Maverick Author

GABE SMITH

West Point Graduate, Ranger-Qualified Infantry Officer, Growth Advisor, COO & Executive Coach Of Greenhouse Coaching

"Chaos is always right around the corner. Good leaders assume chaos is coming and understand that their plans will go up in flames."

About Gabe Smith

Gabe Smith is a proven growth advisor with a distinguished track record of empowering executive leaders and teams. As a West Point graduate and Ranger-qualified Infantry Officer, Gabe excelled in high-stakes leadership roles, including serving as a first responder during the 9/11 Pentagon attack and leading troops in combat. Today, through Greenhouse Coaching, he leverages this profound leadership experience to help organizations globally build high-performance teams and achieve breakthrough results.

As a First Lieutenant in the Army, Gabe was assigned to the famed 3rd United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), where he led the Presidential Salute Battery—forty soldiers who manned World War II-era cannons for ceremonial duties at the White House, Pentagon, and Arlington National Cemetery, while also serving as the mortar platoon tasked with defending the National Capital Region. On September 11, 2001, Gabe's platoon was recalled from training and became the first military unit on the scene at the Pentagon, where they spent three weeks in recovery operations at Ground Zero.

Gabe's military experience includes graduating from U.S. Army Ranger School—a sixty-two-day crash course in leadership, small unit tactics, and stress designed to prepare leaders for combat chaos. Following 9/11, he deployed to Mosul, Iraq for a year of combat operations. After his military service, Gabe founded a nonprofit in Southern Africa before transitioning to executive coaching. His unique background navigating chaos—from Ground Zero to combat zones to organizational challenges—gives him rare insight into helping leaders build resilient teams that thrive under pressure.

Chapter: "Leading Through Chaos"

"When we expect chaos to come knocking at our door, what we realize is that there is no conceivable way to create a plan for every possible scenario. Plans become instantly obsolete. The planning process hones the internal machinations in the mind and heart of a leader in a way that prepares them for the unforeseen future."

In his transformative chapter for Maverick Leadership, Gabe Smith takes readers inside one of America's darkest days and extracts three essential principles for leading when plans collapse and uncertainty reigns. Through visceral storytelling from the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Gabe reveals how chaos descended into his young world unannounced—and how the lessons learned in those harrowing hours and weeks shaped his understanding of leadership under pressure.

Gabe opens with an unremarkable Tuesday morning that began with Folgers hazelnut coffee and a training exercise firing AT-4 rockets. Within hours, he found himself standing on the Pentagon lawn watching the military headquarters of the most powerful nation on earth burning, pieces of a passenger jet littering the grass, and no one seeming to be in charge as people ran in every direction. As a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant, Gabe had to navigate the chaos while leading forty soldiers through the disorienting reality of America under attack.

"The secret to leading in chaos is simple: get small. Reject the inner doomsday theorist who says, 'This could end terribly,' and focus on the next action that you can control."

Through his signature framework "Three Principles from Ground Zero," Gabe provides battle-tested wisdom that applies far beyond military contexts: Chaos is coming (and leaders must prepare through planning rather than plans), Get small (focus on the next right thing instead of spiraling into worst-case scenarios), and Slow down (develop emotional and physical awareness to control your response when everything screams "Hurry!"). The chapter culminates with practical exercises—from feelings check-ins to box breathing techniques—that equip leaders with self-leadership skills needed to take control when chaos inevitably arrives.

What You'll Learn

The Pentagon on 9/11: Gabe's firsthand account of arriving at the burning Pentagon, wading through jet-fuel-laced water to reinforce the collapsing structure, leading the first soldiers into the crash site, and spending three weeks recovering bodies—and what those experiences taught him about leadership in chaos
Plans Are Worthless, Planning Is Everything: Why good leaders assume chaos will disrupt their plans and how the planning process prepares the mind and heart of a leader for unforeseen futures—moving beyond binary views of success and failure tied to outcomes
The Art of Getting Small: How to reject the spiral toward worst-case scenarios and instead focus on the next controllable action—illustrated through a vivid Ranger School patrol where getting small meant the difference between passing and failing
The Power of Slowing Down: Why the temptation in chaos is to speed up (to end the disruption faster), but the most powerful tool in your leadership toolbox is the ability to slow down through emotional and physical self-awareness
Practical Self-Leadership Exercises: Specific techniques including daily feelings check-ins using the Feeling Wheel, box breathing exercises, and the discipline of naming what you're feeling and where you're feeling it in your body

Three Transformative Takeaways:

1. Chaos Is Coming—Focus on What You Can Control: Your Thoughts and Words
Most leaders are overly optimistic about what they can control. We'd like to believe we're like Babe Ruth pointing to center field, controlling people's reactions, emotions, and outcomes through sheer force of will. But the cold, hard truth: you can only really control your thoughts and words. When you can manage what you think and say, you have the capacity to control how you engage with people and the world. Leaders who excel in chaos are aware of what's in their span of control and spend more time preparing the things that, unlike plans, can withstand the onslaught of disruption.

2. Get Small—Define Reality and Decide What's Most Important Now
Chaos is inherently confusing. When plans are disrupted and uncertainty reigns, defining reality is always the first job of a leader. Others look to you to determine what's going on and what they should do about it. The natural tendency is to think too big, too cataclysmic, too all over the place—like Gabe's friend who thought every bump on a flight could end in disaster until he learned to look at the flight attendants. Great leaders quickly assess the situation and hone in on the thing that must happen next. Instead of making the problem bigger, leaders make concerns smaller by calmly naming what's happening and the next right step.

3. Slow Down—Develop Self-Awareness to Control Your Response
The moment chaos arrives, everything in you screams "Hurry!" You convince yourself that completing a series of tasks will end the disruption and return life to normal. But you don't control when chaos begins or ends—you only control how you negotiate it. The art of slowing down begins with self-awareness: naming what you're feeling emotionally and where you're feeling it physically. We feel before we think—signals travel through our nervous system to our limbic system where they're processed as emotion before reaching our frontal cortex for logical thought. Train yourself through daily feelings check-ins and box breathing exercises so when chaos comes, you can take control of yourself instead of letting stress control you.

Gabe’s Impact

Gabe's leadership journey spans from the playgrounds of his youth to the Pentagon on 9/11, from combat in Mosul, Iraq to founding a nonprofit in Southern Africa, and now to coaching and advising business leaders through Greenhouse Coaching. His profound experience navigating chaos has become his greatest teaching tool—helping leaders understand that chaos isn't an exception to leadership, it's the context for leadership. Through Greenhouse Coaching, Gabe works with organizations globally to build high-performance teams by teaching leaders how to prepare for inevitable disruption, maintain composure under pressure, and develop the self-awareness necessary to lead effectively when plans collapse. His unique combination of combat experience, nonprofit leadership, and executive coaching gives him rare insight into helping leaders at every level build resilient, adaptive organizations that thrive in uncertainty.