#350 Mike Hayes - The Navy SEAL in Obama’s Situation Room During the Captain Phillips Rescue

October 22, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Navy SEAL Who Shaped the Captain Phillips Rescue

Mike Hayes was a 35-year-old White House fellow working in the National Security Council when his BlackBerry buzzed at 3 a.m. with news that pirates had hijacked a ship off Somalia. He immediately saw a danger that others missed: if pirates handed American hostages to Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group sitting on the Somali coast with money to spend, the U.S. would have citizens in terrorist hands. Hayes called a friend at Red Squadron and told him to start preparing. Then he went to the Pentagon's National Military Command Center, where a Marine three-star general told him the Department of Defense wasn't doing anything about it. "I explained to him what I just said about pirate and Al-Shabaab," Hayes recalls. "He was talking down to me." So Hayes walked back to the White House, waited 20 minutes, and called the general again. "I'm calling with White House guidance," he said. "The White House needs you to prepare courses of action for this problem." That call kicked off what became the Captain Phillips rescue, an operation Hayes ran from the White House Situation Room. President Obama later sent him a handwritten note: "Mike, great job on the Somali situation. You made a family very happy on Easter."

The Mindset That Survives

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of The Shawn Ryan Show

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 Main Outline
2 (00:00) **Introduction & Gifts** - Mike Hayes is welcomed and receives a prototype SIG Sauer P385; Shawn Ryan shares a story about SIG's support for a sheriff's department.
3 (09:04) **Held at Gunpoint in Peru** - Mike describes being kidnapped by fake police in Lima, Peru during a deployment with SEAL Team 4.
4 (18:34) **The "Invincible" Mindset and Compartmentalization** - Mike discusses how near-death experiences change your psychology and the role of training in crisis response.
5 (30:53) **Path to the SEALs & Early Career** - Mike recounts his motivation to join, from his grandfather's Pearl Harbor story to the influence of a fallen SEAL from his college ROTC unit.
6 (40:45) **Kosovo, 9/11, and the Frustration of Inaction** - Mike covers his time as a platoon commander in Kosovo, the moment 9/11 hit, and the demoralizing experience of being a SEAL not deployed to the war.
7 (70:12) **Red Wings and Reconstituting the Force** - Mike discusses reporting to SEAL Team 10 right after Operation Red Wings and his actions to support the survivors.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Mike Hayes is a retired Navy SEAL commander, national security leader, and business executive. He spent 20 years in the SEALs, ultimately serving as commanding officer of SEAL Team TWO and leading a 2,000-person special operations task force in Afghanistan. He later served on the National Security Council for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama where he worked on the START Treaty and led the White House response to the Maersk Alabama hijacking. Today, he is a Managing Director at Insight Partners and the bestselling author of Never Enough and Mission Driven. Hayes draws on his experience across combat, government, and business to speak on leadership, decision-making, and purpose.

Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors:

Privacy Isn't Paranoia. It's Protection. https://theglacierapp.com

Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code SRS at https://stopboxusa.com/SRS #stopboxpod

All 8 episodes of The Terminal List Season 2 are out now, exclusively on Prime Video.

Go to https://drinkag1.com/SRS and for a limited time, get a free Immune Support Bundle, including a bottle of Omega-3 fish oil and a bottle of Vitamin D3K2, with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro.

Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at https://hexclad.com/SRS! #hexcladpartner

Mike Hayes Links:

Official Website - https://www.thisismikehayes.com

The 1162 Foundation - https://givebutter.com/1162foundation

Books:

Mission Driven - https://a.co/d/09BklBVU

Never Enough - https://a.co/d/0akzYknd

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thisis.mikehayes

X - https://x.com/thisismikehayes

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hayes-733688

National Medal of Honor Museum - https://mohmuseum.org

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices