David Waranch (00:23):
Hello everyone. David Waranch here. This is the authentic dad podcast. Today. I speak to Errol Doebler, a Navy seal turned executive management consultant, coach guru, whatever you want to call him, wrote a book. Really good one about leadership and a book that can be applied to both the boardroom, the business context, and also your life. I love his story. Really enjoyed talking to him. It was kind of a thrill to meet a Navy seal and hear about his experiences and reach out to me furthur.coach F U R T H U r.Coach. I would love to hear your feedback. We can say, Hey, if you want a free 30 minute discovery call, that would be cool. And I’m really trying to inspire and coach fathers on living a deeper, more authentic, present connected existence. Thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoy this conversation.
David Waranch (01:26):
All right, I’m here with Errol Doebler. Did I pronounce your name right? By the way? She did. Awesome. He’s the creator of the process, art and science of leadership. Also the name of your book that just came out and through leader one 93, his leadership consulting firm. He teaches his methodology methodology to business leaders around the world. He developed this methodology through his experience as a United States Naval officer, where he served as a surface warfare officer and Navy seal. And through his years of working with the FBI and arrow is one of the few people in the world who has had the distinction of serving as a surface warfare officer seal and as an FBI special agent and FBI SWAT operator. So thanks so much. That’s such a treat for us.
Errol Doebler (02:12):
Thanks, David. It’s a pleasure to be here. I can’t wait to can’t wait to get started.
David Waranch (02:17):
Yeah, it’s not every day I get to meet a Navy seal,
Errol Doebler (02:20):
So
David Waranch (02:22):
Really excited to talk to you. So, so the first thing I always like to do is tell your story because yours is unlike anyone’s I’ve ever heard.
Errol Doebler
Well, it’s, there’s, there’s a lot to it. So, you know, you know, my story is, you know, we can go a million different directions, but you know, in short I’m a native of long Island, New York. I was born and raised there. I currently live in small town in South Jersey, ocean city, New Jersey with my wife and three kids under eight years old and three dogs. So we have a lot going on. You know, I went to the, I spent eight years active duty in the military, the Navy before I was medically discharged, getting injured on deployment as a Navy seal, spent some time in the private sector, mostly in sales and sales management. And then after nine 11, I got myself medically cleared, kind of found the vigor to get back into the fight, so to speak. And I joined the FBI where I spent 13 years there doing primarily counter-terrorism work around the world.
Errol Doebler (03:27):
I was based out of New York city office. And then in 2016, after a little bit of frustration with the leadership in the FBI, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and started my own leadership consulting firm. And we’ve been going strong ever since I, I put together my own unique leadership process based on my experience and my experience alone, the mistakes and the successes. And so it is a practical, not theoretical model where every aspect of it, I can go into a story and explain why I believe this is applicable for everybody.
David Waranch (04:01):
Yeah. I love how you said you put your money where your mouth was. Cause it sounds like a lot of what you do now, which we’ll get into is born out of your experience and frustration and what you saw was just not great leadership. Yeah. So I’m glad you actually did. What does a Navy seal even do? Like what if it’s, I guess assume it stands for Navy, what sea air and land
Errol Doebler (04:22):
Sierra and land soldier. Very good. So the Navy seals were formed. The original Navy seals were were formed in world war two to essentially, you know, the most famous operation is and they were called the underwater demolition teams at that time. And they went in before that wave of boats and ships, thousands of boats and ships in Normandy and swam in with explosives and masks and fins under the nose of the Nazi army, literally waiting for that, you know, that invasion. And they put explosives on the steel barriers. Just off the beaches of Normandy to create alleyways for the landing. The, the, the landing at Normandy was the world’s worst kept secret. So the, the Nazi army was prepared and they put up all these metal and steel barriers leading with explosive. So they had to figure out a way to get this landing done.
Errol Doebler (05:17):
And, and they came up with the crazy idea and they sent these guys in and they were the underwater demolitions team at the time. And in 1962 president Kennedy decided that we needed a force that was able to meet guerrilla warfare on their own terms know for lack of a better word. And it was, it was based out of what was happening a lot in Vietnam where, you know, the Vietnamese really fought the Vietcong fought a different war than anybody was used to. And so to prepare for those types of battles the Navy seals were formed and then basically taken from the underwater demolitions team. So we specialize, we’re a special operations force. We specialize in we specialize in direct action and reconnaissance coming from the sea primarily. We are the best in the world that coming from the sea.
Errol Doebler (06:11):
And I will say that to any organization. Yeah. They’ll probably say, yeah, you guys are pretty good. We come from the air and we do it on the land as well. Lots of groups do well on the land but we do it just as well as anybody else. So that’s, that’s kind of who we are and what we do in a nutshell, you know, we know some of the prized operations, obviously the Osama bin Laden raid, the Navy seals did, but, you know, but anybody could have not anybody green Berets could have done that. Raid the Rangers couldn’t have done that raid. Delta group could have done that raid one raid that nobody else really could have done was the captain Phillips rescue. And that’s based on the movie from, you know, with Tom, Tom Hanks. And that’s, you know, that’s a, that’s a straight Navy seal operation coming in from the air, jumping into the water with all your gear setting up on a fantail, one moving platform to another, and then just making simultaneous shots to save somebody. That’s there’s only one group in the world that can do that. So that’s, that’s a little bit about the Navy seal.
David Waranch (07:12):
I see the movie, but very familiar with the story and not to say that people didn’t know about the seals bef before the bin Laden raid, but that definitely would have put them on the map even more so for sure, for sure. So I want to jump around a little bit because I, you know, the books about leadership, I think a lot of it was inspired by your experiences before you decided to become a consultant. And I was, I was reading it and I love it by the way. And just like a few things I really wanted you to touch on. I think the one one of them was this. Could you tell everybody about this parachute story? I think it was, was it the first time you jumped out of a plane and what happened and what you learned from that? Cause that, that one really resonated with me. I thought that was
Errol Doebler (07:57):
It’s really fascinating. Yeah. And then the purpose of this story is to talk about unacknowledged emotions and what they can do to you. And I use combat stories a because people like them, but B it’s it’s, you know, combat is the ultimate expression of consequence. If you do things wrong in combat one of three outcomes, mission, failure, injury, or death, all of which are unacceptable. But the concepts that we bring to that are, that are applicable everywhere. So this, this notion of unacknowledged emotions, you know, we think that, well, if we have this emotion that maybe we’re angry or we’re afraid, or we’re frustrated and we bury it deep inside to be strong, we’ll be okay. And the answer is, no, you won’t. Because if we don’t acknowledge our emotions, they’ll, they’ll make sure they get acknowledged on their terms then. And that can be in a million different ways.
Errol Doebler (08:50):
Okay. Now the story I tell is I never particularly liked jumping out of an, so there’s two ways to jump out of an airplane. One is called static line where they literally hook a line up to you and it’s connected to this wire and the plane you jump out and that pulls the parachute out for you. I didn’t love that, but I didn’t really have a problem with it. Cause there’s not much to do, right. Freefall is a different story, right? You jump out and you’re responsible for how you go through the air and all that stuff and pulling your own parachute and so on and so forth. And at the end of the day, well, as I was going up there, they teach you all sorts of things. Do they, they bring in these really cool wind tunnels and they teach you how to fly in the air properly and safely. And they go through all the protocols. None of it’s overly complicated to learn, but obviously very important to learn. And as we were going for our first jump, I was, you know, kind of full of bravado and you know, arrogance,
David Waranch (09:48):
And you had never jumped out of a plane prior. We had not
Errol Doebler (09:50):
Done. No. Right. Everything was simulated at that point. So this was going to be the first jump. And there was a series of protocols that you have to do when you jump out of the airplane. At some point, you look at your altimeter, right? To check, to see if you’re getting to the the height above, above ground, that you’re going to pull your parachute. You look right. You look left, you look up, you look down to make sure you have a clear airspace and you pull right in, in short, that’s it. You have an instructor jump with you just in case. What happens to me happens to somebody else. And basically what happened is I went flying through all my protocols. Didn’t check my altimeter, didn’t check my airspace hit where I was supposed to pull my parachute. Didn’t pull my parachute. I kind of snapped out of my fog with the instructor, reaching over, to pull my parachute for me. I ended up pulling it right. And we got to the ground. And in typical military fashion, he was nice and calm, but told it to me straight. And he said, if you have one more jump like that, I’ll make sure you never step on another airplane again. And that’s, that’s a tough proposition when seal yeah. Stands for sea air and land. I can’t jump out of an airplane. I can’t do my job
David Waranch (10:59):
Well. And it sounds like you did pull it, but you pulled it probably a lot. You should’ve pulled it earlier. Like you were in sort of a dangerous,
Errol Doebler (11:06):
Well, that, that was the least of the problem. I could have gone much further down and still been safe, but that was where we decided we were going to pull it through. The most important thing was I didn’t do anything to address the safety of those around me. Yeah. So that was a dangerous jump. If somebody was above me, okay. It’s my responsibility to move out of their way. Right. It’s my responsibility to be clear. And I didn’t, so I just issued all safety protocols. And that’s really the big, the big point there now. So what did I have to do? I had 20 minutes till the next jump. I had to be honest with myself and I say, okay, look, you’re afraid. You’re afraid to jumping out of an airplane. Something that I didn’t admit before. And the, is that your body, again, the emotions won’t be ignored.
Errol Doebler (11:57):
Everything happens in our body for a reason. It’s a closed system. And in this case, my reaction to my unacknowledged emotion, which I wasn’t aware of was inaction and is a point not a great draw, like a little bit of a freezing. Yeah. Not a great draw when you’re jumping out of the airplane. Right? So once I acknowledged that emotion of fear, it didn’t mean that the fear went away. Yes. What it meant was that I took it from my unacknowledged emotions. My Annette, my unconscious mind to my conscious mind where I could at least say now, okay, I’m afraid. And what do I want to do? I not want to get back on the plane? Do I not know what to do? I get to have all these conversations with myself and then make a decision and say, no, I’m afraid, but I’ll go anyway. And I will focus every bit of energy I have on my protocols and focusing. And that was it. That’s all there is. So that’s kind of the story I used behind the importance of acknowledging emotions, not judging emotions and not saying we’re not allowed to have the motions, but to acknowledge it and then make a decision on how we want to act.
David Waranch (13:04):
Hey, you took, you took the words out of my mouth, the lesson here. Isn’t not to have them or that we don’t have them. It’s just to notice that you have them because it sounded like on the surface, as you said, bravado and arrogance. Yeah. But what was really happening is you’re really scared and that acknowledgement that you were afraid, changed everything. Yeah.
Errol Doebler (13:28):
It, it, it allowed me to make decisions and then ultimately do my job. The fear of jumping out of the airplane never left me. I went through those exact same protocols for every jump that I ever made. It was acknowledged the fear, okay. What do I do? As soon as I jump out, I focus on my body position. I focus on this. I focus on that. I was just locked in. And, you know, as you become more senior and do these things more and more, you don’t see people doing that quite as much. And I would, I would take some ribbing in the, in the airplane because they were like, what is this your first time jumping out of an airplane? And, you know, I would laugh along and I got it. Everybody was just being good natured and having some fun. But my point was, if I don’t do this, I risk going back to the other behavior of not acknowledging the fear. And I know where that goes. I can’t trust that instinct anymore. Right.
David Waranch (14:19):
And this sounds like became sort of like the foundation of your, of your leadership of your book, of your style, of how you, how you consult people. Yeah. Would that be like sort of the, the bedrock of it all? Yeah.
Errol Doebler (14:31):
It is the bedrock emotional awareness and recognition because emotions drive our actions. And if we don’t have an awareness of those very things that drive our actions, then we are just typically acting randomly and we’re leaving that. And now we have random results and that’s not what leadership is,
David Waranch (14:49):
Dry emotions drive our, our actions. And as you say, actions drive our results.
Errol Doebler (14:54):
That’s it simple as that. It’s not overly complicated, but it’s, it’s, it’s difficult. It’s certainly difficult.
David Waranch (15:00):
How would you define, I would say define leadership. And how would you define it? Let’s say, or what’d you define it differently in a consulting setting versus being the father of three kids under eight? Or is it, or is it the same? Like how do you define leadership? The same, those contexts? Yeah.
Errol Doebler (15:22):
I find it the same. And I, you know, I don’t know how anybody else does it. I know everybody’s got their own definition of leadership, but especially as we are going through this craziness with COVID and, and businesses shutting down that came up a lot Errol, what do I need to do differently? My answer is nothing. You don’t need to do anything differently. You follow the process. Okay. The elements inside the process may need some adjustments. So in other words, emotional awareness and recognition, you’ve always had that good, but now it’s more important. Now emotions will be heightened right now, emotion. Now people will maybe be projecting new emotions and acting differently. So your awareness around it is even more important, cultural awareness and recognition. What are people doing? They are now doing different things. Now you have to remind them again, go back.
Errol Doebler (16:11):
Here’s what we do. The process is the same. So from my mind, the leadership principles that I apply in my process are the same everywhere. Think about yes, kids, kids are home now, right? We, we disenrolled our kids from school just because, you know, we wanted to take control of their education. We didn’t, we weren’t totally comfortable with the models that were happening again. No, slight on anything. That was our decision. Lots of people have done that. Yeah. But things now change, right? Their emotions will be different based on the fact that they don’t get to see their friends based on the fact that they don’t get to go play as many sports. So the emotions change and how we’re going to deal with them has to be adjusted, but we still have to be aware of those emotions. So from my mind, it’s the same, it’s the same everywhere. And, and the bedrock of any great leader is awareness awareness on, around how you, and those around you feel and awareness around how you and those around you are acting. And then from there you can make good, targeted, specific, applicable leadership decisions and adjustments.
David Waranch (17:20):
Another thing that struck me was this idea of guidelines. And I would love for you to talk about that a little bit, how you have guidelines in the consulting world. And I think super helpful, particularly now, how you set guidelines for your kids and at home St. There was a story when you were in the private sector and reselling copy machines or something. Oh yeah. Copiers and you, and you said, here are my guidelines. Yeah. And it created a little bit of a little bit of upset amongst the, as your manager. I think that’s right. And people like there was this guy, this isn’t, this isn’t the military. I survived a little bit. I thought that was an interesting story. Tell me about that one.
Errol Doebler (18:05):
So again, when I use the word process, I, I didn’t just pull it out of the air. Right? My leadership process is just that a process. If we go from emotions, that awareness to what we do, culture that awareness. Now we understand very specifically in applicably, what we need to make adjustments to based on what we’ve observed. Right. That it, and now the next part is what adjustments do you want to make? How do you want to behave? What have you seen? And now what are the behaviors you want to implement for yourself and or your team?
Errol Doebler (18:39):
They will be, this is kind of, there’ll be different for everybody. That’s the art. Once again I may say, I personally need to exercise more patients. I personally need to stop procrastinating, whatever it might be. Those are my new guidelines for behavior. If I do those two things, will I get better at everything I do, right? My widget has nothing to do with it. Right. That’s not it. And, but your guidelines for behavior may be different, right? Procrastination may not be your issue. Patients may not be your issue. So for me to consult with you and say, Hey, don’t procrastinate and be patient. You’d be like, well, that’s, I’ve just wasted my money because those aren’t my problems. So the point is when I got to that sales team, I saw what the basic problems were. They were always late. Okay. They were less than honest, about a lot of things, what they were doing that day, what their projections were you know, for the quarter and things like that.
Errol Doebler (19:40):
There was lots of gossip and bad mouth, bad mouth and going on. And people were just, weren’t working hard. They were spending their time in the office, B S ING, multiple hour lunches, the whole thing. So I said to myself, that’s fine. If we change those behaviors that I noticed, would we become better salespeople? Would we be a better sales team? If we were on time, would that make us better? And I know the answer in my mind was yes, for lots of reasons. So I just listed four of them out. Okay. And I put some context behind him and it was based on what I observed. I presented them to the team before they even met me and my boss called me and said, you know, your, your folks have your, I call them rules set in stone. I would probably use some softer language.
Errol Doebler (20:28):
Now, if I had to do it, I would probably use guidelines for behavior. Okay. But you know, that didn’t help my cause any, but, you know, he called me and said, you know, you’ve got a mutiny on your hand. And I said, what? That sounds a little strong, but, you know, and I said, I thought you liked these guidelines for behaviors. There’s no, I love them. That’s what they need. I’m just letting you know what you’re walking into. And, and yeah, they, I introduced myself. I said, hi, I’m Errol. I’m your new manager. I understand. There’s some problems with the document I sent out, please feel free. And they just ripped into me, you know, Hitler and, and, Oh, my military. And who are you? And we’ve had a blast.
David Waranch (21:06):
It’s so interesting. Cause I’m going to read them if you don’t mind. Cause they’re not, they’re not very controversial.
Errol Doebler (21:11):
No, they’re not. But people just don’t like to hear them be
David Waranch (21:14):
Where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. Yeah. Pay attention to what is being discussed, sell to the best of your ability and never lie or be deceitful, not too hard,
Eroll Doebler (21:27):
Too hard, unless you are not doing those things. Okay. Because if you’re not doing those very basic things and somebody tells you, you’re not doing them and explains why I want you to do them. People don’t like to hear it. Right. They just don’t. And that’s what it was. I let everybody get it out of their system. It was fine. I expected it. And once they did, as I write in the book, I said, look, okay, let’s go through them. I’ll explain them again. And if you can give me a reason why they’re not important, or if they’re not going to make us better, we’ll take it off the list. And I said, I said, you don’t even have to give me a good reason. Just any reason that a reasonable person could understand. And of course they did the, of course they didn’t have a reason.
Errol Doebler (22:12):
Once they realized where I was coming from, they were all, they were fine. And then once I, when we talk about accountability right now, I had something to hold them accountable to can’t hold somebody accountable. If they don’t know what they’re supposed to be accountable to, I made it very clear. These four things, you will hear them a lot. We’ll read this piece of paper. Every time we have a meeting, which is once a week until these become part of who we are. And, and I did. And then we started to do those things. And there was a couple people who couldn’t get on board with it. Now exercise, consequence became easy because I made it clear. What don’t you understand David about not inflating your quarterly projections? What don’t you understand about not being honest about the status of a sale, right? Well, blah, blah, blah. So if they kept doing it, but I kept asking the questions, holding them accountable. Now you’re not a cultural fit. Here’s what we do. We don’t, we don’t lie about those things. So look, you got to move on and they were usually good with it. They’re like, yeah, good. I’m out of here. Okay, good. It’s good for everybody. But for those who stayed, which was most of them, once we did those simple things, those simple behaviors, we became a better sales team,
David Waranch (23:32):
Right? I like what you said. It’s not the widget. Nope. That needs to change. It’s it? You can be better by changing these things. But the real question is how do you set these guidelines with a dog? Now I have three and three kids under eight. Like what’s an, any tips for ’em. This is the authentic dad podcast. Or, you know, lots of people have children. Guidelines are important. I call it setting context sometimes, which is the same, but a little different where if I’m, let’s say busy at home doing work and kid wants to do this or that, I’ll say, Hey, look, I’m going to do this for an hour. And then we’re going to do this. And I sort of set a structure, a context, which is sort of like its own little guideline has been really powerful during the pandemic. Any tips to set guidelines for, for young children.
Errol Doebler (24:21):
I think what you just said hits the nail on the head because here’s the thing with guidelines, you know, there’s, there’s this a lot and I agree with it, but you know, find your why and all that right now. I I’m with that. Right. Simon Sinek wrote that book. I, I like it. I like his work and I liked the premise, but here’s, here’s the challenge with that. Your why can change a lot. Okay. It can change from a lifetime. It can change moment to moment. So in that example, you just gave your, why was I need to get work done. I just need to get some work done. Yeah. Cause that’s your why right now. And the idea that you said here’s, what’s going to happen. Here’s what you’re going to be held accountable to in the next hour. Right? We are going to do or next two hours.
Errol Doebler (25:06):
We are, you’re going to let dad do his work. You’re going to go downstairs and watch your show or go outside and play for one hour. Then we’re going to come in, clean up, and then we’re going to do this. Okay. That’s it. You’ve just said, this is what you will be held accountable to. And they come barging into your office. After 15 minutes, you get to say very specifically, what didn’t you understand or whatever language you use, whatever soft skill you use, what didn’t you understand about the first part of this one hour? Dad’s doing work. You’re you’re outside playing. Well, I did understand. Okay. But okay. Go back out and do it look emergencies and things like that aside. Right? Just general kid behavior. They come back in again, 15 minutes later. Now you’ve got some decisions to start making. Why did you come back in?
Errol Doebler (25:55):
You’ve just held them accountable by asking the question. That’s accountability. Ask the question. Okay. Have them account for their actions. There’s no good reason. Now we have to start, consider, moving to consequence. Okay. Now don’t go outside. Now go to your room, right? Or now dad is not going to work and you know, whatever it is now there’s some consequence. So what I to answer your question is, especially with young kids set those behavioral guidelines on an hourly basis for goodness sake, or from, from task to task. This is how I expect you to behave, make it clear to them, ask them why when they don’t do it, hold them accountable. And then you’ve got to start to consequence. Okay. And, and that’s what we do. You know, we have some very general behaviors that we have. We are always kind to each other, which can be very challenging with a seven year old and a six year old.
Errol Doebler (26:55):
But if we’re kind to each other, will we be a better brother? Will we be better? Sister will be a better family member. Will we be a better citizen if that’s what we’re held to here? So the answer is yes. So we’re when there’s bickering and whining and handsiness, I come down on that very, very hard. Right? What don’t you understand about what I said up to your room? Whatever it is. Okay. Consequence. Those are some of the big ones, right? We’ve we always listen when somebody is talking at the table. Right. You know, the kids there, they don’t want somebody else to get the attention. Okay. And mom and dad too. Right. We’ve got to listen to each other and set the example. So we have some family guidelines that we put in place based around behaviors that will always be there. But then we put them in place from mission to mission. If we’re going out to target in the car, here’s what we can expect from the behaviors. Okay. And this does it making it clear and that’s, that’s kind of how we do it.
David Waranch (27:54):
It’s good. So no, no drop and give me 20 anything.
Errol Doebler (27:58):
No, no, no, no, because at this point they’re pretty good with that. We, we do family exercise together a lot, so they they’d probably be okay with that. That wouldn’t bother them quite as much as taking away the, the switch or the DS, those dreaded games. That
David Waranch (28:16):
Yes. Yeah. I think we, I think a lot of us, us meeting parents are dealing with the screen time problem and you know, it is a problem, but we are in a pandemic and I think it’s a, it’s not an easy it’s not an easy solution,
Errol Doebler (28:36):
But to, to our discussion, you know, this is what we did, my son, my daughter, my daughter is on the game just because her brother’s on it. So she likes to be like him. I don’t think she cares one way or the other, he cares. Right. He becomes, he becomes obsessed with this, this switch would you know? Yeah. Yeah. The Nintendo switch and breadth of the wild, the game and, and Lincoln, all the characters and he can’t stop talking about it. That’s all he talks about. So yeah, we were trying to figure out, okay, how do we, we can’t let this happen. This, this can’t be it. So what do we do? We set some behavioral guidelines. Absolutely. And they were hard. And initially it was, you can get it for one hour a day or whatever, whatever we said that didn’t work because everything was then centered around.
Errol Doebler (29:26):
Is it my area? Is it my area? Is it my area? So we said, all right, now, what do we do? And then we just, we just went hardcore and said, you can have it from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Right. Those we call them sloppy. Right. If during the week you don’t ask for it once. Okay. And you do all your schoolwork and chores and all the things we require you to do here. If you do that, come Friday afternoon, knock yourself out, kid. It’s all yours. And what a surprise he was doing, his schoolwork better. His mood was better during the week. Right. He was listening better because, you know, and it, it was, it was tough at first, are you sure we can’t make an exception today? Can I please have it today? You know, no, go to your room for asking, it sounds a little hard, but there had to be consequence. Right. and he, and he got it. And now every now and then he, you know,
David Waranch (30:26):
We’re dealing with the same thing with roadblocks, you know, roadblocks the game. Yes. I know. And we were trying to get my daughter to read a little bit more. And so whether, whether it’s right or wrong, I’ve used bribery. It’s like this book, that’s 20 $20 worth of robots if you read the whole thing, but they have just to write a report about it too. Yeah. You can’t, you can’t just breeze through a chest to understand it. And it actually works
Errol Doebler (30:55):
Until the number goes up.
David Waranch (30:57):
Right. But she’s going to be, it’s going to be have
Errol Doebler (31:02):
No. And again, I, you know how we do things as, especially as parents and dads, we’ve got to learn, but you know, our, our process, we follow, we follow the process. I built at home here and you know, my wife is downstairs right now, teaching and it’s we read for 30 minutes, that’s it. That’s what we’re doing. Then she gives them the B and I expect, when we read, you will be engaged, blah, blah, blah. The schedule, the behavior associated with that schedule. It’s hard to do, you know, cause it’s the bribery is, I’m not saying we’re immune to the bribery. We’re not okay. But you know, that that’s kinda how we’re doing it. That’s how the, the process and art and science of leadership, how we apply it with our, with our family.
David Waranch (31:50):
Another theme that I’ve noticed just by checking out your website, reading your book, talking to you that we have to talk about is, is the cold bath and the Wynn Hoff method. And so fascinating. And this sort of goes in and out of your book. Let’s tell me about this, how this came about, why it’s so important, what leadership things, and we can gain from it.
Errol Doebler (32:14):
Well, the Wim Hoff Wim Hoff is, is is a person at Wim Hoff. And he developed this method based on breathing cold exposure and mindset, and essentially Wim Hoff is this for lack of better terms, Dutch extreme athlete, and what he was screaming to the scientific community was you have brainwashed us into believing that we no longer have control over our physiology over disease, over curing our own diseases that we create in ourselves through stress, which causes inflammation, which is now linked to every major disease that we have it, their lifestyle diseases,uamong other things, what the Wim Hof method does and, and, and Wim Hoff climb Mount Everest in a pair of shorts. He ran a marathon in the desert without drinking any water. I did not know that. Yeah. He ran a marathon above the polar circle barefoot. Uhe spent two hours in a bucket for a tub full of ice, water, ice, and water.
Errol Doebler (33:13):
Without his core body temperature changing, he was showing the scientific community that I have the ability to control what’s happening in my body. Okay. And I have control over my immune system, my autonomic nervous system. And they, he did a, he did a test, a experiment where they injected him with an endotoxin which is basically a disease that’s, that’s dormant, that’s dead, but the body doesn’t know the difference, right? It’s still sees it as a foreign invader and then would act appropriately in order to appropriately, you’d get those, you’d get sick, the fever, the chills, and all that. And essentially he beat the endotoxin through his breathing technique. That’s shown. And the cold exposure had shown to allow people to strengthen their physiology, which strengthens their immune system. So they can fight off diseases and appropriately without being quote unquote sick.
Errol Doebler (34:10):
So in other words, our immune systems are overactive like the number of people who die from a virus and the real cause of death is an overactive immune system is astronomical. So when you practice the Wim Hof method, and this is obviously a applicable today, when you practice Wim Hof method, you start to gain control of that autonomic nervous system. You gain control of your immune system. It becomes stronger. And so when you get that virus, you don’t get the ill effects of the inflammation, like the fever and the shivers, but your white blood cells are still firing on all cylinders protecting you. You might feel not great, but you’re not going to be laid down for a week. You’re not going to have this, you know, the whole craziness that we get when we have, you know, a virus enters. And that’s the thing with COVID right now know, we don’t have necessarily a COVID problem.
Errol Doebler (35:04):
Cause COVID is just a virus. That’s new. What we have is a health problem and people have weak immune systems. So when a new virus enters our world, like COVID is, and our body and it enters our body. It’s not because it’s so much as it’s deadly, it’s that our body just can’t adjust to it. And we know now that the people who are really dying from this, with the, with the small outliers, which happens even with the flu or the people who have pre-existing conditions, who other lifestyle diseases type two diabetes you know, whatever it is, you know, when we’re overweight and those things. So anyway, the Wim Hof method, that’s the one thing. So that will make you physiologically strong. I used the Wim Hof method for that personally, but I also use it as a leadership tool. So how do I use it as leadership tool? Yes.
David Waranch (36:00):
And, and by the way, is this a daily practice or is this,
Errol Doebler (36:03):
It is, it’s a daily practice. So the, the breathing should be done every day. Okay. The effects of the cold can last up to five days, right? So the physiological effects of the cold. If I go into an ice bath today, my physiology is still benefiting from the cold. Right. My, my my cardiovascular system is still being strengthened from that. Now, when we talk about how do you practice the elements of my process, and we’ve spent a lot of time talking about emotion. So how do you practice emotional awareness and recognition? Right. It’s a good question. Because if you’re just trying to remember it, how does that become a habit? You’ll forget. Well, here’s what I can promise you, David, if you look, or if you are standing in front of an ice bath and you are preparing to get in, you will have an emotion. Okay? Yes. And if your intention going through to the ice bath is to recognize that emotion. Well, now you’re building a habit. You will have an emotion when you get in. Okay. And if your intention in there is to understand those emotions you’re having now, you’re building a habit. Now it’s something that you will go in your day to day practicing.
David Waranch (37:12):
Yeah. I love this part of the book. You’re like, just this, even if it’s a cold shower and you’re not going, and this is really a mirror of your emotional life, like how much do I curse when the water hits me? What do I feel like in anticipation during, after do I grab the towel right away? Or do I wait? And this, this was very interesting to me. Just observing how you react to this is, is gives you a lot of information about your emotional life. I really liked that part of it.
Errol Doebler (37:42):
Yeah. About yourself. It will be, it will be in some way, shape or form of mirror as to how you operate day to day under stress. And it’s, it’s uncomfortable. Right? Because a lot of times you don’t do it, right? You, the amount you procrastinate, the amount you just sit there and stare at what you’re looking to do the number of times, did you make an excuse? Not to do it. Okay. If you really take a hard look, what are you doing during your day? When it’s time to do those hard things, those, those mundane things that you don’t want to do or whatever it is.
David Waranch (38:16):
Oh. And even sometimes like, I’ve been doing them and told you I’m a cheat gong and I’m not, I’m doing like maybe 10 minutes. And like, even sometimes some days it’s like, it’s hard for me to, it’s like, Oh man, it’s only 10 minutes, right? Five minutes,
Errol Doebler (38:27):
You have 10 minutes. You definitely have it.
David Waranch (38:31):
Tony Robbins, I guess do this. Once I’m on the documentary on, I didn’t know what the hell he was doing. You jumped into a cold bath. And I just was like, I don’t know what he’s doing. And I didn’t never thought about it, but I assume that’s what it was. How, how long are you? So you have a call like a, can you set a meat freezer or something? You fill it with ice filled with water. And how long do you stay in?
Errol Doebler (38:53):
So the, you don’t have to stay in long studies or studies are coming out saying 15 to 30 seconds of cold shower at the end of your shower for 10 days, we’ll begin the process of strengthening your immune system. Okay. So that should give you some idea now, but it’s not just 10 days and now it’s good forever. That’s when it starts to begin to get stronger. So to keep that just like, it’s just like a muscle, right? You want to build that big bicep. Well, you’ve got to, you’ve got to commit your lifetime to doing the bicep curls. Now, so that’s for people who are saying, I can’t do this. Yes, you can. Anybody can do 15 seconds, 30 seconds at the end of their shower. Now for me I, you know, I, I stay in the ice bath a little longer.
Errol Doebler (39:42):
I usually try to stay in, not try to stay in. I usually stay in for about four minutes. And the reason is not because four minutes is it’s not ego driven and there’s no that I know of additional benefits for staying in for that long. That’s the amount of time that I felt I was comfortable, where I really needed to get into that into my subconscious mind to really need to focus and get super comfortable and then maintain my ability to stay comfortable. Four minutes is a nice number for me. Now, some days are better than others. Okay. Some days it’s, it’s a minute and a half, because for one reason or the other, I’m just not having it today. And I get the vasoconstriction and my fingertips and toes are hurting. Well, guess what? As soon as I start to hurt and I feel pain, you know what I do, David, I get out right. Because it’s not about ego. Right. So, but, so that’s, that’s for me personally I’ve got the meat freezer full of water. It’s always ready to go, you know, regularly,
David Waranch (40:48):
Like you believe in this so much. I mean, you became an instructor, right? Yup. Keep certified. That’s amazing.
Errol Doebler (40:54):
A certified instructor and they don’t, they don’t give the certifications away, which is good news. You’ve got to, it’s a three-step process. It takes about a year. And then, you know, they, they test you regularly and things like that. So it’s good.
David Waranch (41:06):
And, and you learn this, I think it was post FBI and military, right. Somebody, somebody kind of mentioned that you didn’t know what it was and then that’s right. So
Errol Doebler (41:14):
Yeah, I was just, I was doing a setting up a leadership retreat for a client of mine three-day retreat. And they just asked me, could I include the Wim Hof method in it? And I was like, sure, what’s the Wim Hof method. So they gave him the name of the guy they had heard it from. And I talked to him and it was, you know, he spent, I spent an hour on the phone with him talking about the Wim Hof method. As soon as we hung up, I started the process to become certified. I was, I was hooked immediately. And then I just, and then it wasn’t till later that I realized, wow, I could really use this as a tool for my clients, for these, these elements. So it’s really, it’s been great, but I started it for me personally, initially.
David Waranch (41:51):
And besides that, any other practices, you know, do you run daily? Do you lift weights? Do you, is there any meditation, what other practices do you think helps your, your leadership style, your family, your life?
Errol Doebler (42:03):
So, you know, meditation is big. So what I do is when I do the Wim Hof breathing, which is, is 20 minute, it takes 20 minutes. I, I add on just a meditation. I go right in from, it’s a very deep, aggressive breathing. And once I’m done with that, I just go into a meditation. So I try to do that regularly. I, I firmly believe in, you know, manifesting things that you want. And there’s science to back all that up. So I, I, I’m conscious of that. And, you know, I, I love exercise and I love fitness. So, you know, I’ll try to do something every day, whether it’s running or lifting weights or getting on the rower, whatever it is. Yeah. And, and we try to instill that in our kids as well. So that’s, you know, that’s kind of what we do. It takes, it takes time.
David Waranch (42:50):
What kind of diet does the former Navy seal FBI agent? Do you have anything specific or you just try to eat?
Errol Doebler (42:57):
I just try to eat healthy. We stay with the basic premise of eat real food. Most of it be green and don’t eat too much. And I don’t always do it. I have, I’m a little guy. I’m, I’m I’m average, right? I’m a little to me. I’m five, 10, 170 pounds. That is, I am the average guy. I’m five, four. Well, I, yeah, I put right out. I said that I remembered, you told me you’re five, four. I’m like, he’s going to tell me again.
David Waranch (43:25):
I think our son though, or we have 11 year old, he’s looking like, he’s probably going to be average, like five, nine it’s. It’s a miracle that my dad is 61. Well, it makes no sense.
Errol Doebler (43:36):
Yeah. So you got the, you got the, you got the short end of that stick, but so I just, my, my challenge is, is not sweets or anything like that. My challenge is quantity. I have a massive appetite. I don’t know where it came from. And I just have to be careful how much they eat, even if I’m eating the right things. So I don’t necessarily have a problem eating the right things. It’s really checking my quantity, but, you know, look, I love chips and salsa, and I love a bowl of ice cream as much as anybody. My problem is if I get started, I have a hard time stop. So I just say, all right, put all my energy towards not starting to eat ice cream and not, Oh, I’ll stop. Because that doesn’t always go so well,
David Waranch (44:23):
The Louis C K love him or hate him, has a joke about that. Where people say, Oh, just eat one should just, you know, some people just didn’t want to eat is like, yeah, just eat one. Someone like me. I think the joke is like, I just eat one. The next thing you know, they’re like dead hookers in the trunk or something like that. Like it just spirals out of control. That’s how I am. Yeah. Actually it know, especially now I have a very, I love good food with kale salads, all these delicious things. But then at night I’m like, Hmm, I’m a little, I’m a little famished. Yeah. Like random, weird things that I can grab.
Errol Doebler (44:57):
And then, and it’s usually not. I’m like, what the hell?
David Waranch (45:01):
And I eat like a banana and Dorito sandwich.
Errol Doebler (45:05):
Cause it’s so good and
David Waranch (45:06):
Totally sober, by the way. It’s not like, it’s not like I had the munchies.
Errol Doebler (45:12):
Well, and then, you know, look, I don’t know if you drink, but if you do drink, it gets worse. Yeah. So, you know, you have a couple of cocktails and you’ll say, Oh, I’ll just have, again, I’m a, I can eat two bags of chips and four jars of salsa at any sitting. And you know, if I have a couple of glasses of wine jars, aren’t very big though. They’re not, that’s my boy. They’re so small.
David Waranch (45:35):
That’s tiny, like bigger. And they’re getting smaller.
Errol Doebler (45:39):
Except if you get the big jug Cheetos or whatever, like a Costco guy, that’s right. That’s right.
David Waranch (45:47):
We probably don’t have time, but there’s also this there’s what I love about the book is that you have these leadership principles, then also a really cool story about when you were one thing. We didn’t talk about a lot when you’re an FBI, you’re doing counter-terrorism and the gang unit and a really cool kind of insider’s take on how to infiltrate these gangs. And that story, obviously there’s a leadership lesson. It, I won’t give it away, but I just kinda want to tease people like this is not a boring sort of how to be a great leader kind of book. There’s some really cool if you like you know, gangs and FBI and Navy seals. Very cool stories from an insider. So thanks for that. Loved it.
Errol Doebler (46:26):
Well, I appreciate it. And you know, that, that was the point I initially, I initially was just going to write the manual, just the process, art and science, just straight, you know, my wife was like, you have to put something in there if, for no other reason than to validate your points. And you know, and initially I was like, no, but I’m going to, there’s going to be another book with cool stories. She’s like, you’ve got so many stories. You can’t even remember them all just, and she was right. So, you know, on the one hand I wanted the book to be very academic. I wanted it to be very practical. I wanted people to be able to look at it, read it and go. That makes sense. I got it. But at the same time, there’s a story for every, every part of it in there. So I appreciate you enjoying this.
David Waranch (47:08):
I enjoyed it. And did you meet, I think you said, did you meet your wife in the FBI or not? Yes.
Errol Doebler (47:12):
Yes. She was. We met in New York, she was an analyst and I was a special agent. So we worked together and, you know, fell in love and got married. And then she left the FBI. I left in 2016. So I, she might’ve left a of years ago now. It’s been at least.
David Waranch (47:31):
Yeah. Just thinking about your poor kids when they grow up, try to lie into these people.
Errol Doebler (47:38):
No, they, yeah, they don’t stand a chance there. So that’s why I just tell them just, just be honest, it’s because we’re wasting everybody’s time otherwise
David Waranch (47:47):
To come on the the lie detector, you know, like if you seen me like meet the parents, come on, forget it. You know, I do criminal defense and I tell my kids the same things. Like, yeah. I don’t think that story is really working out there.
Speaker 5 (48:06):
Hello. Yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of holes there.
Errol Doebler (48:09):
I, I can’t, I can’t accurately defend that one.
David Waranch (48:13):
Would you, before w before we end any, like books, other books out, other than yours or authors that really we have when Hoff you mentioned the your know, your why and anything else?
Errol Doebler (48:25):
Yeah. One of the books that I really like a lot is by a guy named Steven Pressfield. The art, the war of art. I have it on my shelf. Love it. Yeah. And he, he has a bunch of little books, like just little nugget books, you know, I just, I like those, you know, that’s the last part of my book is called the resistance. I just stole that from Steven Pressfield. It’s w we use it in different ways. My resistance means a little different, but when I read that book, I’m like, well, what else would I call it? This is what it is. There’s a resistance to certain things. So I, I like, I like cam incredible book. Thanks. I like, I like his stuff. And you know, that’s off the top of my head based on what we’re talking about. Just a quick fix. I think that’s, that’s what I would recommend.
David Waranch (49:12):
Yeah. That’s a great recommendation. So what else is that I will, before we wrap up anything that you want to say that we may have missed that’s important, or does that, I mean, we could talk, as I always say for many, many hours, there’s a lot of richness in your book, in your life. My gosh. But
Errol Doebler (49:32):
Well, no, we could, you know, look, I, I appreciate the time, you know, I would just, you know, cheap plugs. Right. I appreciate.
David Waranch (49:38):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Let’s throw out your website where people can find the book, all that, please. Yes.
Errol Doebler (49:41):
So we’ve got, you know, leader one, nine, three, everything leader one nine, three, that’s my website leader, one nine, three.com. Instagram and Facebook are kind of my big social media platforms leader one nine, three. And, you know, we are, I’m moving from doing leadership retreats for just my clients. I’m doing open retreats now. We call them the forum and the, the first one forum Oh one 21 will be in January of 2021, January 18th through 20th. So for, if anybody is interested in a, in a, to two or three day leadership retreat with other people, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in stone, Harbor, New Jersey you know, got a beautiful hotel there, a nice venue. And it’s w look, I love time at the beach. Not everybody does, but it’s a small, quiet town. So we’re going to have pretty much the place to ourselves, right? Beach towns. Don’t, don’t do much in the winter stope. So that’s,
David Waranch (50:38):
There’ll be cold exposure happening.
Errol Doebler (50:41):
There will be cold exposure happening, but it will be optional. We are going to learn about it, right. We’re going to understand it. But you know, you can’t, that that would probably move. A lot of people will say thing to do. We’re going to make it optional, but most people, I think I would be surprised if everybody didn’t at least give it a try. So, you know, that’s one thing we’re excited about. That’s new that we’re doing opening up our retreats that we’ve been doing for years to the public. And that’s what we
David Waranch (51:09):
Appreciate your time. And I appreciate the work that you’re doing because we can learn a lot, my friend from your family, your Navy seal background, your FBI aback. I mean, thanks for sharing your gift with the world. In other words, I think we as civilians you know, we’ve got these leaders, you know, I’m sure they’re Navy seals, I’ve written books, but it’s not every day that I get to talk to a seal. And as I said, when we talk, thank you for your service. Well, I appreciate you serving our country.
Errol Doebler (51:39):
Thank you, David. I appreciate it. And I do appreciate you giving me the time to be on your, on your show. I hope I hope the audience enjoys it.
David Waranch (51:46):
Thank you. This is going to be one of the best ones. Thanks so much. And I hope you have a wonderful day and we will put all that in the show notes. And you are the man. I’m going to go take a cold shower. You’ll get it. I’m really, I’m going to try it. Thanks again. All right. And there you have it. That was my conversation with Erol Doebler really fun. I will put all of his information, including the book in the notes, check out him, check out the Wim Hoff method. And I hope you all are safe and well and healthy. Please consider the five star review or a subscribe. Download really appreciate your support. Hope y’all are having a good Thanksgiving slash Christmas time situation. If that’s where you’re at, when you’re listening and please be well and stay safe out there.