure on me to return, I made my decision. I told no one else for fear that they would try to talk me out of it and traveled down to the port as normal. Everyone from my ex-teachers, my family, and friends, to the local newspaper reporter were now following my career. The pressure of letting all those people down weighed heavily. The train journey passed while I was in a trance-like state.

Aboard the frigate, the Captain tried his hardest to talk me out of my decision. He was so sure of the mistake I was making that he broke the strict rules and let me read my career performance reports. In one was a wonderful line that commented on the strength of my
mentality
. I had to smile. I almost cracked. I was seconds away from changing my mind, but I resigned my commission.

I was bombarded by criticism from all quarters. People’s biggest concern seemed to be their fear that I was following the same pattern of behavior as my father and his father. Some of the rhetoric was vitriolic.

No one stopped yelling at me long enough to allow me to explain, and I learned another important lesson with regard to control of mentality. One of the harder things to accept when it comes to taking control of your destiny is that sometimes the only way to stop the negative external stimuli is to shut it off. That is easy when it comes to a television or radio but hard when it comes to people. Some people were so persistent in their criticism that, for my own sanity, I had to shut them down. A phone call cut short or an unanswered letter, and those people exited my life forever. It would not be the last time I had to do that, but it is always hard to let go.

Over the next few months, I continued to take Audrey to the hospital for her chemotherapy appointments, but it took me a long time to conjure up the courage to ask my future wife on a date. A few weeks before Audrey died, she asked me, “Is she the one?” I did not need to answer. She smiled, and whispered, “I’m glad.”