Unbreakable Mindset
Navy veteran Thom Shea honed his mindset and internal dialogue over a long and storied career in the teams. Thom shares some of this thoughts on the impact of having a strong and powerful woman by a mans side. Thom's wife Stacey is what he calls a "Spartan Wife" and throughout his book "Unbreakable" its clear how much of an impact she had on his mindset in the midst of adversity in the field. You don't want to miss this gem of an episode on mindset, leadership, relationships and more!
Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:
https://www.unbreakableleadership.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/unbreakableleadership
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unbreakable-with-thom-shea/id1198039216
Battle Buddy Podcast Links:
Transcript from Episode 65 with Thom Shea:
Keith McKeever 0:01
Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever.
Keith McKeever 0:07
Welcome back to another episode of the battle money podcast, I got a great guest for you today. This guy wrote an extremely powerful book called unbreakable. So without further ado, we've got Tom Shea Welcome to the show.
Thom Shea 0:18
Hey, thanks, Keith, for letting me come on. Appreciate it.
Keith McKeever 0:21
I appreciate it. It's like I just told you a few minutes ago, your book is is incredible. I listened to it all, you know, listening to it's a little easier than sitting down and reading it, because you can multitask in a car. But it's awesome. I'm glad you have an audio version. By the way. I've had a few people like, Oh, I've got this book. And I'm like, please tell me there's an audio version. You know, because that's, yeah, prefer that I
Thom Shea 0:43
actually don't have I don't think I've even read my book cuz I listened as well. So once it came to audio, I actually listened to my book the first time.
Keith McKeever 0:51
I must be really weird experience.
Thom Shea 0:54
Yeah, the guy got it spot on. He's a voiceover guy from Atlanta. And he, he read it rather well.
Keith McKeever 1:03
Ya know, it's it. You can definitely, it's smooth. It's great. I've listened to a few over the years that have not exactly recorded the greatest. But you have that. So you are not only this book, but you've got your company unbreakable leadership. Scroll down at the bottom, I'll have in the show notes. You've got a podcast as well, you got another book. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well,
Thom Shea 1:30
let's see. Well, now my family. We live in Greenville, South Carolina, and we moved here or I retired about 10 years ago. And I had been in the SEAL teams for 23 years and had spent tons of time in combat and, and my wife Stacy had asked me to write down in 2009, which was about my 19th year, I guess what, what she wanted me to pass on to the kids in case I died in combat, and ended up writing the book called unbreakable out of that the decision that she made for me that I rather she not made. Because writing is the one of the hardest things you'll ever do ever, especially when it's about you because it feels self aggrandizing. And you feel terrible telling all your stories to people. But I think it's a, I look at it as a way to pass on what fathers are soldiers and sailors or seals can pass on to their kids. And it was well received.
Keith McKeever 2:36
Yeah, I think it's really interesting. That's what hit me. Like, first I was like, Okay, this is a different format. It's not just, I mean, it's chronological throughout your deployment, but it ties in all these lessons. And then, you know, things you're learning along the way. And I just found that just to be really interesting. But some of the some of the things you kind of talk about in there, the biggest one to me, was internal dialogue. So I think I think just about every chapter kind of hits on your internal dialogue and your thought process and planning for missions going on missions, when shit gets tough on the missions. And you definitely had a few of those moments in there. But I'm real curious about one thing. Have you ever met anybody who doesn't have an internal dialogue? No, that's do the don't. But I don't know,
Thom Shea 3:26
gosh, think about you know, if you're going to write a book, any kind and you discuss that you're trying to write a real estate book. It's fun to write something about, into somebody's world that everybody deals with. And one of the lessons I wanted the kids to learn, because I knew they would have, you know, what I call internal dialogue as to what you say to yourself either externally or internally, if you understand that, so the thought process, some people call it mindset. But man, what you're saying to yourself, is entirely in your control. And everybody's saying something to themselves, you know what I mean? Everybody is saying this dealing with internally, thoughts, dealing with emotions, all that stuff. So what I decided to try to write down something that would be a value to my kids, I knew they would be dealing with things internally. And I really think the cornerstone of success is each individual's ability to kind of master how they deal with things internally. Like what they say about things. Because once you say you're done, you're done. That's the truth about life. And you learn that in SEAL training as we've tried to get people who quit SEAL training to come back. They can't do it. Because internally they've already shut down. Like imagine even in a marriage or even in real estate. If you don't think you're going to sell you're not going to sell if you don't think the properties worth it, it's not. And you can't sell something that you don't either believe in or you said is has some kind of metric or value to it. And that became the cornerstone of, of what I call the business of being successful is, that's an internal process, and you can master it, but you gotta pay attention to it. I couldn't
Keith McKeever 5:21
agree more. I know personally, you know, sometimes if you get stuck in it, negative rut, you know, other things in your life that you're not thinking of all seem to suffer, you know, if you start going down that bad path, but you know, when things are going great, and you're in a great mindset, and you're just rolling along, things, things go good. And there's definitely something to that, but,
Thom Shea 5:41
and it can turn on a dime, like you could be having a good moment and then get down on yourself. And the next step is a bad step. So that come to find out what you're dealing with internally has a big impact on the external world.
Keith McKeever 5:55
Absolutely. I'm sure you had to deal with that a lot, too, with the, you know, leading guys in combat. Constantly, right? This guy over here, he's, you know, you slip in, like you can you can see the signs, you know, like, snap out of it jump back in here. You know, you need to be part of the team. Did you guys well, you guys ever have conversations about that?
Thom Shea 6:16
Oh, constantly. Also, you got to
Keith McKeever 6:27
froze up there, Tom. We'll see if you come back here. There we go. Sorry. Yep. It's all good.
Thom Shea 6:31
So a guy named Draper Kaufman. In World War Two right before World War Two wrote the curriculum for SEAL training. And in the writing of it, he wanted people to kind of get over how they process things internally. So how he wrote it into, I guess existence is I want people to be exposed to quitting, because quitting happens inside, it doesn't happen outside. And so he put together the hell week curriculum, so that the, the men at the time and now have to under overcome their internal, what I call internal dialogue. So then go back to hell week, and in Hell Week, you get exposed to your demons, like not wanting to do something, somebody threatened to kill you, you feel like you're going to die, are you going to listen to that nonsense, and quit. Because the only way out of SEAL training is you die or you quit. That's the deal. Either you quit and go on do something else, or you die, or you make it through so that maybe there's three options. And people do die in training. People die in combat, they die in life. People quit all the time. It's the most, it's the most prevalent skill set than anybody has. And in quitting is a skill. It's a skill set. People articulate, and people get really strong at quitting. Or you can learn how not to get strong at quitting. And the only way to deal with not quitting is stop listening to your bullshit inside. That's she's never the right woman. Or if she pisses me off, she's not the right wife. Your body never feels like it's the right body. You look in the mirror, it's either cool one day, and on Tuesday, it's not cool. So that internal thing that's going on inside everybody, you either stop listening to it, and like how Draper put it is, you guys made a promise to be here. And we're gonna give you 1000 reasons to quit. So here's the deal. Here we go. And the 1000 reasons to quit happen inside your head. They don't happen externally. And that being the truth about life and everybody can gain a lot of value from understanding that the noise that is inside of your head isn't real and don't pay attention to it anymore. It's never helpful like there's never really a positive internal dialogue it's just don't pay attention to it. Pay attention to what you promised to do. You don't I mean Yeah, good point. Like if you're gonna sell a house a month whatever your promises to yourself or your family or whatever, go do that or you'll succumb to your internal dialogue the markets bad oh my god the interest rates up and that's your internal dialogue trying to convince yourself not to do it. And there's a great advantage that every man that makes it through hell week gets because he learns not to quit and not quitting is I'm not gonna pay attention to what's going on in my head anymore.
Keith McKeever 9:41
Yeah, you know, you kind of look for those opportunities are like I know. We'll point in your book. You very beginning your endurance story, your endurance race, you know, where you're just like, look next century's top of that hill, you know around that corner, you know, just kind of setting that benchmark like it's achievable. It's attainable. It's right there. You're not going down that path of thinking that, then I'm done. So, yep. See
Thom Shea 10:12
what I got. I liked adventure racing because your brain can't figure it out. Hey, it's like, hey, Keith, let's go run, let's go do a multi sport race. For 350 miles, your brain goes. You mean not an hour workout? No, we're gonna be moving for about 10 days. And we asleep when we feel like it? What do you mean up and your brain can't figure it out? And so that became an endearing thing for me to do to start unraveling how I looked at things, how do you deal with the impossible things that you have to do? And like you said, go to the next tree. Okay, I'm done. All right, well, let's sit down here for a while until we can go to the next tree. And that method of being successful is is very great. As long as you don't quit, the options are still that you will make it not that not everybody's going to be successful. But if you quit a guarantee, it's not going to work. But if you keep staying in the game, by not listening to the bullshit in your head, there's an option that it's going to work.
Keith McKeever 11:23
Good boy. Yeah. That was that was, that was one heck of a story. I know, as I was listening to listen to it, I was like, wow, that many miles 10 days, it was crazy. The rowing, the biking, the the almost slipping off a cliff that the time he rolled in on bikes and all your crew was like, all your tires are all jacked up.
Thom Shea 11:45
We were done. We were completely fried, and had somebody given me an out, I would have taken it. I'm like, Yeah, I'm done. I don't talk to me, let me go lay down, don't say anything. And I wouldn't lay down. And then when I woke up, my brain had kind of solved a let's just keep going, we'll quit later,
Keith McKeever 12:05
then you got lucky with the food and water. I know, you didn't get enough to continue that journey. But to help you on the guy, the team did quit and you know, had a
Thom Shea 12:13
van come by in the middle of the Nowhere, we would have gotten into that van, I guarantee you. But you know,
Keith McKeever 12:20
it's just luck, right?
Thom Shea 12:23
If you're with great people, it also helps solve a lot of problems that you won't be able to solve by yourself. Had I been by myself, I would have turned around. Because it doesn't make sense to continue hard things when you're by yourself. And then the object not the obligation, but the commitment to each other makes a big deal. And especially internally, like man, I This is stupid. But hey, she's still in a good spot, or he's still in a good spot. Let's let's keep going. And either support them or they support you. And it makes the internal process a lot easier.
Keith McKeever 12:57
If in your case, they were all team members, right? Yeah,
Thom Shea 13:01
that was the only race I did with all seals. And the race committee guy said, it usually has to be a, you know, female male team. And we convinced him because we're stupid seals, hey, can we just do it together? And he said yes. But we got kicked out at the end anyway. So they Yeah,
Keith McKeever 13:20
you know, you went really far. And you push through more than you know how many I think was what do you say? And there was like 50 Some teams originally.
Thom Shea 13:31
I think there were 58 on that one. And
Keith McKeever 13:35
then in your fight with the French all the way to the internet.
Thom Shea 13:38
I still fight with the French still goes Oh,
Keith McKeever 13:43
man. Yes. It's an incredible story. I you know what, that could be almost a short story just in and of itself, right there at the beginning of the book, because I was just, I told my wife a few times, I'm like, You're gonna have to listen to this. I said, there's only a few people on this earth that could push themselves to go even half that distance, you know, and go through the things that you guys went through. So
Thom Shea 14:04
well, I thought what I found is funny is that everybody can like internally when you start solving the internal problem. I guarantee you in a year you and I could go do that. If we get physically and mentally ready over a year, and we start doing things together and internally, you'll start saying well, I you know, I can go a mile because all you have to do is process the next mile. Don't process 600 miles, I can go a mile I can go mile on go mile. And as you're training and working up to that the training is not just physical. It's like what you just said at the beginning of it. You're like, Oh, dude, I can't do this. Well, let's learn how to ride bikes. And then you start encouraging yourself out dude, I can ride a bike. And if it's a hard place, you just get off the bike like if your skills aren't good enough. And okay, we can endure the cold so you go do cold things together. I can do that. And so as you start encouraging the internal dialogue, the possible becomes clear. Like anybody can do it. It's just nobody really wants to do hard things. Internally, they don't want to externally. Yeah.
Keith McKeever 15:18
Yeah, some people don't want to do hard things. But a race that big yet, I don't know if hard, accurately describes that. That'd be hard.
Thom Shea 15:27
I tell you what, it's harder to run a marathon. Is it realistically, physically, like on your body, it's so much harder to run a marathon because it's so intense, there's no stopping. And you just get pain level is probably much higher on a marathon, because I've read and ran several them. The it's just a slow drip. It's like the death of 1000 cuts, which is the ultra, ultra racing, you don't know it's painful. And then all of a sudden, you can't move. You're like, Oh, my God, what just happened? But it's a different phenomenon.
Keith McKeever 15:58
Because at different points, you're engaging different muscles, you're doing different activities, you got rest, you got food, you know, some points and stuff like that. So yeah, it's possible if you keep everything in the right mindset. I would agree with that. I agree. So because you kind of wrote this for your kids. Another thing I was curious about? I knew they were a little younger, when you wrote it's been a few years. Have they? Have they read this or listened to it since? Yes. What their thoughts and opinions were of it?
Thom Shea 16:26
Yeah, my daughter, my oldest is a girl. And so my daughter autumn is now an Apache pilot, stationed in Korea. And she had a hard time reading it because she was kind of older when it happened. So every time she would read it, she would start crying. And remember, all the times I was gone and and my middle boy, read it, like four or five times, and he's now going to Clemson. My youngest son chance is he can read it, because he doesn't recall it. It's just another book on the shelf. And he reads it this man, I didn't know you did all that stuff that I'm like, because he was three, you know? So?
Keith McKeever 17:12
Yeah, I was just say, I don't think it really said in the book. But I picked up that he was really young. Yeah, he was on point. Yeah.
Thom Shea 17:19
That was the heat. When he was born, I went to Iraq. So it was probably three months after he was born. I'd gone on a deployment. And then I think he was two and a half or three when I went on the Afghanistan deployment. He doesn't recall it. I don't remember anything at three either, you know.
Keith McKeever 17:39
Thank goodness, right. Like, I don't think I'd want to remember all the way back that
Thom Shea 17:43
I can't recall four days ago. So I say
Keith McKeever 17:46
that all its I always tell people that I don't remember what happened yesterday. So absolutely. You know, if it wasn't in my calendar, I don't have some way to reference it. It's not on the list. So now, the thing I was really curious about is the concept of Spartan woman and your wife, Stacy. Because I thought that was really fascinating. Especially what she kept saying to you, but don't don't give up. Don't give in. We need you here. You know how that kind of repetitive but I was just kind of curious if you could just explain to the audience anyway, what a Spartan woman is in your relationship with Stacey.
Thom Shea 18:20
Yep. Well, so the the, the original title of the book was called Spartan woman. And the editor and publisher decided that it can't sell, because they said, there's no there's no audience first strong women. I'm like, What the hell there's got to be, because the premise of the book was to teach my kids something of value. And if men don't learn that women have great value than their less, and one of the truths, even in the SEAL teams, is if you don't have a powerful relationship at home, you're not going to be that good of a seal. The reason why there's an 80% divorce rate in the teams is because the shit that goes on at home gets overpowering. So the guys make a choice between having weak women or getting divorced. And it's not a great choice. I don't recommend divorce to anybody. It's probably the man's fault as well. I'm not saying the man strong. There's a lot of variables. But so strong women make strong men, strong men don't make strong women. It's not that not the other way around. A really powerful woman will make a man stronger. Usually a strong man makes a recessive woman because they kind of push the woman down a little bit lower than they are. And so I wanted to bring that point out and as much clarity as I could to my kids, that great women make great men and the end because I had a divorce and during that time of the other relationship I I was definitely lesser. It's also a product of me being a douche wagon at the same time. But Stacy would not let me falter. And she actually wanted me to be a warrior. Like, hey, come home carrying your shield or on it, I don't care, but you're going to war go to war, we would love you home, but you're over there to pay attention to what's going on. And she wanted to hear the story. She wanted to hear the killing stories and the blood and all the guts. And it made it easy to be in a relationship with a woman who wants you to be the person that you are, so to speak. Like, imagine trying to do real estate when your wife doesn't want you to do real estate it makes makes it rough. So that's, that's one of the major points of the book is find a partner who wants you to be the best version of yourself.
Keith McKeever 20:56
Yeah, I think it's really important on the relationship thing to be able to share, back and forth, and I will stand up and say I am definitely not the best at that. But I try. You know, I know with my wife, you know, with my two deployments, I'm an open book, you know, I've share stories with her that I've only shared with, basically my stepdad and my mom, you know, maybe a few with my sister, but you know, real tight, close knit group, you know, and it's like, you have to be able to have those conversations and be pretty, pretty candid and open. And I think a lot of people, a lot of guys don't, they don't steal for years, and it just affects that relationship. And the next one and kids also because
Thom Shea 21:35
the woman doesn't want to hear it. The woman doesn't, if the woman doesn't want to hear it, it's very hard. Like if you didn't want to hear what I was saying, it would be hard for me to speak into it. Not that you're a woman. But if the people around you don't want you to be you, they don't listen. So then you shut down. So it's not just the Warriors issue at hand. But I found that dude, women, I've never seen a successful man that doesn't have a powerful woman. It's a guarantee. If you're successful, if you're a successful businessman, your wife is not horrible. It's a guarantee that at home, you can you can put money in the stock market that that the woman at home wants you to be there doing the best that you can
Keith McKeever 22:26
and to support new wherever she can just like you should be supporting her and her endeavors and you know, lifting each other up and yeah, I guess one of the, one of my my views with the issues that we have in the veteran community, suicide, substance abuse, homelessness, care, one of the one of the major factors, in my opinion is personal relationships, 100. Kids, parents, those kinds of personal relationships. And boy, it's just one of many factors but it sends to rears its head for a lot of people. You know,
Thom Shea 22:59
while you're in your combat unit, everything is on the table. You even crying is not a big deal. Like people cry in combat. I don't care what anybody says. I've cried in combat. I've never seen a seal go through actual work killing people, then you come back from it. You're not stoic, sometimes stoicism is after you've cried 100 times, but you come back and you fall apart. And it's easy to do that in front of your buddies. It's easy while you're in a combat unit to be either real or authentic, or whatever that word is. And that's why while people are on active duty, operating or functioning, there's not a lot of suicides, it's when they get isolated. That the internal dialogue or the demons become real. Nobody understands me nobody gets this I'm never going to be connected again. Are they retired get divorced, you better get that woman or man under wraps because those are two definitely suicidal things. Like when you leave your brothers after 20 years or or you got injured and you're now out of the military. And then you immediately get a divorce. That person needs to be brought under wing very quickly, otherwise they're gonna get unfolded.
Keith McKeever 24:20
Yeah, that's that's another thing I've noticed that besides personal relationships is lack of connection to the military veteran community. And then you know, financial problems physical and mental health you know, and do they have a job in gainful employment something something to do? Those are the five factors in my opinion, hundreds leading to these and the more that are present in somebody, the more likely they're going to end up in one of those.
Thom Shea 24:43
Imagine getting all five of those problems. Now not with my brothers and sisters. I get a divorce. I don't have any money. I don't have a job and I don't have any friends. Okay, that's your it's not going well bro or disaster. It's a recipe Pay for I don't know, if it's suicide. I mean, that's a choice. That's abusive. Yeah, you're like, Dude, I don't know, I don't fit in anymore. And then that internal dialogue that's going on, really wants to manifest itself. Nobody understands me. So I isolate myself. And then in isolation, you get depressed. And the only way out of that is drugs, or whatever stupid shit people do. And it's catastrophic. But it can be unlearned, like you can roll people back into life.
Keith McKeever 25:30
Yeah, I would say for anybody who would be listening at any point in the future or watching, just start by going to some sort of veteran organization, I'm not saying you gotta go back to wearing your BT, you know, BT you tops, and, you know, whatever hat but just be part of a veteran culture, I don't miss the VFW, the Legion IAVA are just a group of guys that meet for lunch on a Monday, whatever it takes just be a part of, you know, you start sharing stories and sharing experiences, and you realize that, you know, this guy over here cares, you know, that now you have a little connection, you know, maybe the second guy and the third guy, you know, you can build that back up,
Thom Shea 26:10
whether you're even moving that along to the why seals are so lethal, is it because we understand that so it's not lack of depression, it's the ability to be real with each other. That makes cuz we've gone through all the same experiences, everybody has to go through hell week, even the officers, you fail all the time. So all my failures, you can talk about, because everybody else failed, like the SEAL teams don't let you win. So it makes you communicate with each other, it makes you be real with each other, you have that you have a lot of down or bad times with each other. So that makes you a very cohesive unit. It's not winning, that makes you cohesive, it's bad things that make you cohesive.
Keith McKeever 27:04
No, you learn a lot from failure. Yeah. And you
Thom Shea 27:06
learn about you, you learn about them, you learn about your skill. And and I wish businesses did that businesses who want to win, and not fail. And that's why it's hard to stay in a business because you're if you make a mistake, you have to go away in the SEAL teams. It's Monday for mistakes, we're going to make a mistake today. And then we're going to get better at that mistake on Tuesday, then make a mistake on Wednesday. And that way of living is is a great way of living.
Keith McKeever 27:37
Yeah, no, I get. I've seen some businesses, small businesses that like launch and have a ton of success. Everything's going smooth. And then the floor drops out. Yeah, they didn't have any failures. They didn't have any bumps in the road, nothing to learn from nothing to adapt and adjust and fix and look at differently. And it's, it's kind of concerning. I've seen it a few times.
Thom Shea 27:59
It's the same in the SEAL teams. It's it's easy to be a seal on a sunny day. But it ain't sunny anymore. Yeah, it's gonna be fun today, the sun's out, it's warm, and then it's catastrophic, five minutes into it so that I wish people would embrace that. Difficulty is the way forward eases is a terrible life. If you had everything you wanted, you wouldn't do anything
Keith McKeever 28:29
better. It definitely wouldn't have any motivation to you wouldn't motivate you so. So your your, your your business, your unbreakable leadership. It's kind of a coaching, coaching and mentorship thing that I want to understand there. And you kind of teach on some, some to unbreakable tools, like a focused effort, emotional mastery, modeling, failure, Spartan woman disruption and innovation. So we
Thom Shea 28:57
I created a product just by somebody asking me to teach leadership. So the unbreakable got me on the speaking circuit, much to my dismay, and did a bunch of speeches in 2014. And several leaders got together and said, Hey, we would like you to create a curriculum for us to go through so we can learn what you're saying in the book. Because a lot a lot of things in the book aren't like curriculum based. They're just here's my experience of them. And so I put a put together curriculum in 2014. And since then, I've taught 478 leaders. It's a process that takes about 90 days to go through. And the process is learning how to better yourself and five areas. And these are the five areas everybody has in life. Your health matters. No matter where you are on the planet, your body matters. Your ability to continue to learn is the set One area. The third area is your ability to do something that you value and get paid to do it. Like work, work is not supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be interested in at least 70% of the time to get money for
Keith McKeever 30:14
it. Yeah, be compensated appropriately. Yep.
Thom Shea 30:16
And the fourth one is key relationships, an articulate way to find key relationships and maintain them and have them grow. And the fifth one is spiritual. So those five areas I found to be very demonstrative in people's lives. And, and when you get them moving forward, using the curriculum, you get really better at everything. And so the curriculum is we teach a seminar probably every month and a half or two months. And I just got back from one in Omaha. And it's, it works. It sucks to do, but it works.
Keith McKeever 30:57
Well, you know, you're changing people, though. You're giving people tools to better themselves. And, you know, you never know where that message goes. They learn and they master it, they may be able to give a little sprinkle of advice to someone here and there. And, you know, I get that way, like,
Thom Shea 31:17
tons of presidents of companies, married and in better relationships. So sometimes that's a big deal. And we've made people a lot of people a lot of money by making them efficient at their work schedule is awesome. And the healthy human being is a great person to be around. It's got a trickle
Keith McKeever 31:35
down to you know, relationships company keeping the company afloat, you know, all the people that work for him. Absolutely. So what I think one of the interesting things in here is key relationships. I think that's really, it's a big deal. Big deal.
Thom Shea 31:51
I never thought so when I first wrote the curriculum, I didn't think that relationships at home, were actually learnable. So you know, that you're like, hey, you know, I have to have a great relationship at home. But I don't I didn't know if it was actually teachable. And learnable. Do you know what I mean by that it's a kind of a hard conversation to have. So after teaching 12 clients, I realized the biggest change in their outcome at work, and in their health was the drain plug have a bad relationship at home, it was like there was energy draining out. So we started being in conversations about our eyebrow, what's going on at home? And I'm like, Okay, well, let's just see if we can teach how to be a better, you know, partner, and come to find out it can be learned. And it's not even hard to apply. And everybody listening or watching, try to try this at home. A lot of people say, Hey, don't try this at home. So try this at home. To be in a successful relationship, like the core level of doing that is every day that ends in y. So every day, the rest of your life, you can text it, you can email it. The first thing you do with your spouse or your lover, if you're not married, is listen to them. Like be a committed listener every day. Listen first. Like, you got to listen first, because that shows the other person they're more important than you. Second one is don't speak drama to people. Like if Stacy and I are talking I may add drama later, but I listened committed ly to her and she shares no drama. And then I share with her or speak to her with no drama. And she listens. No matter what I'm saying for at least 10 minutes. All I really get was 10 with her and then she's like I'm done. So listen for 10 minutes, speak for 10 minutes. Then every day have intimacy with that person. Not full on.
Keith McKeever 33:57
Just be here in a moment with
Thom Shea 33:58
whatever your love language is. Women have different one this and men and men have weird ones and mine
Keith McKeever 34:05
for all different day trying to get those compatible. Yeah,
Thom Shea 34:09
well, it's not difficult. If she wants me to clean the house. That's what her love language is cool. I'm cleaning the house. And mine is physicality. So she gives me that and I give her whatever she wants that day for a short period of time, not the whole day. And oh my god, it solves an inordinate amount of problems. People don't do that. They spend weeks not listening to their spouse. They don't even know many more they think they know them. And then then they are always Hey, fuck, I don't want to go to work. Oh my god, honey, I This sucks and keeps pissing me off at work. And so you share shit that you're not really committed to but it's just drama. And come to find out. My third client hadn't had sex with his wife and three years dude Come on, bro. Get back. I don't care how old you are, there's gotta be something there. And I'm not saying that that's the only way to do it. But if you're zero in the intimacy area, it's a, it's a drain plug of energy leaving the situation. And when those three simple things are on point, your relationship is moving forward, guaranteed 100% of the time.
Keith McKeever 35:26
That's deep. That is some good nuggets of information
Thom Shea 35:29
that anybody can do that. It's very helpful for anybody can do that. It's not something that I have to go to get a PhD to figure out it's not nuclear fusion reactors. It's I can figure that out.
Keith McKeever 35:40
Yeah, I know, there's, I know, there's a few books on Love Languages, I'm sure there's a ton of websites out there. Because I think there's what five or six or something like that, I want. But you gotta you do need to realize, like, where you are. And what your spouse is, is, I think there's something too, like a secondary, you know, you kind of figure all that out. And then I love your advice of like, it only needs to be 10 or 15 minutes, at a minimum every day. Because I'm a big, I'm a big believer in consistency. Yes, the more consistent you can be anything, the more successful you're going to be.
Thom Shea 36:16
Especially in real estate. If you spend three weeks not trying to sell you can't pick it up on day 22. Yeah, you're absolutely simple, simple, like one movement, one movement. One, if you did 10 Push Ups a day for the rest of your life, you wouldn't worry about health. It's that's what consistency does for human beings. But we spend too much time not being consistent, and then we do sprints. And then we don't do anything for 21 days. And then we do a sprint like, you're you're killing yourself.
Keith McKeever 36:48
Or if you're like me, I've worked out in a while and you do and you're like, oh, that really hurt for a couple of days. You know,
Thom Shea 36:53
funny that when you're in the military, you're working out and complaining. And when you're not in the military, you're like, I don't want to work out but man, I was really healthy in the military. Ah, what the hell, we don't figure that out. Yeah, it's weird.
Keith McKeever 37:03
And then the body, you know, you gotta Yeah, be consistent. And work it out. Take it slow. You know, I read another book a long, long time ago, Darren Hardy called the compound effect. And that's a real drove home for me that consistency of this. It's today, tomorrow, the next day, and it just it slowly build steam, and you may not see it, but eventually you'll wake up five years from now and be like, Wow, gosh, I've been doing it everyday for five years consistent, never missed a day. Look how much I've grown, like how many more people I've met, like where my relationship is now. And that was a really profound, you know, book for me, too, is like us.
Thom Shea 37:43
That was one of the main things and great things about being a seal is every day, you sharpen your knife, like, Man, I don't want to cut I gotta go do tactics today. And you shoot so much that the gun doesn't even exist anymore. And so that consistent approach to everything is you never going to never going to learn how to do anything until you've done it a million times. And it's too bad that people don't lead that and all their endeavors. It's easier to be consistent. It's just kind of it's a grind. Like you never feel like you're improving when you're consistent. You know what I mean? On Wednesday, you don't notice anything different than Monday. But like you said, at the end of the year, you're like, Oh my God, I've gone 7000 miles. Oh, my I didn't recognize it. And yeah,
Keith McKeever 38:38
that it is it's it's truly special. But yes, it's weird. You can't see it in the moment. It's all around 2020 as they say. So it's easy to look back on it and be like, Wow, five years or three years or look where I've come. So yep. And then I also wanted to make sure that before we left here, we also highlighted you do have a podcast as well. A couple of episodes, I can't remember who it was because it was before I started listening to the book. But I felt like everybody should definitely go check it out. I'll have it in the show notes. But tell us a little bit about your podcast.
Thom Shea 39:11
Well, I one of my clients asked me to begin a podcast. And like we were talking offline, when somebody asked you to do something, you're like, Oh my God, please don't give me something more to do. So we started a podcast called unbreakable, which the title of the book and I get to interview great people and sometimes I monologue about topics that I think are relevant to everybody with the intent that some that people listening or watching me do my shenanigans, get some kind of value that they can use in their life.
Keith McKeever 39:48
Absolutely. That's kind of the same philosophy I've had with my show here. Like the topics vary so much, but every one of them I want to educate or inspire veterans to sit up and say, hey, I can do that or I can use and better my life somehow, you know, inch forward, just add that consistency, something like that. So
Thom Shea 40:07
you said something about veterans, if you don't mind me saying something. Every veteran has 200 plus years of experience trained into them. We have things that we learned in our MOS schools, that was from the Revolutionary War, you and me standing at attention. Two years ago, it was revolutionary war. Discipline is a 250 year old process. And it's been passed down from generation to generation, even though when they pass it down to you, it sucks. And that level of education and experience that every veteran has, I wish they would acknowledge that in themselves. There's not somebody who has spent more than two years in the military that is not more capable than somebody with a bachelor's degree. Guaranteed most of the leaders that I say that I interact with, say they get more value from people who have been in the military than somebody with a bachelor's degree, because the people in the military have skill set. And they've articulated that they know how to deal with teamwork, they know how to deal with leadership, at a level that somebody with a, you know, a bachelor's in whatever hasn't ever applied, they've got it booked smart, but they have never applied it. So all the veterans that are out there listening, you are more capable than you possibly could understand.
Keith McKeever 41:42
Absolutely, I mean, we all those skills, patience, discipline, you know, but even to look at things from different angles, you know, you were used to looking at things at a tactical level, you're looking at operational level strategic level, it's, it's easier for us than you know, your counterparts. You know, when it 18, you got out at 22. And all of your buddies that went to high school went to college, you can have four years of hands on experience, all those soft skills, and be able to look at things in each one of those different levels, or at least some to some degree anyway. And all your all your high school classmates that went to college, all they know is what they read in a book. Yep.
Thom Shea 42:25
They have no way to articulate what they learned until they get experience and skills, which takes them another four years.
Keith McKeever 42:35
Absolutely. And it will
Thom Shea 42:41
say that after 23 years, I'm smarter than businessmen that are that have been in for 23 years. But we I think people that actually make it to retirement, understand the human far more than any businessman will ever know. What happens at the human level, the tactical level. And business leaders don't get that aspect. Because once you start being successful in business, you start having tears of people working for you, and you forget what it's like on the ground. And in the military. You're on the ground all the time. Even if you're in the Air Force, you're still dealing with the private trying to turn wrenches, so to speak. And leaders get too far removed from center that they forget the human equation.
Keith McKeever 43:29
Absolutely, absolutely. Oh, Todd White. Man, you've given me a lot of nuggets in this one. So I appreciate it. There's a lot of value in here for people I appreciate you being being on the show. And I highly encourage everybody who's listening or watching go ahead of the year to your show if your website, both books and the in your podcast in the show notes. So people can find it there nice and easy. Try and make it make it a shortcut for everybody. So I once again, I appreciate you being on here and sharing with us. Hey, Keith, I
Thom Shea 43:58
appreciate you and keep doing it man. Good job
Keith McKeever 44:07
All right, there we go folks. Hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you check out the show notes for all Tom's links. My podcasts website is battle buddy podcast.net. Go there check out information. If you're struggling, please call 988 press one or you can text 838255
