New podcast: Matt Stevens - From SEAL to CEO, the Honor Foundation

Matt Stevens transitioned from the U.S. Navy in 2017 after serving for 26 years as a SEAL.

Transitioning from the SEAL teams to civilian life brought him to The Honor Foundation, a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting U.S. Special Operations Forces as they transition from elite military careers into impactful civilian roles.

Matt attended The Honor Foundation’s (THF) inaugural East Coast class in the spring of 2016, joined their SOF Advisory Board in the spring of 2017, and then joined their Board of Directors in February 2018.

A native of Charlotte, NC, Matt graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1991 with a B.S. in Ocean Engineering. He graduated BUD/S in 1992 with class 179 and was assigned to the East Coast, where he served in various SEAL Teams, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams, and Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG).

Matt commanded at every level in the Naval Special Warfare Community, including a Squadron at DEVGRU, SEAL Team Two, Naval Special Warfare Unit Three, and Naval Special Warfare Group Four.

He served on staff tours at the Joint Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as the Operations Officer at Naval Special Warfare Group TWO in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD SO/LIC) in the Pentagon.

Matt served on the leadership team of an emerging technology company from 2017 to 2019, before assuming the role of CEO of The Honor Foundation.

Learn more about The Honor Foundation at www.Honor.org

You can listen to the podcast here or on your favorite host.

You should eat more fiber

Gut health is performance insurance.

Your gut is a living ecosystem. Fiber is its primary fuel. When you eat enough fiber, your gut bacteria ferment it into short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which strengthen your gut barrier, feed your intestinal cells, and help control exercise-induced inflammation. A healthier gut means better nutrient absorption, fewer pathogens sneaking into your bloodstream, and more reliable recovery and adaptation.

SCFAs also help regulate immune function. Consistent fiber intake is linked to lower rates of illness and respiratory infection, especially during heavy training blocks when your immune system takes a hit. If you're chronically low on fiber, you're risking more sick days and slower recovery.

Dietary fiber influences our sense of satiety through hormones like GLP-1, mechanoreceptors that sense physical fullness, slower gastric emptying, and by signaling fullness to the brain via the gut-brain-microbiome axis. If you're trying to cut weight, increasing dietary fiber can help you feel less hungry at a given caloric intake. But if you have a competition or PT test coming up, reducing fiber intake for a day or so before the event can help you feel lighter.

Practical steps:

1. Audit your intake. Log three typical days. If you're under 20 grams of fiber per day, you're leaving health and performance behind.
2. Ramp up gradually. Add 3-5 grams of fiber every week or two until you hit at least 30 grams per day.
3. Distribute intake. Spread out your intake: about 7 grams per meal and 3 grams per snack.
4. Strategic cut-back. In the 24-48 hours before a race or PT test, temporarily shift to low-residue carbs like white rice or peeled fruit to keep the gut calm. Reintroduce fiber right after.

The primary marker of a healthy GI tract is microbial diversity, which is the result of dietary diversity. In other words, the wider the variety of plants you eat, the healthier and more diverse your gut biome will be. This is why so many processed foods are a problem. They're low in quality *and* nutrient diversity. If you're looking for a nutrient-dense, fiber-rich, high-protein meal on the go, check out our latest project, @fuelmydayfoods.

Self-compassion is accountability

One of the most challenging things for many of our clients is to stop being so hard on themselves and treat themselves with compassion.

This often stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what self-compassion truly means: they think it means allowing weakness or letting oneself off the hook, when in reality, the root of self-compassion is holding oneself accountable.

They also often believe that criticism and negative self-talk motivate them to improve. And, while it likely does, it also comes at a steep cost. Breaking yourself down with negative self-talk reduces your sense of self-efficacy and confidence.

Love, service, and belonging will always be more powerful and useful levers for action than anger, fear, or insecurity.

This is not an easy switch for most of us to make. You may, after all, think you deserve tough love - to be punished or hurt for the person you are or something you've done.

If you struggle to give yourself grace, a helpful strategy is to imagine that you are in the mind of a good friend or loved one, where you can hear their thoughts and communicate with them telepathically. Ask yourself:

+ What would I tell them in this situation?

+ How would I help them follow through on their intentions or learn from a mistake without breaking them down or living in a world of fear, shame, sadness, and comparison?

Or, if you have children, ask yourself how you'd talk to them if they were in your shoes.

The bonus is that if you learn to treat yourself with kindness and understanding, yet without letting yourself off the hook, you'll be able to do the same in your relationships, making it much easier to form strong, lasting bonds.

You don't have to take our word for it. You can test this in your mind and see what works better: battering yourself with criticism or holding yourself accountable with love and understanding.

Gradual change is the path to success

Your most significant accomplishments are the result of thousands of incremental, almost imperceptible adjustments and improvements.

Consequently, when committing to a big goal, you should rarely make significant, wholesale changes. ⁠

The more effective strategy is to gradually shift your perspective and the level of effort you put into everyday actions. For example, how fit you will be a year or two from now has very little to do with how much you exercise or how perfectly you eat next week, or even over the next month, and a lot to do with the small decisions you make and how you think about those changes every day, for years on end. ⁠

+ How much energy and focus do you have during each training session? Is it sustainable? Have you figured out how to enjoy the process?

+ How much time and energy are you spending figuring out how to make it hard to miss a training session vs. agonizing over the 'perfect' program that you'll do inconsistently?

Most of the time, when we are stuck, it's not about doing more, but creating space to give more attention and energy to fewer things. And, most importantly, learning to use our attention more skillfully so we get more out of each effort.

How you feel about the process also matters.

You can't rationalize or intellectualize your way into extracting every ounce of effort and focus you have to give. You must be emotionally connected to those small daily actions. If you find yourself on cruise control, it's time to re-appraise why you're doing what you're doing and what you're looking for.⁠ ⁠

Whenever you find yourself resorting to extreme or 'all or nothing' strategies, it's highly unlikely that you'll be successful, regardless of how badly you want it in that moment. Future you won't, no matter what you tell yourself today. Or, you'll hit a rough spot, get stressed, and regress to the level of your systems and environment.

Our minds, like our bodies, have a limit to how quickly they adapt. When our efforts are well-structured, they gradually create habits, systems, and an environment that leads to greater success in the future, even when things don't go according to plan.

Training reductionism

Chasing numbers is easy. Building a complete athlete is not.

Reductionism is the comfort food of training advice: simple, tidy, and almost always misleading.

People love to fixate on isolated numbers like weekly running mileage, ruck durations, or the weight on a bar. The assumption is that if you hit the right number, you’ve unlocked the secret to selection or performance. But no single variable tells the whole story. In a complex system, every variable is context-dependent.

Consider running mileage. For one person, 40 miles a week is routine maintenance. For another, it’s a fast track to injury. Without knowing their movement quality, injury history, body weight, training age, previous exposure to volume, or even the surfaces they train on, the number alone is meaningless. Are they running with good mechanics, or breaking down every step? What does their recovery look like? How did they build up to that volume, and how do they adapt it over time?

It’s the same with rucking. Just tracking the weight and distance ignores the most critical pieces: your aerobic capacity, how you move under load, your movement quality and fidelity, the footwear you use, your sleep, and your ability to recover. Two people with identical training logs can have wildly different outcomes when you zoom in on the details.

Selection isn’t a math problem. It’s a web of interacting physical, psychological, and environmental factors. Focusing on isolated metrics is a way to avoid the more complex, messier reality: you have to get the whole system working, not just chase a magic number.

To develop the broad profile of a successful special operator, look beyond reductionist targets. Examine your movement patterns, build your base patiently, adapt your training to your individual needs, and pay attention to the signals your body sends you. The magic is in the details. It's about the interplay between countless variables, not the headline figure.

Remember that the map is not the territory. Don’t fall for the illusion of easy answers. Context is everything.