John A. Dailey
John is a former SOF Marine turned high-performance coach & writer. He helps others Plan, Attack, & Win to achieve their biggest goals using the same techniques that brought him success on the battlefield. His weekly newsletter, Walking Point, focuses on getting better at getting better.
Always Flexible
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share In case you haven’t spent any time around Marines, our motto is Semper Fidelis which means Always Faithful. Once you have been in the Marines for about five minutes, you hear the slightly derogatory version of the motto, Semper Gumby (Always Flexible). This is because things often (especially when you are a young Marine) go wrong. You are told to be at the armory to draw weapons at...
Units of Measure
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share Einstein once described the relative nature of time by saying, "If a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute, but if he sits on a hot stove for a minute, it seems like an hour." A similar notion favored by the instructors at Military Freefall parachute school was, "If you have a problem in the air, don't worry, you have the rest of your life to figure it out."...
Start Upstream
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share I touched on this topic at the end of last week's newsletter, but thought it deserved its own story. As a young Recon Marine, I spent a considerable amount of time training in communications. It didn’t matter how sneaky you were or how close you could get to a target or how much information you could gather if you couldn’t transmit the info back to the people who needed it for...
Be Effective or Be Efficient
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share I was recently watching the Netflix documentary American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden about (you guessed it) the manhunt for UBL. It reminded me of something that I have long known. Our military and intelligence apparatus are incredibly effective, but not terribly efficient. The two terms aren’t always mutually exclusive, but they often are. We gain effectiveness at the expense of...
The Jack of All Trades
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share The Jack of All Trades The Recon 'Jack' Most of my career in the Marine Corps was spent in Force Recon. As Recon Marines, we were expected to take on any mission and accomplish it. As a result, we were trained in a wide range of skills that could be applied to solve a particular problem. We were expected to be able to infiltrate via submarine and small boat and then dive undetected...
The Pre-Mortem
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share When a patient dies, the doctors involved conduct a post-mortem. They gather together and review the actions taken, procedures used, and medicine given, then work to determine: Why the patient died What caused it and How it can be prevented in the future. In the military, we follow a similar process called an after-action review (AAR) after every mission. We define it as a simple...
The #1 thing that the most successful people know.
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. The title is, of course, a paraphrased quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland: Last week, I shared seven habits of highly successful people. These come from over 35 years on active duty and as a civilian training special operations guys and gals. Even among the highest performers on the planet, some excel...
7 reasons why high performers are high performers.
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share Why do some people consistently perform at a high level? Last week, I was asked to speak to a group of Marines who had just completed a challenging training exercise. After the Q&A, one of the Marines asked a question. “You work with a lot of very high performers. What is the one thing they all have in common?” That is a great question. If we can identify a common thread that high...
How you fill your ruck is important
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share How you fill your ruck is important. The Multi-Mission Parachute System can carry a total weight of 425 lbs. of Marine and equipment. The parachute doesn’t care how you make up the total weight of 425 lbs. A 225 lbs. Marine can carry 200 lbs. of equipment. A 125 lb. Marine can carry 300. You just can’t exceed the limit. This is like time. Each day we have a limit of 24 hours. Time is...
Life is War. Don't be a pacifist.
If you were forwarded this Walking Point email, you can sign up here and never miss it again. Sign up or share Life is War You may disagree with that. You may not like to think of your life as a war, but it is. The most commonly used definition of war comes from the military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who said, “War is a clash of opposing wills.” Tell me of a day when you haven’t experienced the clash of opposing wills. Your boss wants you to do something you think is unnecessary or in a...
John is a former SOF Marine turned high-performance coach & writer. He helps others Plan, Attack, & Win to achieve their biggest goals using the same techniques that brought him success on the battlefield. His weekly newsletter, Walking Point, focuses on getting better at getting better.