From SEAL to CEO: Leadership Lessons with Marty Strong

Navy SEAL to CEO: Marty Strong's Path

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Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I am really excited today because we're joined by an amazing individual—someone who’s going to share a lot of knowledge with you. We’re going to touch on everything from leadership to business.

Let me give you a quick introduction of our special guest, Marty Strong. He’s a retired Navy SEAL, combat veteran, and CEO. His business background just goes all over the place, but we’re going to get into that. He’s a speaker, the author of nine novels, and three business leadership books, which we’ll talk about.

His most recent book, Be Different, is now in pre-sale. We’re going to dive into it, but Marty, thanks for coming on the podcast, man. It’s good to have you.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, George.

Yeah, I know two busy guys like us—it’s tough to coordinate sometimes. I feel like I say that a lot lately. But man, I’ll tell you what, we talked a little bit before, and I’m excited to dig into some of the knowledge you have. I love different perspectives. You’re a Navy officer, a SEAL, a CEO—you’ve worn so many different hats, sometimes at the exact same time.

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Marty Strong's Background and Military Career

Give us just a little bit of the backdrop to your story. I think most people are going to ask right out of the gate: What made you decide to go from military to business? Were you always a business guy? Give us the backdrop for a second.

Sure. So I was born in Nebraska, and I was there until I was about 11 years old. My father started working for the Army—not as a soldier but as an employee—and we ended up spending four years in Japan and two years in Hawaii.

Then I got back to Nebraska and joined the Navy when I was 17. I made my way to the SEAL selection course in Coronado, California. We started with 126 guys, and 13 of us original students graduated. I happened to be one of them.

Most unlikely person you’d think to be a SEAL—I was like 125 pounds when I started and 128 when I graduated. I spent 10 years as an enlisted SEAL. I got my undergraduate degree in business administration and was then selected for Officer Candidate School. I spent the second 10 years as an officer and earned my MBA.

I retired after 20 years with 80 percent disability from various injuries, one of them being a parachute accident.

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Transition from Military to Business

After retiring, I went to work for United Bank of Switzerland as a portfolio manager. I did that for eight years until 9/11 happened. After that, I decided to sell my practice and work off and on for the government and different contracting companies—mostly in anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism roles.

Eventually, I got picked up by a government contracting company and became the CEO of that company. In 2016, I bought a healthcare company. That was a pure entrepreneurial move—not even early-stage, essentially a startup. It had one employee when I bought it.

Now, that company is thriving and much larger. I’m currently the CEO of that company.

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Leadership and Cross-Training in Business

So, like me, you’ve had several careers—several different phases and seasons of your life. Do you feel like they led to each other, or were they total pivots for you? Leadership, especially in the SEALs and military, obviously extends into business. But you went from military to banking to business. Did you always have a sense of entrepreneurialism, or did you pivot into business out of necessity?

Two answers. First, I’ve always been a lifelong learner. I love Louis Pasteur’s quote, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

When I was an enlisted SEAL, I wanted to learn how to be the best SEAL I could possibly be. I read everything I could about military history and tactics. I’d talk to anyone who had been in combat situations—I was a sponge.

As I evolved as a SEAL, I got into mission planning, which is mostly creativity. I write about this in my third book. It’s very innovative. SEALs don’t do set-piece battles like you see in movies. We get the “Mission Impossible” package—little information or wrong information—and we have to guess and plan creatively.

That process is very similar to startups in business. You’re constantly evaluating your environment, your team, your product, and your services. Then six months later, you might be in a completely different role. It’s constant learning.

Managing money as a portfolio manager was also a natural transition. I was analyzing stocks, which are representations of companies. I understood the importance of leadership, long-term planning, short-range optimization, and organizational structure.

I got to read a lot of analytical reports and see how analysts evaluate companies—their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. That matched up with the skills I learned in the SEALs: mission planning, leadership, and adaptability.

Dealing with 1,600 clients also taught me a lot about human nature and how people react to stress—especially around money. That prepared me for leading business organizations.

Yeah, it sounds like a natural evolution. Most people, even if they don’t know the specifics, recognize that military operations—especially SEAL teams—require adaptability, strategy, and execution. Did you have specific strategies or frameworks from the SEALs that you applied to business? Or was it more about personal development and leadership?

Two things: one at an operational level and one at a tactical level.

At the tactical level, SEAL teams are very small units, so everyone gets cross-trained. You start as an apprentice and eventually master areas like parachuting, engineering, or boats. Over time, you gain expertise in multiple categories.

By the time you’re a senior SEAL, you’ve mastered several areas and can train the next generation. That cross-training creates redundancy and bench strength, which is critical.

In business, I was shocked to see people thrown into roles with no training or cross-functional experience. They were expected to execute perfectly despite having no exposure to other areas.

So, in every organization I’ve led, I’ve implemented cross-training models. It creates empathy, understanding, and resilience.

That’s fascinating. It sounds like you’re not advocating for generalists over specialists but rather creating specialists with broad perspectives. Cross-training provides context and understanding, even if you’re deeply skilled in one area.

Exactly. Leaders don’t need to master every skill, but they need enough competency to understand what’s happening and make informed decisions.

 Scenario-Based Learning and Handling Stress

Leaders don’t need to master everything but need enough understanding to make strategic decisions. I think it’s critical, especially for business owners and CEOs, to have a broad understanding while focusing on their core strengths. Let’s dive into that tactical and operational crossover you mentioned earlier.

Sure. The strategic crossover comes down to scenario-based learning and superior scenario-based training. This is the classical way the military prepares for events that may or may not happen.

In the military, we constantly work through contingency plans. We create entire mission sets for potential scenarios—reviewing them, revising them based on new information, and then putting them back on the shelf.

Now, when a real crisis hits, we rarely pull the exact plan off the shelf because the situation is always different. But the training and preparation teach everyone to think contingently, to storyboard problems, and to adapt quickly.

For example, you could sit a group of leaders down in a tabletop exercise and say, “Here’s the scenario: our primary supplier just called and said they’re out of raw materials. We have two hours to figure out how to keep production running. Go.”

It’s a made-up crisis, but it forces leaders to think on their feet and work collaboratively. When you do this regularly, the team builds the muscle memory to react calmly and effectively when real crises hit.

I love that. Preparation is such a critical principle in business. It’s amazing how much better you can execute when you’ve rehearsed handling tough situations. It makes me think about stress. SEALs are renowned for handling incredible amounts of stress. How do you manage stress at such a high level, and what advice would you give to business owners and high achievers dealing with constant stress?

Stress is often tied to fear of the unknown. In the military, we practice failure constantly. This builds psychological resilience.

For example, casualty drills are a regular part of training. If you’re on a ship, flying planes, or driving a tank, there’s a constant process of simulating things going wrong. Someone might say, “The officer just got hit. What are you going to do, Sergeant? The Sergeant’s down—what now, Corporal?”

This kind of training makes failure part of the reality. So when things fall apart in real life, you don’t freeze or panic. You click into action, working the problem and finding solutions.

I really like how you phrased that—“practice failure.” That’s not something most people intentionally do. Is there a specific reason you used that term instead of something like “practice execution” or “practice success”?

Yes, I used it intentionally. Practicing failure inoculates you against the fear of the unknown. It’s not about yearning for failure—it’s about building resilience so you can handle failure when it happens.

In the SEALs, everyone is trained in trauma care, even if they’re not a medic. We train for emergency tracheotomies, stopping hemorrhages, and more. In a crisis, everyone knows exactly what to do.

When someone gets hit, you don’t have to wait for the medic. Everyone around the injured person reacts immediately because they’ve practiced these scenarios so many times.

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Opportunities in Crisis and Chaos

That’s such a powerful concept—building confidence through preparation. It’s clear that practicing failure removes the fear that often paralyzes people in high-stakes situations. Business leaders could benefit greatly from this approach, especially given how unpredictable the world has been over the last few years. Let’s shift gears a bit. What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed between military leadership and business leadership?

There are two major differences.

First, in the military, you’re surrounded by volunteers who are willing to sacrifice for a mission and for each other. There’s a deep, emotional bond and commitment to the team.

In the commercial world, it’s nearly impossible to instill that same level of dedication. Most people are self-motivated rather than team-motivated. For example, in my first corporate job, I was stunned to see everyone leave at 4:30, even if a project was incomplete. That would never happen in the military.

Second, businesses often lack cross-functional understanding and collaboration. In the military, cross-training fosters empathy and teamwork. Everyone understands how their actions affect the larger mission.

In business, people tend to work in silos, focusing only on their specific role. To address this, I’ve always encouraged cross-functional teams to work together on projects. It builds understanding and ensures everyone is aligned toward the same goals.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. Cross-functional collaboration not only builds empathy but also creates a more resilient and adaptable organization. I think many business leaders could benefit from adopting that mindset. Speaking of resilience, in your book Be Nimble, you talk about how crisis and chaos can create opportunities to shine. Can you expand on that idea?

Sure. In the military, if everything goes perfectly during a mission, leadership isn’t really required. It’s a testament to the team’s training and preparation.

But when things don’t go as planned, that’s when leadership is truly tested. Those moments of crisis are opportunities for leaders to step up, make decisions with limited information, and demonstrate their ability to adapt.

The same applies in business. If you’ve trained your team well, they’ll be able to handle challenges effectively. But when chaos hits, it’s also an opportunity for individuals to step up, show their capabilities, and grow as leaders.

That’s such a great perspective. True leaders grow and evolve in times of chaos and crisis. It’s not just about surviving the moment but about using it as an opportunity to shine and help others do the same. Let’s talk about your latest book, Be Different. What inspired you to write it, and how does it build on your previous books?

The inspiration for Be Different came from my experience on the board of Best Robotics, an organization that conducts robotics competitions for 6th to 12th graders.

At these competitions, no one tells the kids how to solve the challenges. Each team creates its own unique solution. Watching these kids collaborate, innovate, and adapt made me realize they hadn’t been conditioned to think inside the box.

Adults, on the other hand, often lose their creativity because they’ve been conditioned to follow rules and stay within set boundaries. Be Different is about breaking free from that conditioning and reigniting your creativity.

That’s fascinating. For business owners and CEOs, how can they foster an environment of creativity while maintaining discipline and execution?

It starts with giving your team permission to fail. Create a culture where experimentation is encouraged, and failure is seen as a learning opportunity.

At the same time, be willing to challenge your own assumptions and strategies. Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work in the future. The world is constantly changing, and your business needs to evolve with it.

Fostering Creativity and Innovation

That’s incredible advice. Marty, where can people find your books and connect with you?

They can visit my website, MartyStrongBeNimble.com, which has links to all my books and speaking programs. My books are also available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

If you’re facing operational challenges, start with Be Nimble. If you’re struggling to convert a vision into strategy, read Be Visionary. And if you want to reignite your creativity, Be Different is the book for you.

That’s fantastic. Marty, thank you so much for being here. I’ve learned a ton, and I’m sure our listeners have too. I look forward to having you back for more conversations in the future.

Thanks, George.

Remember, everyone: It’s never too late to start creating the life you’re meant to live. Take action today, and don’t forget to share this episode with someone who could benefit from it. This has been the Daily Mastermind. Have a great day.