Hi Everyone,

Happy Friday! Thanks for spending part of it reading The Lake Street Journal.

This week we’re talking about Evan Hafer’s ambushes, Dark Matter, and lessons from Netflix. Let's get into it.

Stay F*cking Calm

There's this great scene from The Office where Pam spots smoke coming from under a door and Michael runs out of his office yelling, "Stay calm! Stay calm! Stay fucking calm!!" as he proceeds to panic and create hysteria among everyone in the building.

Like most things Michael Scott does, it's the exact opposite of what a leader should do.

Projecting calm amidst chaos is contagious, and it's a skill great leaders strive to perfect. But it doesn't come without practice.

"The first time I was in an ambush, I was losing my shit," said Evan Hafer, a former Green Beret and the founder of Black Rifle Coffee. "Anyone that tells you they're not scared is either fundamentally flawed or they're just lying."

"The world starts cracking apart, and your mind can't keep up to what's actually happening. I heard the gunfire. I looked in the rear view mirror of the humvee, and I saw this car-sized chunk of fire flying behind the vehicle.

I turned to my team leader, and I'm like, 'We gotta get the fuck outta here!'

I'm losing it. And he was calm, cool, on the radio, checking comms with the other vehicles.

We ended up pushing through and consolidating, and then my team leader turned to me and said, 'Hey man, if you don't have a solution to the problem, just shut the fuck up.'"

After that moment, Hafer said it became a practice, a discipline, to keep his shit together when things were going sideways. It was a practice that worked.

The last ambush he was in was a car chase through Mosul, Iraq. He was a CIA contractor, so it was just him and one other guy in a black BMW, being pursued by the Iraqi Army.

"The dragons were at the bumper," Hafer recounted. "They were going to pull me out of that car and chop my fucking head off."

In the middle of the insanity, he was able to get a Kiowa chopper on the radio for fire support.

As he came smoking in to the bridge—his only exit—he saw the Iraqis had it blocked off. At the last moment, the Kiowa dropped its skids on the front of Hafer's car, panned its guns at the Iraqis, and they magically opened the bridge.

Hafer's hail mary worked.

After the dust settled, he was talking to the guys in the Kiowa.

"Bro, we didn't know how bad this was," said the pilot. "You sounded like you were ordering a pizza."

Everything between that first ambush and the last—rep after rep after rep—Hafer was teaching himself to stay calm. To keep his shit together. To keep himself and everyone around him alive.

And it was those years of practice that kept him calm. That made him sound like he was ordering a pizza, and, ultimately, kept him above ground.

Hafer had a team sergeant who would say that psychology is more contagious than the flu. When you start losing your shit, it affects everyone else around you.

Hafer said that philosophy controlled every piece of what he did going forward.

"Rise to the occasion. Become the calm in the chaos. Internally, you can barely keep your shit together, but you gotta project calm. Because if I infect everyone else with my chaos, we all might die."

When the stakes are high—a game on the line, a client deliverable deadline, a fire in the office—you'll either be Michael Scott or Evan Hafer.

Scott is the default. Hafer takes practice. If you want to be the latter, today's a good day to start.

Dark Matter

I read this whole book last week while I was at the beach with my family. If you have young kids like me, you know how crazy that is. Shoutout to my wife.

Anyway, it was a great book, and if you're looking for a fun fiction read, I highly recommend this one. Here's part of the description from Amazon:

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious.

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this life or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how will Jason make it back to the family he loves?

I couldn't put this one down.

What's the best fiction book you've read lately?

10 Lessons from Reed Hastings

This was a great thread of lessons from Shane Parrish's convo with Netflix founder Reed Hastings. Two of the lessons stood out to me:

• Trust the Expenses: Netflix eliminated their expense policies in lieu of one sentence: Act in Netflix's best interest. Sometimes rules cost more than rule breaking.

• Culture as Repellent: Netflix published their internal culture deck publicly. Not to attract candidates but to repel them. I think most company culture documents are phony and useless. Sounds like Netflix is an exception.

Workout of the Week

Here's a quick little burner to kick off your weekend. I’ll be out running 10 or 12 miles tomorrow morning, so think of me when you hit that 15 minute mark.

"The Quadfather"

15 minute AMRAP:

• 10 weighted box step ups (20" box, 35# dbs)

• 10 devil's press (35s)

• 500m bike erg

Quote of the Week

"Psychology is more contagious than the flu." - Evan Hafer

Have a question or a comment? Respond to this email.

Talk soon,

Joe