Special Forces taught me: The most powerful tool isn’t a weapon.
After every mission or exercise, no matter how successful, we’d gather.
Exhausted. Dirty. Sometimes seriously demoralized.
For what might be the military’s most valuable tradition:
The After Action Review (AAR).
No rank.
No ego.
No sugar coating.
Just raw honesty about what went wrong, what went right, and what we’d do differently next time.
It´s the only way to learn. Both on a personal and organisational level.
Future lives depended on these sessions.
That’s why we’d strip everything bare:
• Leadership decisions
• Team communication
• Individual performance
Nothing was off limits.
Here’s the thing:
Most people avoid this level of honest assessment like the damn plague.
They’d rather keep rushing forward, making the same mistakes.
Hoping something magically changes.
But, as we know, hope isn’t a strategy.
Want to transform your life? Your business? Your relationships?
Start running your own AARs.
Here are three principles I still use running 7-figure businesses and my life:
– The 24-Hour Rule
Don’t wait longer than 24 hours to review.
Memory fades quickly. Emotions settle.
You need both fresh recall and the sting of failure to drive real change.
– The Three Questions That Matter
• What was supposed to happen?
• What actually happened?
• What caused the difference?
Simple. Brutal. Effective.
– The No-Blame Game
Focus on learning, not fault-finding.
It´s important to keep everybody´s ego in check.
Every mistake is a gift. Treat it as such.
The goal isn’t punishment. It’s progress.
I use these same principles coaching high achievers now.
The missions are different:
• Rebuilding relationships
• Creating time freedom and living epic adventures
• Finding purpose beyond the everyday grind
• Building sustainable success: Happy, Healthy AND Wealthy
But the process remains the same:
– Honest assessment.
– Clear insights.
– Deliberate adjustment.
You can’t build an extraordinary future on unexamined failures.
When was the last time you ran a proper AAR on your life?
Not just a quick “that didn’t work” and move on.
But a deep, honest look at what’s working, what isn’t, and why.
The answers might surprise you.
The results definitely will.
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