 My name is Michael Crook. I'm a professor at Pepperdine. I teach strategy which is the last class MBAs take before they graduate with an MBA. I grew up in Aloha, Oregon, which is a very small town outside of Lieberton outside of Portland. I was really excited to join the Navy and you know see the world as I said back then and I remember getting on the plane in Portland, Oregon and taking off in the plane I'd never been in a plane before. I looked up the window and I said I don't care what's going to happen in the next four years it's already worth it. It was just like it was like yes this is going to be a great adventure. Oh I remember getting to boot camp and just crying my eyes out just going what did I do you know why did I do this how could I even consider doing this and I saw that the movie for the SEAL teams and BUDS training I said yeah I think that looks great and I didn't have anything guaranteed so I said I'll take the test and I took the physical test and passed it and got orders to BUDS. I was just you know like whoa there I was and my class 89 I think we had close to 120, 130 other recruits and they were all bigger and stronger and smarter than me and I didn't think I had really much of a chance to make it through. At the beginning of Hell Week they told us to do a four mile time run of it as fast as you could go and of course we all had PRs for our best times and then a few days into Hell Week they say okay we're going to do a four mile time run again and this time if you don't beat your time from the start of Hell Week you're out we're going to drop you and of course they weren't going to but that's that's what they said and right away people were ringing the bell going no way no way no way I'm not doing that I'm tired of this and I didn't beat my time but I came close to it and after reflecting on it I just realized the power of the brain you know just what we could do if we mentally told ourselves we could do it. I've always felt like I had a secret sauce above people that hadn't gone through it. BUDS training was really the turning point in my life I had very little direction in my life up until that point and I was also very much an individual and BUDS training completely changed my way of thinking about that in fact I would have never made it through BUDS without without being a team player that's the common denominator of all however many of us made it 17 or 20 of us that made it was we were all team players that's the only way to get the great things to happen and I found that out in in my business career is that you have to have great teams. So I spent four years in the teams and I got out and started going to college and we're just loving it I mean just all of a sudden this this I never had liked school before all of a sudden I was loving school I was loving learning I was loving being an entrepreneur I got a degree in forestry worked in the woods a few years and then I got an MBA and my first job out of being an MBA was you know I was headed to NASA and I did a I got a call from one of my professors says hey would you like to do a weekend project at Yakima which was a rack company for skis snowboards kayaks bikes and for your car and I said sure and I went there on the weekend and they're all there the people there are hanging out there in shorts they're like it's my tribe I find my tribe you know all these snowboarders and kayakers and they're hanging out you know just loving what they're doing this and I just said whoa this is what I've got to do and that's how I got into the outdoor industry so I was in the outdoor industry which is you know I was a kayaker and a cyclist and a runner I loved that stuff so I found what I was really passionate about and and I kind of was looking around and what was instilled to me in the team says okay where do I want to be what's my goal what's my mission you know where am I going and I thought wow outdoor industry two best companies REI and Patagonia I said well I'm gonna be CEO of one of those companies and that was probably 1988 and I became CEO of Patagonia in 1999 you know you you you learn in the teams how to think about about things how to think strategically and then down to the execution and how to get it done when you come out of the teams people want to be around you they want to be around that positive energy that can do attitude and being such a team player people wanted to work with you because you were a team player you weren't trying to be an individual I think that so many of the lessons of the teams are so applicable to the business world you know I went from Yakima to Moonstone where I took over you know much larger role to my first kind of general manager president role was at Kelty the backpack company then Pearl Zumi which is a great cycling performance company and then Patagonia and after that I went to a venture capital firm and founded that with Steve Case and you know after finished with the venture capital I started teaching and consulting so all the lessons I learned in the team helped me all along the way