About leadership and character and the lessons he learned from studying commanders through history. Its the subject of his book sailing to north. [applause] thank you latest denman. Please be seated. It is my distinct honor tonight to introduce a very special guest and a good friend. This is the second of our jack bergman distinguished leadership series. The first member of that series was general james mattis who was here two months ago. Jackma brennan was Lieutenant Colonel in the marine corps, return with president nixon from sacrament, retired from the marines ratherre than leave his side so we thought we would name it for jack, this series and we had a distinguished profession of arms here for my people the jackman continues to serve. Many of youod so are here. If youre a veteran or a of activeduty would you stand and allow us to thank you . [applause] our guest graduated from the United StatesNaval Academy 1976 a 37 year career and some extraordinary stations along the way including Combatant Commander and of course the nato allied Supreme Commander with masters of arts which he subsequently went on to gain after the navy is also an operating executive with the Carlyle Group that most known as a Permanent Fund in the United States and with Mccarty Associates one of the most treasured guest i have on my radio show and have personally campaigned to get the admiral on the board of at least one and three Big Tech Companies so facebook and amazon with their discussion of National Security of the United States. [applause] i also like to point out he spent those years out of sight of land please help me to join in welcoming admiral. [applause] tonight is a little bit different the audience is watching cspan someone to make the presentation a little broader if you do not have a copy of his memoir but why did you call it the accidental admiral . Anybody goes into the navy knows the place where you end to end up is in the pacific with the great naval admirals so i was dragging to go into the pacific and then secretary of defense bob gates called me up and said we need you to go to europe and work with nato progressive mister secretary i dont know much about nato or europe i am a pacific guy. [laughter] that did not win him over. [laughter] so i felt it was an accident i ended up in europe and then second all of our lives are accidents we can never predict them. I wanted a title of the book that emphasized you can have a brilliant plan for your life but there are intervening moments. Ive often said have you ever considered saying i know what guy . s. [laughter] i know a guy who made your career. Admiral mullen who was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff but early in his career and mine hes ten year senior to me which is perfect distance from a mentor in the military the head of the forces he was my detailer to broke me out of the standard seagoing career said we will send you to the Fletcher School so you can do a phd thats very unconventional. He was there at the beginning of my career and then the far end when i was getting ready to become a four star so he followed up people talk about being mentors but they dont have the followup or truly engage again and again but admiral mullen was there for me at every step. So watching you on cspan so anyone any time in any career i found it to be invaluable can you explain why you wrote this . It is extraordinary. The idea is to identify 50 books to make you a better reader. Because nobody has time to read 50 books but here is a synopsis of each of these 50 books and the leadership lessons. Its not leadership books its novels like to kill a mockingbird it is autobiography like the memoirs of general grant it is the eclectic group of books so i write it because you could hand it to someone and do the People Magazine version or they could say that when kept my interest i will sit down and read in love and war. Whats remarkable with our series is general mattis he was just in your chair a couple months ago has 63 books to his memoir you both are adamant with the officer. I had a chance to have dinner with those cadets who were here this evening and then to prepare myself for military service physical fitness and tactics all of that are important but the most important is to read the day you dont at the end of your life you will be the sum of what you invest in education. Read read read i can practically answer the question so picking up a book about the battle of monopolize and you can put yourself in that moment. It is a simulator and a chance to test yourself against the highest standard. It is powerful and important and a force multiplier in our life. The next book is the power as you point out from when you first started you are going places but a friend of mine said with a Great Academy class of 63 so explain to the audience watching at home what seapower was intended to do. The subtitle of the book the history and geopolitics of the worlds ocean instead of writing about people i write where the characters are oceans the atlantic and arctic and mediterranean pacific in the south china sea. There is power in that because in each chapter i talk about the history of that region of the world in importance of the and that is the connection to the admiral youre thinking of the greatest strategist the navy has ever produced who created this idea of a global navy. The reason we have a powerful seagoing navy, a powerful marine corps is because of these vast oceans. 70 of the plain is covered by water. 95 of all trade moves on the oceans. 70 of the oxygen you are breathing tonight comes from photosynthesis in the sea, the oceans matter. At the genesis of the book and the theory is we should have a strategy for dealing with those oceans as sure as articulate a strategy 120 years ago. My last two questions before you leave the stage for a presentation have to do with two of the chapters in this wonderful new book, sailing true north, biographical sketches of ten admirals and the voyage of leadership. I picked these admirals because chester nimitz commanded richard nixon. He was one as you say one of the millions of sailors on thousands of ships under his command. He wasnt a ship most of the time, in the South Pacific and other one is zumwalt because he is under nixons command. Theres a nice symmetry. My first question but nimitz. With chester nimitz portrayed now in the new movie make it in the navy of today . I think the real question is would even have made out of the Naval Academy of today. [laughing] when he was a midshipman, he was often known to go we would say over the wall, unauthorized liberty, go out of count and buy beer for his classmates and bring it back. Theres a wonderful vignette about nimitz, the sort of even as midshipman i picture him as a stately, tall great executive hair just the whole package. Hes in this beer shop and kc46 is a civilian over there and he buys this beer and moves on. The next day it turns out that civilian is one of the officers at the Naval Academy. Nimitz is like, my god, my career is over. Eddie gets a second chance. Theres power in that idea that to get those chester nimitz yet to give people a chance in time to time. I got many Second Chances in the course of my career. Ti theres power in that lesson. I read with great interest the zumwalt chapter because Nixon Library where curious about and constantly researching the relationship between the the president and the pentagon. There was under admiral zumwalt a very controversial scandal. Can you expand on what that was and whether or not zumwalt knew that was going on . There was this sort of ottawa to use the word come all but ill use it about intelligence gathering on civilian officials by military. That sounds terrible and it is it was probably more benign than that. It was probably more in the category of this person in white house thinks this way and this one thinks this way. But the appearance of gathering intelligence in order to move the military agenda was pretty damning. The record is unclear on whether zumwalt was fully waiting on that or not. Im going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I met zumwalt. I knew zumwalt. I think was an individual of high integrity. Ill talk about him in a moment or two. But the lesson here for all of us is be careful of the optics, be careful how something appears because it can drag you down if youre not very careful to maintain yourself at thehe hight levels of standards ofou all times. A followup about that. Zumwalt was deep selected. Nixon that a lot of deep selected as president. He reached for Daniel Patrick moynihan. He reached for people out there, kissinger had never met him. What is the advantage in the navy get to do more deep selecting or less now . I would say more. As you know but maybe the audience does not, we just deep selected that chief current naval operations, admiral michael delegate. Mike the couple months ago was a 3star kind of thinking about maybe if the stars align i i mt get a four star someday in the secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer faced a crisis in that the original candidate had an issue, had to step aside so instead ofo going to that 4star navy, secretary of the Richard Spencer reached way down, milton was speaking, to a 3star officer him over the entire 4star community. Its happened before. Zumwalt, and before that, admiral burke was elevated as a 3star. So the advantage of doing it is you really get a fresh set of eyes and know with whose elevator had any baggage to pay off. You get a clean break. That can be very advantageous and i would argue as the navy goes into this very turbulent 21st century, we would be well served to do a little more deep selective. Thats a perfect transition to clean break. Its now my pleasure to turn the state over to admiral stavridis to give you a presentation. Ill be back up at the end. Thank you very much. Well, first and foremost i want to say thank you, thank you and the Nixon Library and watches say also just want to spend a moment while the furniture is moved, which it is. So thank you, above all, hugh. Maybe mom, navy daughter, got a lot of navy going on the house tonight. I see that. That was a wonderful introduction and normally when people hear that introduction, supreme allied commander and all that, then they actually see me and they typically have two reactions. One is, wow, i thought you would be taller. [laughing] and the other reaction is they say, you know, if youre really that cool, why would you not an Navy Fighter Pilot, like goose and maverick . Because i was just destroyer ops. To be honest with you and really honest i desperately wanted to be a Navy Fighter Pilot when i was young boy. But had a really traumatic experience at airport that made aviation really difficult for me. Po [laughing] so heres what were going to do. Im going to do this and about 25 minutes so were going to sail fast. Want to talk about the oceans. But what i really want to talk about is character. I need anyone to understand the difference between leadership, jim mattis was here a while back. Im sure he talked about leadership. Im not here to talk about leadership. Im here toin talk about character. Leadership is what we do to influence others. Its a big door and it swings out influencing millions of people as it did for me when isa nato commander. But the big door of leadership swings on a very small hinge. That hinge the human character. You cannot swing that door of leadership and less your character allows it to swing. I set out to write a book about character. We are awash in books of leadership. There are a lot of them. I wanted to write a book about that and her voyage, how we lead ourselves. Thats character. And write about what you know about. I decided to write using a framework of ten admirals. Were going to sit back in history 2500 years andwi going o pull it right up to the present and talk about ten very dynamic admirals. I am greekamerican sauce to be air greek american, not american but a greek indistinct. This is 2500 ago, athens, athens faces an existential threat. Athens is threatened by the persian empire. The persians of course are the iranians off today. They are about to conquer athens, the city state. Themistocles with the power of persuasion convinces his captains to go and fight a battle in which they are five, perhaps ten toare one in these triremes that the warring captains of that they launched. Heres the advantage themistocles had. All of the rowers in his triremes were freemen, no slaves. That persian fleet, five times the size was rowed by slaves. Themistocles said to his captains, tomorrow you must row for your family. Tomorrow you must row for your city. Tomorrow you must row for freedom. And they destroyed that persian fleet. Its an extraordinary story of accomplishment and charisma. But within three years after that victorious battle, his arroganceat overtakes him and io alienating his countrymen. He is banished from greece and the incense life in the court of the persian emperor. Its a great tragedy and it is a story of how you can be given incredible gifts, but if you allow your ego and arrogance to overtake them, you will metaphorically end up in the court of the persian king. Lets go to different part of the world. Lets go to china we are now in the year 1400, 1405. The chinese emperor is zheng he. He is entrusted with an enormous treasure fleet constructed which explores the south china sea, the indian ocean. To give you a point of comparison about europeans and chinese, look at those ships in the upper right. See that massive wooden one . Thats the scale of zheng he flagship which is 500 feet long and has a crew of 600. You see that little toy vote next to it . Thats the flagship of Christopher Columbus, the santa maria, which 100 years later in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Thats what the europeans were sailing to explore the world. The chinese were sailing massive ships. And by the way, that treasure fleet, that economic juggernaut of the 1400 looks a lot like chinas strategy today, one belt, one4 road. Theres a lot to learn from zheng he about his ability to organize, his ability to fulfill what his boss wants him to. Lets jump a little further forward to the time of the spanish armada, sir francis drake. He saved england. He leads a british fleet that defeats the spanish armada. But in the caribbean is known as a pirate, a rapist, a murderer. He had slaves. He burned cities. He killed indiscriminately. He is perhaps the darkest character of these admirals. He is a a patriot. Hes also a pirate. How many of you have been in disney world on the ride pirates of the caribbean . Like everybody based on sir francis drake. He was my favorite british admiral. Vice admiral lord nelson. He fight another existential battle. He defeats napoleons fleet in 1805 at the o battle of trafalgr off the coast of spain. Id like admiral nelson a lot because he was about 55. [laughing] a man of normal height. [laughing] but he was fearless in combat. He lost an arm, his right arm in one battle. He lost an eye in another battle. And he was beloved by his sailors. He took care of his sailors, and his captains who work for him adored him. He was a team builder. Beloved by sales, beloved by his captains. Ycp if it . Not so much. This is Emma Hamilton you to avoid young actress we think of her today. He has an adulterous affair with her over a number of years he fathers a child out of wedlock. This guy would never get to Senate Confirmation today. [laughing] you see the picture of him, manly looking at the signal because in those days you look at signal flags to know know ws failed leadership. Looks good,d, right . He was a difficult subordinate. Hes actually puttingic the telescope to his blind eye because he doesnt like the order from the admiral and he is saying to his flag captain, i dont see any signal there. Go ahead and come to star board. [laughing] this is what expression to turn a blind eye to something actually comes from. So a great hero of his country. His moral compass doesnt always sailed true north. And a very difficult subordinate, select all of us, complex character. Else . We talked about our friend admiral mahan, arguably the most brilliant offices and it has produced in the 1880s, 1890 he produces a global strategy for america, not just for the navy why America Needs the oceans. It was said that an intellectual is a man with spectacles on his nose and winter in his heart. This was admiral mahan. He is not a loving, giving person. His life balance is not good, what he does is think and write and pursue the truth wherever it takes in. He creates the naval war college, arguably the most important of all of our war colleges and military educational institutions. So not a warm, shami figure. Hes a miserable commander at sea. Gu he commands the ship badly once, but boy, is he smart. Again, that mixture that his character. Who else . Heres one not many people know. This is a british admiral and his name is Jackie Fisher. Hes a british admiral at the turn of the last century. What i like about Jackie Fisher is he comes into the british navy when there are sailing ships and muzzleloading cannons. By the time he commands the british navy asom the sea lord,t has gone from wooden ships, sales and muzzleloading cannon to steal holes, done with coal, moved onto oil, longrange fire control platforms, huge cannons, submarines are coming in. Hes an extraordinary innovator. Hes a contemporary of winston churchill, and is also hugely egotistical. He is the onlynd one in the roo. He is that quintessential person osce has to show you how smart he or she is the minute the door opens. So this massive ego, but type to this brilliance in this case for innovation. Lets come back to america and lets go to i would argue the best admiral in American History certainly. Fleet admiral chester nimitz, comes out of fredericksburg texas landlocked