Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose

Former Navy SEAL commander, White House Fellow, and nonprofit and business leader Mike Hayes offers an inspiring playbook for understanding and achieving your most rewarding and purposeful life.

Mission Driven offers a practical guide for transition points: young people, recent graduates, professionals shifting to new roles, or people shifting to find new balance in their lives. It is divided into two sections: The Long Game (figuring out who you want to be, how you define success, and what kind of impact you're looking to have in your own life and the world) and The Short Game (moving readers from the who to the how, taking the learnings they've gathered in the first half of the book and applying them toward building their lives and finding their next great opportunities).

Its lessons include:
-Not What You Want To Be, But Who You Want to Be
-The Most Powerful Secret I Know: Helping Others Helps Us More
-Getting Comfortable Making Decisions
-Finding Enough In The Ways You Spend Your Time

Whether someone is at the beginning of their journey or, at any stage, looking for more, Mission Driven is a roadmap for discovering what drives you, and a playbook for translating those drives into opportunities. It is a book to help us satisfy our ambitions and our souls, filled with smart, empathetic guidance.

Author: Mike Hayes
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 09/02/2025
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.13h x 5.83w x 1.02d
ISBN: 9780306836510


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/21/2025
Booklist 08/01/2025

About the Author
MIKE HAYES is the former commanding officer of SEAL Team Two, leading a two-thousand-person Special Operations task force in southeastern Afghanistan. In addition to a twenty-year career as a SEAL, Mike was a White House fellow, served two years as director of defense policy and strategy at the National Security Council, and has worked directly with both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Beyond his military and government service, Mike is the founding board member of the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, and his own 501(c)(3), the 1162 Foundation, which has paid off twelve Gold Star widow mortgages to date. In the private sector, Mike has served in several C-level roles and is currently managing director at Insight Partners, a software investment firm with $90 billion of assets under management and 600+ portfolio companies. He lives in Sunapee, New Hampshire, and Westport, Connecticut, with his wife and daughter.