Teaching Our Servicemen Courage And Resiliency With Captain Daniel Lim

Courage and resiliency. These are the words Captain Daniel Lim, USMC, lives by. In this episode, Adam Markel sits down for a conversation with Captain Lim as they look at his efforts to support resiliency in the United States Marines Corps. Using education and support from innovative resources, Captain Lim is helping servicemen to cope with the pressures of military service and try to reduce the suicide rate in the military. Learn more and be inspired by Captain Lim and his story.

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Teaching Our Servicemen Courage And Resiliency With Captain Daniel Lim

I am happy. I don’t use that word that often, but I feel happiness inside of me at this moment. That’s a good thing. I don’t have anything against happiness. It sometimes questioned, whether it’s a concept that is tangible and attainable so sometimes I replace happy with joy, joyful, grateful or things like that feel tangible to me.

At this moment, happy is what came up, so that’s what came out in my mouth. I do feel happy, probably in part because we are, my wife and I celebrating the one month that we became grandparents, which is shocking to even say it, feel it. She is a GG and I am a Poppy. I don’t know how that’s possible since I was eighteen years old like seconds ago. Anybody that can’t relate someday, hopefully, you will be able to relate because it is such a blessing. Those of you who can relate, I’m getting welcome to the club, I guess.

I’m also quite happy about the fact that I have a wonderful guest on the show. I have for so long being concerned about our servicemen and women. Concerned in the sense that the statistics about suicide in the military, people that have exited the military and going back into civilian life certainly issues that flow out of this enormous service. These sacrifices that servicemen and women make for the greater benefit of all of us. I am speaking about the US Military Servicemen and women but there are servicemen and women in pretty much every country around the globe. Not putting any politics in the conversation at all. People that are committed to that service deserve as much honor as we could ever imagine. I don’t think we can ever go too far with that. I really don’t.

What is heartbreaking is that after that service is completed or in transition into a life outside of service, there are some difficulties. I don’t know that those difficulties have been addressed like so many things in life. There are ways we can improve it and make it better. That’s what I look forward to talking to my guest, is Captain Daniel Lim. He is an officer in the United States Marine Corps, graduated from the United States Naval Academy.

He has served in his capacity as a Company Commander, leading the largest and most diverse company in the organization and as a communications officer, engineering IT projects, and establishing a command-and-control architecture for multiple levels of the organization. During off business hours, Daniel is devoted to serving the local community and educational departments. It’s such a great pleasure to have you with us, Daniel. Thanks so much for being here. Can I ask you, do you prefer Daniel or Captain Lim?

Daniel, please. Thanks for having me, Adam. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here. You talked about happiness. I’m happy to be alive and to be living in the moment and to be on a show to share some of my experiences, and hopefully, impact the audience in positive ways.

That’s already settled. As soon as you said what you did, I found myself feeling your heart and that’s in leadership. Let me ask this question instead of making a statement out of it. In the leadership roles that you’ve been in and the ones that you’ve witnessed, how important is it that the leader has a heart that they are engaging their heart, that you can feel their heart as part of that leadership role?

Leadership, a lot of people have a misconception that leadership comes from officership but leadership comes from every level of organization and rank within the Marine Corps. It could be a brand-new Marine checking into the unit to the most senior ranking Marine Officer in the Marine Corps. Leadership is personified and embodied throughout our transformational experience, so it’s very important.

People think that if they do show their heart or they express themselves in a heart-centered way that it somehow feels like weakness or vulnerability and that doesn’t match up to the role. Do you feel like that’s the case sometimes?

The Marine Corps, in general, is an Elite War Fighting Organization and we take a lot of pride in what we do. Sometimes in organizations, seeking help can be construed or misconstrued as a sign of weakness but we try to terminate that and eliminate that culture. One of my favorite quotes is, “The culture of an organization is defined by the collective behavior of its leaders.” It’s how we behave, act, interact and care for one another that defines the culture. That’s what we are striving for in my organization.

I want to paraphrase this back, see if I got it. “The culture of an organization is defined by the collective behavior of its leaders.” The experience of those that are following those leaders, what you’re saying is that those leaders are models in many ways that their behavior is the model for what’s being required or the standards that are expected. Is that correct?

Yes, and something that I realized at a personal level is behind every mission accomplishment and each lionize leader were subordinates who worked tirelessly and risked lives to see the collective vision come to life. I made it my mission to care for the welfare of those Marines and Sailors. It’s not just me but it’s leaders throughout the organization who are making a positive impact on those around them.

Not only sustaining their transformation development but also returning quality citizens imbued with the highest ideals of our institutional core values of honor, courage and commitment. That commitment is not only to the institution but also to ourselves and to the mission and to serve something bigger than ourselves. That spirit is ubiquitous throughout the organization that I serve in.

It’s interesting because the word permission comes up for me. This idea of, do you have permission to be real, to be transparent about what’s going on? I’m not looking to find the first domino. Although I’ll admit, I’m very curious about how it is when you see so many people as a percentage coming out of military service that has ongoing challenges and more than the physical things that sometimes people get hurt. We’re talking about military service. There are wars and there are conflicts all over the globe that are our servicemen and women are sent to go and make a positive difference in someplace. There are physical injuries that can come into play but there are also emotional and mental challenges that are attendant to that service as well.

Courage And Resiliency: A lot of people have a misconception that leadership comes from officership, but leadership comes from every level of organization and every level of rank within the Marine Corps.

My question is one of, if the leaders are the ones setting the culture by their own behavior, do you see that leaders at the highest ranks are themselves transparent about their challenges in dealing with what they’ve seen and experienced? Is that more becoming the trend in the Marine Corps or elsewhere, do you think?

Adam, I could only speak on my personal experience. As a military officer, I have developed a lasting bond with Marine, Sailors and their supportive families who are dedicated to the cause is bigger than themselves. Leaders, both in public and private spirits who risk their security for the promise of making the nation and the world a better place. The Marine Corps has statistics alone experienced moderate improvements and death by suicide and offense. However, the number of suicidal ideations is at a steady increase. For me, and for all leaders across the organization, one death by suicide is one too many.

My goal is to invite leaders like yourselves from diverse industries functions and provide an opportunity to share their successful resiliency stories, increasing awareness and promoting resources. It’s not just the leaders within the organizations who are transparent and willing to help, willing to provide resources but it’s also using a multifaceted approach of bringing in experts from outside the organization to be able to share their part of success stories and how their resiliency stories may impact us positively as an organization, so I think it’s both ways.

It’s a delicate thing when you think about it because to be strong, we could spend hours defining what strength looks like. I’ve got a daughter that had a baby. There’s nothing that could define strength any more viscerally than a woman giving birth and, of course, being a mother. It only starts with birth.

This idea of being strong and, at the same time, also have the capacity to be vulnerable, to be transparent about where you’re coming from. If you’re in a bad place, if you’re entertaining thoughts of whatever it is, whether it’s a suicide, you’re angry, sad or other things that are going on. It’s like, how is it that you can both be strong and also be vulnerable at the same time? That’s not easy, I won’t call it a balance but let’s say to harmonize those two things that seemingly are irreconcilable or opposite even. That’s an interesting task. My question to you is, do you feel like that’s on the radar at this point within your branch of the military?

Yes, let me share some of the programs that I’ve implemented. Hopefully, that can shed some light on answering your question. The Marine Corps suicide prevention program envisions a strong and resilient core, in which no Marine is left behind. That’s under the institutional mission and vision. My program is designed to supplement well-established policies and guidelines. Furthermore, it provides personnel with immediate action and decision-making tools, including the process for identification, referral, access to treatment and follow-up procedures for service members at risk of suicide.

Most importantly, going back to some of the things that we discussed earlier, Adam. I emphasized the importance of leadership for early identification and intervention for stressors that detract from personal and unit readiness. We use tools such as the Command Individual Risk and Resiliency Assessment System, enabling Marine Corps leaders to make informed and timely decisions for force preservation based on risk assessment. We also have the poorest preservation council that meets at least once a month to synchronize and share ways to provide resources to the command for the Marines at the individual level.

Finally, incorporating a multidisciplinary approach comprised of experts from different specialties. For example, from the chaplain was providing spiritual support to licensed counselors, medical professionals, to behavioral specialists, the list goes on. The end state is to provide tailored resources for our Marines and Sailors, creating a robust and safe environment that optimizes effectiveness and mission readiness.

I’m curious, what was it that motivated you to join the Marines in the first place? Since this is called the Conscious Pivot, this show is about people’s pivots in life. Sometimes, the ones that we control and sometimes the ones that happen. I’d love to get a sense of both the entry point to the Marine Corps, as well as some of those pivot points in your life.

You could find pivot moments throughout my journey. As a first-generation Korean-American, I had a strong sense of justice and duty to give back to the country that allowed my family to make it our home. By the prospect of knocking down doors and bringing justice to the enemies of freedom and protecting the American values, I went to the Naval Academy. During my year when I was volunteering at a local church, I started to consider my motivations and through reflection. As time progressed, I realized that life that emulates unconditional love and gratitude, not justice was my calling.

This is where you can perhaps see how I successfully reinvented areas of my personal life. It then goes back to what we talked about like behind every mission accomplishment and each line of leader where subordinates work tirelessly and sometimes risk lives to see the collective vision come to life. It was at that point that I made it my mission to care for the welfare of those Marines and Sailors and the family. I believe recognizing and valuing the people at the heart of the organization, whether in the military or my local communities, has helped me become a better man and a leader.

I’m pausing here from my own thoughts to catch up with what I’m feeling, which I didn’t expect that our conversation would talk about unconditional love as an example. There may be people who are reading to this or watching this and are also going, “Wow.” Am I listening to somebody who’s delivering a talk about love to an audience of people that are there for that message or am I listening to somebody who’s in a leadership role within a military organization that’s not often contextualized around love?

It’s so beautiful to hear that because again, we so often are feeling or we are even programmed to feel that these things are mutually exclusive, that they’re different. It’s one silo for one thing and it’s another silo for something else. You’re talking about more of an integration of those two things. Am I getting close to how you feel about it?

Yes, 100%, Adam. It’s not silos of excellence. They co-exist, and it’s your ability to make sure that those two things are symbiotic and helping you be more resilient.

Courage And Resiliency: Behind every mission accomplishment and each lionized leader were subordinates who worked tirelessly and risked their lives to see the collective vision come to life.

I’d love to get a sense of, again, how it is that this concept of resilience. I always ask people on this show to define it. I’m going to ask you for your own personal definition of it and we’ll go from there.

How do I define resiliency? It’s two parts. Personally, it’s the ability to adapt to circumstances and to overcome adversities. I witnessed it firsthand, personified by my parents, from the devastation of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to leaving everything behind at age 37 and immigrating to the States with $400 in his pocket to assimilating to the hardships of immigrant life, overcoming language and cultural barriers to sacrificing immensely to establish a foundation for the next generation, so that I can fulfill the American dream in the land of opportunity. That’s one way that I saw firsthand resiliency was personified through the example of my parents.

I also had to adapt and overcome adversities in my own ways, immigrating, learning a new language, meeting new friends, attending the United States Naval Academy, which was a transformational experience in and of itself. Graduating as a Marine Officer and soaring through the ranks as a leader and coping with not only my burdens but burdens of leadership that accompany a certain level of leadership, sons and art a warrior.

One of my favorite quotes is, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you do not fear the result of a hundred battles.” This adage is applicable not only in warfare but also in how we cope with enemies of resiliency that surround us day-to-day in our daily lives. Professionally as a leader, resiliency is the X factor that will either make or break the individual at the intersection of life and death situations. That’s how important resiliency is. We try to bring that spirit back to the program that I piloted in my organization to eliminate the negative stigma and promote awareness and provide resources to service members and their families.

What do you think the negative stigma is or what’s been your experience of what that is?

It’s the misconception of what strength means.

Is that what we started to talk about earlier?

Yes, and it’s the ability to understand yourself and it’s part of life. Everybody faces certain situations but we learn to cope with those situations in both negative and positive ways. Through those experiences, we become more resilient as a result. When you look at the Marine Corps population in general, it’s very young, People who are graduating from college or even high school joining, and they’re experiencing this transformational development and life is tough. The men and women in service learn to cope with not only the resiliency that comes from mission accomplishment but also their personal growth as they’re developing into a leader in our world.

You said something earlier, I want to come back to, which is, you talked about the enemies of resiliency. I’d love to get a sense of not an exhaustive list but what are the enemies of resiliency or some of them would say?

Before you sleep, Adam, you reflect on your day and spend ten minutes of your time. I know in your book Pivot, you talk about expressing gratitude or 2 to 3 things that you experienced during the day. If you spend some time thinking about your day, you will come up with the enemies of resiliency that you faced on that day. It’s very difficult to define the enemies of resiliency are because everybody lives a different lifestyle and everyone experiences things differently. Their enemies of resiliency can be different, so it’s understanding yourself and coping with some of those uncertainties that you may face during that day. That’s how I define enemies of resiliency.

I feel very closely aligned with the way you expressed it, so I’m doing a little internal battle now on this because it’s also important, at least from the standpoint of resilience. When I’m speaking about it to organizations and leaders, we can look for certain things because when we can see those things when we can identify them while that’s not the only way that they manifest, it’s sometimes easier for a leader to then be able to say, “There’s a sign of depletion here. This is a sign of exhaustion, burnout.”

To me, recovery is so vital to how I define resilience. This idea that almost like the old expression that, “Announcement prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I’ve been saying that announce of recovery is worth a pound of resilience. That recovery, is I guess my question for you. I’d love to know with everything that you’ve got going on in your world and all the people that by virtue of your mission now supporting, how is it that you are routinely or even ritually creating recovery zones for yourself? What does that look like in your life?

For me personally, it’s a habit. It’s the habit that I create. It’s a routine that I have, so when I wake up, I go straight into meditation. I drink a glass of water and I meditate. Don’t ask me which YouTube videos I watch as they are meditating but it’s in Korean and they do a phenomenal job. It’s about 5 to 10 minutes each morning. I meditate and I try not to think about work or what’s ahead of me but I try to think about bringing peace in my body. I do a quiet time where I read the Bible and I go back to my values rooted in Christian values. That helps me ignite my fuel to start the day.

Throughout the day, as cliché as this may sound, it’s the Marines and the Sailors that I interact with on a day-to-day basis. I don’t look at it as a job, as a task, as a mission to care for the Marines. It’s part of me. It’s part of who I am. I don’t look at it as a burden of leadership but rather, what can I do to ensure that their lives are better now? It’s the positive thinking and positive reinforcement and the mind, body and spirit. That gets me going.

Courage And Resiliency: Unconditional love is on the next level, where you’re pouring everything that you have to love and provide care for the person that you love without expecting anything back.

At the end of the day, you mentioned it perfectly in your book Pivot like think about 2 to 3 things that you were thankful for. I find more than 2 to 3 things that I’m thankful for every day. I’m alive, healthy, living. I was able to contribute to the community and something greater than myself. It’s the unconditional love and also the gratitude that gets me to recover and going.

You and I start our days in a very similar way. The glass of water, sitting to meditate, reading the Bible. I sometimes will read the Bible or randomly pick something there. As is often the case, I have a book of daily readings that are about other things but they’re tied to some statement or some story from Old or New Testament. It’s very grounding. I share this with folks before. I’ll quickly mention it now is, I have a code of conduct, which is all about how I want to experience myself throughout the day. We set out every day, if we’re lucky, we wake up, we get to start a new day, we’re on our path.

There’s a lot of folks that are allowing the day to be in control. I’m not so much of a control freak as I used to be when I was a lawyer. I guess maybe I still am a bit but I decided some years ago that if I wanted to have a certain feeling about my life that I could engineer that or at least plan for it. If I was going to do that when would be the time to do it? Would I do it at noon? Would I do it at 3:00 in the afternoon when I’m out of patients and I’m ready to lose it? When I was a lawyer, I would lose it. I get angry. I’d start writing nasty letters to people. It was a good outlet for my anger back then. Now I just stomped my feet and cry like a baby.

If I start my day and say, “What I want to experience now is the following. I then become the conscious creator of that experience, as opposed to letting life dictate what happens or how I react to it.” Life is a reflex of mental states. That grounding at the beginning of the day, if there’s anything that could ever suggest to anybody to do on a routine basis, ritual basis, it would be what you described. My question to you then after that long ramble is, do you find that certain times of the day you’ve gotten on the ground like that the work that you did at the beginning is not holding together or something like that? Do you find that ever happens for you and what do you do about it?

Adam, I would say almost every day. Dual hatting, doing the job of two officers, being a communications officer and also, leading the largest company, most diversified company, there are going to be things that happen left and right, whether it’s mission-related, personnel-related. Things happen. It’s good to be in a positive mental state, reading yourself or the battles ahead of you during the day but it’s also putting yourself in a conscious mindset that things can alter. When things alter, you’re able to adapt and overcome. That is where I have gain value when it comes to resiliency.

It’s 3:00 in the afternoon and something happens. It’s unexpected or you get an email, a phone call or whatever it might be. It catches you a little unaware. Do you have a process or something that you do at that moment that helps you to get back to that place, whereas you said, you are a life that emulates unconditional love at that moment?

There’s a lot of things that I experienced. I learned to cope with a lot of situations. Oftentimes, a lot of the situations that I face thankfully are not new. I’m able to cope with a lot of those new circumstances that arrived. To answer your question directly, I don’t think I find myself frustrated at the heat of the moment but as soon as I put out the fire or as soon as I accomplish that specific task that I had to accomplish, I definitely make a reflection point of, “How I could’ve done better,” but I do that internally.

When it comes to impacting mission, impacting Marines and their lives, it’s not just me who’s feeling the pressure in an organization that’s that big and running missions left and right. It impacts not only myself but my staff and the people whom I work with, bringing the staff together, doing an after-action report, and figuring out how we can better cope with similar situations. It’s something that I do and it’s beneficial for me personally, so reflecting on the situation and learning from the experience.

We use something called an atypical feedback loop, I suppose, that involves three statements or questions which is, assessment of what’s worked or what’s worked for me, what didn’t work for me, what could be done differently? That feedback loop is something a smaller much smaller company than the one that you’re working in. The feedback is so important because it’s so easy to internalize things.

When there is a blow-up or something more at a heightened state of emotion even, it’s usually not because of the thing that happened. It’s because there was all this stuff that had built up over time and led to that there’s a need for a release or something. I’m curious if there are times when you find that the feedback is counterproductive. Do you feel like, as a leader, that feedback can have the opposite effect? Is it sometimes not something that you want to engage in or do you postpone even?

As a leader, feedback is critical to ensuring organizational success and feedback can be both positive and negative. Personally, as a leader, you have to be able to take negative feedback a lot better than positive feedback. When a situation comes up and you, as a leader in charge of an organization, take negative feedback in a disappointing manner or when you abruptly go emotional about the situation, that’s going to prevent future iterations of feedback.

Sometimes, I learned that negative feedback is what’s most useful to progressing the organization to positive ways. Both are valuable and can contribute positively. The most important thing you, as a leader, have to understand is how you receive feedback and how you respond to that feedback. I’ve learned that responding to negative feedback is equally important to respond to positive feedback.

How important is failure?

To me, extremely important and to a certain degree. The countless nights that I spent in emergency rooms as a Platoon Commander referring Marines to access to treatment, follow-up procedures or some of the most challenging but also most rewarding experiences of my military service. I say that because it was a failure but it was a positive failure. It was a success story at the end where no Marine, Sailor or family members lost lives. To me, failure is very important but the level of failure is also important as a leader to assess and understand.

Courage And Resiliency: It’s very difficult to define the enemies of resiliency because everybody lives a different lifestyle and everyone experiences things differently.

As we wrap up our conversation, which I feel like it’s such timely, it couldn’t be any more timely with everything that’s been going on a global basis that many people have been so isolated that loneliness, anxiety and depression are much more on the radar as conversations people are having and things that people are aware of. That being something that you’ve been involved in helping servicemen and women deal with for a while now, I’m curious. What was the inspiration for you to get involved in that? Was there some catalytic type event that you were witness to that you said, “I have to step in and do something here?”

To answer your first question about the pandemic, it’s a profound understatement to say that the pandemic had an impact. It had a significant impact not only on the Marines and service members that I served with but also the world as a whole. In the Marine Corps, we have coping mechanisms and gyms that are open. We come to work. We use our precautions but life is almost normal. Missions are still going on. There are still things that we have to do as Marines and as service members. To answer your question on what motivated me to pilot the resiliency program in my organization and to make an impact, it’s deeper than my life.

In my adolescence, immigrating at age ten, my parents courageously assimilated to the hardships of immigrant life, sacrificing for the next generation for my success, demonstrating unconditional love. Like my parents inculcated that, “True success is not defined by the wealth of knowledge, recognition, societal position, nor money. True success is the ability to provide genuine care and the heart to love and influence those around you in meaningful and positive ways.”

Consequently, I spent my twenties incorporating the life lessons from my parents and values rooted in the faith of unconditional love and gratitude, placing a bit of other before my own. It’s not to my own horn or to place myself on the pedestal but in the military and communities, wherever service calls. Loving what I do, I rose through the ranks, holding a current position.

I try to use that influence and power to make a positive change for the Marines. One of the ways that I was able to do that was through the resiliency program. It’s not only the resiliency program that leaders provide a positive influence to the Marines. There are different programs within the Marine Corps, within the service that provide care, support, resources to the Marines and service members. I’m extremely thankful for the opportunity that the command has to give me, for me to be able to pilot the program and to make a positive impact. I hope that answers your question.

Yes, as you said, there’s no way to encapsulate what the world has experienced and is still dealing with. More than anything, the conversation is happening. This is something people are discussing openly. It’s a big deal. I’m wearing this shirt for a reason. It says “Got your back,” for those of you that are reading. It’s a principle in the Marines. Certainly, as you said, no soldiers left in the field. Nobody’s left behind. We have each other’s backs. What does the principal mean? That’s an evolving conversation and question but I’ll ask you as we are winding things down. What does this term got your back or having somebody’s back? What does that look like and mean to you?

It’s a constant reminder that I’m in a position of authority and I’m in a position of leadership, and how I use my influence and power to affect positive change is dependent on me. As leaders like myself in an organization, going back to the quote that I shared, it’s the culture that we set. It’s the culture of getting your back. It’s the culture of looking out for each other.

Not at the top management level or the bottom but in every single organization and the hierarchy within that organization. It’s a collective effort and a holistic approach to human life, caring for one another, being passionate for other people’s success, and be willing to sacrifice yourself so that others may benefit from your sacrifice. That is the spirit of your T-shirt, getting your back.

I can’t thank you enough, Captain Lim, for your service, for what you’re bringing to the service. Not just for the service but the way you are innovating and adding value to a service that has been around for a very long time. I know there’s a lot of people like you that want to see things be improved in every way that it’s possible. At the route that people have given of themselves selflessly but have given their service that they are truly cared for. That is not an easy task in the best of circumstances. Thank you so much for that work.

No, thank you and thank you for providing me the opportunity to share my story and hopefully, impact the audience in positive ways. Thank you for your time and your support, Adam.

I’m going to ask you this question and I know the answer already for me but I want to ask it. Daniel, do you love your life?

One hundred percent, absolutely and unconditionally.

Everybody, if you enjoyed this episode, is so thrilled if you would share it with someone and someone that may be struggling at this moment or somebody that would benefit from it, somebody that has influenced that can share it with other people. We can’t thank the folks in service enough for the work that they do, and for their sacrifices and resiliency.

This is a pilot program. I’m sure it’s the beginning because it’s so important that we recognize that we all go through many ups and downs in our lives, in our careers and a single day. It’s a roller coaster but resiliency is a key ingredient to being able to leverage all of that uncertainty, all of that adversity, even so that we grow. As we grow, our world grows. With that again, thank you so much. Feel free to subscribe, leave a comment. You go to AdamMarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment. We’d love to find out what you thought about the episode as well. I’ll say ciao for now. Again, hoping that you find a good reason to love your life. No matter what. Thanks again.

Courage And Resiliency: True success is not defined by the wealth of knowledge, recognition, societal position, nor money. True success is the ability to provide genuine care and the heart to love and influence those around you in meaningful and positive ways.

This is a first-year but pending. A little piece of this conversation that Daniel and I are having after this show ended. This is something important to add. We’re talking about the term unconditional love. Daniel, what’s the feeling about what that word means, what that term means and how it applies to feedback?

A lot of people have a misconception of what love is versus what unconditional love is. Unconditional love is loving others or loving something without expecting anything back. It ties back to the conversation we had about feedback. A lot of people love but they also want to get that love reciprocated back to them but unconditional love is on the next level where you are pouring everything that you have to love, to provide, to care for the person that you love without expecting anything back. That’s the beauty of it and the value that unconditional love adds versus normal how we say love one another.

That’s a beautiful distinction and I wanted to make sure that was included on the show because again, so much of how we are in the world and what we do and how we interact with other people relate back to how we define love and what our experience of love this. In my own experience, it can be very conditional. We love other people when they behave the way we want them to when they’re nice to us. We love ourselves when we do well in life, we perform well, we get good grades and get a good job, make money, then we love ourselves. When we don’t do those things or when we screw up, make mistakes, then the love seems to disappear and the judge falls in line. That’s not really love, is it?

No. One can define love in many ways but unconditional love and having that heart and the capacity to embrace both the positive and negative feedback that may come from your unconditional love is something that you brace as a leader, not only in the organization but a leader of the world that we live in. If all of us provided unconditional love to one another, to people with whom we interact, we could make a positive impact across the world in meaningful ways.

That is the perfect way to now end the show officially. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate that.

Important Links

• Daniel Lim – LinkedIn
• Pivot

About Captain Daniel Lim

Captain Daniel Lim is an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Graduated from the United States Naval Academy and have served in his capacity as a company commander (leading the largest and most diverse company in the organization) and as a communications officer (engineering IT projects and establishing a command-and-control architecture for multiple levels of organizations). During off-business hours, Daniel is devoted to serving the local community in educational departments.