Youll move ultimately in a different direction. More prosaically it comes from a period in my career when i was a four star admiral, fish issuing the u. S. Sorry command and charge of all military activities south of the out and i was very hopeful of going pacific next as a commander of u. S. Pacific command. Which is a very traditional position for a senior admiral. My boss, wonderful boss, secretary defense robert gates, bob gates, said, stavridis. Were going to send you to nato. I was the first and thus far the only admiral to be spree supreme am lied commander in nato and just an accident of timing and faith and secretary gate decision. So from the nato perspective i was at the dental admiral who became the supreme allied expired but the navy was an accident as well, one it, as a career . Guest somewhat. So, lets go way back. I grew up in a marine corps family. My father, george stavridis, proud colonel of marines, fought in korea and vietnam. I grew up in that environment, and so went to Quantico High School south of washington, dc, went to navy think iing i would be a marine corps and heres the accident. At any first year the navy send everybody out on a cruise and you go out on a ship. I went out on a beautiful cruelser out of san diego, and i walked up on the bridge of that ship in the evening, gotten away from the pier late in the day and i got up there and the sun was setting and i looked out on all that ocean and all that light and i was like, st. Paul and the road to damascus, just wanted to by a sailor at that point and be in ships. So i went home and told my dad and my mom, shirley, and they were kind of hoping i would be a marine but they got over it. Years later when i pitch on my first star as an admiral my dad said, i think that came out okay for you, jim. Host you almost left the navy after five years, correct . Guest i did. I graduated from annapolis and went to sea for five years. I spent three of a destroyer, out of san diego, and then went to mayport, florida, where i am coming to you from today. Out of my home town. My mom lives here, my inlaws. And at the end of that five year pe year period i was on an Aircraft Carrier as my second stipulate. A destroyer and an Aircraft Carrier. At the end of the five years i could launch a missile. I was a very capable mariner but i couldnt launch an idea to save my life. And the navy stepped in and made me an offer, as the sagos, i couldnt refuse. I went to the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy at tufts university, graduate school of international relations, and i learned how to launch an idea there i think, and that is when i began to shift the focus of my career from exclusively focusing on Maritime Operations and being a mariner, which of course is a part of my life and career, but also trying to be involved in the world of ideas. Came out of my time at fletcher in the early 1980s. Host as Supreme Commander of nato, 2009 to 2013, you say in the accidental admiral you wrote 250,000 words, mainly to teach yourself, not others. Guest indeed. I felt as though a big part of my job as the supreme allied commander of nato is to take ideas and move them across this enormous command. At the time there were 28 nations in nato. Today there are 30. Three million people. Men and women. Almost all volunteers on active duty. Another four million in reserves, 28,000 military aircraft, 800 oceangoing ships. You get the idea. A very big command, and i felt as though part of my job was communication of the key ideas, of the strategy. So a spent a lot of time writing for my own benefit because i learn as i write, and also for the benefit of those in the command. Host one of the chapters in at the book is about the chateau. What is that . Guest the chateau is the official residence of the supreme allied commander of nato. Its a beautiful french chateau which is on 26 acres. Its maintained and financed by the belgian government its in belgium just south of brussels, and its not only a lovely place to live but also a Strategic Communications platform. Its where the supreme allied commander will host a dinner for all of the heads of state and government of the nato alliance. Youll host the senior military officers from rope the alliance. Youll host partners, allies, friends, and opponents. One of the most memorable dinners we held there was for the my opposite number in the russian federation, the supreme command e. Of the russian military. I like general makarov. Were bought 55, were not towering people and i used to joke to secretary gates, my boss, he would call me after aid immediate with the general and say, how did the meet going and id say, sir, i it was great, we saw everything eye to eye which we did at our towering 55 height put its an exam of the fact we need to engage not only with those who are already on our team but if were going to succeed in creating real security, we have to engage with those with whom we have disagreements and this was a good example of that. All that occurred in the chateau. Host from that book, the extental admiral, you write, throughout my time as the nato strategic commander, i was often asked what kept me awake at night. My simple one word answer to what really kept me awake may surprise you and thats convergence. Guest indeed. What i particularly concerned about because id looked around in those years this was ten years ago i was concerned about afghanistan, libya baskans, piracy, cyber security, but what increasingly concerned me was the potential of convergence between groups against the United States, terrorist organizations, if you will, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Those are like two streams of threat and its kind of like in ghostbusters, you never want to let the streams cross. So i worried a lot in those areas of al qaeda finding its way to a nuclear device. We have to continue to be concerned about that in the context today not only of al qaeda but about the islamic state, about boca haram in algiera, alshabaab in eastern africa, these groups continue to try and find ways to obtain weapons of mass destruction. So, yes, i worry alight about convergence, and over the last ten years, my view has added to that concern, i cyber, and cyber security. Because these groups are becoming more and more adept at using the tools of offensive cyber capability to go after our finances, our infrastructure, our medical establishment, are all quite vulnerable, so to the contest of ten years ago when i was very focused on extremist organizations and nuclear weapons, today i am equally concerned about cyber and cyber tools in the hands of such organizations and also in the hands of rogue states like north korea. Host can you get isolate when youre the Supreme Commander of nato . Guest of course. You have to fight every day in a job like that to break out of the cocoon your staff will try to put you. In this is true for any leader of any sizable organization. Your staff will want to take control, will want to dictate the tempo, the organization of your day. Theyll want to schedule your trips. Want to control the information coming in. Theyll want to control your Communications Going out. Thats the nature of staffs. They do that because it creates order where otherwise chaos might exist. And it is a commendable and a natural function of the staff. But as a commander, i would argue, you have to fight against that isolation. You have to rage against the dying of the light, if you will to pick up dylan thomas poem, you have to fight to get out of that cocoon, to find sources of information that can come into you, to find ways to communicate simply and truly to your organization, into demand that you have a voice in your schedule, in where your priorities are. Lets face it, your greatest asset as a commander, whether youre the supreme allied commander of nato or the ceo or exxon or the president of harvard university, if youre the leader of a large organization, your most precious asset is your time. And how you allocate it and prioritize has to be reflected in your time, and one thing i would do as a practical point to be made for those in such positions, we can often think that our priorities are x, y and z. And a very good exercise every six months is to get out the calendar and look back at the previous six months and say to yourself, am i prioritizing my time in alignment with my supposed priorities of x, y and z . And i would find occasionally, more than occasionally, that i would be prioritizing with my time a, b and c, despite the fact my stated priorities one x, y and z. So, it is crucial to break and to use your own view of what your time should be and how it should be spent, and all of that means getting out of that isolation and that bubble that a typical staff will try to place a leader in. Host was it easier to do to get out of that bubble when you were on a ship and could Wander Around on your own . It. Guest it was and i wrote a book about that years ago. When i was in my 30s, called destroyer captain and it is a very short book it and simply was a series of excerpts from journal is kept the first time i took commanded a sea. Was lucky enough to be the captain of uss barry, brand new guided missile destroyer and i wanted desperately to connect with my crew, and on a ship like that its a big ship. Its 500 feet long, longer than a football field by considerable distance. Has crew of 300 to 350 depending on the configuration but its a small universe unto itself, especially when youre out at sea and as the captain, you get to decide how you want to use your time. Are you going to sit in your chair on the bridge kind of surveying the beautiful ocean . Are you going to spend the time locked in your cabin doing paperwork . Those are real options. Or are you going to get out on foot patrol in your ship and know every one of your sailors and their back story and ask them questions and understand what brought them to the navy. All of that i think is part of being a good captain, and its not only done in ships at sea. Think its part of any Good Organization that desires to get out, move around, know your people, all of that contributes to Effective Mission accomplishment. Host what is articlely burk class mean. The u. S. Navy for every type of ship, destroyers, cruiser, Aircraft Carriers, sub marines the first ship of that type is thats called a class, and that type is the first ship is the class leader and thus of the every destroyer of that particular type built exactly the same as the first one is called an arley burk class kea exterior. For example, i commanded ddg52, hull number 52. My wife, laura, is the proud sponsor that means she got to break the champagne bottle to christen the shipment the is she sponsor solve dgy113. From 52 to 113 and every one of those destroyers is called an arley burk class destroyer, built along the lines of the very first one. So its wonderful to have a ship named after you for anybody. Its a deep honor, but a particular honor to be the lead ship of the class and that honor was bestowed on admiral burk the greatest of our destroyer officers, the most impactful surface line chief of naval operations. He was the cno for six years, an iconic naval figure and all the ships in that class are ar leey burk class destroys. Ill close by saying mine this, second of the class, was named the barry after john barry who is not terribly wellknown, revolutionary war navy captain, a contemporary roughly of john paul jones, and was a superb naval officer. Those who served in the barry are very proud of that and proud to be the barry just like my wife is proud to be the sponsor of 113, the john finn, named for a medal of honor winner at pearl hash per, and all of white house served in any of those destroyers are very proud to be destroyer men and women, and to serve in an early burk class destroyer. Host admiral all of your books contain leadership lessons and one of those lessons are a combination of lessons is, bold autonomy versus organizational fidelity. Guest you have to have boat and theres always a tension for a leader in the traditions and cull culture of his or her chores can collide with innovation, and a good leader knows and youll hear me say this again i suspect in the course of a twohour conversation life is not an on and off switch. Its not a binary choice between simply accepting tradition or innovate constantly and constantly change. Thats a false choice. Instead of thinking of it as an on and off switch we need to think of it was a rheostat, a gill like the dimmer in your dining room that you adjust to make the lighting just perfect. A good leader has to find that balance between respect for the traditions and the heritage of the organization against the innovation that is necessary to keep that organization moving forward. I think thats one of the real keys to leadership, and ill give you a practical example from one of my heroes, Winston Church which, the secretary of the navy of the British Royal navy in the early part of the 20th century and constantly watched to innovate and drive change and he was constantly in conflict with the art admiralty and one point he heard to many times we cant do that, its against the traditions of the navy, and churchill exploded and said, tradition . Ill give you the traditions of the navy. Run, bugger and lash. In other words, there is time when we have to move forward. Luckily for churchill he found somebody in sir jackie fisher, in early 20th century british admiral who was an innovator like churchill and the formed a partnership with helped move the royal navy along. Host admiral you moe recent book is called sailing true north. What is true north. Guest true north ised a heres to what we broadly con conceive over of as moral and ethical behavior. You are trustworky, you are honest, you care about others, you are kind to others, you have empathy and try and put yourself in the shoes of the other, and not just your friends and family but in the shoes of your opponents and those with whom you disagree. You believe in things like democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of education, gender equality, racial equality. We execute those values imperfectly but they are the right values and when taken together, that value set, plus the personal qualities i mentioned a moment ago, that is what it means to sail true north. Host in that book you wry, quote i am also motivated by a greg sense that we are witnessing the slow death of character. Guest we are. I also say in the book that i think we overshare publicly and we underperform in thinking about our character, our internal debate, and heres an important point about sailing true north. Its not a book about leadership. Its a book about character. Those are two very different things. Leadership is a big door. A big door that swings in the world that influences others. And that door of leadership swings for good or for ill. We think of franklin del know roosevelt, a top president along with washington and lincoln. That door of leadership he exerted to get usually to the great depression, to get us through the second world war, that door of leadership was enormous and it swung for good. On the other hand, thing about a leader like poll pol pot of tam boda, ruthless, thug, but an effective leader. He could mobilize a society. His big door of leadership led to an awful genocide in the killing fields of cambodia. Leadership is that door, but big doors swing on small hinges, and that small hinge is character, its the human heart. It determines where your door of leadership is going to swing. So i wanted to write a book that talked about character. Were frankly we are awash in books of leadership. Just walk through an airport. Youll see dozen of them in every become store. We are underweight in books about character, about this idea of sailing true north, and so i chose to write about that topic and in the category of write what you know about, what a concept, decided to write about character in the context of admirals and the sea. And i chose ten admirals from history, going back 2500 years ago to a greek admiral, all the way through the late 20th century. Admiral grace hopper, a woman dragged the navy kicking and screaming into the computer age. Their ten stories are stovers character, hence the title the back, sailing true north, ten admirals in victim of character. Thats the idea of the book. Host wellll get into the admirals in a minute. But to go back to your quote about character, you said, like you said, we overshare and our Attention Spans have shortened. Are those comments directed at any one in particular . Guest no. Theyre directed at all of us. But i think we can all point to public figures today who would benefit from doing a little more reading and doing a little more thinking and a little more internal contemplation, and to take the example into the twitter sphere and the world of twitter, recently twitter expanded from a maximum of 140 characters to 270 characters and createed a firestorm month twitter users who said its going to make the tweets just too long. Think but that for a minute. Thats 270 letters. And so my argument is, sure, we need tweets. Theyre like a shot of espresso but you dont want to have a diet that consists of 50 shots of espresso before lunch. Thats not a healthy diet you neat a diet that has some tweeting in it, some short punchy reading. You need to be reading, mill view, newspapers and understanding the daily cycle of news, you need to understand events through things like reading the economist magazine, for example, which is i think one of the great magazines in the world. It is almost 200 years old. It has no bilines in, helps no reporter ego involved. It is resolutely journalistic, and it is detached from the daily news cycle and in addition to all of that we need to find time all of us to read some books, both nonfiction which we talked but but i would argue also great novels help us understand the world. So, your reading diet is like your physical fitness diet. You dont want to do just one exercise all the time. You want to have a pretty broad based diet. Host what is the back of your Business Card say . The back of Business Card is blank and perhaps i should think about putting something clever back there. Ill tell you a quote i like a lot that i would think but putting hope to back of my Business Card, which is a quote of the greatest of modern greek writers, in serbia that greek and on his tombstone he has the following idea which the quote i would put is, the same as the quote on his gravestone, which is i want nothing, i fear nothing, i am free. And i would want it there because i think we need to be fearless in our lives. We ne