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Lessons in leadership from an Inc. 500 CEO and three-time Navy SEAL platoon commander on making the call when the path isn’t clear
Alden Mills built three companies that failed before he built the one that worked. He will tell you the leader he is today was shaped by the first three, not the fourth.
In this conversation, JM Search Partner Jamey Cummings sits down with Alden, a Naval Academy graduate, three-time Navy SEAL platoon commander, and founder of Perfect Fitness, the company behind the Perfect Pushup and one of the fastest-growing consumer product companies in the country. They discuss the three principles a commanding officer gave Alden early in his career that have held up across two decades of building businesses, why the best leaders detach from their own ideas so the best idea can win, and why trust between a leader and a team is the real force multiplier when the outcome is not yet guaranteed.
In This Conversation:
- 0:00 The failures behind the highlight reel
- 3:00 The first leadership mentor and a lesson in resilience
- 13:45 The Hell Week moment he almost quit
- 18:45 Three lessons from a commanding officer that still hold up in business
- 23:30 Letting the best idea win: a story from Bosnia
- 26:00 Getting emotionally detached from your own decisions
- 28:00 Meeting people where they are, on stage and off
- 33:30 Trust as the real force multiplier