When governments decide to go to war, they send in the special forces first and there are many stories of battles. Remembering they have guns with bullets and so does the other side or people lose their lives. In a book written by Mark Owen titled No Hero – the Evolution of a Navy Seal, published by Dutton part of the Penguin Group, New York, 2014, Mr. Owen focuses on the preparation needed to do a successful mission for the SEALS and something many of us non seals can learn. Mr. Owen writes there is no secret sauce – but there is hard work, dedication and drive. The reality is that SEALs do not think of themselves as special. We simply try to do the most basic tasks extraordinarily well.

One of the best leaders I know used to challenge his junior guys to be engaged and part of the team. At what level are you willing to participate, he would ask. All in, all the time was the only acceptable answer.

The team learned how to excel. Excelling means communicating with each other, testing, listening, studying and teaching day in day out, year after year. Part of the process was letting others call you on your mistakes. In this fashion everyone is examining the decisions made during the mission and learning from your mistakes so that the team can be effectively as possible. The debrief becomes almost as important as the mission because you can out alive. Does your team at work do this? do you?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in Mr. Owen’s book he stresses doing the simple things and understanding the most basic principles perfectly in order to execute them. If you do it you will always be ahead of someone who lacks the fundamentals. The fundamentals of the market is to make money in the market investing in profitable stocks which pay a dividend is going to allow you to be ahead in the long run. There will always be many theories how to beat the market and every one will work in one instance, most will not work outside that one special circumstance. Investing in profitable stocks works throughout the years.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.