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Secrets of Navy SEAL Resilience with Jon Macaskill

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In this episode of Pro Mindset® Podcast, host Craig Domann delves into the remarkable journey of Navy SEAL commander and author Jon Macaskill. Discover how his dedication to service and leadership shaped his success both in and out of the military. Jon shares his insights on resilience, authenticity, and the mindset needed to excel in all areas of life.

Episode Takeaways:
💡 Resilience—Mental Toughness
💡 Authenticity—Lead with Integrity
💡 Mentality—Break Down Big Goals

Join us for an inspiring conversation on leadership and overcoming mental barriers. 

📲Connect with Jon:
🌐Website: https://mentalkingmindfulness.com/ 
📸Instagram: @mentalkingmindfulness 
📱Facebook: @Men Talking Mindfulness 
👋LinkedIn: @Jon Macaskill

🚀 Ready to Build a Mindset That Powers You Through Anything?
If Jon’s insights on mentality and resilience inspire you, the Pro Mindset® Coaching Program can help you align your potential with purpose and adaptability.

 👉 Learn more or apply at www.ProMindsetPodcast.com/coaching or reach out directly to Craig at Craig.ProMindset@gmail.com.

#ProMindset #Mindset #CraigDomann #ProMindsetPodcast #JonMacaskill #MenTalkingMindfulness #MenTalkingMindfulnessPodcast #UnleashingInnerStrength #NavySEAL #USNavySEAL #Navy #USNavy #Military #USMilitary #USA #America #SEAL #SEALS #Resilience #Leadership #Goals #MentalToughness #Integrity

PRO MINDSET (00:

01.314) Hey, welcome everyone to Pro Mindset podcast. I'm your host, Craig Doman. Today on Pro Mindset, we have a Navy SEAL commander who is also a mindset and leadership coach. His name is John McCaskill. John, welcome to Pro Mindset today.

Jon Macaskill (00:

17.73) Hey, Craig, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. Looking forward to this conversation. I know it's been a long time coming. I think we've had to reschedule twice already. So I appreciate your patience and I'm looking forward to finally making this happen.

PRO MINDSET (00:

29.826) Yeah, just want to know why you don't have an H in your first name.

Jon Macaskill (00:

33.286) because that's the way John is supposed to be spelled. No, so I actually go by John, but my full name is Jonathan. So Joe and a th a n. So I just cut out the cut out the H altogether.

PRO MINDSET (00:

36.366) I'd say there's more 49.24) That totally makes sense. Okay, let's go back to a past time when you had this idea of being a Navy SEAL. What was your dream? What was your goal? And when you went through that training, was it easier than you thought because you knew what you were going to get into? Was it a lot harder? And what was maybe your biggest obstacle in succeeding?

Jon Macaskill (01:

11.034) Yeah 21.892) Yeah. So, my goal, my goal was to serve, serve my country in one way or another, but in all honesty, there was a little bit of ego behind wanting to become a special operator and wanted to prove my metal to myself. I wanted to prove to, you know, some ex girlfriends, buddies that I'd grown up with that I could in fact, doing it, do it. and then as far as the, training itself, whether it was harder or not, it was hard in different ways than I thought it was going to be. for, for me, I personally had trouble with the obstacle course. I was a really good swimmer, really good runner. I did well with the diving and the land warfare and everything, but the, obstacle course took me a little while. But the training itself was much harder mentally than I had anticipated. There was a lot of dive physics that we had to do. There was a mental aspect to the physical side. So as you're getting physically punished, just having to sit there and grin and bear it. I think that was what what I wasn't expecting the training itself. Physically. Yeah, it's tough. But honestly, I've done tougher things. Hell being a parent is tougher than being tougher than going through seal training as far as I'm concerned, mentally and physically at times. But yeah, no, there's there's definitely don't get me wrong. There was definitely some tough aspects to it, obviously. But yeah, I think all in all, it's what I expected in some ways and different in others.

PRO MINDSET (03:

25.664) Everybody has different mental battles and so two two guys can be going through the same experience and They're battling different obstacles mental obstacles fears doubts not feeling worthy Comparison and not seeing themselves as good as somebody else in the in the competition. What was the mental battle? What was your greatest mental battle in that experience?

Jon Macaskill (03:

51.748) Yeah, that's a, you hit the nail on the head right there. There's, when I showed up, so I had graduated from the Naval Academy in May of 2001 and George Bush was our commencement speaker. And then we showed up out of SEAL training and we all know what happened on September 11th that year. And, you know, at that point, the training got very real in our minds. But I was surrounded by some studs, some guys that I looked at. like, when people say the term special operator, special forces, Navy SEAL, whatever the different special operations branches, when people say those terms, there's an image that pops into some people's heads. And it's this guy that's just a physical specimen, know, eight pack, you know, able to bench press a ridiculous amount. and be able to swim and run. And there were guys who showed up and they just looked just like you would imagine them to. But some of those guys went away. They went away pretty quickly. They quit day one, day three, they quit, you know, several several days into Hell Week. And when they quit, and I'd been kind of looking up to these guys, I was scared for myself. I was like, my gosh, if Bobby over here quit and Chris over there quit. And those were the guys that I knew were going to make it. I started questioning myself. And so like I've, I've always had some level of imposter syndrome and, honestly, I've, I have two thoughts on that to side two ways of thinking about imposter syndrome. One, I think that if you don't, have imposter syndrome, then you're not pushing yourself. You're not surrounding yourself with people who are going to push you. If you feel comfortable all the time, then you're going to settle. But if you're feeling as though you're outside your comfort zone, you're surrounding yourself with people who are going to push you, then most of the time you're going to have some level of imposter syndrome. Well, I had that for sure.

Jon Macaskill (06:

04.676) going into SEAL training, even my classmates from the Naval Academy who had been selected, I looked up to them. I felt as though they deserved to be there and I somehow got there by chance. And then when some of them went away, both my classmates from the Naval Academy and others who had showed up to training who I looked up to, then I started to have a little bit of doubt, self doubt, like, if those guys can't make it, then I definitely questioned myself. So I think that was probably one of biggest mental challenges in that regard.

PRO MINDSET (06:

41.474) I would say that our mental game has developed over time. You you're not like, you mentioned you have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old and a third child and let's just take the seven-year-old because you said he was a boy. He's not equipped with the mental game that it takes to handle, you know, extreme competition, all those types of things. And some people...

Jon Macaskill (06:

55.579) Yeah.

PRO MINDSET (07:

09.322) So like going through Navy SEAL training, it accelerated your mental game. You developed abilities in the mindset mode that you didn't have before you got there because you had no choice. And so like professional athletes are the same way. CEOs are the same way. Head coaches in the NFL are the same way. They think they know what it's going to be like. Until they get there, they don't know what it's really going to be about.

Jon Macaskill (07:

14.886) Mm. 37.486) Right.

PRO MINDSET (07:

38.339) and they're going to face more criticism and second guessing and armchair quarterbacks and all these types of things. So what's the one mental like tool, tactic, call it what you want that you've developed that you would like to share with the audience that, you know, maybe they've already developed it, but in a lot of cases, maybe they haven't because they haven't faced the adversity that you faced.

Jon Macaskill (08:

06.736) Yeah. Yeah, I'd say the, probably the one that I lean on pretty heavily is, is pretty regularly lead leaned on by those who make it through the seal training. And you've, you've probably heard this one before, cause I know I'm not the first seal that you've interviewed. the, ability to. set a long-term goal and see that seemingly overwhelming goal, but then break it down in a smaller digestible chunks. I think that is a, is a huge piece for those who make it through seal training. if you talk to. Talk to those guys, 90 % of them are going to say, you know, I made it from one meal to the next, to the next. I wasn't thinking about the whole six months or the whole year, or however long it is from the beginning of training until you actually pin your Trident on. the, those who are able to break it down into smaller. evolution, smaller breaks. That's, that I think is a huge piece. And then the flip side of that, I think you can also zoom out. So, you know, zooming into the meals hour by hour, day by day, ultimately making it, but then also zooming out and seeing what the bigger picture is. Okay. What, why am I here? Some guys who show up, they show up to say, I went to seal training. They show up to say, made it to hell week or I made it through hell week. The guys who make it are the ones who say, this is just a stepping stone of me becoming a seal. The big picture is I want to become a seal. This is, this is a step along the way. So being able to identify what that larger goal is, I think that's where you start. What is your larger goal? What's your, why, why are you doing this?

Jon Macaskill (10:

08.862) then whether that's, you know, be becoming a Navy seal, you know, going into the Olympics and becoming a professional athlete, becoming a CEO, why are you wanting to do that? Is it, Hey, well, I want the status. I want the money or is there something deeper and then being able to break that down. So identify the large goal first. No, clearly what that is. And then break that down into the smaller digestible chunks. I think that's, that's the. The mindset trick that I think has worked for me in SEAL training as an entrepreneur now as a father. It works just about in every walk of my life and I've seen it work in others.

PRO MINDSET (10:

55.737) Well, which I'm going to rehearse or regurgitate what I heard you say. It's almost like having a lens that you can zoom in and out. And when it's too big, you focus on the next step. You can segment the task, the dream, the big goal. And then the zoom in out. I see this with anybody that becomes somebody, you know, like where

Jon Macaskill (11:

09.414) Mm.

PRO MINDSET (11:

25.935) Very few people like they're one percenter. Okay, not very many people become CEOs. There's just not that many companies Then only 1.6 percent of college football players make the NFL Well, that means less high school players make it percentage-wise to the NFL Is there's a coherence between what they do and who they are they see themselves through the lens of who they are and what they do so

Jon Macaskill (11:

32.272) Sure. 41.679) Right.

PRO MINDSET (11:

55.533) The people who probably make the SEAL team saw themselves as SEALs before they showed up. And the other ones, the Superman, the guys that looked like Tarzan that didn't make it, they never saw themselves. They were probably told, hey, you looked the part. You ought to try it. You'd be good at this. And they're like, yeah. Then they get in it.

Jon Macaskill (11:

55.568) Sure.

Jon Macaskill (12:

07.611) Ha 17.957) Mm-hmm.

PRO MINDSET (12:

24.111) This is not who I am. This isn't this. can't do this. And so it's really, you know, and the the other aspect of that is I'm sure that when you're a seal, bring in the ego, bring in that whole thing. Sometimes you've got to like step down from what you know, you're a human being. You're not a human doer. So if you have this, you know, awesome opportunity, it doesn't necessarily define you.

Jon Macaskill (12:

47.248) Right.

PRO MINDSET (12:

52.717) And then professional athletes, a lot of times, because they make it, because that's how they see themselves when they're done. It's not a soft landing. It's a hard crash because they don't know who they are without it.

Jon Macaskill (12:

59.318) yeah. Right. Sure. Yes, double-edged sword for sure. As a matter of fact, you know, a lot of military members experienced that same thing, but more specifically in those who have defined themselves, just like you said. And they define themselves by that role before they ever were in that role. I liked how you said that those guys who can see themselves as seals or they do see themselves as seals. Those are the guys who probably are going to be more successful. Same thing with athletes. Now I actually went through a program called tuck next step. It's at Dartmouth's business school tuck. It's a 10 day crash course on, on business and It is for transitioning service members, military service members, and professional athletes. And when you first say that, you're like, what do those two groups have in common? Well, people are like, they're both elite. OK, maybe. But it's also, or more specifically, what you pointed out is that

Jon Macaskill (14:

13.306) Those elite athletes have been defining themselves by their sport since they were five, six, seven years old, maybe before that. Some of the elite service members have been defining themselves as that. And some people were like, well, the military members have only been doing it since they were adults. Not necessarily. I remember playing in my mind that I was going to be a seal when I was 14, 15 years old. maybe even before that. And that became part of my DNA. And then when you transition out, like you said, it's not a, it's not a soft landing. As a matter of fact, there's a movie about it called the weight of gold for those gold medalists who, when they leave the Olympian family, they're always Olympians, but they're not part of the network necessarily as much as they were. They struggle with that weight of gold. Well, same thing with military service members when they transition out, whether it's been five years that they serve or 25 years, it becomes, mean, this closet that you can't see it's off camera. I have my uniforms in there. I still have my uniforms and I retired six years ago, but I've got them. And when I hung those uniforms up there, felt as though I was hanging a part of my soul up there. know, and amongst the military communities, you hear this all the time, is when you get out, you lose your mission, you lose your purpose, you lose your tribe, you lose your identity. And definitely, I felt that in some ways. Now, I'll say that There was also a part of me that was always there that's still there. I just had additional pieces added on when I was in the service that I had to take off and re-examine what was underneath it when I left.

PRO MINDSET (16:

12.655) Okay, so you got into the leadership part of this with the SEAL team. Describe like the the two or three most important criteria that you are Characteristics that you had to demonstrate daily hourly consistently That if you didn't do that you couldn't lead men that are elite performers if you didn't do that they would see you as a fraud and they wouldn't trust you and If you didn't do those things

Jon Macaskill (16:

41.702) Yeah.

PRO MINDSET (16:

48.109) They might even question your authority.

Jon Macaskill (16:

51.482) Yeah. So also slightly off screen, have a book there called dial in your leadership. It's my, my first quote unquote real book. and D I D I A L is an acronym for discipline, integrity, authenticity, and learning always. And as far as the leaders, the successful and good leaders that I saw within the SEAL teams and everywhere else, those are four key attributes that I see amongst them all. they do what they say they're going to do. That's the discipline, whether that's, you know, getting up at four 30 in the morning and going to hit the gym or whether it's taking some time for themselves. So when I say discipline, I don't necessarily mean just hard charging nonstop having the discipline to actually pull back on that throttle when you need to. That to me is discipline doing what you said you were going to do. The integrity piece, we've all heard integrity is doing what's right even when no one's looking. We've all heard that term. And I do believe that, but the integrity piece also to me, it includes doing what's when everyone is looking and they want you to do something else. So what I mean is, in a, a particular situation that I write about in the book, there was a, there was a mission that I thought was poorly planned, never should have been executed. And everybody was pushing for it to happen, pushing for it to happen, pushing for it to happen. And I pushed against it and I was a young guy, fairly new. And I pushed against it and everybody around me said, basically shut up and color, right?

Jon Macaskill (18:

50.832) That's what it boiled down to. And I wish now that I had stood by my guns and said, no, this mission should not happen because we ended up losing a lot of guys on that particular mission. And that was a point where doing what was right was pushing back against it, even when everybody else was looking. The authenticity piece, the A in dial. And I'm not meaning to sell my book, but you asked the question. I'm answering it. the, said, you know, people will be able to see through you if you're not being real, authentic leaders, authentic leaders who are willing to be open and vulnerable and not walk around like they have all the answers that are the ones who are actually willing to ask the questions. They're willing to admit that they don't have all the answers. and then also admit that sometimes they're struggling that I think creates trust up and down the chain of command and, and ultimately leads to the best answers. And then finally the learning always coming back to the authenticity, not having all the answers you have to be able to ask questions. So asking questions ties into learning. Always you're always asking questions. Always wanted to know what we could do better, what we could do differently. and then not just asking those who have gone before you, but being vulnerable enough to ask those who are brand new. Okay. This is how we've done it for 10 years. New guy. Look at this. Is this the way you would do it? Do you see anything different? Would you do anything with a different person? Would you do it from a different angle? Look at it through a different lens. I think that learning always is critical for leaders. If you're not learning, you're dying.

PRO MINDSET (20:

56.301) Well, three or at least the last two for sure define teamwork. You can't have teamwork without those two.

Jon Macaskill (21:

04.997) Yeah, and I would say without integrity you can't either.

PRO MINDSET (21:

07.695) Yeah, so maybe three, maybe all of them. But it's like, you've got to have, I mean, because in athletics and in the military, teamwork is so critical. You can't do it by yourself. You don't have one man missions, typically. So the only type of people that have one man missions are usually up to no good and they're typically suicide missions. So when you've got teamwork, you've got to have all those things. I think...

Jon Macaskill (21:

09.829) Yeah. 19.685) Yeah. 24.528) Right. 30.468) Right.

PRO MINDSET (21:

36.461) That's where the crossover between the military and the sports are very, similar.

Jon Macaskill (21:

42.286) Agreed. Yeah, as a matter of fact, that's my I was telling you before we hit record, my nine year old girl is playing lacrosse. And she had never played before she started this year. And the first few practices she was like, I don't want to go I don't want to go I'm not good. I'm not good. I'm like, well, first off, how do you get good? You got to practice. And how do you practice lacrosse? You don't practice lacrosse by yourself, right? You got to practice with your team. So you got to go, you got to go. And toward the end of the season, she ended up absolutely loving it. Now she's actually asking us to go throw the lacrosse ball for her regularly. but I sat down with her the other day and she's like, you know, what, why are, why are sports good for you? I said, well, aside from the competing, the fun, the health that you get, the health and fitness that you get from it. I, if I look back on my younger days, I feel that I learned just as much, if not more about leadership, about grit, about pro mindset through athletics, as I did from any book or school class. Now I'm certainly not talking down about class or education books and learning that way because I think that's critical too. We always, like I just said, we have to be learning. But yeah, the growth that I experienced through athletics was what I think defined my mindset for the rest of my life.

PRO MINDSET (23:

24.985) What sports did you participate in?

Jon Macaskill (23:

27.738) Yeah. So I initially started, so I moved to the States from South Africa when I was seven years old and in South Africa at the time, cricket and soccer were my sports moved over to Louisiana and baseball was the thing. And I never, I didn't know what baseball was even. And my parents signed me up for baseball and I did okay at it, as a, as a seven and eight year old, but then later, I grew pretty tall. I'm six foot. Now I'm six foot two. I was six foot three. I played basketball for a while. Then I realized that my sport was running track and cross country and I was pretty good swimmer too, but I never did that athletic or competitively. But yeah. track and cross country were my first love and also my, my first real hate. My coach put us through some incredibly grueling workouts that made me question whether I wanted to be there or not. Yeah. I learned a lot about pushing myself as an individual, but then also being a part of a team, being able to push others, being able to be vulnerable and be lifted up by others when I needed to. So. Yeah, Dragon Cross Country taught me so much. I still stay in touch with my coach to this day and I still call him coach. Texted him yesterday. I called him coach.

PRO MINDSET (24:

53.433) Okay, so you said that parenting was a challenge and it is. I'm on the other side of the coin. My kids are long gone and having their own families and all those types of things. I'm gonna give you a suggestion for your daughter.

Jon Macaskill (24:

58.214) yeah.

Jon Macaskill (25:

10.456) Okay.

PRO MINDSET (25:

13.163) If you recognize that she went through the mental challenge of participating in a sport that she knew she wasn't competent at, knew she wasn't good at, and you endeared her to be patient, and then she ends up loving the sport, that is going to repeat itself every time she starts a new sport. And the older she gets before she starts a new sport, the fear

Jon Macaskill (25:

23.268) Mm-hmm. 35.834) Right.

PRO MINDSET (25:

42.879) of being good enough is going to be greater. If she waits until her freshman year in high school to start something, she's going to be, I shouldn't do it. So I think, I guess the parent moment, the teachable moment is to kind of review with her that progression of how this is what she used to think. How does she think now? And how's that going to be great for her moving forward and whatever she does? It doesn't even have to be sports.

Jon Macaskill (25:

45.222) Sure, sure.

Jon Macaskill (26:

03.93) Right. 11.66) Yeah. exactly. Exactly. That's, that's where the, that those lessons in sports transfer to life time and time again, for sure. But yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll make sure to draw that point home.

PRO MINDSET (26:

23.725) Yeah, because I think we all started ground zero at some point.

Jon Macaskill (26:

26.63) Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I didn't ski here. I'm living in Colorado as a, as a 48 year old, but I didn't ski until I was like, I don't know, 32, 33, because I was scared of looking stupid. And now it's one of my favorite things to do, but I didn't want to, I don't want to be bad at something. Yeah.

PRO MINDSET (26:

45.239) Yeah, I was... Nobody does. We're, yeah, that's where I don't know what it is. Protection, ego, whatever. But yeah, we'd almost rather not start than start and be and look bad.

Jon Macaskill (26:

59.174) Right. Right. mean, and what is that, what does that ego or fear of failure, fear of not looking good kept us from aside from sports? Maybe it's kept us from writing that book or starting that business or maybe even, you know, letting somebody that you're attracted to know, like my wife, the only reason that I told her that, uh, that I had feelings for her was I had this, uh, uh, picture of. a lion that said fortune favors the bold. It was on my desk. And I had this huge crush on her. And I was like, well, if fortune favors the bold, better be bold here. And I told her, and now here we are almost 13 years later, and we have three kids. And if I hadn't taken that step, if I hadn't been bold, which, you know, I'm not always bold, but if I hadn't been in that moment, I wouldn't be here.

PRO MINDSET (27:

54.029) No doubt. No doubt. Okay, let's go to your book.

Jon Macaskill (27:

57.38) Yeah.

PRO MINDSET (27:

59.119) That was, I love dial. That's great. Share one other nugget from your book, whether it's a story with a lesson that can be extremely valuable to our listeners.

Jon Macaskill (28:

11.524) Yeah. 15.096) So there's, there's a section of the book. So each of those four attributes I tell a story about, and they're not all my stories to tell. They're there. I tell stories about some runners that tell stories about, shoot, I'm forgetting her name right now, but the, lady who found the water situation in Flint, Michigan. but the, one that I tell at the end, it ties all four attributes together. D-I-A-L, discipline, integrity, authenticity, and learning always. And it is about the, in Thailand, the soccer team that got caught in the caves. I don't know if you remember that, but there was...

PRO MINDSET (29:

03.714) I do remember that.

Jon Macaskill (29:

04.774) Yeah, so I think it's 12 boys and a coach and they went down into this cave that while they were there, it got flooded and they weren't able to get them out. And they sent divers in and the divers couldn't even make it to them for the first while. And then they put it out on social media. They tried to keep it quiet for a while, but then they ended up putting it on the news and on social media and these... civilian cave divers saw the news and they thought, you know what, we can help with this. They showed up and there were the Thai Navy SEALs that were there. There was the government. There was a lot of power struggles as far as who was in charge. And these guys show up as civilians and people were like, what are you guys doing here? You have no authority here. What are you going to do for us? the the dial kind of framework fell into place there was eventually there was some discipline in being able to be like okay why are we all here it's not so that we can pull rank what are we here for we're here to save those boys and their coach in that cave okay well what do need to do well maybe we need to check our ego that comes back to the authenticity piece right the, the learning always these guys who were civilian cave divers, and then there were Thai Navy seals, two of whom unfortunately died in the rescue efforts. one, one died and then one died, later from exposure, but, the, these Thai Navy seals. They had big egos, their leadership had big egos, but eventually they had to take some step back and say, you know what, this is actually not something that we train to do. We train to go fight. We train to dive in open water, not in caves. These guys, these civilians, they know let's learn from them. And then the, the integrity piece there, there were some people who were not telling the truth and

Jon Macaskill (31:

15.256) not to be a spoiler, but one of the cave divers was an anesthesiologist and the whole rescue relied on his skills. he had to actually, with the other divers, they dove in, which was hours of diving. They... put the kids out using ketamine, put them out, dove back halfway, the kids woke up, they gave them another shot. And they dove them out there the rest of the way. These kids are out, they're unconscious being escorted through this cave. It's incredible. If you ever shoot, I'm gonna remember, I think it's I think the movie is called 13 lives. I think that's it. But anyhow, the that doctor and diver the anesthesiologist, he told people at the beginning, there's a good chance none of these boys are going to come out alive. But if we don't take this risk, none of them are coming out alive. And that was, integrity being displayed. And that story I tell, man, I'm getting goosebumps just telling it and I wasn't there. But every time I think about that story, it blows my mind, the elements that had to come into play for for all 13 of those guys, the coach and the 12 boys to live. If people had not applied the four leadership attributes of dial, it never would have happened.

PRO MINDSET (33:

00.771) That's awesome. I do remember that now. Not the details.

Jon Macaskill (33:

04.375) man, go go watch that movie, Craig. It man, it'll make the hair on your neck stand up. Promise you

PRO MINDSET (33:

11.819) Okay, so since that's such a great story, I gotta ask you for another one. That's a great story.

Jon Macaskill (33:

16.352) yeah. Yeah. So let's see. So for, me, the, the integrity piece that I mentioned earlier, when I didn't push back hard enough on that, on that mission, I felt as though I had failed miserably and that same mission. Danny Dietz, who has a memorial named after him in Littleton and Danny Dietz Highway. He was he was killed on that mission. It's Operation Red Wings. I escorted him and Michael Murphy, who was eventually posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in that same battle. I escorted them their remains back to the states and When I landed back in the States, I'd been gone for at this time, three and a half months, something like that, not very long. and I could have driven home to see my wife, but I knew that, Patsy Dietz, who is now, Patsy Dietz Shipley, she was, Danny's widow. I had the flag that he had been escorted. from the battlefield, his body bag had been covered in and I was bringing that home to her. So it's not the same as the one that's given to you at the funeral. But it had been on his body when he was recovered. That was my mission. That was my time to make up for my lack of integrity of pushing against that mission. It was my time to put my wants and desires aside and go and do what was right by Danny and what was right by Patsy and bring her this flag and let her talk to somebody who had been over there with Danny. Um, cause everybody else at that time was stateside based and they had come and, you know, express their condolences for, for her loss of Danny, but nobody had been over there with him. And that was, um,

Jon Macaskill (35:

35.45) That was a time that I wanted to do something else. I wanted to go and, you know, hug my wife and spend time with her. And I couldn't, what needed to be done was go and see Patsy and share the stories and share what Danny had said in his last moments before, before going out on that mission and, that taking care of your team, even when the team is no longer around. That's also a piece of integrity and that story is in there.

PRO MINDSET (36:

09.977) Jason, I've got a question for you. I understand dial. I understand the components of dial. I know what it means. I know how it shows up. I know whether I got it or not. Let's say I got it. Let's say I got it all. I got all four. Now we bring in a fact. We bring in circumstances. We bring in a fact pattern. We bring in a dilemma. How does dial come alive so that

Jon Macaskill (36:

25.05) Yeah. 37.542) Mm.

PRO MINDSET (36:

38.445) You in the situation you were in had this gut feeling that for whatever reason it wasn't a good mission to go on. But did you have the tools and the know-how and the process to activate so that you could actually let your integrity come to the surface? Because how many people listening, how many people in life have integrity? but they're overpowered by rank, seniority, whatever it is.

Jon Macaskill (37:

10.639) Right. 16.976) Yeah. it, there are, numerous times when one aspect is going to be challenged more than others. And I, and I write about that as well in that without some level of each for each one of those four dial fails, you may be weaker in some and stronger in some, and there may be times when you're going to develop some more than others. But yeah, you're absolutely right. There's gonna be times when different aspects of dial are challenged and you have to lean on the others. So maybe the integrity is being really, is being really pushed coming back to my example that you were the example that you just brought up with that mission. You're gonna be outranked, right? You're gonna be pushed by people who have way more experience than you. At that point, the authenticity needs to pop up or the discipline needs to pop up. Okay, guys. Yeah, I may not be the senior man. I may not be the the guy who has done the most number of operations. But this is why I'm feeling the way that I am. I have to be authentic with you. have to share what I have seen what I have. my reservations about and then the discipline on top of that. Yes, we have rank in the military for a reason. And I'm certainly not saying to disobey orders, but we also have people at different ranks all throughout the chain for a reason. We don't just have commanders and followers. have commanders and followers all up and down and we expect to learn from them all. So there's the discipline, the integrity. and the learning pieces, right? When or sorry, the discipline, authenticity and learning pieces that are strengthened, or leaned upon when the integrity piece may be struggling. Anyhow, so that there's different stories of when different aspects are going to be weaker or when they're going to be challenged more than others. And you have to lean on the other ones.

PRO MINDSET (39:

36.399) Okay. Well, I'm going to challenge you to write another book. How you turn the dial and how you, how your, how your leadership influences people in situations where you may not be the person with the most, most power rank or seniority or, or authority, all those types of things, because you know, yeah. Okay.

Jon Macaskill (39:

40.474) All right. yeah. That's in there.

Jon Macaskill (40:

00.602) for

PRO MINDSET (40:

06.871) Let's go to your coach, mindful coach, teacher, leadership coach. Coach me for a second. I'm a student.

Jon Macaskill (40:

13.604) Right. Yes. 21.242) Okay. Yeah. Well, I start by giving you an assessment and understanding where you are on several different levels, where you are physically, where you are mentally, where your challenges are, roadblocks that you have, whether that's a mental roadblock or a physical roadblock, as far as, know, some, people are wanting to exercise more. They, a lot of them know that exercise is important to not only their physical wellness and fitness, but also their mental wellness, but then also who they are as leaders. But there's something that's standing in between them and getting their, their, workouts in. So. I'm sure you've read Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The way that you can set yourself up for success in those types of things is removing the obstacles, right? Setting up cues that you're seeing so it reminds you to get your steps in, reminds you to get your push-ups in, reminds you to get X, Y, or Z. Now, I'm talking fitness here, but clearly there's, you can apply this throughout. any aspect of someone's life. But I try to find out what obstacles are there for them and then say, okay, well, what can we do to remove those? So, Craig, for you, I would need to understand where you are and where you want to be in six months. Okay, well, what's keeping you from getting to that position? What's, you know, is it sleep? Is it pushing too hard in one aspect or one area of your life that is limiting you from doing another? Here's an example. So I run my own podcast, right? and it's called men talking mindfulness and we've been doing it for six and a half years and we were doing all the production. it's myself and a cohost. were doing all the post-production ourselves, which I don't know how you do. guys do your own production, correct?

Jon Macaskill (42:

28.112) Yeah, see you're shaking your head left and right. Well, we were doing it for five and a half years ourselves. And then we realized, you know what, we, this is just eating so much of our time. We want to put, we want to put together a course. We want to put together a retreat and all these different things. And we're not able to, because we're spending hours on each episode doing the post-production and you multiply that times 52 episodes a year that adds up. so we ended up hiring somebody. because we realized that that production was an obstacle to our achieving our ultimate goal. It wasn't about the podcast itself. It was about the podcast sharing our message in other forms, but the podcast being a part of that. And I try to use that story with others and say, okay, you know what? What are you doing that's keeping you from doing what you actually want to do? right with I'm sure you've heard the business saying, are you working in the business or are you working on the business? And so many entrepreneurs and CEOs end up working in the business instead of working on the business. So how can they grow? Well, they can't think about that. They can't think about the strategy. They can't think about the tactical level things that need to happen because they're so wrapped up in the day to day grind of the business. Well, the same thing can happen with you as a person. What are you doing? that are you working in yourself or are you working on yourself? That's a big piece of how I coach.

PRO MINDSET (44:

01.485) That's What I heard was you help your clients determine and identify their gap. And metaphorical way, you help them build a bridge between where they're at and where they're trying to get. Eliminate that gap. And sometimes you can eliminate the obstacle, but sometimes you have to build something over the obstacle. Metaphorically, you can go lots of different ways with this.

Jon Macaskill (44:

19.046) 100 percent. 28.09) Right.

PRO MINDSET (44:

30.883) But it's like, you know, and we all have, I would say that the majority of our obstacles are self, we put them on ourselves.

Jon Macaskill (44:

39.924) absolutely. Just like we were talking about the fear before, right? That's, that's one of the biggest obstacles out there. And what are they fearing? Well, it's not quite often, It's not their their fear of of complete failure. It's the fear of imperfection, right? It's not fear of failing completely, because very rarely do we completely fail. But it's the fear of imperfection. And that has, again, kept people from writing their books, inventing their inventions. It's those obstacles that we manufacture. And sometimes they're not even really there.

PRO MINDSET (45:

20.291) Yeah. I don't think anybody knows how to, no one knows how to stop you better than you.

Jon Macaskill (45:

26.178) All right.

PRO MINDSET (45:

28.047) You're the expert at basically self-sabotage You know, we can blame others we can blame situations and circumstances But most of the time the blame should be squarely on Us because we we put the obstacle in front of ourselves You know, so because of fears and doubts and all those things Okay

Jon Macaskill (45:

32.996) Mm-hmm.

PRO MINDSET (45:

54.827) Someone wants to reach out and find John. Where do they find you?

Jon Macaskill (45:

59.77) Yeah, the easiest one is just john McCaskill.com j o n o h McCaskill a c a s k i l l.com and you can find me on LinkedIn as well. That's where I spend a lot of my time. I don't have social media as far as Instagram, Facebook, but my podcast does that's men talking mindfulness. Check that podcast out as well.

PRO MINDSET (46:

20.335) Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being on Pro Mindset today. Thank you for your service. Okay. And have a great day.

Jon Macaskill (46:

23.979) Thanks for having me. I appreciate that. You too, my friend.