The Ambitious VET Ep 97: Lead Like a Military General (2020)

On August 13, 2020, Chris Hoffmann posted episode 97 of his podcast, “Lead and Manage Your Projects Like a Military General with Micheal J. Penney.” Hoffmann, a Marine Corps combat veteran, built his show around what he calls the Ambitious VET. The conversation runs about 49 minutes.

What the episode covered

Hoffmann framed the episode around the pandemic. He asked what it would look like to use a framework veterans already learned in the military to work through the fight against Covid-19. His notes list the key moments of the show:

• Bridging the gap between “rounds down range” and the rounds that come at you in life after the military
• A four-day cross-country trip after Michael left the Corps in 2012, and how fully using his veteran status sped up his learning in the civilian world
• Why you can’t undo being a veteran
• The five IEDs veterans deal with mentally and emotionally after service, and the one solution that keeps them moving forward
• The light bulb moment behind 5Paragraph, and a breakdown of the 5 Paragraph format you can use right away

Michael’s recommended resource was Zero to One by Peter Thiel.

The three Golden Grenades

The show closes with three takeaways, which the notes call Michael’s “Three Golden Grenades”:

• Process: the planning process comes first, from the annual retreat down to fragmentary orders and immediate action plans when your hair is on fire
• Nouns: the right people, in the right places, with the right things
• Delegate: set up observation points and keep a finger on the pulse, so you can tailor the plan as you go

Why it mattered then

The “IED” language in the episode goes back to his March 2016 TEDxRaleigh talk, “What’s Your IED? How to Add Value in Explosive Situations,” which the notes link. In the middle of 2020, a lot of veterans running businesses were dealing with exactly that kind of explosive situation.

His service record: eight-plus years in Marine Corps infantry and three combat tours: two to Ramadi, Iraq, with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines (2005-06 and 2007), and one to Kajaki and Sangin, Afghanistan, with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines in 2011, where he led a section of advisors. Between those tours he served at Quantico as a weapons instructor. He left the Corps as a Sergeant with an honorable discharge.

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.