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In this episode, Maureen gets real about growing up constantly on the move, learning to roll with change, stay grounded, and find the good in every new chapter. Surrounded by family and friends who dedicated their lives to service, she reflects on what it really means to live with purpose and give back. Maureen also reminds us that careers (and life!) rarely follow a straight line and sometimes, the best moments come from the plans we didn't make. Tune in for an uplifting chat about resilience, purpose, and the beauty of embracing the unexpected. https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenpeters/ ----------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;33;10 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode, I'm joined by Maureen Peters, Strategic Employee Experience Program manager, Maven co-chair, and military ally. In this episode, Maureen gets real about growing up constantly on the move.

00;00;33;10 - 00;00;52;27 Unknown Learning to roll with change. Stay grounded and find the good in every new chapter. Surrounded by family and friends who dedicated their lives to service. She reflects on what it really means to live with purpose and give back. Maureen also reminds us that careers and life rarely follow a straight line, and sometimes the best moments come from the plans we didn't make.

00;00;52;28 - 00;01;10;20 Unknown Tune in for an uplifting chat about resilience, purpose, and the beauty of embracing the unexpected. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;10;21 - 00;01;37;12 Unknown Maureen's contact details are on the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Maureen, what's going on? Hey Chris, what's up? Oh not much. What's what's going on? On your side. You know, busy, busy life. It's, kind of the standard around here. Just dealing with having a kid away from home for the first time. That's always fun to think that.

00;01;37;14 - 00;02;03;23 Unknown Yeah, you get used to it, I guess I hear. I don't know. Still working through it myself. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big change. It's a it's a big life transition. So that I look at you inserting the terms at that. Yeah. Nice. Well that's good. So you got the full background on your. I know the folks can't see this because it's audio, but the video background as far as how's how's Nashville in the fall?

00;02;03;25 - 00;02;22;26 Unknown It has been cold and rainy. So. But we are just getting the turning of the leaves on the trees, so it's great. I see all these trees and all this great color and everything else. It's. It's really nice. It's nice time of year. I just got back from, Florida, though. I've spent a long weekend in Florida, so it was warmth and sunshine and the beach.

00;02;22;26 - 00;02;51;20 Unknown And so, definitely hoping I can get back to that soon. Yeah, but, yeah, it's a nice place to visit. Yeah. Although summertime is probably not as moderate as now. Yeah, I was going to say that's why it's perfect. Fall spring. Not too hot. Gorgeous. Just again ordered. So. Maureen's here. Maureen has joined. Well, I'll let Maureen tell her story, but, Maureen's here as the co-chair of Maven.

00;02;51;20 - 00;03;14;20 Unknown So our military affiliated veteran employee network community inside of Oracle. And Maureen is an ally. And there there are some connections that again, I'll I'll pass the mic over and she'll she'll cover those things. But we're we're talking to Maureen today because this is episode two of season four. And we have a lot of things that are going on.

00;03;14;20 - 00;03;35;02 Unknown As was indicated just as we started talking, we want to talk about the perspective that Maureen has, the skill sets that Maureen brings to her role here, as well as what the vision for Maven is moving forward. If you listen to episode one, Scott pay for it briefly talked about what we were trying to achieve, some of the neat things we were working on.

00;03;35;02 - 00;03;53;05 Unknown It's what he said in the hopper. And so, you know, we'll take, perspective from Maureen, but before we do that, like we always do, Maureen, tell us a little bit about you. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. And who the heck can follow? Scott's opening the season for that was, like, pretty good, wasn't it?

00;03;53;07 - 00;04;18;24 Unknown Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is Maureen? Gosh, Maureen is, you know, a wife and a mom, and, you know, I grew up in a normal household, and, you know, I had friends and family who've served and everything else. And, I met my husband, similar to Scott. You know, he was saying that, you know, he was kind of not looking for the drama, the relationships or anything else.

00;04;18;24 - 00;04;39;15 Unknown And then bam, he found his wife. So it was kind of the same thing for for me in my world, you know, my husband and I wasn't looking for that relationship or that drama, but I, found my husband. He was recently transitioned out of the Marine Corps. You know, some people will say that I'm a military spouse, but the reality is, is, I don't deserve that honor.

00;04;39;15 - 00;05;10;11 Unknown He was in and out of the Corps before. I mean, once a marine, always a marine. So, you know, I live with that. But I never had to deal with PKS or deployments or anything else. I mean, my best friend deployed, the last year that she was in the Air Force, so, you know, spent a lot of time with her family, supporting her family, sending her monthly care packages with themed holidays and, you know, just trying to get her all the good stuff and help her through that last, that last year before she was ready to hit the button and leave the Air Force after 20 years.

00;05;10;11 - 00;05;32;21 Unknown So I'm a wife, obviously to my husband, Sam. I hope that my husband would say that is his lucky man. I know I'm a lucky woman. We had two beautiful kids. As I mentioned at the beginning, my daughter, just started at the University of Tennessee this fall. So goggles and I have a 16 year old son, who was a junior in high school and just starting his wrestling season.

00;05;32;23 - 00;05;55;12 Unknown So, as you can imagine, you know, between work and life and, you know, everything else, there's just a lot going on. It's always busy, always busy. Oh, now you're not. You're not originally from Tennessee. I am not I'm, one of the California transplants that the Tennesseans love so much. I left California, we left California about three and a half years ago.

00;05;55;13 - 00;06;17;21 Unknown But I'm not a California born and raised, either. I actually moved to California from Michigan. Let's see. I would have been almost 11 years old when I moved to California. My dad was on contract at Apple back before Apple was super cool, and he had been commuting back and forth for about a year and a half. And so when they asked him to extend his contract, he said, well, only if you move my family out to California.

00;06;17;24 - 00;06;40;18 Unknown So we moved to California in January of 89. And, it was amazing. I mean, going from, you know, Michigan cold winter to California in January and it was like 50 degrees outside. We were running around in our shorts and t shirts and everybody thought we were nuts. So when his contract ended, we had the opportunity to either stay in California or move back to Michigan.

00;06;40;18 - 00;07;02;00 Unknown And who wouldn't want to stay in California? There's a reason that it is the Golden State. It is beautiful. It is. Yes. And it always will be. So, you know, around 11, you said that you came from Michigan to to California. And what was it like moving from the Midwest into the West Coast? Yeah. You know, that's a that's a hard it's a hard transition.

00;07;02;00 - 00;07;27;05 Unknown My parents both grew up in Cleveland and or outskirts of Cleveland, Rocky River and, Lakewood for my mom and my dad went to UD. So that's what, you know, brought us to and brought him to Michigan. So it's really hard. I we had no family west of the Mississippi. All of my parents, siblings and family members were all in the Illinois, Ohio, you know, Indiana, Michigan area.

00;07;27;05 - 00;07;51;19 Unknown So it was really hard. It was a new start for us. But, you know, church and school and sports got us our own little network of people that have become our family, nice and and we're. Whereabouts in California? You don't have to be specific. Was it Northern California or where exactly? Where? Yes, absolutely northern. So, you know, Silicon Valley, my dad worked at Apple and he worked at tandem.

00;07;51;19 - 00;08;07;10 Unknown Both my parents worked for Cisco. I worked for Cisco. My brother worked for Cisco. You know, we all kind of had our little tenure there at one point in time. So we were in the Bay area, and about a year or so, I think, after my husband and I got married, we moved up to northeast of the Sacramento area.

00;08;07;10 - 00;08;30;14 Unknown So, and as expansion kept getting, you know, more and more and everything was growing, we just kept moving further and further out to kind of get away from it all. And, you know, so we loved it. Absolutely loved it there, but it was just too busy. And so when we after Covid and everything else, we decided that we weren't going to move, you know, we were trying to figure out where we wanted to go.

00;08;30;16 - 00;08;49;25 Unknown And a morning was not about to move back to Michigan. I did not want grand jury weather from November until April. So we were kind of figuring out where we wanted to land and, I had been traveling to Tennessee when I was working with Cisco. You know, they had an office in Franklin, which is just south of Nashville.

00;08;49;25 - 00;09;19;28 Unknown And so I had been traveling there, you know, fairly regularly and, loved it. You can't beat Nashville live music on Lower Broadway, which is totally my jam. So it was just one of the places it was a little, little south of, you know, where the family was closer to them, but not nearly as south as Florida. And the heat, although I really do miss the water, having lived in Northern California, being about an hour from North Shore and being, you know, like an hour and a half, two hours from San Francisco.

00;09;20;06 - 00;09;36;19 Unknown We had the best of all the worlds, right? I could go to the beach, I could go to the mountains. You know, now I'm kind of landlocked in Tennessee. I love it here. Great. I'm in a rural community. So I am I'm like an hour north of Nashville. So, just shy of the Kentucky border. And it's beautiful.

00;09;36;26 - 00;10;03;24 Unknown Beautiful here. I absolutely love it, but I do miss my water. Yeah. So North, you said North Shore. Is that Tahoe? Lake Tahoe? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we we spent most of our time, honestly, in South Lake Tahoe. That was my little happy place. And, you know, it's kind of the same, you know, as I, as we drive to eastern Tennessee and kind of hit that plateau, we start to climb those hills and, you know, get those Rockies, like, you know, that that hits home.

00;10;03;24 - 00;10;21;03 Unknown That's I'm like, oh, I really love this part of the state. It's just gorgeous, nice. But there's something to be said about the fact that I pretty much drive two lane country roads everywhere and get stuck behind a tractor and you're like, okay, you're just behind the farm equipment. It's all right. You know, it's a slower pace of life.

00;10;21;05 - 00;10;43;02 Unknown Sit on the front porch or the back porch. Drink some bourbon. That's a big change to, you know, wine country and everything else was so close in California. And there's no wine in Tennessee. Unless you're like strawberry, a blackberry wine. So became bourbon drinkers. Okay. Yeah. So the change, the change in the adaptation, then, I guess is something that you're familiar with.

00;10;43;04 - 00;11;04;22 Unknown What are some of the things that stand out as kind of the prominent considerations of when you're getting ready to make those types of decisions? Family first, you know, honestly, like what's going to be best for, for my kids, that's, you know, they are the driving force behind pretty much everything I do. I lost both my parents before I was 40.

00;11;04;22 - 00;11;25;21 Unknown So they are they are my everything. You know, it was what's going to be good for them. What's going to be healthy for them. You know, how do we make sure that they're going to be set up for success? So was there a lot of planning going into it before? I mean, you're talking about coming out of the pandemic, just trying to figure out what you're going to do, and then you decide that you're going to you're going to relocate.

00;11;25;24 - 00;11;44;28 Unknown Yeah. You know, it's funny, my husband was born and raised in the Bay area and, so he joined the Corps because he wanted to travel and see the world. And he didn't get very far and, stayed in California. So it for him, it was really nice because when we go back to visit family, it gave him an opportunity to see a different part of the country.

00;11;44;28 - 00;12;07;09 Unknown So different outside of California. So he had always wanted to move, but like I said, my parents, you know, both had their cancers. They, we struggled, you know, through their, their trials and tribulations. And so it was never something I was going to do or leave, just, you know, so after a while, we just kind of decided through the pandemic, why are we still here?

00;12;07;10 - 00;12;27;05 Unknown You know what? Where could we be that suits us better? And, after my dad passed, my parents had had this trip planned where I'm okay in the family. Everybody has to get all 50 states. That is a that is a goal that everybody in our family has, you know, tried to achieve and you can't, you know, can't be in an airport that doesn't count.

00;12;27;05 - 00;12;46;02 Unknown Your feet are on real ground. That's airport ground, and you can't fly over it. So you got to actually, like, touch the land. And, so my mom was trying to get her last seven states when my dad passed unexpectedly. And so they had this big trip planned. And, we had told her that we would go on the trip with her.

00;12;46;02 - 00;13;05;13 Unknown So we did a five week road trip in a minivan, and my kids and my husband racked up 26 states. So that's that was kind of our thing is we're driving this five week road trip. Where do you want to go? What do you like? What do you seem that, you know, speaks to you, Nashville or. Well, Tennessee was one of the one of the states.

00;13;05;19 - 00;13;36;26 Unknown Tennessee's South Carolina, we really like the South is. And so what specifically or explicitly got you to to to decide on Tennessee, what do you have any influence on that work did not have any influence actually. And maybe this will go into the kind of conversation that we've got today. But I have I have worked for Mote since my son was an infant and I was in mergers and acquisitions for, you know, a little over a decade, both here at Oracle and, and at Cisco Systems.

00;13;36;29 - 00;14;01;08 Unknown And so, I mean, the conversations I'm in due diligence. You can't sit in a cubicle and ask questions and, you know, do the things that you're supposed to do when you're under NDA. So my role had always been remote. My kids learned from a very early age to walk silently into my office and to not be anywhere where they could potentially show up on camera.

00;14;01;11 - 00;14;27;10 Unknown So yeah, so work didn't have any place in it, but huge value add and benefit that Oracle was going to be moving into Nashville. So I got here and the office was brand new and and by office we are leasing an office at the moment. So when when I came to Nashville, we I think we have to provide one floor and we have slowly taken over, pretty much every floor in that building and acquired space in a building a block away.

00;14;27;10 - 00;14;43;28 Unknown So, I love to go down when I can, when we've got events to do, especially with Maven. I'm an owl leader in Nashville as well. I go down, I try to be down there, at least, you know, once or twice a month. But, that commute over the ridge is not something that something I want to do every day.

00;14;44;00 - 00;15;02;24 Unknown Kind of like everywhere else, traffic in those big cities is is no joke. Yeah, I got better things to do with my time, man. Yeah. Yes you do. And we're going to talk about those things here shortly. What is what is owl. Owl is Oracle's women's leadership. It is another ERG that Oracle has is focused on women's leadership.

00;15;02;25 - 00;15;22;15 Unknown Owl is like all the other ERGs, is open to everyone and to all the allies. So it's not just women. We have men that come and attended as well. Right? When you're talking about leadership development, it shouldn't make a difference whether it's male or female, right? That doesn't have any bearing on it. It's all about, you know, who you are and what you're trying to do and achieve.

00;15;22;15 - 00;15;45;08 Unknown And so we have a lot of early in career people in Nashville that are our, you know, sales development groups and whatnot that are in office. It's been it's been really wonderful to to be a leader to help, you know, mentor these young ladies, through their tech journey. What are some of the things that you do for Owl that stands out is probably something that you look forward to doing most.

00;15;45;11 - 00;16;06;09 Unknown Oh, so last year I created this, what we call munchkin learn because we didn't know if it was going to be breakfast or lunch or happy hour or something along that line. So we have a we have a quarterly lunch and learn that we do. So it's a lot of things like last year's programing we started off with mentoring, then the importance of mentoring.

00;16;06;11 - 00;16;33;21 Unknown Then we moved to your brand and knowing what your brand is. And from there we moved to strategic networking and about how to, you know, network and meet the right people and, and grow that network and how wonderful your network can be for you and helping you throughout your career journey. And then our last one was about, kind of internal mobility, like how do you navigate what that looks like?

00;16;33;23 - 00;16;53;06 Unknown You know, again, a lot of them are early in career. So this is our first job right out of college. And, you know, they maybe didn't go to school to be in sales or, you know, one of my mentees went to be, you know, supply chain management goes like, well, how do you how do you pivot your career from sales to supply chain management?

00;16;53;06 - 00;17;18;17 Unknown And Oracle's a huge, vast company. And, I'd like to think that I've, you know, I've got a lot of connections throughout all the different, you know, lines of businesses being in mergers and acquisitions. Yeah. We were acquiring like, man, the first time I was at Oracle, I mean, I think I worked on not all of them came to fruition, but I think I worked on 42 acquisitions in the two and a half years that I was at Oracle the first time, because I am a boomerang.

00;17;18;20 - 00;17;43;09 Unknown So I was here, 2011 through 2013. Those were our big acquisitions like Taleo and Right now and Eloqua and everything else. It was chaotic and fun and, and everything else. But there's a lot and I think people, you know, they come in and they have their their role and they know their role, but they don't really know how big Oracle is and where they can go.

00;17;43;14 - 00;18;04;24 Unknown I mean, you know, I had a, one of my favorite VP's that I worked for, Suzanne Posner. She just retired, spent 25 years at Oracle, had been in, you know, marketing and sales and finance and operations. And, I mean, there's just so many different places that you can go. You don't have to have a linear career path.

00;18;04;27 - 00;18;26;06 Unknown You know, you can have a nonlinear career path and, you know, experience so much and you don't even have to leave the company to do it. So second that, yeah, I, I've been here forever too. Almost forever. I was like, we won't date you. Don't do that. Okay. No, no. You got to leave some some mystery to the experience.

00;18;26;09 - 00;18;55;18 Unknown So M&A so you said you joined in 2011 stayed in 2013. Yeah. And during that time with all of that activity around M&A, what was the common theme amongst all that change that was occurring from people that were coming into Oracle as a result of that M&A? Yeah, it was really hard. The hard thing about M&A, I think what people don't don't realize is that people, people and talent, to me, that's the most important thing.

00;18;55;19 - 00;19;15;24 Unknown Right. But there's a lot of redundancy. So I was specifically focused on sales, go to market, and incentive compensation, which is always just such a touchy topic anyway, you know, so you want your salespeople to come over because it's going to take time for your Oracle reps to, you know, learn the product, the technology and how to sell it and position it.

00;19;16;01 - 00;19;36;11 Unknown They have their own finance people. They have their own HR people. When you're acquiring them and integrating them into a line of business that already has H.R. Support and, you know, finance support and arts support and things like that, there's a redundancy in jobs. And, so, so that was hard. That was very hard on me, that weighed heavy on my heart.

00;19;36;11 - 00;20;02;19 Unknown And in a lot of ways, because, you know, well, you don't know everybody, you know, you can't keep everybody. And so that makes it a little challenging. So with that and you talking about roles and how you're going to integrate roles into what already exists, does any of your experience help with how you're going to manage those things that people are thinking, or what they're wondering about as they're coming into the company and the unknowns?

00;20;02;21 - 00;20;21;10 Unknown I think that that's kind of what drove me as I'm. Yeah, innately just, you know, I want to help everybody. And, and I don't like to say no. And, you know, I want to make it easier for people to do their thing. And so I think that's kind of how I ended up in, you know, the strategic employee experience world.

00;20;21;11 - 00;20;41;20 Unknown I want people to have a good experience. That's why I mentor so many people, because, you know, as as hard as it is to navigate your career and everything else, it's it's hard to do it alone. So, you know, I try to do everything that I can to take on as many mentees and share my knowledge and my wisdom and, you know, just help people through it.

00;20;41;20 - 00;21;03;27 Unknown Because at the end of the day, it's the people that matter. So you left. I did leave, I went to I went to Cisco Systems. I was there for about five years. That's a whole nother story. And, so Cisco was doing a lot of layoffs, and, you know, I got impacted, and, it ended up being a blessing in disguise.

00;21;03;27 - 00;21;23;19 Unknown You know, my mom was. I'd already lost my dad at that point in time. He had retired from Cisco and passed away six months to the day that he retired from Cisco. And, my mom, was ill, and, you know, so that time away, I took time. I got laid off, I think, and end of October, maybe.

00;21;23;19 - 00;21;46;07 Unknown And so I was like, well, I'm not going to even attempt to look for a job until the beginning of the new year. Having been an HR and recruiting in the past, like, it's a tough it's a tough time in November, December to be looking for a job. So I was just going to take the the severance that I had and just enjoy my time and, you know, funny, I had my my great Oracle M&A people that I had worked with was like knocking on my door, hey, you should come back.

00;21;46;07 - 00;22;08;13 Unknown I was like, no, no, I don't know that. I want to come back to Oracle and look at me now. I've been here, come back for, seven years. So, well, my boomerang and the way that Oracle calculates their, you know, time and service, I think I'll hit my ten years, in January. Nice. Yeah. Congrats.

00;22;08;15 - 00;22;33;03 Unknown Yeah, that's a pretty good. So let's stay there for a minute and talk about an antidote and anticipate a change. Life change. Prioritization and then goals. I mean you had unplanned change in career and then clearly you had the mindset to, to look at it from a perspective of an opportunity to do something else and focus on something else, which is your family.

00;22;33;03 - 00;22;58;11 Unknown And you said that early on. Family first. Yeah. What's interesting is you gave yourself the time. Help us understand, how did that go down to where you decided that I'm going to do this until I don't want to? And you, you gave yourself an end state of when you wanted to go back and continue on your career. You know, I don't know that I, I don't know that I've really put a lot of time and like, a lot of thought into it.

00;22;58;11 - 00;23;33;10 Unknown I just. I, I've worked for people in the past that taught me a lot and, you know, good relationships and unhealthy, toxic manager relationships. So I knew when I left Cisco that it was time to allow myself to be picky about who I wanted to work for. When you get bounced around from manager to manager to manager and it's not your choice, it doesn't feel good all the time and, I'm a big believer in people and personalities.

00;23;33;10 - 00;24;05;25 Unknown And if I were to think about my 515 strengths, positivity is is one of mine. Shocking, right? Blows my mind. Didn't see that coming. Arranger achiever positivity. Individualization. What in the world is my other activator? So yes, probably no surprise whatsoever. So individualization is one of my strengths. I. I always see the good, I always look for the upside in people, and I always try to find something that I can relate to them with.

00;24;05;25 - 00;24;25;13 Unknown Like, you know what? How can we connect together? Because connectedness is very important. So I knew I wasn't going to just work for anybody. I wasn't going to just take a job to take a job. I had done that before, you know, I've been down that road. So when Oracle came knocking again, my coworkers, they were like, it's really different.

00;24;25;13 - 00;24;47;19 Unknown You should think about it. So I came back to Oracle in April of 2018. I think I was back for not even a whole month, I think. And my mom was told she had about three weeks to live. And so I looked at my boss and I was like, I'm sorry, but you know, I've gotta I gotta spend some time.

00;24;47;19 - 00;25;06;12 Unknown And they were like, do what you need to do. Take it, take as much time as you need. And that was a huge change from an Oracle perspective. I was not expecting that. I was thinking, how am I going to manage this? And, so yeah, so it's gone a long way. I had some really great, really great managers.

00;25;06;15 - 00;25;09;29 Unknown Being back at Oracle.

00;25;10;02 - 00;25;30;27 Unknown So let's talk about that culture selection. You decided things leading up and and then for painting the picture for everybody that's listening, you know, the story, the reason why we talk about an individual and we ask for a little bit of backstory so we can see things develop and look where the true heart of someone is sitting when decisions are being made.

00;25;30;27 - 00;26;01;00 Unknown And of course, contributions to things that are for the greater good or bigger than one individual where it comes from. So how how did that make you feel when you came back and sorry for your loss on both your mom and your dad? And when you're now faced with a new situation in your career and what you heard the news about your mom, and you are allowed now to take the time that you needed, what did that do for you?

00;26;01;02 - 00;26;16;16 Unknown Yeah, I think it just took one of those many balls in the air that I have to figure out how to juggle every day. I just took it out. I didn't have to worry about it. And let me be clear, like, I mean, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 17 years. Yes, 17 years old.

00;26;16;18 - 00;26;32;00 Unknown You know, she lived for 23 years battling this. You know, my dad had his cancer. My parents. I think one of the things that I learned, one of the best things I learned from my parents was like, like a short live it to the max. So when I say that my parents, like, struggled with their cancers. Sure.

00;26;32;00 - 00;26;48;24 Unknown Absolutely. But that they still travel the world, did they still act semi-retired while they were still working? Yes, because they knew like they didn't know how long they were going to have. And that's one of the things that, you know, I've really tried to instill in my children and in my family life is too short. You know, you've got to do the things that you're interested in doing.

00;26;48;25 - 00;27;11;19 Unknown You can't wait until you're financially stable to have babies, and you can't wait until you know you're this old to be able to travel. No, go live life. I mean, don't put yourself into debt by any means, because, you know, I'm definitely fiscally responsible. But, you know, there's there's something to be said, you know, go out to dinner, go have the laughs, go do the fun things and, that's kind of how I live my life.

00;27;11;20 - 00;27;37;18 Unknown You know, I don't live to work, but I, you know, I don't necessarily work to live either. You know, you have to you got to find all of that balance and coming back to Oracle's been has been a great thing for me. It's really allowed me, the space to just explore what I'm interested in doing. So I came back doing M&A and I had a manager that was very supportive and, you know, it was like, hey, like, are you doing what you want to be doing?

00;27;37;18 - 00;27;54;05 Unknown Are you happy with what you're doing? And, you know, having a manager that says, hey, get involved? I mean, you know, that's how I met you. You you ended up in our organization. I found out about me. Then I was like, what is this organization? How do I get involved? Actually, I think I'm pretty sure you said to me, you need to come be involved.

00;27;54;07 - 00;28;22;07 Unknown But, you know, I was, you know, I'm like that. Something like that. Hey, we need you. You can be part of our team. And and it was like, the minute I joined Maven. The minute that I came aboard, it was like coming home. It was. It was familiar. It was, you know, people that just have the same, you know, mentality and that, you know, love of other people and camaraderie and teamwork and support.

00;28;22;07 - 00;28;46;16 Unknown And, you know, we're all going through different things and different stages in our lives. But, you know, that's how we connect. That's how we, you know, pull together as a group and, and support each other. So it was like coming home and having that sense of belonging has been I mean, tremendous. Now, thanks for that and thanks for sharing that that the perspective is, is nice.

00;28;46;18 - 00;29;16;04 Unknown One, two here, to to make the correlation between, the, you know, of the multiple sides there could be in one's life. You know, there's the, the personal and professional. And when you find an alignment in seeking opportunity and it seems like with your enthusiasm of all your strengths, as you mentioned, no surprise that when you when you look at things, you see things a certain way and opportunistic is is one way of saying, well, that looks like something I want to get involved in, and then you do it.

00;29;16;06 - 00;29;40;03 Unknown That is, in fact, if you haven't yet met Maureen, that is her M.O., you know, she sees something and it seems to be aligned with what needs to occur, and she'll drive it. And there's a lot of excitement that will come out of that from from the people around her to and, and so that that energy is not only appreciated, but it's, necessary in sometimes when, you know, we try to boost people up, keep moving things like that.

00;29;40;03 - 00;30;08;27 Unknown So, so around 2021 ish, 22, you got involved and you started to do things, talk about some of the things that were happening back then and where things are now. One, 2 in 2 areas, one your career and then two with Maven. I think I was still working in M&A when I joined Maven, but I think I really quickly transitioned into a new role.

00;30;08;29 - 00;30;38;10 Unknown My VP that I was telling you about, Susan Posner, she had posted in the Women's Apple Channel, that she had her role open, focused on customer and employee experience. And I've read the job description. Oh, that sounds amazing, right? If I have the ability to like, you know, touch the employee experience and make that something that can be so much better and so much grander, and, and help our customers, you know, at the same time, that would be a huge shift.

00;30;38;10 - 00;31;15;23 Unknown And again, I worked at M&A, so, you know, was never in the depth of an organization, you know, like a sales organization. I supported them. I help them from an operational perspective and everything else. But I never actually been in the business. So that was a big change. And, I really enjoyed that. I it was a lot of fun and, you know, for an org to actually put some people and money behind having an experience at work, not just here to make your number, but we want to we want to look at you holistically as an employee, and we want to look at we we designed, a program called Living Your Best

00;31;15;23 - 00;31;47;25 Unknown Life. And it had five pillars focused on career development, continuous learning, social, getting involved and, you know, everything else giving and wellness because all of those things are what make up people and the things that make them happy and feel fulfilled. And we wanted our, you know, our employees to feel like they're, you know, they were valued and that, you know, we cared, that we encourage them to go learn.

00;31;47;25 - 00;32;10;11 Unknown We encourage them to pursue, you know, careers. And so we wanted it to be like this destination location and within Oracle to say, you've got all of this opportunity to, you know, to be who you are, bring your authentic self. And you know, that spoke to me because that's how I live my life. I'm 100% authentic. And, you know, some people like it.

00;32;10;11 - 00;32;31;21 Unknown Some people might be a little much for, you know, sometimes more. You can get a little crazy with her energy. I'm pretty sure there's somebody sitting across the microphone. For me, it was like, hey, I need to tone that down a little dosage, right? Moderation. So I know I can be a little much and that's and that's cool.

00;32;31;23 - 00;33;03;14 Unknown But, you know, it gave us it really just it allowed us to focus on so many different things, you know, and when you can plan quarterly giving events, you know, things where we are, you know, for example, we we created, these volunteer projects that we would run across, you know, eight major locations. Right? So imagine the imagine the lift of trying to get people to help you because you're not boots on the ground in those locations to run these volunteer projects.

00;33;03;16 - 00;33;23;05 Unknown We did all we did a lot of to lift ourselves so that they just had to, you know, make it happen on the ground. But, you know, get our remote employees to use an Amazon wishlist to donate school supplies, get the People's in the hubs to fill the backpacks, and then to give them to our customers to give out to their customers.

00;33;23;07 - 00;33;47;11 Unknown We did it with, chemo goodie bags. We did the same thing. So yeah. So we were able to bless our customers with items that our employees were donating, you know, the goodness of their own hearts to want to contribute to these projects. And, you know, we had, Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt and Stanford and, you know, we were able to say, hey, we've we've made these 100 chemo goodie bags.

00;33;47;14 - 00;34;06;26 Unknown We care about your patients to help them while they sit in the chair for four hours and get an infusion, you know, so we did volunteer projects. We did heart healthy bingo. And you know, February, you know, we get our employees, hey, get up, go be active. You know, we do the same. Maven, right. Hey, Maven. Friends coming up.

00;34;06;26 - 00;34;27;20 Unknown We want people to be out there. Go do something. If that's meditating, that's fantastic. It's all about, you know, your mental wellness and your and your health, well-being and everything else. And so it was really, really impactful for a line of business to have employees that were driving these programs, you know? So I try to do the same.

00;34;27;20 - 00;34;48;03 Unknown I try to try to do that with Maven. I try to do that with our, you know, try to, you know, where we can make sure that people understand we're we're not just looking for you to be the little worker bee and not care about anything else. We really do want you to have that exceptional employee experience, and that's important work.

00;34;48;03 - 00;35;24;21 Unknown And to think the thing that I was looking at around the time that you're talking about, where these things started to become more prominent in our workplace, it it was a little confusing at times because there's a separation from work and personal activity at times where people are like, I just want to come to work, you know? But if you think about the majority of the time that one spends with their mind on work and then being at work, you know, these things, you had to unravel how you felt about this stuff because you did find value once you participated in these things.

00;35;24;21 - 00;35;47;01 Unknown It was a nice break in the monotony of of a concentrated effort to do what was required of you and your role in the workplace, and these breaks allowed you to distribute your focus. The relationships evolve in different capacities, you know, explore different ways of doing what you do, whoever you are, and whatever it is that you were doing, it was it's important work.

00;35;47;08 - 00;36;10;25 Unknown And so the volunteering component is as important as the work itself because of the things that you talked about, the philanthropic outcomes and the benefits in those types of things, of whoever's receiving these things. But you feel good, you know, and you feel like you're doing things that are personally adding to who you are and who you want to be.

00;36;10;27 - 00;36;32;23 Unknown So that's the essence of continuing the mission to serve, right? It's it's not just service in the military or in that sphere. You know, the military affiliated community is, you know, your service to people is to service to self. And some of those things, you become selfless and you do things for other people. You feel good, you're helping other people feel good, and then you're bringing harmony and unity.

00;36;32;23 - 00;36;54;07 Unknown And in the sphere of where you are, your circle. Yeah. So you when you came in to Maven, you were helping in key areas and then you, moved into an operational role where you drove a lot of activity. There was a spurt there. So a couple of years ago where we were doing a lot of events.

00;36;54;09 - 00;37;27;19 Unknown Yeah. And, you know, coming out of Covid, man, I was just going to say, yeah, people only had that interaction. They were, you know, craving that engagement, you know? So the timing was really great between both me joining Maven and me joining the sales organization. And, you know, because people were they were hungry for that, you know, that ability to connect and, you know, do things and maybe, you know, with as many people as they are remote, you know, you can still engage people and do amazing things together, even though your remote.

00;37;27;22 - 00;37;58;08 Unknown Yeah, it changed the whole dynamic of what what connectedness means, right. And and adapting to the new way of doing it, the new style of connectedness through remote or virtual engagement, you know, and reintegrating face to face interactions became equally important. So now you have that balance. And so we've done pretty well in managing that. You've been a key part of that, having you move into the co-chair role and helping lead the vision and the strategy, and not just the operational functions, where you you're now kind of the trifecta, the triple threat, right?

00;37;58;08 - 00;38;21;16 Unknown So you have the experience and the passion and the purpose deep inside your heart of wanting to do this, as demonstrated through what you just talked about for years, you've been doing these types of things with M&A activity, bringing on new employees from an acquisition in high stress environments, getting them assimilated in and integrated inside now their workplace, making them feel like they're a part of something which is a huge challenge.

00;38;21;19 - 00;38;41;09 Unknown And then, you know, you moved into a role where that was your job, which is amazing. And then now it's an all volunteer environment to where it's it's not even a hobby. It's a passion where all of those things meet each other. Talk a little bit about what you're doing now in that space as a co-lead, and then the strategy and the vision for what's to come.

00;38;41;11 - 00;39;07;00 Unknown You know, I still suffer, you know, from this imposter syndrome. Like, how am I the co-chair? Why am I the co-chair? There's got to be other people who are, well, more suited for this. And, you know, I didn't serve. I mean, I've got so many friends and family that have served, but I didn't. And, you know, so that it it's been a little bit, challenging, but I, I, I think about it, from the people mindset.

00;39;07;00 - 00;39;27;04 Unknown What do they need? What are they looking for? You know, Scott talked about servant leadership and everything else. So I feel like that's definitely, a huge play. And what I do and why I'm here and everything else. Because it is about giving back, and it's about, you know, touching those people and the things that we can bestow upon them and bless them with.

00;39;27;06 - 00;39;51;02 Unknown And it and it's not even tangible things. Right. It's the time, it's the support, it's the energy and those types of things. So that's kind of what I think of when I'm thinking about, oh my gosh, how did I end up in this position? Why am I in this in this role? Because I do. I have such an innate love for people who are serving our country and who have served our country.

00;39;51;02 - 00;40;08;26 Unknown I mean, I have an immense pride in our country. I have an immense pride in the people that do this. It's very honorable. And I know that there are so many veterans that I talk to regularly that are like, I don't need you to thank me for my service, you know, or, I say things like, they selflessly are serving our country and they're like, no, I was selfish.

00;40;08;26 - 00;40;28;16 Unknown I did it because I wanted the benefits. I'm like, nope. I'm pretty sure you put yourself, you know, on that line that, you know, and you probably know a whole lot more about the statistics behind, you know, how many people actually serve. We've got law enforcement. We have our first responders and and the military. And I think that is just huge.

00;40;28;16 - 00;40;51;03 Unknown And, you know, Maven and what we're trying to achieve from a maven perspective, I mean, I fell in love with the mission. You know, that ability to continue to serve. Am I the person that's going to show up and take on a tough job and totally slay 100%, you know, hard work? I love that. I love that about our community and love that, you know, that is a driving force.

00;40;51;03 - 00;41;16;14 Unknown So my messages to hiring managers and to companies that they that people that they can get, you know, that you can talk about talent and you can talk about smart people and you know, everything else. But those soft skills, that resilience, you can't tell me, military spouse, I mean, those spouses go through so much, right? They are managing so much.

00;41;16;14 - 00;41;38;23 Unknown And and I think that that's just we have to we have to advocate for them. We have to, you know, do everything that we can to keep these military spouses employed to, you know, that when they change stations, they shouldn't have to give up their entire world. Oracle's very lucky we have that flexibility. So why are we not doing everything and shouting from the rooftops?

00;41;38;25 - 00;42;04;14 Unknown You know, about the things that we can do to, you know, support more military spouses through these, in these changes, you know. Yep. No. That's good. That and very specific and intentional. So thanks for thanks for yeah. Revealing yourself to that part and how important it is is obvious. So as we wrap this up what's what's big coming up that Maven is going to help support and drive.

00;42;04;17 - 00;42;25;06 Unknown Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's it's really about how do we support our military spouses, how do we get our word out and advocate and talk to people about transitioning out of service and and coming into Oracle and what that looks like? And I think that's going to be a huge thing. You know, we're hiring right now like mad for data center technicians.

00;42;25;08 - 00;42;41;02 Unknown This is a great opportunity for people that are transitioning out of the service to come in and take those types of roles, right. They've got the skill set. They know what it's like, spend a couple years and you go and you learn the skill and the training and everything else, and then you see where it takes you from there.

00;42;41;02 - 00;42;59;17 Unknown And so I think that's that's a lot of what we're going to be focusing on is, you know, how do we, you know, how do we support those that are transitioning out of service. How do we make Oracle a place that they want to come to, and how do we support our military spouses and offer them, you know, flexible employment?

00;42;59;19 - 00;43;42;02 Unknown Yep. No, I gotcha and thanks for that. So, Maureen, thank you for being consistent with who you've been and then bringing those traits and values inside what you do for others. And again, you know, the mindset of looking at what other people are going through and considering, you know, where their their minds are set under pressure on change, you know, whether it's a merger and acquisition, where your professional career is up in the air based off of things that are uncontrollable, settling in to what you need to focus on and having you as a as a representative, along with the others that do this kind of work, have them settle into some norms that they

00;43;42;02 - 00;44;04;23 Unknown can wrap their head around and focus on, maybe be distracted by until things are worked out and a little bit more concrete. Change is tough. You demonstrated the experience by choosing to go through change in your relocation and of course, the things that go along with family and and the unfortunate realities of what goes along with family as well.

00;44;04;27 - 00;44;23;29 Unknown There's a lot of things that you're doing that you're paying it forward to those coming up behind us. And so we're grateful for that. Grateful for your support. Final comments. Yeah. So, you know, as as we're talking about it and as I think about it, you know, that linear career path is something I think that those that are in the service are so used to.

00;44;24;03 - 00;44;50;15 Unknown And, you know, you climb those ranks and you know, and at Oracle, you don't have to have a linear career path. You have the flexibility. You have the ability to change, you know, different lines of businesses, different job functions. There's so many different things that you can do and try your hand at. And, you know, I think it just provides a lot of opportunity for people to, grow in whatever areas they're looking to, to grow themselves.

00;44;50;15 - 00;45;11;09 Unknown So I'm blessed, you know, I'm blessed to be here and I'm blessed to be a part of Oracle. I'm blessed to be a part of me. And there's something to be said about finding joy in all the things and and finding joy in your work. And and maybe as if it's another full time job, I feel like. Right.

00;45;11;11 - 00;45;27;20 Unknown But I love it. I absolutely love it when you're when your heart is happy and your heart is full. There's no better way to live. And we will leave it there already. One. Keep moving forward.

View Details

After 23 years of service as a United States Navy Submariner, Scott retired and embarked on a new journey joining the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Engineering team where he quickly found his stride leading and building successful teams. In this episode, Scott takes us through his incredible journey, from growing up in a military household to enlisting in the Navy. His path was filled with invaluable lessons, but not without facing and overcoming self-imposed barriers. Not one to phrase it this way, Scott humbly shares the pivotal moments that helped him evolve into a true leader and someone people actually want to follow. He opens up about how the most rewarding experiences in life cannot be rushed or faked and he explains how he learned this lesson the hard way. Tune in for a raw and powerful conversation on leadership, relationships, and perseverance.

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Episode Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;13 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and welcome to season four's first episode, where I'm joined by Scott Pay for Oracle Site Reliability Director, Maven chair, and Navy veteran.

00;00;29;19 - 00;00;55;15 Unknown After 23 years of service as United States Navy submariner, Scott retired and embarked on a new journey joining the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Engineering team, where he quickly found his stride leading and building successful teams. In this episode, Scott takes us through his incredible journey from growing up in a military household to enlisting in the Navy. His path was filled with invaluable lessons, but not without facing and overcoming self-imposed barriers and not one to phrase it this way.

00;00;55;22 - 00;01;13;07 Unknown Scott humbly shares the pivotal moments that helped him evolve into a true leader and someone people actually want to follow. He opens up about how the most rewarding experiences in life cannot be rushed or faked, and he explains how he learned this lesson the hard way. Tune in for a raw and powerful conversation on leadership, relationships, and perseverance.

00;01;13;13 - 00;01;33;18 Unknown We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Scott's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;33;20 - 00;01;59;08 Unknown Scott, what's going on? Good morning. Good morning to you, Chris. It's a, a beautiful Seattle Friday morning. We got drizzles up here. So, typical Seattle weather for those are up there. As we tell the visitors, it's always like this. Always raining. Don't bother coming. Don't bother, don't bother coming. Yeah. Clearly don't work for the Chamber of Commerce in the tourist.

00;01;59;10 - 00;02;26;16 Unknown That is actually my job now. Yeah. Well, good. Well, I'm glad to have you here. So, season four, episode one. We're kicking off the Oracle Maven podcast with Scott Paper, who is leading the Maven employee resource group. So the Oracle, veteran affiliated community, it's our 10th year anniversary. Did you know that? I did, thanks. Entire early to you, Chris, for, raising that to my attention.

00;02;26;23 - 00;02;56;28 Unknown Yeah, I'm a little younger at Oracle, so I wasn't here when the foundation was laid. Or, you know, when when the apple fell from the tree. You know those things? Yeah. Bunk. That and it's been a great ten years. I mean, obviously the community's been around before that, but when when Oracle was focusing on bringing people together in the communities and, you know, Veterans Day this November 11th will be ten years Maven was was born.

00;02;57;00 - 00;03;16;17 Unknown And we've gone through some iterations and I think we've made good progress on what our focus is and, and how we contribute to the company's. The employee community, you know, indirectly goes to the bottom line of lines of business inside the company. But then, you know, of course, focusing on relevance for our customers and, and all these things that are independent of each other.

00;03;16;17 - 00;03;39;01 Unknown So Scott leads Maven as the the chair, along with co-chair Maureen Peters, who we will have on soon. And we brought Scott in to kick off this season because, you know, we'd love to hear what's going on and what the future is for this year. On what Maven will contribute to and and how we'll bring people together, continue to bring people together.

00;03;39;06 - 00;04;04;01 Unknown But before we get there, Scott, let's let everybody know a little bit about you. Yeah. I appreciate you, having me on and giving me the opportunity to talk. We're real excited about fiscal year 26 and where we're going with Maven. I get the opportunity to work alongside the pretty motivated board of volunteers keeping the, military affiliated community plugged in and connected.

00;04;04;03 - 00;04;27;08 Unknown And it's been really rewarding. Right. So I have to thank you to in front of everybody, or at least audibly in front of everybody, for bringing me in. So, Chris, Chris really spurred my interest in jumping into the team. We met in person. His energy and enthusiasm kind of convinced me that maybe the community was was where I wanted to get back into.

00;04;27;08 - 00;04;50;29 Unknown So, I'm pretty passionate about it. Coming off of a, 23 year career in the United States, a and submarines got to work in, electronic warfare, electronic surveillance measures, and then, submarine communications. And that turned into, information systems. It at the end of my career, when I joined, we were still printing out and routing around pieces of paper.

00;04;51;01 - 00;05;13;15 Unknown Then they decided that the things we printed off could be connected, made networks, computer networks. And it, grew over time. Right. So we got to see the whole evolution of that. Not going to talk about how old that does make me feel when we're working on virtual computers everywhere, and nobody ever actually touches a real machine anymore.

00;05;13;18 - 00;05;33;19 Unknown So that was, that was my formative, career was 23 years in the Navy. But as anybody who spent a fair amount of time in the military, Terry knows, it's, it's a string of a bunch of mini careers. As you grow and develop a bunch of little tours of duty here and there where you have different kinds of jobs.

00;05;33;21 - 00;05;59;04 Unknown Couldn't couldn't say more about my experience, there and how it formed me, into what I am today. I'll kind of walk through some of the key points as we go, but I think, the, the idea that someone would spend 23 years in the military is, is, kind of a you get ideas about what that person might have done that for, why they would have joined in the first place.

00;05;59;06 - 00;06;20;00 Unknown And it's probably not what most people would think. When I was growing up, I was a military vet. Not vet. Sorry. Military brat. I mean, you you came out, a vet came out, born, born a Navy guy, right? I was, I've always been a sailor all my blooming life. Right. The, the reality is true, though, right?

00;06;20;00 - 00;06;38;18 Unknown I was, I was a son of a son of a sailor. My, my dad was in the Navy. My mom was in the Navy. I was adopted as my stepdad. Might as well been my real dad, though, because I never even knew it. Right. And then my biological father was a sailor, too, right? It's just it's in my blood.

00;06;38;21 - 00;07;03;06 Unknown Until I was raised, I never lived outside of and maybe or military town in my life. Ever. And, we moved around a lot when I was younger. And then we settled in Connecticut. And I think there was just the foregone conclusion that that was the path. That was the way, you know, my parents raised me knowing I was going into the Navy is never my thought process.

00;07;03;06 - 00;07;23;01 Unknown I was just enjoying life, being a kid, playing outside stickball and mountain biking and playing basketball on the on the outside of the school, you know, but, I didn't really think about it. And then my dad's like, yeah, you're going to go to the Naval Academy. I was like, well, I mean, that's cool. How do you do that?

00;07;23;08 - 00;07;46;11 Unknown Right? Well, first off, foremost, you got to actually study, show up, do homework, go to school. Those were all things that weren't really at the top of my list in high school. Not even on the list. A lot of times. Right. So I was, was smart, but not motivated and, and not really focused, when I was in high school.

00;07;46;14 - 00;08;11;18 Unknown So I ended up barely passing. I was already signed up for the Navy, ready to go off to do the deployed entry program. And recruiter, my recruiter gets a call from me like, hey, man, I'm. I'm not going to graduate on time. And he's like, hey, yeah. That's a that's an emergency. Right. So more from my recruiter coming in, setting up a class with the high school, pulling in a bunch of other kids that had failed.

00;08;11;18 - 00;08;34;04 Unknown It was, was chemistry that did me in. Right? I took chemistry three times, and then finally I got the the, the Idiot's Guide to Chemistry version of chemistry. And I was like, okay, I can I can sleep my way through this, I guess. So I did that in summer school when everybody else was enjoying the summer and then off to boot camp.

00;08;34;06 - 00;08;51;13 Unknown Thank God, because I would not have been able to find another job other than dairy Queen. If it were that. Not the dairy Queen was a bad job. No shade. I enjoyed my time there. Let's talk about the the shakes. The dairy Queen shakes for man. Yeah, the the blizzards where you can turn them upside down.

00;08;51;13 - 00;09;17;06 Unknown You know, I actually really enjoyed working there, but, the the reality is I needed a change, and I wanted to get as far away from my hometown as possible. Was there anything personal? It's not like I had a bad relationship with my parents. I just didn't have a great plan for what I wanted to do there in Groton, Connecticut is kind of like there is really nothing there except Marines except submarines and the military industrial complex.

00;09;17;06 - 00;09;38;15 Unknown Right. There's there's Dow or Pfizer or there's a bunch of other like, plants. There's a casino, and then there's the world's largest service. Right. And that's it. Right. Like that's that's what's there. And I, I didn't want to spend my life in that place. So like, at the time, I was getting introduced to a bunch of, you know, new kinds of music.

00;09;38;15 - 00;10;05;04 Unknown I grew up when I was younger, only interested in hip hop, and I discovered that there were other genres of music in my senior year. So I found Jimi Hendrix, found grunge rock, and found Seattle. Right. So then I'm in school, ironically, graduate boot camp go back to my hometown for a year while I'm in school getting trained because that's where all of the submarine rates get trained is my hometown.

00;10;05;06 - 00;10;20;20 Unknown Spent a year there wanting to get the heck out. And finally, the first chance I got, I was like, I want to go to Seattle because that's where all the rock and roll and mountains are right? I was an avid mountain biker. I always wanted to snowboard. And, and I got out here and I fell in love with it.

00;10;20;21 - 00;10;42;23 Unknown It was like the first time I'd ever seen a real mountain with snow in the summertime. You could see them from base. I think it was, like, superimposed. And it blew my mind. Right. So I spent another year waiting to get on the boat. In school. So a big part of what makes me who I am is what I experience in between my classes.

00;10;42;23 - 00;11;04;15 Unknown Right. It was it was interesting because I was raised to have this really strong work ethic and be super committed to whatever I was doing at the time. I wasn't necessarily motivated to go hunt down opportunities, but if you gave me work to do, I was going to go do that work. I like hard work. I mean, it could be just picking heavy stuff up and moving it and then putting it down.

00;11;04;15 - 00;11;26;21 Unknown It could be whatever, right? Chip and paint and painting. I didn't care, right? I got something to do. Worthy task. If I could see a good outcome, I would attack it. And instead they gave us the most menial dumb stuff to do in between. And then it was like these, these middle grade leaders that kind of washed out and ended up just watching over the waiting to go to school.

00;11;26;24 - 00;11;45;06 Unknown And so there were times they had us moving furniture from one side of a building to the other, and then the next day we'd come and move it back where it was the day before. I thought that was the worst. It was going to be, because that was in a condemned building. Right. Well, I get out to Seattle, I go, and they put us in a subbasement.

00;11;45;10 - 00;12;09;08 Unknown Right. There's this little tiny storage closet that somebody thought would be good to convert into an office. And that's where we sat in a bunch of broken furniture, waiting for random tasks and to go sweep the building that already had janitors, like, three times a day. So it was like it was not what I signed up for, to say the least.

00;12;09;08 - 00;12;41;11 Unknown Right? I'm like, almost two years in, I've yet to really step foot on an operational submarine. I did a little brief stint in Groton where I was down on the USS Springfield. They have these vertical launch tubes, and they put it in drydock, send us down or wait in school. And that was actually a lot of fun for me because it was my job to take this pneumatic, what they call a needle gun, which fires off these little needles to chip away the epoxy paint and repaint it.

00;12;41;13 - 00;13;04;05 Unknown I put my Walkman in with, auto reverse, punk rock and grunge music every day, all day. And just went to town. Right. I'm in the superstructure of this thing. Needle gun and, missile tubes and just having a blast, right? I mean, a lot of people would be like, that sounds terrible, but it was like Zen for me, and I was, like, plugged in.

00;13;04;05 - 00;13;25;22 Unknown I was like, good to go. I got my tunes, I got my hard work. Something's going to look good when I'm done. I don't really care. I don't need much. So then, you know, I was I was happy with that. I go to this other place and it's once again like, nope, this sucks. So then I stepped foot on the ship with this, I mean, I, I spent my youth with pretty good chip on my shoulder, right?

00;13;25;22 - 00;13;49;05 Unknown I didn't I didn't really care. You know, I was a punk. I was a smart ass. And I was really a pain, right? To anybody that could have to be in charge of me because I always knew better. Right? I outwork you, right? And I was smart enough to get away with whatever I was being a punk about, but I wasn't smart enough to get out of my own way and just stop talking.

00;13;49;07 - 00;14;14;04 Unknown So, I stepped foot on the ship thinking that I would just be that bulldozer punk that got away with everything, and immediately everything changed. I met my first chief. JP Barnes was, the epitome of, like, the coolest dude you ever met. So, like, you, you pulled a dude right at a Top Gun and dropped him on a submarine, and he was in charge of me, right?

00;14;14;06 - 00;14;33;21 Unknown He was a rock and roll drummer. He was crazy, but super fun and really smart, and just cared about doing a really good job and being the best. And so we spent the next four years on my first ship doing all of that. Right? I fell in love with the ship. I fell in love with the mission.

00;14;33;21 - 00;14;53;11 Unknown I fell in love with the crew. And most importantly, I fell in love with being good at something and actually learning and working hard to get better at it. Right? I I'd never been academic before that, never had a reason to I didn't care, right? Well, he challenged me, right. He gave me the responsibility and opportunity to grow into it.

00;14;53;11 - 00;15;13;12 Unknown And and he did that with the whole division, right? Our whole crew, at one time, I think when we were at our biggest point, we had 11 people, right? He was responsible for 11 people. And I'd say over half of those guys all went on to be senior enlisted leaders or a duty officer converts. Right? They all all went off to be super successful.

00;15;13;12 - 00;15;34;08 Unknown Right. And I was like, okay, I'm going to I'm going to go boo everywhere I go, right? I'm just going to channel that. And so I took it and I ran with it and a lot of early success. Right. Because if you work hard, that's like 90% of the equation. But 10% is probably the hardest part to get right.

00;15;34;11 - 00;15;56;21 Unknown And that was all my my attitude. Right. So then I get to this mid-career point, you know, and and that was that was a pretty big switch for me, but I should I should clarify, I skipped over a big chunk. So another piece of me read, I move out to Seattle, I get this great opportunity to work with a great division.

00;15;56;23 - 00;16;16;17 Unknown And it wasn't like right away I started getting stuff right. I mean, I was still heading for disaster, with my attitude. And, I was out with my friend. He was dating this girl. She had a friend. They came over and I met my wife, my best friend to this day. Introduce me to my wife, Melissa.

00;16;16;20 - 00;16;36;10 Unknown She came over to his house just impromptu, and we kind of just never stopped hanging out after that. And then the rest was just kind of history. We just. We hit it off as friends, hit it off as, boyfriend girlfriend, hit it off as husband and wife. And I'm not going to say that, you know, everything was just smooth sailing.

00;16;36;10 - 00;16;54;20 Unknown We were a military family, right? It was. There were tough times, but it's just always been good to be with someone who is my my best friend, you know, every day. And you might not get along with your best friend every day, but they're always going to be the person that gets you the best. And so I lucked into that.

00;16;54;22 - 00;17;09;25 Unknown And so we were both very young, and neither one of us were of drinking age yet. So we, we just kind of jumped into that and went all in. Neither one of us was even looking to start dating. Right? It just kind of happened. I was actually kind of done like, yeah, I don't I don't need drama in my life.

00;17;09;25 - 00;17;29;02 Unknown I don't need that extra stuff. And then I met her and I was like, well, maybe, maybe I kind of do. Right. So then, you know, signed on for, you know, what was probably the best mission of my life, which was getting together with her. And right in that time, you know, we were both going to community college at Olympia Community College.

00;17;29;05 - 00;17;51;25 Unknown And I had never been a strong student. She was kind of not taking it super seriously. And together, we just kind of found how to focus and be good at it. And we just from there was like, we were super students, right? I like, you know, I graduated Olympia College with at 3.98. I graduated high school with I don't even know if they measure GPAs, GPAs as low as my GPA was.

00;17;51;25 - 00;18;12;25 Unknown Right. I couldn't even tell you. And that was all like a natural confluence of events, right? I had a supportive crew at work. I had a supportive wife who was motivated and smart and dedicated, and it changed everything for me. Right? It took it from I'm just a punk kid who wants to go be a lefty up at the, ski resort.

00;18;12;28 - 00;18;45;09 Unknown That's my like and dream to like, hey, maybe I can go be, you know, a professional doing something technical and being good at it. And it just changed everything for me. So having a supportive chief at work and a team that was awesome. And then also having a wife who just like, Holy crap, I got so lucky. Like she just showed up and dude, I just I wish everybody could find somebody like that to be in their life because she is like the cornerstone, maybe the keystone of my whole thing.

00;18;45;09 - 00;19;04;10 Unknown Right? Like she keeps everything in line. And it's always been good to have somebody in my corner like that. So back to the ship. So we're on a ship. I'm trying to decide what to do with my life. I'm still I still got the chip on my shoulder. I'm still convinced that I don't need this organization. It is the Navy, right?

00;19;04;10 - 00;19;23;05 Unknown I'm just like, yeah, I'm here, but I'm only doing one tour. Guys. Like, I'm going to get exactly what I want out of you, and then I'm gone, right? I'm not staying. It comes down my final days of my first enlistment. We're getting underway. I'm the. I'm the rescue swimmer on the ship. And I had been really belligerent.

00;19;23;05 - 00;19;40;28 Unknown Right. They weren't coughing up these orders that I wanted to to agree to re-enlist. And the detailer, who is the guy who assigns you your next set of orders, had had enough of me, right? He was like, I am not. You're not getting what you want. This is where we need you. And I was like, well, then I'm gone, right?

00;19;41;00 - 00;20;07;26 Unknown I have a plan, right? I would have been I would have been, up the creek if I had, like, actually gotten to go through with my plan of just tossing them in the air as I ran off the brow of the ship. It would have been a bad day. I would have had no job. So fortunately, the day we're going up to see the career counselor comes up with my orders, he goes, Will you re-enlist now, please?

00;20;07;29 - 00;20;24;14 Unknown And so I get my orders in hand and I'm like, yeah, I'll re-enlist. And he goes, did you still want to do it in the bridge, the bridges, the hole and the top of the sale of a submarine? I was like, yeah, I want the captain to re-enlist me, and I want to do it in the bridge while we're going through the Hood Canal bridge, which is a floating bridge.

00;20;24;16 - 00;20;44;13 Unknown They were like, goodness gracious, like you. You couldn't make anything harder if you tried, right? And I was like, well, I'm going to get what I want. So I'm giving you more of my life, right? So, we go up there and I kind of just that, that happenstance, it's like this theme I just got. I just keep getting lucky, right?

00;20;44;16 - 00;21;06;23 Unknown People say it's not luck. You worked hard. No, there's a fair amount of luck, right? Timing and luck are important in everybody's life. And, what is it they say opportunity is, when preparation meets opportunity. When preparation meets opportunity, right? If you're not prepared for it, when the opportunity shows up, you're not going to be ready. Right?

00;21;06;23 - 00;21;34;09 Unknown So I had worked hard to get to that point and be ready to succeed in that next phase. Right. And got lucky and the door opened and I was able to leverage the next opportunities. Right. So it kind of kept going through my career. I had really good success. As a junior guy, I was I was running circles around folks, you know, and, and I knew it right in my in my heart, I knew I was good at what I was doing.

00;21;34;09 - 00;21;49;23 Unknown Right. It was, hey, if you work hard, if you study, you get good at what you're doing. It kind of builds that ego that I never had. Right? I had confidence that I never had when I was growing up, and it was new to me. I didn't know what to do with it. So then that started pumping my head up a lot.

00;21;49;25 - 00;22;08;07 Unknown Right? And I, you know, did what I always did. I had a chip on my shoulder and now I got something to justify the chip on my shoulder. Right. Some men around, you know, kind of being a bulldozer. Right? I just kind of don't take no for an answer. Do whatever I want. I'm all about my team winning, and they did right places I would go.

00;22;08;07 - 00;22;36;21 Unknown I would go to a team that was struggling. We'd work our butts off together. We'd end up being the best on the waterfront or whatever. And, you know, again, I had great raw materials. Right? I show up, I get given a tough job, I volunteer to go take a tough job, and I find out that, you know what was painted as a terrible opportunity ends up being like a golden opportunity, because there's all these great people just waiting to be moved to the right place and and guided to something better.

00;22;36;21 - 00;22;54;07 Unknown So my initial approach was small teams was easy, right? I knew the task, I knew the job, and I was able to work with that team to be successful. Right. But they were all we could smart already. I didn't have to do anything hard. I just had to, like, get them out of their own way, make them work together.

00;22;54;09 - 00;23;16;07 Unknown Right. Which was really just show up and be alongside them and work hard with them. Right. And then they were good. And that elevated me, I elevated them. It worked great. Until I got put in charge of other leaders, right when I got put in charge of other leaders and had to distribute responsibility, and somehow suddenly, my way wasn't the only way.

00;23;16;09 - 00;23;37;04 Unknown It was a real challenge for me. I hit this point in my career where hard work wasn't going to be the only thing that get you there, right? You got to learn some new skills in this angry youth. So he's carrying around on my back. That was old me was just making all kinds of problems for me, right?

00;23;37;04 - 00;23;57;16 Unknown I mean, I was still being successful, but I was alienating everyone around. It was just a it was a hot mess. And, and I wasn't really popular, right? I didn't I didn't win because I was doing good for the team. I won because that's all I cared about. Right. And, and at the detriment of those around me too.

00;23;57;16 - 00;24;18;28 Unknown Right. So I think I probably did a fair amount of knocking people over, as we pushed our way through to success. Right. Well, guess what, dude? Like, there's more than just your division that makes a submarine crew successful, right? There's multiple divisions. Everybody needs to win for you to win. Because if the ship loses, you lose. Right?

00;24;19;00 - 00;24;40;06 Unknown And I was like, no, no, that's fine. But I mean, we're going to win them, right? That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be the best. And it took quite a few kicks in the teeth to to really understand that, you know, I'm going to have to evolve and, and that didn't come right away to me because I kept like, happenstance kept happening, I kept getting promoted.

00;24;40;06 - 00;25;05;27 Unknown And I was like, well, you were wrong. I don't have to evolve. Right. And, it was, it was interesting because the military facilitates that, where if you work hard, you're probably and you're even competent, partially. Right. You're probably going to get promoted over time because, well, you stayed and you don't entirely suck and you're willing to work hard.

00;25;06;01 - 00;25;29;12 Unknown Okay. We can work with that. You get given a larger amount of responsibility, like a department, and suddenly you got to distribute that stuff. And and your message just isn't landing because you're not out there doing the work of people, and you don't understand the technical pieces of the other divisions. Right? So if I've got a navigation division and a sonar division and another division, all over there, I'm responsible for helping them be successful.

00;25;29;12 - 00;25;50;02 Unknown I understand how they do that stuff. How am I going to go in and tell that guy how to make his division successful? Right. Maybe he knows better than I do. I couldn't accept that. And so I fought my way in to a couple of opportunities. One was there's a senior enlisted job. On submarines called the chief of the boat.

00;25;50;05 - 00;26;13;17 Unknown And, at this point, I was a senior chief, and I was at 12 years in the military, which is pretty fast, right? I don't think anybody really expected that, and, the least of all me, right? I was like, oh, wow. That's that's sudden and new. So then it was just reaffirming that everything I was doing was right.

00;26;13;20 - 00;26;32;21 Unknown So then I go, and I get this job, and, I start I was on shore duty and instructor duty job, and, you know, I'm taking for granted that my next gig is going to go be the senior enlisted leader of a submarine. Right? I'm like a baby in this grand scheme of things, right? Like the.

00;26;32;28 - 00;26;58;08 Unknown So you. When did you go into the Navy? How old were you? I was 18, so you're 30. You're an e a 30 year old e? Yes. Got it. Just emphasizing you're a baby. Yeah, but at the time, no 30 year old thinks they're a baby, right? Like, not at 30. You're like, oh, man, I'm old now. Like, I'm the old guy in the room, right?

00;26;58;08 - 00;27;18;00 Unknown Yep. And then you walk into a room of old guys who are all seasoned and salty. They've been doing it since, you know, the Noah's Ark, right? They cast off lines back there two by two, and then, and then they get the ship underway. Right. Those guys are the guys I'm with now, right? And I'm like, oh yeah, man, I'm going to start throwing my weight around.

00;27;18;00 - 00;27;34;28 Unknown I'm the new young guy who's going to teach you guys all how to do the right thing. Like sit down, kid. Right. And so I show up and I'm like, not to be pushed into the corner, like, okay, it's my turn, you guys. You've aged out. Time to get off the bus. I'm in. Put me in, coach.

00;27;34;28 - 00;27;55;25 Unknown I'm ready to go. And, and I keep trying to politely tell me over and over again like, hey, go get good at what you're supposed to be doing right now. There we we literally just promoted you. The you are super young. Haven't had any minutes in that role yet. So like don't be in a rush. Go get good at what you're doing.

00;27;55;28 - 00;28;13;24 Unknown And as like, I'm good at what I'm doing. Trust me, I know. Right? Because this is the theme, right? I always knew, I always knew I was doing the right thing and then you couldn't tell me different. So then, I go, and I have this board with a crew of people that are all mentors to me throughout the time.

00;28;13;27 - 00;28;41;08 Unknown And, and they interview me. I sit in there and it's a board of all other chiefs of the boats. And Cmmc is like command master chiefs. So only 80 nines, right? They're all interviewing me for this thing. And I had gone nuts. I studied every book you could get on how to do this. And I brought, like, this binder of I had written up like, procedures for how I was going to do everything, every facet of the job.

00;28;41;10 - 00;29;01;18 Unknown Right. And, and, and an old friend of mine, who's now one of my longtime mentors, Eric Antoine, looks and he goes, well, this guy's really smart. Look at him. He's so smart, right? He's reading the book and I'm thinking, like, I've got this very different shade, and I haven't started yet. And he didn't know me from anybody.

00;29;01;22 - 00;29;27;01 Unknown Right? He had he had done three tours as a chief of the boat. That does not happen, right? Nobody puts themselves through that. And he goes and does it three different times. So I was worried already. Right. And, and they send me off like I do my interview. It's it's pretty rough. It's weird. It's uncomfortable. It's the first time I've ever, like, not felt like I had the answers to everything.

00;29;27;03 - 00;29;45;24 Unknown And I'm a little sweating it, right? They had me sitting outside, they debated or whatever. So they bring me back in, and, and they look at me and they're like, yeah. So you pass your board and I'm like, why does that feel like a pregnant pause after that? And then why would you have to emphasize that I pass my board?

00;29;45;24 - 00;30;11;17 Unknown Why is it not congratulate you? However, we're not going to make you a cop right now. Like so. Wait, I passed, but I'm not ready. And so I could not could not process the depth of this failure at that moment. Right? I'm thinking like, okay, so I worked my butt off, I studied, I've got all of the I'm like, the number one guy here and there, and I'm doing all these great things.

00;30;11;17 - 00;30;34;26 Unknown And how am I not the guy? So then, you know, I go home and my wife, knowing who I am and knowing how things have gone, she has assumed already that it's a foregone conclusion. Right. So she's got a steak dinner, she's got a cake all done and ready to go, like we're going to celebrate. And I show up and I'm like, yeah, I didn't, I didn't make it.

00;30;34;29 - 00;31;04;09 Unknown Look, I'm not I'm not going to be the guy. And she's like, well, are you hungry? At the time, I'm just like numb, right? And I was like, yeah, I could eat, but, so, so that was like a pivot point in my life, right? Like I got thrown sideways pretty hard. And, and the lesson there wasn't ready to be received as like, well, okay, so I walk away.

00;31;04;11 - 00;31;22;05 Unknown I'm gonna. Well, forget these guys. They don't want me. I'm gonna go be an LDO limited duty officer. Right? If they if the senior enlisted ranks don't see who I am, I'm only going to be a limited duty officer. And I'm going to get commissioned, and I'm going to go lead that way. Right? Maybe I'm just not meant for this crowd.

00;31;22;08 - 00;31;42;24 Unknown So then I spend, like, nine months under the tutelage of a limited duty officer who's my department head. You know, we work right alongside each other. I'm the department chief at the time, and he's kind of mentoring me. I put it together, all this things again. I'm, like, completely convinced that there's no outcome other than scout pay for wins this thing.

00;31;42;26 - 00;32;12;14 Unknown Right? I'm going to get this thing and, I submit my paperwork. I put it all in, and, you know, the results come out and I'm not on the list. I'm not even a second choice. I'm not anywhere remotely close. Right. Until that point, I had never been on another type of submarine. Right. So in the military, especially in the Navy, if you get into senior enlisted or officer ranks, they're expecting you to have different kinds of platforms.

00;32;12;17 - 00;32;39;04 Unknown So you have a wide variety of experience. I had only ever been on deterrent submarines by that point. So SBS and that's a very specific kind of mission, which is only one kind of mission. Well, the fast attack class submarines, right? They do a bunch of other kinds of missions. I not had any experience in any of those things, which is where they send all limit to duty officer communications officers.

00;32;39;04 - 00;33;02;04 Unknown Right. Like that's what I was qualified to go do if I got picked. I was actually completely unqualified at the time to go do it because I had no other experience. I did not cross that. I thought, well, I'm super good at this other thing, so it outweighs the lack of experience. So, you'll see that lack of experience is actually a key driving thing.

00;33;02;04 - 00;33;26;13 Unknown And how I fell off the cart here. So I'm young, I'm ahead of my time, but I'm actually way behind in this experience gathering things. So then I'm like, well, I'm going to go get experience, right? Like, like I'm going to work my way into getting experience faster, right? This is my like my knuckle dragging worker brain is just like, I'm going to go get it faster than everybody else.

00;33;26;16 - 00;33;50;18 Unknown I mean, that's fundamentally you can't just you can't get experience faster than you get it. It's just it comes and you have it. So then, opportunity to go to a fast attack pops up. There's a USS Jimmy Carter. It's a special mission submarine that goes out there and does undersea research, development and testing. And I was like, oh, that sounds super cool.

00;33;50;21 - 00;34;07;10 Unknown And one of the guys that was on my board for Cobb is the chief for the boat there. And I'm like, and that guy is the guy to go learn from. And they said, you know what? Yeah, you're right. That's the guy you should go learn from. And so I was like, all right, I'm in. Send me.

00;34;07;12 - 00;34;28;11 Unknown And they sent me. And boy, did I learn a lot about how little I knew the entire time. Right. It was kind of like back to grade school because here I'm like this thoroughbred over here, like, thinking that I'm running circles around everybody. Well, that place is like a triple screening place, right? You got a it's a special mission set.

00;34;28;14 - 00;34;49;24 Unknown They don't bring in anybody. That's not the number one in their graduating class from a rating. They don't bring in anybody. Everybody has a top secret clearance. Even the mechanics. Right. Everybody on that ship is a beautiful and unique snowflake in their own way. In a good way. In all the best ways. Right? They're all smart, they're all capable, and they're all running circles around everybody.

00;34;49;24 - 00;35;12;21 Unknown Right. So this den of alpha competitors, and I'm like one finally my people. Right. Let's go run circles around the world literally did that. But also, it was it was weird to not be the obvious number one all of a sudden. And now I'm showing up and I'm just like an extra dude. Like, they already had a full complement.

00;35;12;21 - 00;35;27;01 Unknown They did not need me. So then I showed up and I'm this extra guy. I'm the chief of the boats, Pat. Right. Like going and running and doing all this stuff. Well, I'm getting trained in there, like get a load of this guy, right? He doesn't even have a reason to be here. He's just here sucking up our good air.

00;35;27;03 - 00;35;47;29 Unknown Right. And, it took the entirety of my time. There was only on that ship one year to get even a portion of the crew to, like, say, okay, well, this guy doesn't entirely suck, right? Because I had worked my way into those jobs. I just kind of showed up, and I was like, being, mentored. So I left there.

00;35;48;02 - 00;36;08;27 Unknown Yeah, I got to tell a story. So I show up to that ship, and I'm talking about experience. So this is. This is how far off my perception of what my skill set really was from reality. So I go there, and the full measure of a enlisted submariner is whether or not you're qualified, you're senior in rate, job.

00;36;09;00 - 00;36;35;05 Unknown Right. So for nuclear, for, trained folks in the engineering team as engineering watch supervisor, the senior guy, in the engine room for the forward folks that non-nuclear trained folks, it's, it's diving officer to watch. Right. So you're in charge of reaching, maintaining order depth and driving the submarine. You have a team of guys down there moving the yokes, and you're telling them very directly what to do.

00;36;35;07 - 00;36;55;06 Unknown Why don't have a lot of experience doing that. Right. And I'm on the most complex submarine that's ever been built, which operates very, very strangely. Right. It has some very strange handling techniques, and it's much more complicated than what I learned on my previous ship. So I sit in the chair and they're immediately like, this guy does not have a clue, right?

00;36;55;06 - 00;37;18;00 Unknown Like, no idea what we're doing. And I again go back to my academic setups. I'm studying everything. I'm working hard. I've got my book, I'm doing the equations right. So, and a submarine buoyancy is something you have to manage. So you move water around the ship to determine how it's going to sit in the ocean so that you do what's called neutral buoyancy.

00;37;18;00 - 00;37;41;12 Unknown So you're under the ocean, but you have to stay at a depth. So then it's a complex math problem because it takes into account depth. It takes into account temperature, takes into account salinity of the water you're in. And those things are all variables that are always shifting. And, I had not really had a lot of experience running all that stuff.

00;37;41;12 - 00;38;01;27 Unknown So I was like, in this calculation mindset, this little book. Right. And I would do all these calculations and Eric and my buddy, comes in and he had been driving submarines since before I was born. You know, I think he was, already a master chief when Jimmy Carter was still president. I'm not really sure.

00;38;01;29 - 00;38;23;08 Unknown Probably fact check that, but he, he comes in the room and he looks at me, and he's he's always, always crawling up my back, really frustrated with me because I'm struggling to grasp it right now. Finally, he reaches down and he says, what are you doing? Because I'm struggling to maintain doing the basic thing like maintaining depth.

00;38;23;08 - 00;38;56;10 Unknown I'm like trying to wear it. Periscope depth. I'm trying to keep the ship from like, accidentally surfacing. And I'm not doing a great job. And he looks at me and he grabs the notebook out of my hand that I live by any flings it across the control room and he goes, just look what's happening. And I looked at it and I go, oh, it was like, well, if you're doing this or you're doing this right, it tells you what the ship is doing, whether you've got too much weight on or not enough weight on you guys stop doing math and try to figure out what is actually happening around you.

00;38;56;10 - 00;39;17;02 Unknown You have to like, look up. And from experience, he could walk in the room and know immediately what changes you needed to do, right? He knew. He knew how much weight needed to go where because he had done it so many times. Right. And, and that experience was not something you could study your way into or buy your way into, right?

00;39;17;05 - 00;39;40;03 Unknown You couldn't just work hard, you had to see it. And that was the first time I had to, like, really step back and like, oh, oh. Conceptually, I didn't understand what was happening. I had read all the books. I don't understand the math behind it, but it's the difference between an engineer and an operator, right? Like the guy that makes a bullet doesn't really know what it's like to be out there firing it.

00;39;40;08 - 00;40;00;12 Unknown Right? So that was my, like, culminating event. Like, oh, hey, you just flipped it around on you. And the same thing was true with my leadership style. So it directly overlaid with all the other lessons I was learning. I was like, hey, you're alienating everybody around you, and you don't understand why fundamentally, because you're working for yourself, right?

00;40;00;14 - 00;40;21;04 Unknown You're working for yourself. You care only about yourself, and what you're delivering is all about you, right? You're sitting in that seat and you're looking at this book thinking you're the guy making a difference. I'm just doing math. I'm not driving anything. The dude's in front of me. You're driving stuff, right? They're all qualified to sit there, right?

00;40;21;04 - 00;40;55;15 Unknown I just had to sit back and look and spot check. But I'm over here thinking I'm going to cure cancer right? That's not the case, right? You're part of a team. And so that all flipped everything around for me and really taught me a big lesson, right? He also introduced me the concept of servant leadership. Right. Servant leadership is a, is a pretty incredible and powerful thing that is thrown around a lot because it's one of those key words and tricky phrases, but the true embodiment of it is you just show up and it's not ever about you anymore, right?

00;40;55;15 - 00;41;17;22 Unknown In every facet of everything you do in leadership and in how you live your life, you just work for those around you because you're part of a community, right? So that got me finally over the fence and into the yard I wanted to be in. Right. I got my senior enlisted leadership job, as that. I wanted finally.

00;41;17;22 - 00;41;46;02 Unknown And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to, you know, I, I made a mistake. I went and I photocopied that exact experience and leadership style and I tried to overlay it on an entirely different organization. When I finally got to my job, I was the chief of the bow of the Henry, Jackson, which is another SBN. I, I showed up, they were like two weeks from getting ready to go out to see they'd already done all their training cycles and everything.

00;41;46;02 - 00;42;08;20 Unknown They built their teams. And I'm just like this new guy showing up, right? And, same thing. Captain, it was the new captain. John Moretti was my captain on that ship. Really awesome guys up prior enlisted, retired full bird captain. Now, but he and I had never been to sea with this crew together or apart, right?

00;42;08;20 - 00;42;27;14 Unknown Like, we were both new in the roles. And then we had to get this ship out to sea. And so I showed up in the whole chief's quarters, which is what they call all the senior enlisted guys on the ship was chiefs. And the chief's quarters is where we all live, right? It's the chief's room, but it's also the collective, right?

00;42;27;16 - 00;42;51;01 Unknown Your leadership team is called your chief's quarters. So I show up, and I'm, like, in a position where I have to actually earn their trust in a very short amount of time, and instead I show up knowing that I know how to make them better. And I take this model from this alpha team that I just came from, and I immediately slap it on them like a label and say, here's how we're going to be the best.

00;42;51;04 - 00;43;08;08 Unknown Like, these dudes are all ready to go to sea, which means that they've already proven to everybody that they're ready to go do that. And the very first thing I do is go tell them, yeah, that's great, but we're going to do it my way, right? I forgot everything that I had just finished learning because I had checked that box.

00;43;08;10 - 00;43;36;05 Unknown Right. So, it's about halfway through, one of the chiefs says to me, you know, because I had shown some emotion about something, I was empathetic to something that was going on with him. And he's like, man, that's like the first time I've ever seen you, like, care about somebody in a non-working way. And, and I was all this time, I'm like, I'm a servant leader.

00;43;36;07 - 00;43;57;24 Unknown I'm leading for the team. But in actuality, I'm just a guy who is following my plan, thinking that everybody gets that. It's because I'm trying to be a servant leader. Well, yeah, it's one thing to carry the book around with you. It's another thing to actually embody it. And I wasn't embodying it. So, because he told me that flat out to my face.

00;43;57;24 - 00;44;21;23 Unknown That's what it took to penetrate my dome. And actually bring me to where I was missing the mark. And so from that point on, I realized, okay, so leadership is not going to be from a book, but you can get stuff from a book. So then I went back to books, started reading about what I was missing, which is clearly engaging with human beings.

00;44;21;26 - 00;44;39;10 Unknown Okay, so I had this leadership framework that would work, and it's a communication problem now. Nobody gets what I'm trying to tell them we needed to do or why we would need to do it, because they didn't take any time whatsoever to actually spend time to learn who these people were. Right? And I didn't do that. I was all business.

00;44;39;16 - 00;45;04;26 Unknown Always had been, always would be. And so. I took the time to learn how to talk to people, to learn how to learn about people through engagement. I read How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is a little bit of an outdated book. There's some stuff in there that probably isn't appropriate for the times, but the general concepts of taking every person you meet, right?

00;45;04;28 - 00;45;24;24 Unknown No matter where they're at in the hierarchy and treating them like an important piece of the the collective right and engaging with them on a personal basis. Those were all things that, you know, were like mind blowing to me. Like most people get that at some point in their life. And I just and wrap my mind around it.

00;45;24;26 - 00;45;49;18 Unknown And then, I read a book by Simon Sinek called start with Y. Right. And it was all about conveying why you're doing something. So between those two things, several other key books, the, the servant leadership style that I was taught, things started to come together for me and then, like, really built my framework for how I engage with the world.

00;45;49;20 - 00;46;19;19 Unknown So then understanding that I'm a product of all of those failures. Right. That then led me to growing and maturing and success. Right. Those are things that, they were they put me in a place where I wanted to actually take time to learn and engage with people. Right. I had learned it's not all about me, and I had learned it's all about the team and about the people around you.

00;46;19;19 - 00;46;37;05 Unknown I had learned that you have to take time to get to know people and invest in them. For them to want to invest back and and then so finally things started to take off me. And I say this because that's like towards the end of my career, right where we're at like 17, 18 years, I ended up doing 23.

00;46;37;05 - 00;47;01;12 Unknown So I'm finishing up my chief in the boat tour, you know, already have made a kind of a mess of things by being a once again, back to bulldozer mode and on my way out of the military, I really got it right. I really understood, like, you know what? It doesn't really matter what my title or position is if I'm not bringing value to the people around me right then it doesn't doesn't matter, right?

00;47;01;12 - 00;47;21;26 Unknown If I'm not helping uplift the weakest person in the team, instead of grinding them to a pulp and waiting for them to fail out and get out of the way right then, then it's not. It's not how you build a quality organization. Right? And then so finally, I, retired from the military because I've just kind of felt like, hey, it's time to go, right?

00;47;21;26 - 00;47;48;29 Unknown I mean, I'm, I'm starting to get a little churned up. I need to go commit with my family and spend some time with them. And, and after a very brief time and, and Department of Defense acquisitions program, where I had a chance to recoup figure out who I was as a person, not just a sailor. Then I got, old friend of mine, Devin Saturday, who's now back.

00;47;49;06 - 00;48;14;15 Unknown The Oracle recruited me into the team. He was the young man who pinned my master chief anchors on me when I was at sea. And then he recruited me into the job. So, it changed everything for me. Coming to Oracle. Really? It proved to me that all of the things that I had learned, right, made me qualified to come into a really wildly different place and still be successful.

00;48;14;17 - 00;48;41;13 Unknown Right. So all those things in the military that were like, not tangible, right? None of those things that I just talked about, really, the big lessons were being very smart, very technical. I didn't talk about development. I didn't talk about tearing apart radio equipment, antennas or any of that stuff, which we did. But those weren't like the formative things, formative things with the people and the engagement and the philosophical things that I got out of my military time.

00;48;41;16 - 00;49;06;02 Unknown So when I showed up at Oracle, bringing that with me and some technical background, like it just felt like home, and I'm able to navigate this place with, you know, where I would say relative success. So coming from the military into an individual contributor role as a reliability engineer with, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was great at two years of that.

00;49;06;05 - 00;49;29;02 Unknown And then all of this history in my brain was building up. And first opportunity I had, I jumped into a manager role. And it's just been a natural fit since, full circle now, right? Why am I in Maven? Why do I care about being the chair of Maven? It's a volunteer thing. And don't I have enough time eaten up by my day job?

00;49;29;02 - 00;49;54;03 Unknown The answer's no. Why? Because you can't be a servant leader if you're not actually embodying the work. And so I got a lot out of my veteran time in the military. Taught me a lot. And there are a lot of veterans out there that, you know, they bring that value in with them, too. Right. And what I was missing, because I joined Oracle during Covid, was that sense of community.

00;49;54;05 - 00;50;15;07 Unknown It was an empty building when we showed up right. Nobody was coming to work. Downtown Seattle was a ghost town. I was flying back and forth cross-country on an empty plane. And so I was missing people engagement. And so meeting you, Chris, getting to know the team and and Maven, I was like, man, this is this is cool.

00;50;15;07 - 00;50;40;22 Unknown These people understand that that background that nuanced history that you bring from different branches. And we're just kind of we're able to just lock in and and just get it right away. We can probably say like five sentences to somebody and we're like, yep, I get it. I know where you're coming from. I understand your perspective. And it just it filled that, that last piece to be really satisfied every day.

00;50;40;24 - 00;51;06;25 Unknown And and from there I was hooked. And so all about all of that long, long story, right, is all about. Hey, you know, I'm a senior manager in a massive billion dollar company. Things must be awesome. And you must be the best at what you do to be able to land that job. And the answer is now tons of learning, tons of mistakes, tons of wrong turns and bad decisions.

00;51;06;28 - 00;51;28;11 Unknown Are informed how to get there, right? And and there's no straight path. And so now I just I make it my point to help people see that in themselves. Right. In our board as employees in Oracle, helping them navigate their careers within our company and then veterans, separating and joining the company or looking for other jobs. Right.

00;51;28;13 - 00;52;03;07 Unknown So the the inReach and outreach that Maven brings to us, is is very, very fulfilling and satisfying, right? It's it's that piece of the puzzle that makes this less just a job and more something I really care about. So that is that is the full story about me. Pretty lengthy, I know. But, it I feel like if I don't give credit to all the other stumbles, then, you know, get a you get a fake picture, right?

00;52;03;07 - 00;52;28;19 Unknown So I just wanted to make sure I was thorough. The thoroughbred was thorough. Because you said that early in your story. Thanks for sharing, Scott. No, that's it's important. And, you know, some some would say, you know, on on and I'll digress here for a second, but some would say on podcasts, you know, what's the proper duration.

00;52;28;19 - 00;52;48;06 Unknown Well, it's it's all subjective, right. And it's a matter of what the intention is to, to provide. And so what we try to provide on this is just a reminder for if you've made it this far in any of the podcasts that we have, the conversations are including the stories of individuals that are one willing to come on and discuss these things in a moment.

00;52;48;11 - 00;53;05;19 Unknown You know, and you can say it's vulnerable. You can say it's impressionable. You can say it's, you know, storytelling and it's all of those things. But it's also the the matter of fact, the fact of the matter is it's relevant to when you look in when you're looking for culture and you're looking for an organization to join, you want to know more about the people.

00;53;05;19 - 00;53;32;04 Unknown And you know, in the veteran community space, the veteran affiliated community space, there's a relationship with everything that Scott's mentioned and everybody else that's been on to talk about their their story and the development and the process and the knocks, the bumps, the successes, the failures. But I think, you know, yours specifically. What was nice to hear the story is you had a bunch of people willing to be patient and see the the potential in an individual.

00;53;32;04 - 00;54;11;16 Unknown That and it doesn't happen for everybody that you see. People look at the outside of who this person is based off of their actions, their behaviors and their personalities. But they see something different and they try to figure out how to reciprocate the grace given, to understand what to do and when to do it. And, you know, there's the firm, there's the nurturing, there's the the hand-holding, and then there's the, the out, right, throwing the notebook across the room and being direct, you know, and these factors weigh into all of the things that matter when you're trying to join an organization and see if you're a fit.

00;54;11;18 - 00;54;36;27 Unknown And so the compatibility is one of those things where something we hope in these conversations on the Maven podcast, we can somehow, in a very small way, contribute to that process in any community, not just the veteran affiliated. This is anybody listening things are a process, and if you have the time to self-reflect, like Scott has mentioned, what, he didn't take the input.

00;54;36;27 - 00;54;58;14 Unknown He didn't take the opportunity to do early, but he eventually understood it. And and the switch flipped. You can see the things and you can you can recall these things and then you can hopefully you know, in reliving these things, in the storytelling, you know, the parts of those things, people can relate to that and then give gratitude for it.

00;54;58;16 - 00;55;26;04 Unknown And so, you know, having having senior enlisted in this case, in the community, you know, the enlisted is often look towards the wisdom to, to be able to come in and grab you by the ear and show you the way, you know, giving gratitude to those folks. Three main things from your story, Scott. And then I just wanted, you know, I'd love to talk a segue into, you know, how you bring all of these things into, you know, leading an organization, which, again, is volunteer, right?

00;55;26;04 - 00;55;43;25 Unknown Nobody has to do it, you know, wanting to reconnect. You talked about, you know, the things that you were missing, you know, and and then coming into an organization and then deciding this of your time out to volunteer the drivers of that. And so I'll kind of just throw this out here in increments three, they're wanting to reconnect.

00;55;43;28 - 00;56;14;06 Unknown Well, how does that happen? How does how does how does one get to the part to where there is the realization of saying, I'm missing something, and here's what I want to do the next? Is that the point to where the investment, you know, at some point all of us realize that something occurs, an event occurs and has us go all in and that that giving, giving of oneself into the investment of whatever it is that you're going to commit to with relentless, fearless tenacity.

00;56;14;09 - 00;56;34;05 Unknown And then finally, the value of rejection, you know, in the world of success and how that feels, you know, in some would say immediate gratification, kind of how that conditions your mindset to say, well, I'm going to do this and I want something in return and I want it now type of thing. The value of rejection is to kind of serve a purpose.

00;56;34;05 - 00;56;56;19 Unknown So, you know, with those three things, let's talk about how you're taking your experiences and the people that have helped you get to where you are today. You know, what are you doing with it now that you're in the role of both your day job and the volunteer role? Yeah. So that's, those are great questions. I like the, I like the way you frame them.

00;56;56;19 - 00;57;18;08 Unknown So the first question, how do you get to the point where you realize that, you're missing some sense of community, right? So, I spent a big chunk of my time when I first got out trying to reinvent myself. Because you spent 23 years reciting. I am a United States sailor. Enough times, you start to believe that that's what you are.

00;57;18;10 - 00;57;39;06 Unknown But you forget that you're also something else, right? Which is a person like, I'm Scott. I'm not a United States sailor. I'm not a retired master chief. I'm not a submarine, or I'm just a guy out here doing a job. And I and I need to really grasp that because all of a sudden, you don't have this core identity in your life.

00;57;39;09 - 00;58;04;28 Unknown Which you don't realize, is such a big piece of your identity until it's not your identity. Right? You walk away, you put away your uniform in a box. And I wouldn't say it was like hurting my ego. Like I didn't miss the authority and responsibility. So that wasn't it. I was enjoying my job as an individual contributor, and learning about the cloud.

00;58;04;28 - 00;58;23;24 Unknown I had a great time doing that. Being hands on keyboard, making change in the cloud, fixing things that were broken right up my alley. I loved it, but at some point, you know, you go to work, you go home, you go to work, you go home. It's just that's just a task. It's it's not being part of something greater.

00;58;23;24 - 00;58;51;18 Unknown It's not being part of a a team. And we are very insulated during Covid. Right. So like there was just seven of us and we had to be spaced out and you couldn't be in the same room at the same time. And it was just we fell off and then so I, you know, we got some people together, you know, we we had a socially distanced social event, you know, one time the distance may or may not have been the appropriate amount of space.

00;58;51;18 - 00;59;12;25 Unknown And then eventually we realized we were all in the same room. So we might as well just be together. Right. And it was a great I was like, oh, man, this feels awesome. It just feels good. Right? And I identified quickly that it wasn't the loss of the military, it was the loss of the community, the loss of the people around you feeling like you're part of something.

00;59;12;27 - 00;59;38;14 Unknown And then the, the military aspect of it is it's just, you know, you spend your adult life living a certain way. You kind of look for people who can understand that background. Right? It's just nice to have somebody understand you, people who are allies or are outstanding. We have a lot of great allies in the company and in the community.

00;59;38;17 - 00;59;59;03 Unknown But if you haven't lived the life, you know, there are some things you just won't. Right? You can't get it because once again, you can't just read about experience. Experience is something you earn through time, through involvement. Which brings me to my second thing. So you asked a question about, you know, how do you get to the point where you just go all in?

00;59;59;05 - 01;00;32;09 Unknown So I read a quote somewhere, it was misinterpreted and misattributed to Thomas Jefferson. It's actually attributed to Witold Gombrowicz, who's a, Polish author. He says, do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act action will delineate and define you. So, one ironic that a quote about action I would have attributed to the totally wrong person, and to really just I try to live that in the things that I do.

01;00;32;09 - 01;00;47;02 Unknown Right. Like, why wait, if you think something needs to be done, go do it. Right. So we met and I was like, hey, this thing's cool. What are we doing with it? Right. And and then from there, it's always been like, that's the first question I always ask. Okay, that sounds awesome. What are we going to do? Right.

01;00;47;02 - 01;01;07;00 Unknown Are we going to go? Are we going to go run an event in Austin? Sure. Let's do it. It's not planned yet. And it's like in three weeks. Well, let's go do it. Why not? Let's try it out. What's the worst that could happen? Right. It doesn't work out when we learn something. So, I've. I've really enjoyed the opportunity to be part of the action oriented piece of our community.

01;01;07;02 - 01;01;27;25 Unknown Right. So going all in was just. It's just in my nature. I don't know any other way. Right? I'm going to lean into the windmill every chance I get. Right. And then finally value of rejection. Yeah. So that's a tough one for me to process. I don't like to talk about it. So I make myself talk about it a lot.

01;01;27;28 - 01;01;56;07 Unknown Getting out of the military, I got to know a lot in the military. I got told no, a lot. And every one of them ended up being a piece of my philosophy. Right. So rejection, is is probably the world telling you you're in the wrong spot, right? When I was, I got out of the military, I did a corporate fellowship with Skill Bridge through Amazon, and it was, for a job I was pretty well qualified for.

01;01;56;07 - 01;02;21;21 Unknown It was for training, development, with operations teams in the warehouses. So I show up there. I'm. I'm pretty stoked. I'm inside the doors of Amazon. Like I have succeeded. Right? I'm going to go be one of the Uber rich south like Union knights. And and I'm going to love everything. Right. And I get in there and it's curriculum development and it's not really what I was thinking it was going to be.

01;02;21;21 - 01;02;45;19 Unknown And they dissolved that team and laid off a bunch of people, and there was no opportunity. So I ended up interviewing for a job called a vendor manager job, which is essentially interviewing people who are, selling stuff on an Amazon and, and building that deal with them. Right. You're managing the vendor vendors who manage to sell stuff on the Amazon platform.

01;02;45;21 - 01;03;08;03 Unknown And so I go to this interview, the manager is this Harvard MBA and she like ate my lunch. I have an MBA, but it had been a minute since I did that studying. And I have to admit this out loud, right? I got told by the recruiter, hey, here's some stuff to go study. And there were some key things, right?

01;03;08;06 - 01;03;23;21 Unknown The night of the interview. Like, I got to go in the next day. It gives me the study guide. I'm wiped. Right. I am getting out of the military, I just retired. My brain's not in a great spot, and I'm just like, you know what? If I don't know it yet, I'm not going to know it. So I don't even open the doc.

01;03;23;24 - 01;03;43;04 Unknown Right? He said it was like CliffsNotes, like here, like SparkNotes for younger people or or Google for everybody else who wants to know how to do a job. Right. And I didn't even open it. So I showed up and I just got annihilated. Right? It was terrible. And I did not get the job. I felt like the biggest failure on Earth.

01;03;43;04 - 01;04;05;16 Unknown Right. Well, I wouldn't be in the job I love today being successful at Oracle if I had not gotten that job at Amazon. Right. And, And I know that now. Right? Even even now, you're still learning, right? So the value of rejection is, well, you're being redirected, right? Because of where you chose to put yourself. Right.

01;04;05;16 - 01;04;39;16 Unknown And you know that you can't be again, you can't make up for experience and rejection is just an experience. Yep. Good. Couldn't said it better. So as as we segue into wrap this, what is Maven doing this year? What are we doing? All right, so, what are we doing? We're going to capitalize on some of the things we learned last year, continue to push out, the outreach to other organizations, be that veteran service organizations and partnerships.

01;04;39;18 - 01;05;02;09 Unknown We're going to push to continue to increase the value we're adding to the business, which we've been doing for quite a while. We've been baked into, business priorities and company priorities for a for as long as, I think you've been involved in the program, we've been pretty well aligned, with, with a lot of the business priorities.

01;05;02;09 - 01;05;44;12 Unknown And then, you know, we're going to keep fighting to grow the on site, in-person events. Right? Build community inside of Oracle, build community, wherever we're at, and expand opportunities for people to get engaged, to find that value in each other, to learn about each other, learn about the veteran community. And then, most importantly, I think is, because while we're building value into the employees, and, and giving them a sense of ownership and pride and where they come from and what we're doing here at Oracle, we're also giving them opportunities to volunteer and go radiate that outwards.

01;05;44;12 - 01;06;09;12 Unknown Right. So another thing that employee resource groups do is we're we're meant to meant to help bring our culture and our vibe out to the community. Right? People like me, I didn't know about Oracle when I was on submarines, right? It just wasn't in my schema box. I didn't understand what Oracle even was. I had heard of Microsoft and then I heard Amazon, but I had never worked on an Oracle database.

01;06;09;12 - 01;06;32;02 Unknown I didn't know anything about it. So. Well, we're pretty awesome company, right? So how is a veteran know that Oracle is an awesome place to work because a veteran told them Oracle's a great place to work, right. And everyone we've pulled in from outside has cited that as the reason they chose to come in. Right. It's the oracle culture.

01;06;32;08 - 01;06;51;24 Unknown It's the maven culture. It's the thing that they love is that they come here and they know they're going to be around people that they want to be around. They know they're going to be around people with similar values, with similar intentions, with similar goals. Right. And a lot of companies are good at it. Right? I think Oracle is great at it.

01;06;51;24 - 01;07;17;10 Unknown And we our job, our mission right, is to help spread that word and get it out there. We've really had a great year for that. And we're going to exponentially grow that impact. We're going to really shout it from the mountaintops, right? And really bring the spotlight on it. So we had a, what we like to call the pilot, event down in Austin, big on site thing.

01;07;17;10 - 01;07;38;18 Unknown It went fantastic. Had a bunch of vendors come in from veteran service organizations. I think we had almost every human being in that campus come out meat barbecue, lunch with us. It's a bunch of people got to socialize with veterans and allies and it was really awesome. Community event. Right. So what does that matter for fiscal year 26?

01;07;38;18 - 01;08;07;26 Unknown Well, we've got the model. Now. We know what that looks like. We know how to do it. And we're going to do that at multiple locations now. Right. We're going to improve and expand that engagement to the community and to our employees. So they feel that support deep. Right. So that's that's the big picture stuff. We've got some other things in the hopper which will unveil throughout the year, but, volunteerism, community engagement, alignment with the business to drive the bottom line.

01;08;07;28 - 01;08;29;06 Unknown Love it. I'm stoked. I can't wait for it. Final thoughts? Yeah. I just go right back to it if you think it needs to be done, don't wait for permission. Dive right in. Go after it and, and you'll find that it will pay you back tenfold. I love it, we'll leave it there. Scott, thank you so much.

01;08;29;07 - 01;08;55;29 Unknown Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your story. It is important. You know, we have a variety of of folks that come through with their experiences. And, you know, those that do come through the veteran affiliated community, especially who are, you know, who separate as a senior individual, whether it's enlisted or officer, that's it's bringing great leadership qualities and traits and stories that can help infiltrate some of the mindset of those that don't think they can or don't know how to.

01;08;55;29 - 01;09;16;00 Unknown And, you know, it's just one piece to the puzzle that just you accumulate. And, hopefully as you bring people together, those stories can continue to be shared and everybody learns and grows together. So with that, thanks, Chris. Already one keep moving forward.

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In this episode, Josh shares real-world insight into the challenges of transition, the importance of self-discovery, and why success beyond the military comes down to one key word: investment. From developing a shared vision with your family, establishing a strong network of connections, to executing that plan with the same tenacity forged in service, Josh offers a grounded, motivating roadmap for anyone standing at the edge of a major life shift. As his military chapter came to a close, Josh—a retired U.S. Army veteran with nearly 32 years of service, much of it within U.S. Special Operations—turned to the Special Operators Transition Foundation, or SOTF, for guidance in navigating what came next. That experience didn’t just help him find his footing in a new career—it sparked a deeper calling. After spending his first few years out of uniform applying the skills he’d sharpened over decades of service, Josh returned to SOTF—not as a participant this time, but as a leader. Now, he’s committed to helping other transitioning special operators find their way forward, giving back through the very program that helped launch his own next chapter. https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuafhijohnson/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/specopstf/ https://sotf.org/ --------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;41;08 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode, I'm joined by Josh Johnson, director of programs for the Special Operators Transition Foundation. As his military chapter came to a close, Josh, the retired U.S. Army veteran with nearly 32 years of service, much of it within US Special operations, turned to the Special Operators Transition Foundation, or so for guidance and navigating what came next.

00;00;41;08 - 00;01;02;19 Unknown That experience didn't just help him find his footing in a new career. It sparked a deeper calling after spending his first few years out of uniform, applying the skills he'd sharpened over decades of service. Josh returned to Sota not as a participant this time, but as a leader. Now he's committed to helping other transitioning special operators find their way forward, giving back through the very program that helped launched his own next chapter.

00;01;02;20 - 00;01;25;20 Unknown In this episode, Josh shares real world insight into the challenges of transition, the importance of self discovery, and why success beyond the military comes down to one key word investment from developing a shared vision with your family. Establishing a strong network of connections to executing that plan with the same tenacity forged in service. Josh offers a grounded, motivating roadmap for anyone standing at the edge of a major life shift.

00;01;25;20 - 00;01;45;00 Unknown We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family, Josh's contact details in the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;45;03 - 00;02;07;16 Unknown Good morning Josh. Hey good morning Chris. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for joining me on this early Monday morning. I appreciate it. Anything exciting happening in the next couple of days or how was the weekend? Weekend was good. We're, my wife has a long list of honey do's, and she was out this week, so I took the opportunity to can kind of knock some of those out.

00;02;07;16 - 00;02;28;08 Unknown So I'm repainting kitchen cabinets. So I got to do all the sanding and prepping and start painting that. So, not as relaxing as a typical weekend, but not bad. Not bad. You can do that with your hands. You feel like you accomplished something? Yeah, that's some tedious work, too. That's mean. Got to get it right. Or you can see it right one podcast time, right?

00;02;28;08 - 00;02;46;16 Unknown You get that, you get to listen all your good. Do you pick up on anything? Any good ones? Man, I listened to a couple, Sean Ryan's got, health and wellness doctor, and he's just going through the whole food process and, you know, trying to figure out how to eat, right? And, some good stuff, right?

00;02;46;17 - 00;03;06;23 Unknown He's like, hey, man, if if, if you don't have that ingredient in your in your cabinet right now, don't eat that food. That's a pretty simple thing. So just, you know, full whole foods, whole ingredients. Yeah. Yeah. He's digging, digging into the, the whole saturated fats and oils and all that. And, you know, it's good stuff. Yeah.

00;03;06;24 - 00;03;28;27 Unknown No. It's good. Those little things help. All right. Josh is here to talk about the Special Operators Transition Foundation. And of course, as we typically do, we we lead in with a little bit about our guests. And so, Josh, if you would mind tell us a little bit about you. Yeah. So again I appreciate the opportunity to get on the Maven podcast and have this conversation.

00;03;29;00 - 00;03;49;29 Unknown You know, we've, sort of the Special Operators Transition Foundation and Oracle has, has built a really strong relationship over the last, I don't know, year or so. And it's only getting stronger. And so, you know, pull up through like this to get on and and talk with folks and you know just explain what we do. I'm very appreciative of that, of the opportunity.

00;03;49;29 - 00;04;06;21 Unknown So born and raised in Utah come from a decent sized family. Five of us total spent a lot of time, you know, in sports because, you know, the more practice you have, the less chores you have at the house. So, you know, you spend as much time out of the house as possible and leave it, leave everything else to the little siblings.

00;04;06;21 - 00;04;26;10 Unknown Let them do all that. Join the army early with this lofty goal. As a 17 year old terrible student of becoming a, an FBI agent at the time, I had the opportunity to talk to an FBI agent who was like, hey, we want accountants, lawyers or linguists. And I was like, well, not going to go to law school.

00;04;26;12 - 00;04;49;17 Unknown Math is my worst subject, apparently. I need to go learn it, learn a language. So I joined the Utah Army National Guard, to be a Russian linguist. And when I got down to the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California, I found out that I do not learn languages very well. So, struggled in that and ended up not passing that which was one of the first times I ever failed anything.

00;04;49;17 - 00;05;09;29 Unknown That was kind of a, a kick in the guts and a reset. Came back, got married, had a baby and was doing like, construction. And then the National Guard and realized that that I probably want to try something else. Law enforcement was still on my mind, but I was too young to go be a police officer in the state of Utah.

00;05;10;02 - 00;05;34;21 Unknown So I joined active duty, became a military policeman, did that for about ten years. And then we were stationed in Belgium. I had gone back to the states, to the Army's protective services, detachment, like bodyguard school. And in my mind, I had this picture that was going to be all of these, like, top performers. Because who why wouldn't you want that?

00;05;34;21 - 00;05;56;02 Unknown You know, guarding all these, you know, important people. And it was it was a little like this, a little disappointed. But there were two Navy Seals in the course. And when we were doing our intros, everyone's like, oh, you know, I'm stationed in Belgium and we're going to be providing security for the, the secure. And, you know, all these everyone's kind of going around where they're going to be assigned.

00;05;56;05 - 00;06;15;07 Unknown And the two Navy Seals and one of them gets up and he goes, we're actually here to learn how to kill guys like you. And I just started laughing. I was like, well, that's a different mentality. But through the program, I mean, it was a great course of great training. We learned a ton. I just wasn't overly impressed with the people I was surrounded with.

00;06;15;07 - 00;06;42;27 Unknown And I kind of got thinking about the people in the, in the organization. And it it dawned on me that I was just ready to be surrounded by, kind of a, I would say high caliber, but at least people that were looking for something more because it can become shift work and all that stuff that comes with being a military policeman, it can become, kind of, hey, let's just get this done and get over it and get through with this.

00;06;42;27 - 00;07;03;17 Unknown And and I get it right. It's long hours, midnight shifts and all that stuff. And so there's not a lot of training that was going on. But I just decided I wanted to try something different. So I came home, took my wife out to dinner. Been gone a month, and she was like, well, how was the trip?

00;07;03;17 - 00;07;22;14 Unknown And I was like, it was good. But, I think I want to go Special Forces. And it was like the record player stopped, the restaurant got suddenly quiet, everyone staring, and she was like, are we going to talk about this? And I said, I feel like that's what we're doing now. And she's like, sounds like you've already made a decision.

00;07;22;14 - 00;07;47;16 Unknown I said, well, I think I have. And so ended up, you know, we talked it through and there were a lot of of misconceptions and, you know, rumors and, and all these different things. And we ended up finding we had a chaplain, who had been a who had been a prior 18 alpha. So Special Forces officer made it to the rank of major.

00;07;47;16 - 00;08;09;18 Unknown And then he decided he wanted to go to chaplaincy and so we had a chance to talk with him. And he was like, here's the deal. Like, as in any other MOS in the military, you're going to have people that make, you know, terrible decisions. He goes, but there's a lot fewer of them. And, you know, all of these rumors that you hear, they're just really not all that true.

00;08;09;18 - 00;08;35;12 Unknown What you're hearing are the bad highlights. It kind of eased some of that concerns that she had. And I just got a fire in my belly and just decided that it was going to happen. So I tried a really hard, which was super interesting because I'm, you know, rushing through these little Belgian towns carrying five gallon water jugs and just whatever people are going to be like, what is crazy American doing?

00;08;35;15 - 00;09;01;26 Unknown But I went to selection and I did well. And man, what, what an ordeal. The, if anyone ever know if anyone's ever heard anything about, Special Forces assessment selection, it's a three week process. Week one is all like individual assessment, swim test, PT test, psychological eval. Some run, some rocks, a little bit of classes on land navigation, to just get everyone to kind of a baseline.

00;09;01;28 - 00;09;25;27 Unknown And then week two is all individual assessment. So primarily based around land navigation skills. So I mean you're walking you kind of start out small or you're doing like 4 or 5 mile day and night iterations and then it pluses up and then you culminate with like a 25 mile night in day assessment. And that's a hard pass.

00;09;25;27 - 00;09;53;13 Unknown If you don't pass out, you're out. And then you go into team week and team week is it's a unique experience because they give you all of these crazy tasks and you have to, you know, immediately build rapport with the people you're working with. Establish a plan, enact that plan. And it's things like, here's an old Army Jeep with three tires, and year four, you know, 12ft poles and some lashing rope.

00;09;53;14 - 00;10;17;12 Unknown Move this thing eight miles down the road, or, one that they referred to as the fat bastard or the down pile up. It was a, an Army duffel bag. The old school army duffel bag filled with 300 pounds of dirt. And then you got these, four lashings, you know, poles, and you make a litter out of it, and you carry that thing, and it felt like 100 miles, I'm sure was only like 5 or 6.

00;10;17;15 - 00;10;41;00 Unknown But you just do it. All of these different tests, day and night iterations of all these different tests, and they're looking at, you know, what your leadership ability is, what what you're going to be like as a as a team member, do you have the ability to dig in when things get tough? And so at the end of that, if you pass all of those gates, that's just the entrance exam to go to the the Q course.

00;10;41;02 - 00;11;02;28 Unknown So I was in Belgium at the time, so I had to go back. And the army rule was you have to complete two thirds of an overseas tour before you could return. So at about eight months left. So we just, you know, kept trying to get better and better shape, brush up on some skills that I didn't didn't have, got it to a bunch of infantry manuals or Ranger handbook and things, you know, things you don't necessarily do as an MP and then showed back up.

00;11;02;28 - 00;11;27;21 Unknown But I got selected to be an SF medic, which was an incredible, I always had kind of an interest in medicine, first aid and whatnot. So you go back, you do, what they call phase one, which is like, it's small unit tactics. So kind of like a mini ranger school. It's about 45 days long, multiple patrols that you're testing day and night and, and you've got, you know, three different positions.

00;11;27;21 - 00;11;55;18 Unknown So you got to you got to you got to get tested out and go through and finish that went into the to the SF medic course. In the medic course is one of the most insane, intense, incredible courses that the military has to offer. So it's a year long process that takes you from a basic medical get yourself, or yourself, your, paramedic license.

00;11;55;18 - 00;12;18;25 Unknown So you go and do some rotations at, at a hospital, and then you do some rotations on an ambulance crew. So you're seeing, you know, emergencies, and then you go into the trauma side and they've got these just incredibly well laid out scenarios with, you know, mannequins that give biofeedback and just all these things. And every day is just kind of a test.

00;12;18;25 - 00;12;44;04 Unknown Just a test and, work your way through that, and then you end up going into advanced medicine where you're learning surgery and dental and laboratory work and you name it. At the end of this, you're allowed to be what, what the Navy refers to as a, an independent duty corpsman. So you can be the sole medical provider, for American and, local forces.

00;12;44;06 - 00;13;12;22 Unknown And I'm telling you, SF medics come out of there with skills. I mean, far above, at least on the tactical, the hands on emergency trauma stuff. It's pretty funny. We go through these hospital rotations. We do two of them during that course, and the SF medics will get in there, and they're faster than doctors. On some of these things, like sinking a chest tube, somebody's got, you know, taking a wound to the chest and there, that cavities filling up with blood pressure.

00;13;12;24 - 00;13;37;10 Unknown And, you know, guys are sinking these chest tubes because they've done 30 or 40 of them, whereas the average doctors read about one, saw PowerPoint on it, had somebody kind of walk them through it. And so you get you get done with that and you feel like you are just super well trained. And it was kind of the first time I ever walked out of an Army school feeling like, man, I know something I like.

00;13;37;10 - 00;14;19;16 Unknown I legitimately know how to do something. Then you go back, you do the big culminating exercise. It's called the Robin Savage exercise. And it's a simulated unconventional warfare exercise. It's about 45 days long. You get your mission, you go through planning, you do this big long, you know, infill helicopters and rocking and linking up with Partizans and, you know, moving into a guerrilla base with these, you know, guerrilla fighters that are taking on this big, long government and the scenarios that the, that the instructors come up with and the local population that's been doing this for the 50, 60 years that SF has been in existence.

00;14;19;18 - 00;14;40;01 Unknown I mean, we got we got tested to take out a, train bridge one time, and I was like, okay, this will be kind of cool. Sneak out in the middle of the night. You're replacing, you know, you know, simulated explosives and whatnot. And we were on the tarmac and, you know, hey, the train is going to come by at this time.

00;14;40;03 - 00;14;55;11 Unknown And sure enough, a train went by and I was like, are you kidding me? You guys got a train to do this because it went over the bridge. It stopped, came out, they did an evaluation, and then the train went back and I was like, you, you legitimately got somebody to drive a train in the middle of the night to for this exercise.

00;14;55;11 - 00;15;21;27 Unknown So super cool, train to come out of that go to language school, which, as we already know, I'm not super strong on learning languages. It I was able to to learn enough Indonesian to pass the test and move on to first Special Forces Group. First group. So you've got five active duty S.F. groups, and they're all kind of regionally aligned for a special forces group that has a primary responsibility for what they call Indo pick.

00;15;22;02 - 00;15;42;28 Unknown So Asia. So I got to do a lot of work in the Philippines and Thailand and, India and Bangladesh and just really get to understand that that area and then, you know, all the big wars kicked off. And so we're doing rotations in between, you know, our AOR and then go into Iraq and go into Afghanistan.

00;15;42;28 - 00;16;09;18 Unknown And so you get just a really good understanding of the capabilities of special operations. I got back got to become a an SF team star. And and typically that's an E8 position and it's about a two year assignment. But I when I first got there, SF, I got assigned to a dive team. So underwater operations team, and there was only one per battalion at the time.

00;16;09;18 - 00;16;40;12 Unknown And then they decided they wanted to grow the capability. Well, at that point, I was a diver, a dive supe, and a dive medical technician, and they were like, hey, we want we want you to to go stand up another dive team, grow that capability, within the battalion. So as a non promotable E-7, I got picked up to go do that ends up I got I, I ended up with almost four and a half years as a team sergeant, which is, you know, twice as long as the average person gets.

00;16;40;15 - 00;17;09;24 Unknown It was awesome. Just incredible. Some of the best soldiers have ever worked with doing some, some really cool missions, building the capability and growing the team from the ground up was was pretty fun. As I left that, I, I got the opportunity to go do a, a two year, the kind of impact the military exchange or military military professional exchange, opportunity program or other.

00;17;09;27 - 00;17;39;10 Unknown So I was the sole U.S. guy with the Australian CSR. So Australia's tier one unit got to to run a gun with those guys for two years. And one of the just I mean, I'm living in Perth, Australia. I'm one kilometer away from probably the most beautiful beach in the planet, running with with with guys that are just super motivated and very well trained and just thoroughly enjoyed that.

00;17;39;12 - 00;18;07;26 Unknown When I came back, I was a senior eight, getting ready to get looked at for, E9, but I kind of decided that I was it was time, right? I was a 20 years at that point, and they assigned me to a company that one of my really good friends was, he was a company SA major, and he was like, hey, I want you to be my operations are and I want you to, you know, get us ready to, to to do a combat rotation over Afghanistan.

00;18;07;26 - 00;18;36;02 Unknown And I said, well, yeah, I'm, I'm cool, but I think I'm, I think I'm going to get out. And so guy's name is Danny Roscoe and he's famous for, for saying that he's only got a, you know, a 12th grade, California public school education, but he's got a master's in trigonometry. He essentially tricked me into staying in for the rotation and then during the rotation, he said, hey, I want you to go be the battalion.

00;18;36;05 - 00;19;05;10 Unknown You know, first sergeant and then ended up making certain major. And so you know, came back, took over that exact same company as a company. SA major took him back to Afghanistan and then came back. And then I ended up closing out my, my time, what we call the advanced skills company. So managing all the training for parachuting, diving, shooting, some of the Intel courses, the jacks, they're called.

00;19;05;10 - 00;19;27;22 Unknown So tax and NSF. Just a great way to to close out, a career. And so I ended up doing just under 32 years, after I told that guy I was going to get out at 23 and stuff. But it was good. It was it was an incredible experience. So I retired in July, kind of at the beginning of the whole Covid scare.

00;19;27;22 - 00;19;47;20 Unknown And there was a bunch of, of issues with trying to get my, you know, VA claims process, because the morning I was supposed to go in and meet with my VSO, there was an 8:00 and an 830 appointment. I had the 830 appointment at 815. The world shut down because of Covid, and they're trying to figure out what I was going to do.

00;19;47;20 - 00;20;05;14 Unknown And the Army at my unit essentially said, hey, go figure out how to be a civilian. You're going to retire. We're going to give you the time to go do that. And so, you know, you're working on, you know, what that was going to look like. And I think, like most of us, when the time comes, we're ill prepared for it.

00;20;05;17 - 00;20;24;24 Unknown And I remember sitting down thinking, okay, well, let let's figure out this process. And I just stared at a wall trying to to, you know, whiteboard, trying to figure out what I was going to do and realize I didn't know. I didn't know how to become a civilian. And about that time I'd heard of this organization, at the time, it was called Your Grateful Nation.

00;20;24;27 - 00;20;48;06 Unknown And it was, SOF specific, Veterans Transition organization. So I called and interviewed for it, and and it was a rough interview. I was I was surprised at, you know, how detailed they wanted and, you know, the information kind of really digging into, make sure that I was going to be the the right guy because their reputation was based on.

00;20;48;06 - 00;21;17;20 Unknown Hey, we're bringing in the right people, putting them in front of the right organizations. But I was I was selected for it, went through that program, ended up getting picked up for a role with a company called West Shore Home. And they're a home improvement company based out of, Carlisle. Well, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. So left Washington State, where we were where we were stationed, moved out to Pennsylvania, and I was hired as the director of training and leadership development.

00;21;17;22 - 00;21;35;25 Unknown So if there is if there is a, a way to take an Army sergeant major and put him into a civilian organization, that's the place, right? So they didn't have one at the time? It was a brand new concept that they were trying to develop. And they said, hey, you know, you've got experience building a team from the ground up.

00;21;35;28 - 00;22;01;06 Unknown You've got all this experience and training and, and, you know, development, go figure this program out. So I ended up working for them for about two and a half years. It was great. Built this program from the ground up. Just learned an absolute ton about that specific industry. And then just civilian organizations in general ended up getting poached to go work doing leadership development consulting.

00;22;01;09 - 00;22;25;18 Unknown And that was fun. I got to meet just, I don't know, 20 or 30 different organizations, everything from police departments to cruise ship line up, an Alaskan trucking company up in Minnesota, just all these different organizations. And so I got to learn a bunch about a ton of different industries, through this process. But the entire time I had been very active as a mentor for a while.

00;22;25;20 - 00;22;46;18 Unknown And that then while I was in the program, became the Special Operators Transition Foundation. So they did a name change to to better align what they do. Just to make it a lot simpler, it was an advertising, decision. But the line, you know, the the name of the organization changed to align with the actual mission of the organization.

00;22;46;23 - 00;23;02;27 Unknown And I'd been very active, you know, helping new guys come into the program and trying to figure out what they wanted to do. And now suddenly I had all of this experience from, you know, being out of the military and working in these different roles. And they asked me if I wanted to come on, and become the director of programs.

00;23;02;29 - 00;23;22;26 Unknown And so and in January of 2023, I started in the role that I'm in, I'm, now, so, it's great. So now I run the process that all of the fellows coming through the Special Operators Transition Foundation go through. I get to do their initial intake call. I get to kind of figure out what what it is.

00;23;22;26 - 00;23;44;15 Unknown And they're they're looking for and what they want to do. And then we run them through this process. And that is the longest 32nd intro I've ever given. It's it's necessary. Yeah, I assure you then it was good because there's a lot of things impact impact inside of that that and I've been taking notes as you've been speaking and sharing.

00;23;44;15 - 00;24;09;15 Unknown So thanks for thanks for sharing the detail. Because it it does it might feel like it is lengthy, but it tells the story of the things exactly what we're talking about. You know, I mean, the one thing the most immediate, the closest thing to the end of, of what you shared is, you know, the choices that you're making and how it shifts in the master and in trigonometry.

00;24;09;18 - 00;24;28;05 Unknown I had to think twice about the because that's exactly what occurs. I think, you know, the top three things that occur when, when the longer you're in and the closer you are to a goal. In this case, let's say retirement at 20, there's a lot of contemplation goes on. It's probably preset as a baseline of what you expect to do right.

00;24;28;05 - 00;24;53;03 Unknown At 20 I'm going to get out, you know, not 21, not 1920, not 23 unless things happen. And so certain things and it seems in your experience, something happened to where it the options that were weighed brought more value than, than what you were considering. I mean, it's no joke. It was what, 13 years after that expectation. So it's not like it was hasty.

00;24;53;05 - 00;25;14;03 Unknown It may have felt that way, but it does. It does play a part in how challenging it can be when somebody's contemplating, how do I go from where I've been for so long to something new and what influences me to get away from that? Is somebody going to validate how I'm feeling and then pull me away from what I've been doing, or somebody's going to give me a reason to continue on?

00;25;14;06 - 00;25;37;28 Unknown Yeah. And and I really love that part because it does express some of the things that I think we should dive into is, you know, how how we're making decisions and what are the influences from a personal level, because even early on, you coming back from training, I'm sure your wife wasn't expecting at dinner for you to share that you wanted to go last.

00;25;38;01 - 00;26;02;26 Unknown Yeah. Versus go right or go straight or whatever it is you can compare it to. So let's start with that a little bit. Discussing with family how important is it in anything that we're doing. So I had this conversation with our fellows a lot. Most things in the Army you don't have much of a choice out, right? You maybe get to re-enlist and say, hey, you know, I want to go to this.

00;26;02;28 - 00;26;22;12 Unknown You know, I want to go to Europe. I want to you know, go to a specific unit or whatnot. But typically speaking, you march in order, you act on those orders. And so there's not a lot of choice that happens, but there are those kind of pivotal moments of all I do. I stay in the CMOs.

00;26;22;14 - 00;26;42;09 Unknown Am I going to go to 20, you know, you know, it's kind of that ten year mark that I think most veterans kind of look at. It really kind of. The three decision points are after your first enlistment at the ten year mark and then at the 20 year mark, and those are the times that you really need to have those conversations, with the family and say, hey, where are we at?

00;26;42;13 - 00;27;01;16 Unknown Right. Is this going to be a good decision for the kids? Is it going to be is this the right decision for what we're going to do? Is this right for me and my career? You know, I had that opportunity to go to Australia, but I had actually had that opportunity a few years before that to go compete for that, for that slot.

00;27;01;19 - 00;27;20;07 Unknown And we sat down with a, with a big family decision. And my daughter was just starting kind of her high school years, and she was super involved in a bunch of sports and, a bunch of academic stuff. And she was doing really well. And, we had to make that decision. Is this the right time for the family?

00;27;20;09 - 00;27;41;22 Unknown I do remember my son advocating for us to go, and we're sitting at the table and he goes, I just want to put this out there. If we go to Australia, I'm the one with the accent. I just laugh and my wife goes, well, it kind of seals the deal for me or that girl. But but perfect. So you know, and that was tough, right?

00;27;41;22 - 00;28;11;16 Unknown That, that was, that was a unique opportunity to take the family and and and and take them overseas. And we just made that decision as a family that it just was not right. The it wasn't the right call. And ultimately it, it, it it it worked out. You know, I got the opportunity to do it later. There's a really cool process in the Army that, if you were kids are in college and you are overseas, the Army will put them on TDY once a year and bring them out for a spring break.

00;28;11;16 - 00;28;30;08 Unknown So you got to bring both kids out to Australia, and they got to experience it. And so we didn't we didn't really lose out on anything in the end. But at the same time, it it wouldn't have it wouldn't have had the same opportunities for my daughter and my son. If we would have uprooted them in the middle of, of high school.

00;28;30;08 - 00;28;45;14 Unknown And that's a big one. Can I hear that from from guys all the time, fellows, I should say, coming through the program. Hey, you know, where is it that you want to live in, like, well, you know, I've got kids in high school, and I just don't think it's the right thing to to to uproot them in the middle of it.

00;28;45;16 - 00;29;09;07 Unknown It's a valid decision on the enlisted side, I think especially with special operations, you got a little bit more control of of your assignments and you can kind of if you plan it the right way, you can you can set yourself up in a position that's going to do that for the officers. What you once you leave company command, it's a two year rotation.

00;29;09;09 - 00;29;30;21 Unknown You just go on staff position, the staff position, the staff position. And that's that's disruptive for the family, particularly in those teenage years. And so I get a lot of the fellows that when I say, hey, what's driving this decision to get out? And they're like, it's it's family. Right. It's it's been around the kids being being an active part of my family.

00;29;30;24 - 00;29;57;10 Unknown And I get that. We were reflecting on this a while back. There was a three year period back when I was back on the SF team, three years in a row. I was home less than 80 days per year, and we figured it out. The longest I was home, the longest I spent the same or the longest I spent in my bed, was 21 days in three years.

00;29;57;12 - 00;30;23;26 Unknown And then that. That's rough, right? You got deployments, you got training cycles, you got red cycle task, and you got all these different things that you have to do. And the whole time your, your, your spouse is essentially a single parent and your kids are living without either mom or dad. And so when you get the opportunity to involve your family, I think it's one of the most important things that you can do, because it's not just you.

00;30;23;29 - 00;30;43;18 Unknown I mean, if you're single guy, single guy or gal and live, you live your life, take whatever assignment you know you can get. But if there's a family involved, there's a lot more decisions that have to be made. And one of the things that I talk about with the fellows, you know, we'll get people like, hey, my kids are in high school, but I ended up getting this job, you know, two states away.

00;30;43;18 - 00;31;06;20 Unknown And so, you know, it's a great job. It pays a lot. It's doing what I want to do. I'm so used to being gone from the family. You know, we're used to it, and I. What I tell them is, every other time you've been away from your family, it has been an army decision or a military decision to take you there.

00;31;06;22 - 00;31;27;15 Unknown You are now choosing to be away from your family, and you're going to do it. And so is your family. And I really want you to ponder that. And I got to be honest, eight out of ten come back and say, yeah, we had a talk and there's just not the right choice. We're going to find something different.

00;31;27;18 - 00;31;50;09 Unknown And I think that is I think that is the right call. Now for some families it works. But I've just seen it. I've seen it go bad too many times in the military. I've seen it go bad too many times from this position that if your family isn't at least an equal part of that equation, it's it's probably not the right decision.

00;31;50;11 - 00;32;12;02 Unknown Strong point. Because even if it were not the military, if you think about what separation brings and distance brings in any movie you watch, there's a there's a hardship that occurs and then there's an evolution of thought. I would imagine everybody's going through it, whether they acknowledge it or not, or understand it to be what it is. The distance creates.

00;32;12;02 - 00;32;44;07 Unknown Now, the opportunity for individual growth versus with your partner or the family and your perspective starts to shift. And so if it becomes a norm, like a habit being developed, you start to understand what independence really feels like. And you do things on your own and it draws you further away. And I think that's the oversimplifying it. I think that that includes some of the complications to where trusting in advocacy, trusting in opinions, trusting in validation.

00;32;44;10 - 00;33;03;14 Unknown And we always say, you have a buddy. What better one to have than your family to be able to talk about the things that you're going to decide in the planning phase? Because what you described, I was just imagining the similarities. Since we're talking about transition, the similarities of what we already recognize, what you're used to is planning.

00;33;03;14 - 00;33;28;20 Unknown We're planning for an an active or an event. And what do you do? You go find some opinions, you know, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it. And you start to develop the the contingencies around those things. So what because of where you are and your experience is the role that you're holding and some of the the advice and things that you share with others to consider.

00;33;28;22 - 00;34;06;11 Unknown What's the emphasis on planning and the similarities between what they've been doing as a service member and what is necessary to plan for? Typically, it's just an event, you know, we can call it deployment, another, choice that they're going to have to make because they're going to go do something different. What's the emphasis on planning? I think it's the the single biggest, emphasis, is planning out what that future needs to look like, you know, veterans who, who don't do a plan, who don't do the research, who don't figure out what it what they want to do, what value they're going to find in that role.

00;34;06;11 - 00;34;29;11 Unknown And they just take a first job because they need one. We know the stats on that, right? The average veteran goes for 2 or 3 jobs in 2 or 3 years because they just can't sort that out. And so our whole thought process is, hey, we're going to take your last year in the military and we're going to help you figure out exactly what that plan needs to look like.

00;34;29;11 - 00;35;06;18 Unknown And we we focus on three main areas. Where do you want to live functionally, what do you want to do and then what industry ultimately organization do you want to do. That functional area. And if you start that way and work your way down it it tends to work out and those things go hand in hand. Right? So if you tell me, hey, my sole desire and life is to be a rocket scientist, but all of my family living in Sandpoint, Idaho, hey, man, nobody's building rockets in Sandpoint, so we either need to figure out how we're going to make you the very first fully remote rocket scientist.

00;35;06;20 - 00;35;27;08 Unknown Or we need to figure out functionally a different area that you need to go down. So what is the priority and what is what is your your your main planning factor? And if it's to be in a geographic location, great. Then let's figure out functionally what do you want to do that is available in that area, what industries are available in that area, and then put a plan in place to achieve it.

00;35;27;11 - 00;36;03;23 Unknown And so starting a year out and going through a whole process of of figuring out who you are, what motivates you, what strengths you have, what experiences you're going to bring to a role, what what is going to, you know, be a passion project for you and then refining that down tends to work out our stats are quite a bit stronger than that then that we what we're seeing is that most of our fellows stay in that role for two years and then promote either within the organization or promote within that functional area out.

00;36;03;26 - 00;36;25;26 Unknown So they're making they're making a, choice to leave that specific role because of growth and not because this I don't like this culture. I don't like this company. I don't like what I'm doing. But it's because they have we have developed a plan and then enacted that plan over a years long period to make sure that it's the right choices like that.

00;36;25;28 - 00;36;59;23 Unknown And and you brought it up. Excuse me. So where do you want to live? The function that you want, and then the organization and the people you want to surround yourself with. That's how tough is that? To get them to understand what that looks like. If all they've known, or at least in the most recent. I mean, you talked about a year taking their year and then kind of using that as the, the catalyst for, for these things to understand who I work with is important, where work is important, what steps do you take to help them understand to be able to get that?

00;36;59;25 - 00;37;20;01 Unknown That's a great question. You know, we talk about the importance of networking, and we kind of reevaluated this over the last year or so. And, you know, we tell people your network is going and is going to get you your job, right. Something like 85% of all professional jobs, I'm sorry, 95% of all professional jobs happen because of networking.

00;37;20;03 - 00;37;42;19 Unknown So blanket online applications or resume submissions result in like, you know, a 5% chance of your first interview and then it goes downhill from there. And if you talk to people that that's all they're doing, they'll say, oh, I've submitted 100 applications. I've only got, you know, 3 or 5 interviews. Well, yeah, because it doesn't really work that way no matter what.

00;37;42;19 - 00;38;07;07 Unknown Glassdoor and indeed and, and LinkedIn tells you most professional jobs happen because of networking. So but what is networking. Right. And when you just tell somebody, hey go networking like oh okay. What does that mean. Well networking is we start out with, hey, talk to your friends that have gotten out. Do they like their jobs? How do their skills translate?

00;38;07;07 - 00;38;27;27 Unknown Do you know, is it is there you know, how is that organization? How does it feel culturally and it's cast a wide net. Talk to anyone and everyone just to figure out what is what is out there. I think I the Army has 207 roles and then you, you know, multiply it by that by the number of ranks within that role.

00;38;28;04 - 00;38;49;07 Unknown But 200 and 207 jobs. That's not a lot. There are thousands of jobs. It can be very broad or can be very narrow. And so figuring out what that means, we do a whole series of of webinars and just intro to the industry where I get people to come in and we talk to everything from project management and construction, project management in the defense space.

00;38;49;09 - 00;39;12;08 Unknown We've got a guy that does risk mitigation or risk management in commercial insurance. He's like, I was surprised at how well prepared I was for this role because I've done risk assessments my entire career. Right. And so now I'm just doing the same thing. I'm looking at an operation by a company or by, you know, insure a company.

00;39;12;10 - 00;39;32;00 Unknown So I start evaluating what those risks are. I've got a matrix that I put them up against and then I make a decision as to whether or not it is worthwhile for, you know, this company to insure that company. And so, it's pretty interesting almost, almost everyone that applies for the program going to say, what is what do you think you want to do?

00;39;32;03 - 00;39;55;03 Unknown And they all say the same two things consulting because that's what special operators do. You go to a foreign country, you consult with foreign military or project management because that's the easiest thing to translate. Hey, I was an astronaut was the first of those opportunities aren't everything's project management, but the number of people that actually go into consulting project management is, is way lower than the near 100% that tell me that's what they want to do.

00;39;55;06 - 00;40;16;17 Unknown But it's because we we really introduce them to multiple opportunities and industries, right? Figuring out functionally what you want to do and then figuring out the industry. And so, hey, talk to as many people as you can, have their skills translate. Do they like the job? Do they like the role? And then as you narrow down then you want to open it up.

00;40;16;17 - 00;40;38;03 Unknown So let's take Oracle for example, somebody says, hey, I think I want to get into business. You know, software sales and Oracle seems like a really good company. All right. Well, how many people at Oracle have you spoke with? I haven't okay. How do you know anything about Oracle? Like. Well, you know, I got on their website, they've got cool pictures and they, you know, they're showing all these things.

00;40;38;04 - 00;40;56;29 Unknown I'm like, yeah, but have you talked to anyone at Oracle like no I'm like, all right well let's do this. And so I'll jump into my database and find, you know, the 7 or 8 folks that we have had hired by Oracle or we'll get on LinkedIn and I'll say, all right, you know, here's how LinkedIn, this is how you use LinkedIn, right?

00;40;57;01 - 00;41;18;18 Unknown Go to an organization, you go to the people, you find the people that are veterans, and then you start reaching out saying, hey, you know, I'm a I'm a transition service member. I've been doing this, I'm super interested in Oracle. Can I get 15 minutes of your time? And I'm always surprised at the number of people who don't say yes because it's really low, which is awesome because I think veterans just want to help veterans.

00;41;18;21 - 00;41;41;22 Unknown And so now you get somebody that knows what you've gone through, right? They know what you're currently doing and they're willing to to give that time and, and be very honest about, you know, the questions you're going to ask. Okay. What is what is, work life balance? What is the culture there? You know? And so now you build up, your information about organization.

00;41;41;24 - 00;42;01;22 Unknown And then just based off of that, now you can start narrowing that network into something you want to do. I tell fellows all the time to the last two questions you should ask in any networking opportunities. Hey, who else should I be talking to? And will you connect me? Right. Because I don't I don't know who I should talk to an oracle, right.

00;42;01;22 - 00;42;18;09 Unknown I just know Oracle is a great company. They these roles seem to align with what I want to do. People seem to be happy they're I'm talking to somebody at logistics or I'm talking to somebody at marketing. But really I want to get into business development. So who do I talk to? Oh, I've got a really good buddy over there, or.

00;42;18;09 - 00;42;35;14 Unknown Hey, I'm part of this Maven organization. Let me connect you with them. And that both. Now you've got, you know, this whole audience of folks that are that are willing to to help you narrow that down. And the introduction, I think is super important. Right? Because if you know, you call me and you say, hey, what is life like over at soda?

00;42;35;14 - 00;42;49;12 Unknown If I'm like, oh, that's the greatest thing ever. And you and I get talking, I'm like, Ben, this is somebody I think it would be cool to work with. I can't bring them on my team. But man, I'd love to have been building and. And then you hit me up with, who else should I be talking to? I'm like, well, what do you want to do?

00;42;49;13 - 00;43;05;28 Unknown You're like, man, I'm all about raising money for a nonprofit. Okay, let me make a phone call. Right. So now I call and say, hey, I've been talking to Chris Spencer. This dude is awesome. I would love to have him on my team. I still have space. But, you know, what he really wants to do is what you're doing.

00;43;06;00 - 00;43;27;24 Unknown So now somebody that that that trust you that and you've said, hey, I've done an evaluation. I think this guy would be perfect. He's like, what? Yeah, of course I want to talk to him. So now you're a vetted, asset that can be brought in. And so, man, those those two questions are so important. Who else should I be talking to?

00;43;27;24 - 00;43;43;25 Unknown And will you connect me? Right. And networking is like mining, right? You dig down, you find a little bit of where you find a vein, you're going to run down that vein, hope and find the motherload. If it doesn't pan out, you come back up to where you know you've got something and you start work in the next space.

00;43;43;27 - 00;44;06;12 Unknown And so the more points of contact you have into an organization, the better you're going to be able to evaluate. And the more you have in common with the people you're talking to, the more they're going to be able to answer questions that make sense to you from where you're at. And that's what I love about networking is especially in the veteran communities, you can get some real honest answers.

00;44;06;15 - 00;44;19;12 Unknown I've had I've had people that I've talked to him like, well, what do you what do you think about your job? He goes, this is the worst place I've ever worked in my life. Like, what are you doing there? It's like, you know, I signed up for the blood money I've got, you know, another year so I can keep my bonus.

00;44;19;12 - 00;44;41;14 Unknown And then as soon as that happens, dude, I'm out of here. I'm like, what would you recommend for anyone else? No, I would not. This is miserable. I'm like, okay, so if I get somebody that's interested in talking to, you know, are you willing to have their conversation 100% right? And that's one point of data, which is why you have to have a network of people, because you could just have somebody that's angry and bitter, you know, having a bad day.

00;44;41;17 - 00;44;55;27 Unknown But if you talk to 4 or 5 people and you're like, hey, this place sucks, man. They just burn through us. We're cogs in the wheel. And as soon as we wear out, they just replace us like it's no fun. Or you talk to people who are like, I love this place. I show up to work every day.

00;44;55;27 - 00;45;23;02 Unknown My boss is super cool. I've got a gym that I can go to. You know, the people are dedicated, they're willing to help, and then you get 4 or 5 people that are telling you the same thing. Well, now you understand the culture of that organization. And so networking is is so impactful in finding, you know, hey, what is it that I want to do functionally and then what organization do I want to do it.

00;45;23;02 - 00;45;44;16 Unknown And, and just having as many conversations as possible. Yes, there's truth in that statement. Josh and I are talking as a result of networking. So one of our friends, because Doug is a friend, but he's also a military parent, happens to live in the area. I met up through somebody else, through another function inside the branch of service.

00;45;44;16 - 00;46;06;29 Unknown They, you know, Doug gets introduced to the organization. And then we had an event and he met you. Introduce me to you. Now we're here talking. And the trust that comes as a result of that because you nailed it to trust. I think that's the that's you have to establish the concrete evidence that you can trust somebody to be able to do these things.

00;46;06;29 - 00;46;28;27 Unknown Because advocacy right now, you'd love to help everybody, but not everybody is ready for help because of what they what they currently believe and what they're ready to hear and those types of things we talk the candor that veterans have. Absolutely. Getting feedback from a veteran is going to help you regardless of how you feel about it, because it's going to tell you the hard truth or it's going to tell you something else.

00;46;28;27 - 00;46;54;09 Unknown Right. And it's it's necessary somewhat of a ramble, the going going back to the two years things. If we can touch on this real quick, the expectation setting because there's, there's some some caveats to the, to the growth that occurs. And then, and then the, the timeline. And this just happens to, you know, it's not really arbitrary, but two years and that's somewhat related to service to where you're going to transition, you're going to pieces, you're going to get promoted.

00;46;54;12 - 00;47;13;12 Unknown There's a timeline that correlates to that to where now it's it's conditions yourself to believe that that equates to success, because there's some other things that hardships that we we all are familiar with, the suffering of being into a role in civilian life and the public and the private sector where we say, oh, it sucks. I don't want to be here.

00;47;13;15 - 00;47;35;25 Unknown Well, you're still learning something. And so what I've done is kind of revealed this, this notion that if it's uncomfortable, I don't need to stay. And I've been lately just more. So it's like, well, if you think about what you're learning, if you're within five years of transition, you're actually understanding what it is like out here now with that environment.

00;47;35;25 - 00;47;55;21 Unknown And of course, you don't need to stay, but it is giving you something to wear. Now you can recognize how to navigate that because now you're you're collecting what you you had mentioned. It's one data point, your experience with one leader because you also mentioned somebody in your story. There's going to be bad decisions. The chaplain had told you they're still going to make bad decisions.

00;47;55;21 - 00;48;14;26 Unknown There's fewer of them. And I think the one thing that we can all remember is when you're when you are where you end up, just maybe pull yourself out of that sometimes spontaneous reaction to what what you're experiencing to realize you're going to get something from it and you're going to become better for it, you know, because now you're learning it.

00;48;14;28 - 00;48;34;17 Unknown So maybe stick around and see what changes, because the other part is you don't know what other people are going through. And if you can remember the influence that you have, you can maybe change and help that person or that team become better. And maybe that's your purpose because we don't know that. Yeah, you know that. That's such a good point.

00;48;34;20 - 00;48;57;21 Unknown You know, on average, you know, veteran, you know, particularly somebody getting ready to retire, they're going to move into a role with less authority and responsibility than the one that they had, right. Brigade commander or squadron commander, you know, what are they saying? And you're going to take a step back. And there's a good chance that that person who is your boss doesn't have the experience that you have in that role.

00;48;57;24 - 00;49;20;02 Unknown And there is nothing wrong with leading from from where you stand right leading up that chain of command. And if if you've got a boss of struggling somebody and you've got to experience that, that you can help them out, why would you not? Right? I mean, selfishly, your, your you're making your environment better. I got a better boss.

00;49;20;02 - 00;49;45;18 Unknown They know what they're doing better. I can teach them how to you know, you know, lead through leaders intent or, you know, just establish a basic, you know, battle rhythm. All these different things that we learn, is going to make my life easier. More importantly, you're influencing everyone around you, right? And and if you can influence one, two levels up, two levels down, left and right, you just created a much stronger team.

00;49;45;18 - 00;50;08;18 Unknown That environment that you may not like is probably going to be a lot better, right? So invest in the role that you're in. And, and give it as due diligence because there's a very good chance that you're going to find, that, that what you learn from that position and what you learn from those experiences is going to set you up for success.

00;50;08;18 - 00;50;28;15 Unknown And I promise, you know this. Everyone else knows this. Somebody is watching. If you're this person's like, well, this sucks. I'm just going to do my work and punch you out at 5:00. Somebody's watching. But if somebody goes, hey, we have some legitimate problems and you're actively working on them, what do you think you could do from this level?

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Bridget’s personal and career journey is marked by purpose, resilience, and an evolving understanding of what it means to lead with intention. From her early ambitions to her role today in supporting veteran transitions through coaching for role fit, she shares how her personal and professional experiences have shaped her approach to career growth and mentorship. Through honest reflections, Doc talks about developing the self-awareness to identify what she truly wanted, and how that clarity transformed the way she shows up—in her relationships, her work, and in the guidance she offers others. You will hear a grounded take on the realities of ambition, the importance of emotional balance, and how veterans and military spouse’s can translate their strengths—like grit and drive—into any environment without losing what makes them unique. With insights on communication, adaptability, and owning your story, this episode is a thoughtful look at how to move forward with purpose, and why doing the internal work is often the most important part of any process…to include getting from where you are to where you want to be. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetmiller1001/ https://www.oracle.com/veterans https://www.oracle.com/careers/ -------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;34;00 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by Bridget Doc Miller, Oracle talent advisor, U.S. Army veteran, and military spouse. Bridget's personal and career journey is marked by purpose, resilience, and an evolving understanding of what it means to lead with intention.

00;00;34;00 - 00;00;55;11 Unknown From her early ambitions to a role today in supporting veteran transitions through coaching for role fit, she shares how her personal and professional experiences have shaped her approach to career growth and mentorship. Through Honest reflections, doc talks about developing the self-awareness to identify what she truly wanted and how that clarity transformed the way she shows up in her relationships, her work, and in the guidance she offers others.

00;00;55;12 - 00;01;20;08 Unknown In this episode, you'll hear a grounded take on the realities of ambition, the importance of emotional balance, and how veterans and military spouses can translate their strengths like grit and drive into any environment without losing what makes them unique. With insights on communication, adaptability, and owning your story, this episode is a thoughtful look at how to move forward with purpose and why doing the internal work is often the most important part of any process to include getting from where you are to where you want to be.

00;01;20;08 - 00;01;39;01 Unknown We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Doc's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;39;03 - 00;02;02;24 Unknown Bridget Miller. Doc, what is going on? Hey, how are you? So good. How are you doing? Doing all right. So we're here talking about some things. We're coming into Military Appreciation Month, and for you, I'm sure that's considered every month. Veteran's day is every day, that type of thing. Spouse day is every day, every day, every day. So let's do that.

00;02;02;28 - 00;02;24;12 Unknown Let's talk about Bridget Doc Miller. Yeah, sure. First of all, you know how much I love talking about myself. So you must have some special magic to get me to agree to this, but really excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. I guess going back to the beginning, I grew up in Ohio, went and did my undergraduate, the university of Akron.

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;45;09 Unknown And then during that time, that's where I enlisted into the Army within the National Guard component. So I was A68 whiskey or a medic within the National Guard. I would say that's kind of the point. That really changed the pathway of my life. And I've been working with the military population pretty much ever since then. In college.

00;02;45;09 - 00;03;08;11 Unknown That's where I met my husband, Tyler. Back then, he was a, you know, cadet in ROTC. I loved making fun of him for that one, but he eventually commissioned, when active duty, and we actually spent the first six months of our marriage geo batching. So that was pretty much a crash course in the solitary lifestyle of a military spouse that we see sometimes.

00;03;08;14 - 00;03;32;25 Unknown And I really got to see, you know, the military affiliation from a new perspective. During that time, I stayed back in Ohio while he did his initial entry training. So that that bullock training that Army officers need to go to when they first start finished up my MBA. It was definitely just a total head down, grinding time of my life that it is absolutely quick as I could.

00;03;32;27 - 00;03;57;18 Unknown And I also worked in the military science department helping recruit for the RTC program. Got to do some pretty cool stuff while I was in that role. Even got to read my husband's commissioning, as the MC, which was pretty cool. We met back up later, my husband and I at Fort Bragg and I worked for a university, helping to build their military pipeline as a national military recruiter.

00;03;57;21 - 00;04;23;19 Unknown So traveled around all over the United States just helping build that military affiliated pipeline, meeting tons and just awesome people. That role in particular was, you know, really life changing. I developed really quickly as a professional and learned how to hold my own in a roomful of veterans that looked different than me. Right? I was the only woman veteran at the time.

00;04;23;23 - 00;04;48;23 Unknown I worked with only male military retirees. So I was the young woman in a crowd that just was completely different on the experience level than I was, but I had a really good leader there. Shout out to Bob Habib if he's listening. But he always amplified my voice, and he really gave me a seat at the table in the veteran space, which I think was the push that I needed.

00;04;48;26 - 00;05;09;17 Unknown I couldn't take that role with me when we pieces. We ended up moving after a few years to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and I couldn't take it with me there. But honestly, that was kind of a blessing in disguise. Because that's how I landed here at Oracle. Started as a military veteran sourcing a recruiter, actually, at that time, got to work pretty close with you.

00;05;09;17 - 00;05;34;11 Unknown And that's how we met. So loved that experience. But I was helping build the military veteran pipelines into multiple of the military pathways here at Oracle. So things like that academy, you know, skill bridge, sweet beds, those types of things, and then later moved into the talent advisor role handling the full cycle of the candidate experience from, you know, that first call all the way to the offer.

00;05;34;14 - 00;05;59;07 Unknown And I still have some hands and things like skill bridge, sweep pads, those types of programs as well. Now where I'm at today, I am currently out of Fort Campbell, Tennessee. We are kind of in the midst of a PKS move right now, like we were talking about before this, to the Washington, DC area. So moving to Springfield, dealing with the new military, moving contracts and all of that.

00;05;59;07 - 00;06;22;17 Unknown So I'm definitely kind of in the middle of all of those challenges. But looking forward to moving there next month. Very nice, very precise backstory. Appreciate the the work putting in there to make it simple. There's no doubt way too much detail. No, no, I think you just write them out. You left out a piece though, because you're going on a career path and talking about education in somewhere in there.

00;06;22;17 - 00;06;52;02 Unknown You earned a PhD. Yeah. So that leader that I had mentioned, doctor Bob Habib, he it really encouraged me to kind of pursue my passion of working with the military population. And at the time, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to look like. I knew I wanted to have an impact on military affiliated individuals, whether that be spouses, veterans, active service members, whatever it was, I knew that's the space I wanted to be in.

00;06;52;04 - 00;07;17;26 Unknown And when you get to that level of education, it's really nice because you can kind of tailor everything you do over multiple years to a very specific topic. So you're going really deep into one topic, not so narrow across a variety of topics. So. So the next few years I researched and developed a seminar series I kind of wrote.

00;07;18;00 - 00;07;48;12 Unknown I would call it like a mini book, right? My dissertation equivalency. But that centered around how organizations can recruit, retain, develop military affiliated individuals. Where I saw the need was, you know, I originally went in thinking that I would help develop something that would help transitioning service members, moving into the corporate space. But I realized that those programs were out there.

00;07;48;12 - 00;08;14;02 Unknown There was a lot of programs out there that already address that need, and what I didn't see as much of was, from the organizational perspective, how we can bring veterans in and support them through their corporate journey as well. So that seminar series was a three part series. So the first one was just familiarity of the military population, kind of educating organizational leaders on the basics.

00;08;14;02 - 00;08;35;29 Unknown I remember, you know, during my like pre seminar series assessment, one of the questions was can you name the branches of the military and very, very few of the participants were able to do that. So I noticed that a lot of the main findings around readiness for veterans just centered around the general education to the public about the military population.

00;08;36;01 - 00;08;57;24 Unknown So that was kind of the first thing to tackle. And then after that, we dug a lot more into the recruitment and then specifically the retention of that population as well. Nice. I'm taking nice, nice. Yes, because it all ties back. And if if anybody's familiar, if anybody listening is familiar with how RDoC works now, it makes sense.

00;08;57;29 - 00;09;17;18 Unknown It's everything should click right now because you have you have a yeah I know you're very humble and yes to go back to what you're saying, it did take a couple of attempts to try to get Bridgette on on the podcast here, because it is it is to, to define what the what what the top track would include and things like that.

00;09;17;18 - 00;09;33;28 Unknown And so but the reality is your influence is greatly appreciated because of what you do and how you do the how you do what you do for the recruiting and then the conversations. I think even though recruiting is a channel and that's the focal, the focal point of what what you're doing, but why you're doing it is not that so much.

00;09;33;28 - 00;10;03;00 Unknown I mean, it is it's inclusive, but it's not same. It's it's the purpose. So let's go back a bit, because a lot of the stuff that we talk about when we're having a conversation about what we do, and then as life occurs and the more that we're involved in what we're doing, whether it's a career or a, you know, a profession or a habit, hobby, what have you, it's why so early on when you chose to go in the National Guard, what was the reason?

00;10;03;02 - 00;10;36;18 Unknown Yeah, I know you're going to ask this. I'm pretty predictable. If you listen to me, I said I would. I would love to say that I joined because I had a long family line of military service or, you know, something like that. But I think if I'm being completely honest with myself and with you, I just got got by a recruiter, a recruiter got me at the right time, right place, right point in my life where, you know, I was in college and I was trying to self-fund my way through college.

00;10;36;18 - 00;11;04;01 Unknown And the benefits of joining the military were something that made sense in my life for me to do. So. Yeah, I was young. I am so glad that it happened. Because I think it made me who I am today. And I don't think I realized it at the time, but I'm definitely the type of person that enjoys working towards a shared goal and working in an area that's bigger than myself.

00;11;04;01 - 00;11;25;19 Unknown So if I hadn't enlisted, I think that my life would be in a very different place than it is now. So yeah, super glad I think I was just right time, right place and the right recruiter reached out. That's why I enlisted that. That's good. And of course, be honest completely with yourself. Yeah, jokes aside, because that does matter.

00;11;25;19 - 00;11;49;26 Unknown I mean, and I would love to talk about that. We'll put a pin in it, because I think that statement alone is important for the things that occur now when, yeah, when you're paying it forward and trying to have a conversation with somebody as to why they're wanting what they're wanting and introspect is important. So being being honest with yourself is, is the number one thing that for instance factor accelerator.

00;11;49;26 - 00;12;07;16 Unknown Right. So the Honor Foundation has a the project vector accelerator that that has been spun up that focuses on that identity. Being honest with yourself on what you want to do and what you want to achieve and things like that. So it is a part of the equation. But now we're going to the medic, because even though I think if I, if I didn't know, which I really don't.

00;12;07;16 - 00;12;24;09 Unknown So this is going to be I'm going to learn from this also it yeah, it does track as to why selfless reasoning. Even though you're trying to put yourself through college, there was a point to go into that, because the reason why you chose to do that still includes selflessness. Which medic that track, but not talk about that.

00;12;24;09 - 00;12;50;04 Unknown Why? Why medic. Yeah. So a couple of reasons. My undergrad was actually pre pre med. I had planned originally to go into physician assistant school, after graduation. And, and I'm not doing that just because of kind of the path that my life was on at the time. But I was pre-med in my undergrad. So, you know, I was I was booksmart, and I had the scores to be able to do it.

00;12;50;06 - 00;13;15;14 Unknown I remember I went into my recruiter's office and I had told him I wanted to be the closest thing I could to infantry, which at the time was not an option for me as a woman. So, yeah, I think based on, you know, the scores, my, my background, the things that I enjoyed in the medical field and then just trying to get me closer to, you know, back then the cool guy stuff.

00;13;15;14 - 00;13;36;21 Unknown Right. That just aligned really well. And yeah, super glad I did it. Because of the length of, you know, things like I for medics, I actually split up that experience. So after freshman year of college, I went to basic training, for Excel to finish up my sophomore year of college. And then we had something called the split option.

00;13;36;23 - 00;13;58;02 Unknown So I did it sophomore year. I think I missed one semester and a full summer of school, and then spent that time at Fort Sam Houston going through medical it, getting my EMT, things like that. Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for those. Listen, beautiful Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the first time I've ever heard somebody having been there for in the conversations I've had.

00;13;58;04 - 00;14;20;21 Unknown So welcome to the board. Fort sill. So how was that experience that, you know, so let's talk about the recruiter real quick. I mean, the skill sets, because you are one didn't learn anything from what you experienced back then. Stick with you to what you're doing now. Yeah, 100% transparency is the number one thing that sticks out when we're talking about that.

00;14;20;21 - 00;14;42;16 Unknown I am a big believer and transparent and see and finding the right fit for somebody. I don't agree with the concept of kind of selling a role, and I've never seen anyone at Oracle do that, by the way. But, I have seen recruiters do that where maybe they're using excitement of certain things to get somebody into a specific military MOS.

00;14;42;19 - 00;15;21;25 Unknown But he was really transparent about, you know, how difficult that would be, especially as a small small framed person right on five foot. So going to meet a guy I knew that would be a big physical challenge for me. So he was really transparent. And the growth that I needed to have before going to be successful, and I kind of use that in my role now, because when I'm talking with somebody, I want to be very transparent about, you know, what the interview process is, what the role they're interviewing looks like, what that means for them.

00;15;21;28 - 00;15;45;28 Unknown And in addition, addressing those gaps and having some coachable conversations, especially with the military population on how they can address those gaps throughout their interviews. Right. They may not have this very specific skill, but they have something along those same lines from their military background. So helping folks kind of translate that conversation as well. Yeah, I think he caught on that.

00;15;45;28 - 00;16;04;17 Unknown If you if you use the words give me as close to infantry as possible, he's probably playing off of that says, yeah, well yeah. Okay. So good on him. You remember. Yeah. 18 year old duck. Yeah. Todd Everett, great guy. Actually recently transitioned. I had to send this to him when I, when it lists out, but.

00;16;04;25 - 00;16;30;26 Unknown Yeah. Great, dude. Nice. Super thankful. Good. So so while while you're going through all of that, you know, you going for your MBA? My guess is challenge had become and obviously the alignment between pursuing educational goals. But challenge seems to be something that's in your vocabulary up front. You love a challenge. Yeah. Do you? Yeah. I can get antsy when something becomes too easy.

00;16;30;26 - 00;16;50;19 Unknown So when that happens, I find some way to create a challenge in a fun way. You know, going from like even here at Oracle, going from sourcing, which is the front half to moving into full cycle, that created a challenge for me or, you know, finished with school. But maybe I wanted to pursue something a little deeper. That was definitely a challenge.

00;16;50;19 - 00;17;14;05 Unknown So absolutely, definitely something I value. All right. And then and then we get to the intention to pursue the PhD with the specialty occupying your time with another significant challenge with the MBA pursuing that. But but essentially, it sounds like you were driving towards something that you and tell me if I'm wrong on this, you're instinctively gravitating towards something very specific.

00;17;14;07 - 00;17;38;13 Unknown Where was that in your timeline before you decided to go into pursue the PhD in that particular topic? What happened? It stemmed from being a recruiter for that university, right? So it was essentially my role to travel the United States, go to things like career fairs or education fairs or whatever it may be specific to the military population.

00;17;38;13 - 00;18;05;26 Unknown And I was traveling to military installations, speaking with spouses, with transitioning service members. And I just saw the. Complete anxiety that comes with a transition like that, when people are leaving the security of a military occupation. Right. And at the time, I was addressing it in my role with, okay, here's the next steps for things like education, right?

00;18;05;26 - 00;18;26;00 Unknown So when you're leaving the military, you're either going to go to work, maybe you're retiring, but you're either going to go to work or you're going to go to school. There's a basically the two main options. So at the time I was addressing it on the education side, but I saw all of this anxiety surrounding the transition and truly just the identity shift.

00;18;26;00 - 00;18;54;09 Unknown And that is where that triggered in me wanting to be able to address that specific piece. Right? That three, four month period right before you leave and right after you leave the military. That's where I wanted to make the impact, because that's a pivotal moment in somebody's life. And so I got the education piece from my role and then decided to dig in on the transition, specifically through the educational journey.

00;18;54;11 - 00;19;30;27 Unknown You know, like I mentioned, I had originally intended to make it more of a transitioning program for military veterans. How they can translate their resume is how they can advocate for themselves in interviews. But what I found was that space was already saturated, did in the market with different programs. What I didn't see was programs that were designed for organizations to understand, you know, they're at the point where they've made the decision of, yes, we want veterans or yes, we want military affiliated individuals here, but they're at this now.

00;19;30;27 - 00;20;13;17 Unknown What crossroads, right. So after I think it was maybe like six months, starting that original transitioning year, I switched over to address the now what organizations looking to hire military affiliated individuals. Got it. And so to your question, it did. And thanks for that. And I was a little fuzzy on the ask, but it is typically because you you briefly mentioned it obviously in your intro, as you said, you walk us through the timelines, but it's, you know, I'm usually I notice that there's there's a flash point, even though we generalize and we talk through this, the story at a high level to give, give a sense, a general sense of what occurred.

00;20;13;20 - 00;20;45;03 Unknown There's usually a circumstance or an event, a specific event that occurred where the switch flips and then you all of a sudden are intentionally focused with relentless pursuit of that thing, you know, and this is the little that I do know of you having worked with you early on, I mean, early in in my short attempt at becoming a recruiter, tough to hang with the big dogs, talking to, talking about doc here, you just say, I need 20 and you blink and all of a sudden the next morning you got 20.

00;20;45;06 - 00;21;13;14 Unknown So you have these on Rolodex. How do you get so many people so fast? Well, you know, we'll talk about that. But there's usually an occurrence and and that drives, I think, what embeds ourselves to where we embody the, the purpose. Right. And that's the drive that makes it consistent. Right. And the conviction I think is in your recruiting, in your talk tracks and some of those, you know, the way that you're having a dialog with somebody where they you establish the trust that shines through.

00;21;13;14 - 00;21;34;29 Unknown And I'm just looking to see what what appeared for you. Yeah, it was definitely a slow burn for me. I think the only point in time where it was an absolute like, I'm only targeting this, was when I couldn't take my role with me from Fort Bragg, when we PKS to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I remember, it was like January that year.

00;21;34;29 - 00;21;53;00 Unknown We had just moved in and my husband was like, okay, what do you want to do? And I said, here's exactly what I want to do. I want to work for a fortune 500 company. I want to have a great impact on the veteran population, and I want to be specifically working in some type of talent acquisition space.

00;21;53;02 - 00;22;19;28 Unknown And then, I mean, I'm a big proponent of faith based open doors. And I got exactly that. You can tell Oracle. Yeah. Agreed. I mean, but you earned it. Just to be clear. Yeah. Not to go too far into that, you know, it's when you set it up, you're prepared for the opportunity and you are absolutely, seemingly putting in the work to get to that part, to have earned the opportunity.

00;22;20;01 - 00;22;37;29 Unknown Let's talk a little bit about now where you're at at that stage is the the military spouse. Now, you know, you've just recently landed a new spot and good on your husband for asking the question and including you and saying, what do you want to do? I mean, it's that not to that, because that sometimes isn't all the time happen.

00;22;38;01 - 00;22;57;14 Unknown Yeah, he really gave me the space to figure out exactly what I wanted and the time to find it, which is a luxury that I'm really thankful for. Yeah, I that so once, once you once you got to once you had the opportunity to to think about what you wanted and you were very intentional on what you were looking for.

00;22;57;21 - 00;23;28;14 Unknown Fortune 500 having an impact. You came here. How has it gone so far, like from when you started, which was when? About three, three and some change years ago? Three and some change. Yeah. And from then to now, what's worked well, and what are some of the things that you're still working through to improve for, not only for yourself, but as you're experiencing putting it all together on focused on the veterans, really a community trying to help business leaders find the right talent for their teams and things like that.

00;23;28;17 - 00;23;56;00 Unknown You know, help us. Help us see what you experienced so far. When I started out, I was very specific to the military population, so I started I was a military source. They're very specific to the military affiliated population. I did that for about a year. And so during that time, I really built up my military and affiliated network and LinkedIn, what you refer to as the Rolodex, right.

00;23;56;00 - 00;24;22;11 Unknown Just like these individuals that I talk to often reconnect with within this space. And that did a lot with other organizational, you know, military affiliated talent. Folks worked a lot with military talent program management here. And when I moved over to the team after that, I actually moved out of what would technically be considered like a military population recruiter.

00;24;22;11 - 00;24;49;02 Unknown Right. But I don't think a lot of people realize that because I still put so much effort into building the military pipeline here. So even though it wasn't necessarily in my job description to do that, I think that it was really important with my background to just advocate for those types of candidates. Those types of candidates transition and then try to create space.

00;24;49;02 - 00;25;15;09 Unknown When I'm working with hiring managers for those military affiliated individuals to fit what they're looking for. Right? So, yeah, I think even though I'm not, you know, necessarily in that military role now, I still try to have the impact on that population and as much as I possibly can. Got it. Yeah. I imagine it bleeds into other things too, where you know, you're taking the best of of what's worked.

00;25;15;09 - 00;25;41;17 Unknown And then, yeah, refining it and improving the new space that you're in. And this changed where you transitioned into this role here. It was just in the last two months ish. Right? I want to say it was October 2022 as a tan advisor on the early career team. So I was doing full cycle with that. And then just recently, you know, a few weeks ago I moved over to more experienced talent advisory role.

00;25;41;17 - 00;26;11;06 Unknown So working on higher level higher, I got into graduate relations on that. I because you said it, I'm not we're not worried that you're abandoning you still helping to kind of never never because I want to weave in some things. So you know we're we're talking about your own career. You know, you were afforded the opportunity and of course, supported with your family in, in what your goals included on on individualizing your focus and, and having your own thing.

00;26;11;09 - 00;26;33;14 Unknown Yeah. What are some of the things that military spouse go through, you talked about early on being separated over a period of time, talking about some of the goals and aspirations that you have, and unfortunately, you've had support doing that. Yeah. You just said the challenges with the military spouse life. Yeah. It's a long list. Yeah. So I talked a little bit about job matching at the beginning.

00;26;33;16 - 00;26;51;19 Unknown You know when my husband was at Fort Leonard Wood and I was in Ohio job matching for those that don't know is when your spouse lives at a different installation than you do, fairly common in the military spouse life. And that's definitely a kind of a solitary experience. So I have dealt with that. You know, other challenges.

00;26;51;19 - 00;27;24;05 Unknown I don't think we touched on it actually, in the introduction, but I do have two children. I have a four year old and a seven month old as of yesterday, dealing with deployments with children is indescribable. How much of a challenge that can be? I think that, you know, folks that haven't been a military spouse, especially with deployments or long TDY, is they might grasp the concept of their spouse being away.

00;27;24;12 - 00;27;46;05 Unknown But I think when you compile that with, you know what they say, it takes a village, right? With children when your village is in a different state, right? Everyone you know, everyone you can lean on for support is in a different state, far away. I mean, the closest we've ever lived is eight hours from family. So when my husband is gone or deployed, it's it's just me.

00;27;46;07 - 00;28;18;28 Unknown So that is definitely a challenge. Just maintaining their routine and their sense of normalcy during that time, trying to work on your own professional development, trying to get some chicken nuggets on a table, just whatever it is. It's a challenge that I think that it's a really it's a hard concept to grasp until you go through it. Even me, military background, military spouse, my first diplomat with children was, very eye opening.

00;28;19;00 - 00;28;48;00 Unknown And I have a newfound respect for folks who have, you know, lots of kids that do lots of deployments. And then I would say, finally, the challenge of your career or your aspirations, just by the nature of the military, essentially have to come second a lot of the times, right? So, for example, this year coming up, if I didn't have a role that could move with me, which was very intentional, you know, coming to Oracle, I made sure that that was an option.

00;28;48;00 - 00;29;09;17 Unknown But if I didn't have a role that could come with me, I would have to leave right when I worked at Regent and when I couldn't take that role with me, it wasn't an option, and I had to leave a role that I just absolutely loved. So that is definitely a big challenge, especially for, you know, a military spouse that is within the working space.

00;29;09;19 - 00;29;38;02 Unknown So I would say those are the three biggest things, really, just the solitary lifestyle getting used to that, you know, not having the ability to lean on support that is physically with you, your career kind of being second to the military and then just needing to to leave sometimes. Thanks for sharing that. And yes, it is, it is an experience that it if you haven't gone through it conceptually, you can understand.

00;29;38;04 - 00;30;08;16 Unknown But yeah. So you know, it is truly an experience and and shout out to all of those that are doing it. It's not easy. So you're moving through into a different role, but your focus and your participation and your engagement still includes helping others understand the differences. So, you know, I'm going to kind of weave this back into that part where you were focused on organizations and educating them on understanding the the community or the demographic that they're hiring.

00;30;08;18 - 00;30;29;17 Unknown How much how much of that still plays a part in what you do here. Again, going back to helping business leaders find the right people and then making sure that the hiring side, not the the candidacy side, the hiring side is, is as informed as possible on why this person is in front of them and understanding the dynamics of that individual going into that.

00;30;29;17 - 00;30;59;06 Unknown That process is still a huge part of my role. Definitely. Having those conversations with hiring leaders to understand that, you know, being open minded to the military background can be really beneficial. You know, a lot of times there's a lot more in a military affiliated resumé than maybe meets the eye. Right? Unless they have just amazing translation skills and know little corporate space very well.

00;30;59;09 - 00;31;18;20 Unknown A lot of the times it's a simple matter of something like wording or leaving something out, right? Like for example, you know, you have a lot of NetSuite folks on, and if I talk to a military affiliated Canada and say, hey, do you know, you know, what an ERP system is? They say, no, but they were a super user in GCS.

00;31;18;20 - 00;31;52;15 Unknown It's like, well, there's a lot of relevant experience that you might have. That's more than more than meets the eye. And so I have those conversations pretty frequently with hiring leaders, just about kind of being open minded to the different military backgrounds, understanding specifically what is trainable and what we're looking for. And I think for hiring leaders, understanding what is trainable and what is coachable is really key, because a lot of the times those things that aren't coachable are the soft skills that military affiliated individuals just absolutely crush, right?

00;31;52;15 - 00;32;14;11 Unknown They bring the grit that is necessary for a lot of roles. They bring the things like longevity and commitment there to term, and they have integrity. So they're always working with integrity and things like that that are, to be honest, quite an easy sell for the population because those are the things that we can't teach. Those are the things that you have to search for in a candidate.

00;32;14;13 - 00;32;39;29 Unknown So as with strengths, many strengths, you know, they can help you and they can they can hurt you for lack of better ways of saying it. Yeah. You know, I have grit. What are some of the downsides of also that's inclusive of that. Having that quality that that you'd have to coach these candidates through to understand the level of I know I'm going to use this word the intensity, right.

00;32;39;29 - 00;33;07;24 Unknown Or the, the dense, the density. Yeah. That, that particular characteristic. Yeah. I think with that, the only time that I see, I guess, what you would consider the potential downside of those types of attributes are like grit, for example, is, you know, when you're moving through the hiring process or speaking with potential hiring leaders. Like you said, the intensity in which you describe that grit, or whatever that soft skill is.

00;33;07;27 - 00;33;29;03 Unknown So, you know, say, for example, we are really looking for somebody that can have clear, concise communication, right? And then that individual has clear, concise communication every day with the hiring leader. Or they're really determined for the role, but they're reaching out to the hiring leader twice a day, every day trying to get an update right. So everything can always go too far.

00;33;29;03 - 00;33;56;24 Unknown Eventually, every strength eventually could become a weakness. So I think on the front end of that, just coaching candidates to understand what is culturally acceptable in the corporate workforce. That may have been different in the military, right. If you're constantly trying to get an update on your paperwork from your S-1, your, your, your as when you're knocking on the door every single day trying to get an answer.

00;33;56;24 - 00;34;22;11 Unknown And that's sometimes the way you get the answer right. But that doesn't work in our space. So I guess coaching, like you mentioned, the intensity of those soft skills is key in finding success. Yeah, and I bring that up. And it's not to degrade or diminish the the quality. It's to give an understanding of balance. Right. You know that when we talk about what we see, if we serve we see this.

00;34;22;11 - 00;34;42;04 Unknown If you see it in competitive sports, you see it, you know, it's let's let's go. You know, the the highly motivated ready to ready to run through things to get to the end state. You know that's important. But it's also, you know to an extreme example of explaining it's to be the doc right. You can have have that calm appearance on the outside.

00;34;42;04 - 00;35;18;12 Unknown But that fire and tenacity can be burning inside. But you have to learn to control some of these things and, and I and that's what I wanted to call out with you, especially with your background on focusing how to how to educate those on understanding both sides. If there's an emphasis on you know, consideration for what the optics would include or what the perception of others might have, when you show too much ambition, too much potential and desire in these types of things, it comes in, in the enthusiasm, walking into an environment to where, yeah, there's going to be some change needed.

00;35;18;14 - 00;35;46;06 Unknown And for those who are skilled to see immediately in an environment or a condition or a situation where we're skilled and seeing the field of play, if you will, before the play develops. There's a there's a tact that we still have to include in communicating effectively what was being observed, instead of just go and try and fix it, are going to tell people, hey, there's a problem there, I'm gonna fix it.

00;35;46;09 - 00;36;14;06 Unknown There's a casualness that needs to be deployed at that point. And, and this is mostly for the folks that are very excited about the role. Yeah. That I always tell. Yeah, I always tell folks to, to try to match the energy of the hiring. It's right. Yeah. If you're going into a meeting and your your interviewer is very calm and composed and kind of, you know, soft spoken or something, that you're not going in there talking about how you're just going to crash everything all the time.

00;36;14;06 - 00;36;38;08 Unknown And. Yeah, so matching the energy is like, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Because my, my question, although I could have been a little bit more concise. What are some of the tips and tricks. And you just nailed it. It's match the energy that's better safe than sorry is to have more adaptability to what they're saying. And and of course what they're saying.

00;36;38;14 - 00;37;06;14 Unknown And you don't overplay, what else what tips and tricks. Yeah. What other things are there since we're down here? Yeah, I would say for job seekers, first things first is take ownership of your hunt. Understand exactly what you want. A lot of the times, and you probably see this as well, that a lot of the times will have, you know, folks reach out, especially from the military space.

00;37;06;16 - 00;37;22;22 Unknown Maybe they'll send me their resume on LinkedIn and say, hey, do you have anything for me? That is not, you know, taking ownership of your job hunt. Kind of like in the military, they always say, nobody cares as much about your career progression as you do. Right? So I think first things first is you got to figure out what you want.

00;37;22;22 - 00;37;43;12 Unknown And if you don't know what you want, that's totally fine. But doing things like having informational interviews with people in that role already are absolutely key. A recruiter can only provide so much information. A career coach can only provide so much information. So if you don't know exactly what you want to do, talk to people that are doing it every day.

00;37;43;12 - 00;38;04;00 Unknown Get the good, the bad, the ugly, and then be super clear when you're talking to hiring leaders, whether that be hiring managers, recruiters, whoever it is about what you want and why you're a fit for it. So doing the work first before you're you're having that outreach. Yeah. I mean, honestly, those are probably the two big takeaways that I could think of.

00;38;04;03 - 00;38;22;14 Unknown Now. That's a good one. I mean, those are those probably are the umbrella to which everything else falls into place after that. Because once you once you start to connect to that and then you do the work to understand what that means by identifying, well, considering we talked about it and we'll start to segue into the close, you're about it.

00;38;22;14 - 00;38;50;01 Unknown You no one know what you want. And that comes by way of being honest with yourself, more so than exactly right. Exactly. Want to comment on that or that's about where it's at. Where it is self-explanatory. Yeah, I think that's where it is. Just self-reflection is really key in your transition, and the only way to minimize that anxiety in the job search is to know exactly what you want and target it with laser focus.

00;38;50;04 - 00;39;06;14 Unknown And that port has a sub component to know what that is. What I don't know what I do. I don't know what I want to do, I know what I did, and I'm probably going to be comfortable in this. You probably hear this in every episode of this conversation that we have on the podcast. Is, you don't have to do what you did unless you want to.

00;39;06;16 - 00;39;25;05 Unknown Okay? Right. Yeah, I post about that a lot on LinkedIn. Your role in the corporate workforce or wherever you're moving, it does not have to do it does not have to be anything like what you did in the military. I am not a medic. I'm not an EMT. And I'm doing I think, okay, am I role. So yeah.

00;39;25;09 - 00;39;50;01 Unknown Yeah. Well so let me summarize and then we'll get to the to the final thoughts that you may have. So you you embody these things and that's, that's what is interesting about this conversation and you is because the fact is that, you know, the tenacity that you had to be where you were and then approach identifying what you wanted to do and then pursue it the way you did, you know, by my joining, right?

00;39;50;03 - 00;40;21;12 Unknown You say you got got but maybe that maybe it was less about you deciding and it was more about influence, but about yourself, man. Yeah. You were persuaded to do something you probably didn't want to do anyway, right? So yeah, he matched your energy and he got you. Got you where you got it. Right. So yeah. And then and then the MOS that you chose and then, you know, pursuing the degree, of course, the relationship that that occurred with your husband and that grew into now having the ability to be separated but still stay focused on what you were wanting to achieve.

00;40;21;12 - 00;40;42;27 Unknown And then what really stood out is when you get to that next duty station and then you're asked by your husband is, what do you want to do? And you were very intentional. Probably through oversimplifying and summarizing it. You had to do a lot of things before that to get to that time to where you said, I want to work here doing these things.

00;40;43;00 - 00;41;10;25 Unknown And that's what we're talking about, is that have to do the work to understand what you want to do with such conviction, because hiring managers probably don't say this enough. That's what they're looking for. When you tell your story is, why should we hire used kind of the theoretical question. It's wanting to be answered, but how you share what it is that you're interested in, you know, a lot of it comes down to you running away from something or you running into something, and we'd rather have somebody running into something.

00;41;10;27 - 00;41;38;13 Unknown Not to say we won't discount anybody else and the other factors, but we want somebody that wants this bad. Yeah, there's nothing better than a candidate that knows exactly what they want. And what they want is the role that you have open. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the other side of it too is the hiring, the hiring leaders also are, you know, in an awkward moment, vulnerability where they're taking a risk, you know, and, you know, the things that that go into the investment in the cost and all those things, it's all relative.

00;41;38;13 - 00;42;06;11 Unknown But it's a matter does it does take an effect. And so when somebody says, yes, there's a lot of hope in that. And we're banking on words perceived by the attitude shared to the story. And so it's people like you that actually give credibility to the to the process of recruiting. So appreciate you and for what you've done and then how the things are that you've gone through those things to get to where you are and then have the conviction that you have to help pay it forward through the community.

00;42;06;13 - 00;42;27;29 Unknown Any final thoughts? Yeah, I guess, you know, for hiring managers like I see on my LinkedIn a lot, hiring veterans, it's not a good deed. It's a good business. Be open minded to those conversations. And for job seekers, you know, take ownership of your hot lead when you're not in charge. Just do what you need to do to get where you want to be.

00;42;28;02 - 00;42;42;29 Unknown Got it. All right. Thank you for that. Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Chris, for having me. You got it, Padawan. Keep moving forward.

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We caught up with Jesse in between his Army National Guard duties to dive into a powerful conversation about ambition, resilience, and the power of community. Jesse shares how his drive, vision, and strong network helped him navigate the unique challenges of balancing military service with civilian life—challenges many of us rarely consider in our everyday career paths. We explore the behind-the-scenes planning, reflection, and foresight it takes to align personal goals with professional responsibilities—both in and out of uniform. Jesse brings to light how he created opportunities through preparation, perseverance, and a few tough life lessons. His upbeat, can-do mindset shines throughout, revealing why he continues to earn a seat at the table wherever he goes. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to harness their skills, rise to the occasion, and grow with gratitude for the people who help make it all possible. It’s an inspiring, energizing conversation you won’t want to miss! https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessedurrant/ https://www.oracle.com/veterans/ https://www.oracle.com/careers/ https://www.travismanion.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;10 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Mansour, and in this episode I'm joined by Jesse Durant, Oracle senior site reliability developer and Army National Guard officer. We caught up with Jesse in between his Army National Guard duties to dive into a powerful conversation about ambition, resilience, and the power of community.

00;00;35;11 - 00;00;59;08 Unknown Jesse shares how his drive, vision and strong network helped him navigate the unique challenges of balancing military service with civilian life challenges many of us rarely consider in our everyday career paths. We explore the behind the scenes planning, reflection, and foresight. It takes to align personal goals with professional responsibilities both in and out of uniform. Jesse brings to light how we created opportunities through preparation, perseverance, and a few tough life lessons.

00;00;59;08 - 00;01;15;19 Unknown His upbeat, can-do mindset shines throughout, revealing why he continues to earn a seat at the table wherever he goes. This episode is a must listen for anyone looking to harness their skills, rise to the occasion, and grow with gratitude for the people who helped make it all possible. It's an inspiring and energizing conversation you won't want to miss.

00;01;15;21 - 00;01;34;16 Unknown We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family, Jesse's contact details in the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;34;18 - 00;01;52;28 Unknown Hey, Jesse, what's going on? Not too bad. Chris is here. Another day in the office, you know. Excited to be here. Thank you for having me on the podcast. Pretty impromptu, but I'm excited to be here. Sometimes it is last minute, but you know how it is when somebody has a good idea or what they believe to be a good idea.

00;01;53;04 - 00;02;11;12 Unknown We act on that. The worst that could happen is somebody says no and you did not. So thanks for accommodating being flexible. Typically where we start just a little bit about you and let's go with that. All right. So let's start out with where I'm at now. Currently I've been with Oracle for three years. Just hit my three year anniversary this month, so I'm excited.

00;02;11;12 - 00;02;32;12 Unknown I've been part of the team for three years now. I'm a senior site reliability engineer and on tour ops. My manager and Scott Paper, as you know him pretty well. Fantastic manager currently, as well as working for Oracle, I serve in the Army National Guard and I'm a tenant there for the engineer. So vehicle engineer is my main job there.

00;02;32;15 - 00;02;51;07 Unknown Anything that needs to be built from ground up. The guy Rhodes, demolition. I'm the guy. And then I'm an avid runner. Like to run? I'm part of several run club there in the Seattle area. So if you want to get out and network and meet other tech people, Come running. Got it. That's that's pretty good.

00;02;51;07 - 00;03;16;28 Unknown So. So you're you're from are you originally from Seattle? So I'm originally from Eastern Washington. I grew up in Tri-Cities, Washington, mostly known for the Hanford nuclear site, back during the Manhattan Project. So Pasco is a specific city. It's, I'd tell a small town, population wise, it's growing. It's becoming bigger and bigger. The main industry there is agricultural and, the nuclear site, Washingtonian my entire life, though.

00;03;17;01 - 00;03;30;20 Unknown Got it as you were growing up. What were some of the things that you were doing out in Eastern Washington? What was, what was a kid doing in a town like that? So there's a lot of, the Columbia River runs right through the cities. It splits it up. So there's a lot of swimming in the river.

00;03;30;23 - 00;03;50;15 Unknown Even though was down, downstream from the nuclear site, you know, it was deemed safe. So we swam there a lot. Worked a lot as a kid growing up helping my dad with his lawn care business, as well as just hanging out with friends. Played sports my entire life growing up. Whether it's from, team sports like baseball, basketball.

00;03;50;15 - 00;04;10;22 Unknown Later on in life, I got into cross-country and track. More individualized, but still team aspect. So a lot of running, on the on my own funds try to enjoy the summer heat that we have down there compared to the West Coast. You know, 310 day, the sunshine. So significantly different than the West Coast. Oh, yeah, I bet, I bet, yeah.

00;04;10;22 - 00;04;31;15 Unknown The it's a little bit of trust going in that river, I guess. I mean, that's that's good. Yeah, definitely. So it was a lot of trail run or, street distance. What type of running? A mix of both. So, mostly street was in high school, and then later on I got into trail running, especially now that I moved to the west side of the state.

00;04;31;18 - 00;04;50;12 Unknown Been in the west side Seattle Bremerton area for the, since 2016. So that's where I fell in love with trail running. And, I really enjoyed that a lot easier on the body and, definitely more scenic. Yeah, I bet the scenery over there, I mean, I imagine both sides of the state is beautiful, but,

00;04;50;14 - 00;05;14;00 Unknown Yeah, very different on on the, Seattle side. Yeah, yeah, the east side. I like to say there's more tumbleweeds and there is trees. Oh. Got it. Yeah. All right. At least at least in the southeast part where I grew up. All right, so growing up in a town like that, at some point, did you did you get an itch and to feel like you were going to want to try to find something, something new to do?

00;05;14;02 - 00;05;35;01 Unknown Definitely. It being a bigger city population wise, it still didn't have the attractions and the job market that, you would be in for such a city population wise. And so I, I knew if I wanted to grow, expand my horizons, I would have to venture outside of the tri cities. Early on in life, I wanted to join a military.

00;05;35;02 - 00;05;53;19 Unknown I was like, at some point it wasn't a question if I was gonna join, but when and what branch? So senior year started talking to a recruiter, maybe recruiter, and start talking me out about the the Navy Seals training program they have. And, I was really excited about that. So senior year, like a month in or so.

00;05;53;20 - 00;06;13;20 Unknown I'm still 17, graduated early for, my age. I graduated 17, so speak to my parents. Hey, can you sign this waiver? It's a training program for, like, three months. Basically my entire senior year. And from there, they allowed me to go into maybe, maybe basic training and then into buds with an opportunity to, you know, try out for the seals.

00;06;13;22 - 00;06;32;22 Unknown And they said, no way. There's we're not going to put our son in danger. Right. So kind of put that on the backburner in high school as part of Deca, which is a business organization that's nationwide through high school and the collegiate level. And it learned a lot about business. So I was like, well, I can go to college, right?

00;06;32;23 - 00;06;50;23 Unknown I mean, that's a goal of mine as well, besides serving in the military. So I was awarded a one year scholarship from a construction class that was in high school my entire three years, where we did, we built a house every year from the ground up. So we fell back on my plan B for the moment, which was go to college.

00;06;50;29 - 00;07;08;20 Unknown After that first year of college, I realized how expensive college was, right? So I was like, ooh, how am I going to pay for this? I didn't come from, a very wealthy family, so I had to find a way to support myself through college. And I started thinking again about joining the military. How how can I get in?

00;07;08;23 - 00;07;25;23 Unknown How can I still join and serve my country? As patriotism was one of the main reasons for joining. And then later in life, I saw the benefits that came with it as well. So I decided to reach out to recruiters again. NASA. I had a buddy, one of my best friends in elementary school, all the way through high school.

00;07;25;24 - 00;07;44;26 Unknown His dad was a recruiter for the Oregon National Guard. He told me, you know, some tricks on how to get in to the military. Back in 2010, I did get approved by the my civilian doctors saying, hey, it should be fine because, I don't I had a longboarding accident my senior year right there in the middle of the year.

00;07;44;29 - 00;08;08;11 Unknown Had to overcome quite a bit. Was out of school for a little bit over a month. After that, my base was paralyzed for almost three months after that. So, that's kind of what made me put the military on the backburner again after that first time. The lieutenant's denying me, the approval to join. So that solidified my plan to backtrack and live by my plan to go to college for that year.

00;08;08;14 - 00;08;35;05 Unknown But after I found that, you know, I need some more funds. So from there, fast forward, I got a basic training and job, advanced individual training, which is your MOS. And so I was, the maintenance guy for a couple of years. And then as soon as I got back, I was like, back to school. And the guards, that's the benefit of the guard is being able to do serve your community and your nation as well as going to school.

00;08;35;08 - 00;09;01;26 Unknown Nice. What what part of maintenance were you? So the quartermaster, chemical repair, water pumps. I was part of a burn unit where our main mission within Washington state was the decontamination of any nuclear, any Cbrn, events or situations that happened within the state, like a train derailment or, or any sort of chemical spill. So I was the basically anything that was related to water pumps and water heaters.

00;09;01;29 - 00;09;22;21 Unknown I was the guy, but got roped into maintenance since I was the only one within my unit. So I hung out a lot with the mechanics. Got it. Yeah, I was a mechanic also, and so very familiar with with that team, where where I was stationed. Okay. Very nice. Any correlation between where you grew up and the fact that it was in that particular field?

00;09;22;24 - 00;09;43;23 Unknown It was, within a city about 30 minutes from the Hanford site. At the time, I never thought about it, if that, you know, strategically placed there in case of an incident. But, in hindsight, it looks like, it may have been for sure. Got it. It's a plan. It's always plan. Family. Yeah, there's always a bigger plan.

00;09;43;25 - 00;10;12;22 Unknown So that was what, 2010, 2011? 1111? Yep, yep. Okay, so then that you started out enlisted or was it because of college? Did you get in to be an officer? No, I started I enlisted, spent ten years enlisted. Okay. My military career has been, it's been a unique, a unique one, for sure. After basic training and I, I, I came back to college and I was like, well, maybe I'll look into being an officer.

00;10;12;22 - 00;10;33;03 Unknown Right? So I joined ROTC for a semester at the Washington State University in Pullman. And while I was there, I realized I'd been in at this point two years. And the program is self is basically self led among students. Students are all leadership. So we police each other with the advice and guidance from the active duty personnel.

00;10;33;06 - 00;10;58;21 Unknown And at that time, 2000, this is 2012. Now, the got phase was was big. If you're in the Army, you do have a patch. We used to call them just like fleets. You didn't have a patch. You were frowned upon, especially if you were an officer. So I decided I can't be one of those officers. Right. I I've been in two years when I got a deployment or need my belt before I contract in ROTC.

00;10;58;24 - 00;11;19;06 Unknown But college don't pause for the second time and decided to find a unit deploy with and of course my buddy Thad, who gave me the gold and answered, how do I know? I had friends in the Oregon National Guard were about to deploy mobilize in the Middle East. So he gave me some contact information, reached out to them fast.

00;11;19;08 - 00;11;41;07 Unknown For five months I had gone through my three class school. So now I'm a plumber. Pipefitter in a vertical contracting team, and I'm in the Middle East. So you were intentional. I like it taking initiative, doing all those things that we're known for. So how did that go? I mean, was it was it as you expected? Definitely. I learned a lot.

00;11;41;10 - 00;12;05;28 Unknown It was an experience for sure. The first month that I finally it's the interstate transfer is, when you move from state to state in the guard. So asked is the abbreviation. I said Oregon. At first, you already had to face adversity. The company commander was like, hey, deployment is canceled. I was like, hold up. I spent three months trying to get here.

00;12;06;04 - 00;12;23;23 Unknown Now that I'm here, and I put school on pause, I've been out of school also for three months. You're telling me it's canceled so that long? It was an eight hour drive. No drilling on the Oregon coast, seaside area. Camp Alia and I was going to school in Pullman, Washington. So that whole eight hours back home, me and my buddy, and he was making no money because of the commute.

00;12;23;26 - 00;12;46;22 Unknown We were just disbelief. It was be quite as right that I've ever had experience. So I was like, what? What do I what I do now, like my plan is gone, right? So one of my E-4 buddies at the time from the Oregon National Guard, organic, his dad was lieutenant colonel within the Engineer Battalion. He shot me a message a week later and say, hey, my dad said, relax, something's coming down the pipeline.

00;12;46;25 - 00;13;10;06 Unknown I was like, what are you talking about? The original mission was to go into Afghanistan and help, you know, a downgrade and, close up some bases. So within a month, we have a new mission. We're going to Kuwait to help the process, reconstructing and building more transient billeting. So I was like, well, not the deployment I wanted, not a true combat experience.

00;13;10;09 - 00;13;31;23 Unknown I took it for what it was. Again, I tell people all the time, deployment isn't all about combat. It's about how you can adapt to the adversity and the problems you faced while on deployment. So I was like that. This is a good second job. You know, option. And fast forward, I'm in Kuwait three months later in November, I'm in Iraq.

00;13;31;24 - 00;13;59;28 Unknown I'm one of the first hundred soldiers back into Iraq to help combat ISIS in 2014. So that was, that experience definitely learned a lot being the first hundred in compared to deployments nowadays where there's sirens and warm towers, allowing you to, you know, find deep cover, there's nothing of that. When I was there the first time, right, it was just, oh, I think that was, that was incoming.

00;14;00;02 - 00;14;25;09 Unknown Learned a lot. I was just Lauren listed E-4 at the time. The detachment I got pushed into Iraq, we were supporting the active duty training. The, local Iraqis to help fight ISIS. So we built everything from building, places for soldiers to live, like many soldiers as well of ourselves. Offices, shoot houses, silhouettes where they practice a train on, as well as anything that they can think of.

00;14;25;16 - 00;14;42;24 Unknown We were we were working as much as we could as long as we had daylight. We had a warehouse. We're able to build things, prefab things, because the easiest way to do, a lot of the operations. And how long do you end up staying? Total deployment was nine months. I spent about four months of it in Iraq.

00;14;42;26 - 00;15;06;15 Unknown We were able to reopen the airstrip. We bring in the Apaches and and drones to help out with the surveillance. So it was, great, great mission work there. A lot of great people, active duty and guard, met one of my future mentors on that deployment was actually an IPL. Now we're both officers and, we're essentially equals out and I seek them.

00;15;06;21 - 00;15;24;25 Unknown His name is Mark Mallow. A lot for for advice on how to progress my military career and, and his guidance in general. So then after that, you come back. That had to have been an ordeal, I would imagine. Then if you're if you're going from Washington to Oregon, try to find fulfill your goal that you're trying to achieve.

00;15;24;26 - 00;15;47;02 Unknown You know, it's nice to have the acquaintances. So how important was the networking? I mean, it was clear to me when you were talking about it, but did that give you an idea of how important networking really is? Yes. And of military civilian career just in your civilian life in general, networking is vital to being successful.

00;15;47;05 - 00;16;08;15 Unknown Just those opportunities that I've had all the opportunities and had throughout my military career has been due to networking. I tell people all the time, especially in the National Guard, since we are, I'd say, part time, right? For the most part, it's about driving your own career. No one's gonna help you meet the goals that you want as much as you are right?

00;16;08;18 - 00;16;32;05 Unknown If you want to transfer to a new unit, you want a different MOS, seek out those opportunities. Sometimes if your your lowest level is not helping you out, networking with the right people. Find a way to find those people right. Use that network that's built in the military and try to seek those opportunities, and then present a plan to your your team leader, to your leadership saying, hey, this is my goal.

00;16;32;05 - 00;17;07;21 Unknown This is where I want to go. And here's the contact information. I write down some of those first steps versus leaving it all in the hands of your leadership. Yeah, that's that's super sound advice. And I like how you weaved in. It's applicable anywhere, you know, not just in service but in life in general. The more that you can do on your own with diligence and, the research and the effort you put into it to help people not have to do it all, that's important because it can be, you know, we we often look at ourselves trying to help everybody, but we don't have enough time to be able to do that.

00;17;07;21 - 00;17;25;13 Unknown So it's it's it's critical that we can think about how we can nudge it along and do some of that pre-work ahead of time. So I like I like how you're setting that up. Did you stay with that unit as you came back or did you now switch? I did, so I'd stay with the unit for probably another six months.

00;17;25;13 - 00;17;55;00 Unknown That's where I finally, my, I became, a sergeant in the Army after Charlie. After that, the unit disbanded. They did a big reorg. So the reorg happened. We went from 150 plus soldiers down to 52. So we became a detachment, a utility detachment. So they gave me the option. Hey, did you want to, you know, go ahead and stay here during on the, on the Oregon coast, the commute was really long and I was like, oh, I'll hang out for a little bit.

00;17;55;03 - 00;18;20;29 Unknown But then they the opportunity arose for me to go to infantry school. So I was like, infantry. Oh, man. This this is it. All right. I'm I'm taking the opportunity. So now that follow me August. So about a year after I came back from that deployment, I went to the infantry school and then found a unit again, my readiness NCO at that time say, hey, here's a list of every infantry unit in Oregon.

00;18;21;01 - 00;18;41;25 Unknown Find a unit that has an opening and I'll facilitate the rest. So again, kind of did the legwork myself to find a unit that I felt comfortable with besides me, and thrown in to a random unit. And then at the right I replaced, I became an infantry man. How long that take that took the switching units within within the state?

00;18;41;25 - 00;18;58;14 Unknown It's relatively quick. It was about a month. Sometimes with the paperwork hasn't completed yet, you can simply just start drilling with them on the year. One week in a month. And, you're still on the books of your organic unit, but they allow you to split. Train is what they call it. The training was a different unit. I'm assuming.

00;18;58;14 - 00;19;20;22 Unknown Did you go? You didn't go back to boot camp. You went, but you went to ITE for infantry school. Yeah, so slightly different in the guard we have for class. We have our own, schoolhouses with some within the state, some, we had to go to other states. So Oregon actually has its own infantry school. It's an accelerated program for like, most MOS is, it's usually about two weeks long.

00;19;20;24 - 00;19;41;27 Unknown So I went to Eastern Oregon real close to home. And you went to LA or, until Oregon with the old Chemical depot, down in that area. Spent two weeks there in the middle of August, 100 plus degrees, walk in the lanes, surviving the heat, sweating constantly. Had people heat carry carrying regularly just because of the heat.

00;19;41;29 - 00;20;05;05 Unknown They weren't used to it. So because we not only do they train National Guard, but those National Guard school houses also had the ability to train Active-duty personnel as well. So we had a slight mix of in-state, out of state and active duty personnel going to that school house. Got it with yours that that puts me at 20 right around 2016 2016.

00;20;05;08 - 00;20;33;11 Unknown Okay. Yeah. From from there. So now you've got basically three or more choices that you've been in. Correct. And so how does that work now that you've got those skills developed. And then what what do you what do you do with that as an E-5. So I think not in just not just in the military, but being well-rounded and knowing different aspects of the organization on how they all, intertwine and work together is a huge benefit.

00;20;33;14 - 00;21;09;17 Unknown If you look at most leaders throughout any corporation, they weren't siloed into one department the entire time rank. They were those who saw the opportunities in different aspects, right? Whether it be, you know, med suite with Oracle or OCI with Oracle. Right. They they or the medical side now, they branched out. They've learned a lot. So that benefited me a lot within, you know, being a new E-5 because when it comes to planning things, not only do you have the mindset or did I have the mindset of infantrymen, but I also had the mindset of, okay, if something breaks down right, how do we fix it?

00;21;09;17 - 00;21;32;17 Unknown How do I get the maintenance people here? I already know kind of what the main insight is thinking about how to do that when on a construction side, we need, I think, Bill, I'm your guy. I can help you build whatever you need built or I know people because within the state we all work together. So when it comes to annual training, there will be times that we have the engineers embedded with us or multiple different maintenance platoons embedded with us.

00;21;32;17 - 00;22;04;15 Unknown So again, tying back in that networking, networking is huge. In the guard. I've been in so many units in the Oregon Guard that every time I go to a big gathering, I was like, oh my gosh, I haven't seen this guy in four years. But here we are again. It's it's been, it's very beneficial. And I say not just military but civilian side as well to, to keep that network open and to if you have the opportunity to try different fields out within, within your organization, be open to new opportunities.

00;22;04;18 - 00;22;26;06 Unknown Yeah. Well said. And you're right. And that is the nice thing about it also is the camaraderie. It's developed over the years. And so you you have those connections and relationships from the past. And to see somebody that you haven't seen in a while, it's a good feeling. Right? Definitely. And, the main reason why I've been in for so long, some people are jaded, even the National Guard.

00;22;26;06 - 00;22;43;10 Unknown It's when we get them on two weeks a year. They say two weeks a year. It's never two weeks a year. It's usually more than that, with schooling and progression, career progression. But the main reason I say is to the people, every, every unit I go, I meet someone that I know I will probably be in contact with the rest of my life.

00;22;43;13 - 00;23;07;00 Unknown That's awesome. At which point now at 2016, you're in E-5, you got a couple of mosses, you got the network down, you're going around to different units. What happens the next several years that get that gets you to I don't know, come to Oracle. Let's backtrack just slightly. I was, after that first placement went back to Scott College right about a year and a half left.

00;23;07;02 - 00;23;30;05 Unknown Due to that ROTC down lineup, graduation wise. You know, I graduated early from ROTC or graduate early from the university. I was like, well, I would just but after, if I still have the urge to become an officer of the OCS. So 2016, I graduate, I get my first civilian career working for the Department Navy there in key, Port Washington, just next to the Bangor Naval Base.

00;23;30;07 - 00;23;49;15 Unknown The database administrator there, went to school for management, for making systems. So sorry. Working there. I seem to have pride myself in both my student career and military career towards a bigger cause which is supporting the military in some sort of facet. Or the government even at Oracle and part of answer ops, which is the government cloud.

00;23;49;15 - 00;24;14;21 Unknown So, you know, always looking to support the bigger cause. So do that for a couple of years. Enjoy my time there. But there's a saying the government work can be slow depending on what department you're in. Right. And that was true. I was on a project. It was where it's basically their justification site for the Navy and Marines, specifically aviation, but expanded to other facets of the Navy and Marines.

00;24;14;24 - 00;24;35;25 Unknown I was there and we were just sustainment. We weren't developing anything new. So database administrator, just maintaining that human eye going. And I graduated college wanting to change the world. I was like, well, this isn't what I, you know, expected, but it's a good career we're now. They had perks as well, being government. They assisted my, progression into getting my masters.

00;24;35;25 - 00;25;00;05 Unknown So I got my MBA while working for them. And then other right between the MBA period when I got accepted to the program, I thought about becoming an officer and the Oregon National Guard again, so that that urge to serve in a at a greater aspect was reinvested into my life and decided to look at my options. And OCS was the quickest way to commission.

00;25;00;08 - 00;25;23;03 Unknown So commission. And then a year later, I'm at I'm still at the I'm in the Navy working there for me on that. See, that's underneath the department Navy and decided I'm a master's now looking into managerial positions both in my civilian career and my military career. How do I line those so that I'm in management in both of aspects?

00;25;23;06 - 00;25;42;27 Unknown And I looked at my career trajectory within the DoD and the Department Navy and realized that it's a slow process, especially on the West Coast. We don't have the benefit of, you know, an enormous amount the managerial positions, as they do on the East Coast. So I was like, well, let me see what the public sector has.

00;25;43;00 - 00;26;00;19 Unknown And I'm at this point about five years in to working for the department, Navy. And, you know, you got the pension lined up, you have everything lined up ready and all your ducks in a row looking at potential retirement and the benefits of it. And I was like, well, civilian life seems okay. Let me, let me like it.

00;26;00;20 - 00;26;19;24 Unknown Let me reach out to some recruiters. And in that process, one of the managers from Oracle reached out to me. But hey, your your resume, your LinkedIn profile seems to see what we're looking for. Would you be interested in interviewing at this point? I'd been through a lot of interviews, turned down a few offers, just that it wasn't what I was looking for.

00;26;19;26 - 00;26;37;11 Unknown And, talking more to the Oracle recruiter and the manager and learning about the the part of Oracle that was going to be working for, which was on tour ops, and supporting the military and the government in some facet say, okay, this is kind of closely aligned to what I do now. I think I can behind this mission.

00;26;37;11 - 00;27;00;20 Unknown So I understood the mission little bit and, and how, I impacted that and allowed troops and government personnel and entities to still do their, their job full time. It's like I think I think I can do this. Then I interviewed with some of the employees that were there still are Oracle, and a lot of them came from military background, which I know was another perk for me.

00;27;00;20 - 00;27;23;12 Unknown Right. Having that, similar mindset and similar experience creates those bonds. And the transfer. I figured the transfer would not be as drastic going from, you know, the DoD Department, Navy and military experience to the corporate world. If a lot of my coworkers had a similar experience, so on through UPS was a really good fit for me. And a good home.

00;27;23;14 - 00;27;48;19 Unknown And that's when I joined to in 20th April 2022, as I finally made it to our goal site Reliability engineer. That's a good story. You did a lot in between 2016 and 2022. Yeah, I again, I try to take advantage of everything. I've always been pretty strategic with my my progression. While at the Department of Navy, I also was in a one year long leadership program for next generation leadership.

00;27;48;21 - 00;28;11;24 Unknown Just trying to advance myself and gain those skills, put those skills in my, my, my toolbox. But that day that I do become a manager, that I am ready to to lead and serve those that are part of my team well. And that tracks because early on, that's what you were you were trying to do is, is commit to something that's going to give you the opportunity for growth and career development and things, those types of things.

00;28;11;24 - 00;28;31;23 Unknown And so I think at this point, if I'm doing the math right, so over the course of a good ten years, give or take years, probably more close to 11, you were sniffing out the opportunities early on. Not only what was in front of you, but you were trying to identify a pathway that allows you to see a couple moves ahead that you can grow into.

00;28;31;24 - 00;28;58;23 Unknown Is that pretty accurate? Definitely. Yep. Every every time I made it to that next, the next step where I met my next goal, I was looking forward to the next time. Some people say 2020. The Covid year was a really bad year for a lot of people. I like to say that's probably one of my favorite years because I was tackling working full time, 40 hours plus a week, doing that, extensive leadership program through work, and graduated from OCS all at the same time.

00;28;58;25 - 00;29;15;28 Unknown So to me, December of 2020 was one of the best moments of my life. I had my freedom back. I was able to relax, something to do things on the weekends, the limited things that we were able to do because of the Covid. Yeah, it was it was a good year for me and then it opened up a lot of doors after that.

00;29;16;01 - 00;29;41;24 Unknown Yeah, it sounds like it. And congratulations on that, man. I, I appreciate the tenacity that you have in the drive and then putting it into action. I mean, that's obviously is one of the qualities that is common amongst, our community. But it you still appreciate it when you see it. Thank you. Yeah, you bet up to that point and, you know, maybe a couple weeks or a couple months inside of Oracle, you know, I'm making an assumption.

00;29;41;24 - 00;30;03;28 Unknown But did anything appear to be uniquely different than any place that you've been before? And as you, as you started to to learn more about the team you were on here, definitely coming over to Oracle the first few months, there's a lot of new technologies that I had to learn. I had been with the department maybe for quite some time and nothing real cutting edge at that time.

00;30;03;28 - 00;30;27;23 Unknown So I had a lot. Is is the big learning curve technically, especially with migrating to the cloud. When I first graduated college, the cloud was still relatively new. I've heard it at AWS, but at that point, Oracle Cloud was in a in its infancy. So it was a good learning curve. But I came in, I try to network with all my colleagues, had been there for a while.

00;30;27;26 - 00;30;46;16 Unknown I'd come in and, I got the moment I got access to the skiff. I was in there trying to learn what they're doing, looking like looking over the shoulder, just trying to grasp as much as I can grasp. Become a sponge, as they say. I just want to know how everything work and what I can do to get to be better and more prepared.

00;30;46;16 - 00;31;09;01 Unknown Once my clearance was fully approved and I can get hands on keyboard, was there, was there any concerns from your side on going into a full time role here and still serving in the guard a little bit? I did some research. Of course. That's one of the big things I did when I was looking to go into the surveying world is the military benefits.

00;31;09;03 - 00;31;37;00 Unknown And surprisingly, Oracle has one of the better programs for military personnel that are currently serving in the guard reserve. They allow us to do our annual training. Downy hiccup I've been since my time with Oracle. I've actually been away quite a bit for the military. I had to go to Basic Ops, the leadership course for the engineers, which was roughly six months, as well as some additional training, and they've been more than accepting and willing to work with me.

00;31;37;03 - 00;32;15;05 Unknown They understand the difficulties. And again, being part of on tour ops, where most people are, most managers are prior service. So I've worked with people for fire service. They know the the process, right. They know that sometimes they're called upon to do something greater than yourself. That you have no control over. You know, they're always there to help facilitate that and help me out with any of the HR issues that I that that arise from being, you know, acclimated to put on to the bench and then coming back in and being reintegrated into the corporation more than willing to work with me, around my schedule within the military.

00;32;15;08 - 00;32;53;16 Unknown And again, I just let them know ahead of time what, what my yearbooks like and if any of those dates will impact my my time in office. Yeah. I mean, sounds like a strong team that that not only is aware through. Well, one understanding what, what, the, the support that's in place that Oracle provides, but also just the, the firsthand understanding of what it's like to to hold the obligation of service and then merging the two together, the knowledge of the processes and the policies as well as the, the the process of what it's what what happens when a unit is needing to call you, either for your training or any other

00;32;53;16 - 00;33;11;00 Unknown deployments that may come up. That's that's great to hear. So after that, because now it's, it's three years still the same. You still have the same feeling as when you started. Do you talk a little bit about being activated and, then short notice of things right within the military that, everyone who served is familiar with.

00;33;11;03 - 00;33;27;24 Unknown I wanted to give Scott a shout out the first. You know, I broke the bad news to him. Hey, there's some training that's coming up that I have to go away for a little bit. I was just informed, you know, with less than a month notice, and the first thing wasn't. Hey, out, like, man, it's a bummer.

00;33;27;24 - 00;33;49;04 Unknown We're going to. We really need you here. It was. Hey, how's how's the family taking it? Right? He empathize with the situation and as good leaders do, I really appreciated that. And I just wanted to thank him for that. And then we kind of talked about how that's going to affect my time at Oracle. And then, what the next steps are for me coming back.

00;33;49;06 - 00;34;07;20 Unknown That's solid. I mean, that should be, you know, you'd like to believe that everybody's going to be able to have that type of response where puts the concern back on you and, and the care that needs to happen from that. Get your mind right, taking care of the the priorities in your life. And of course, the company is a concern.

00;34;07;20 - 00;34;34;11 Unknown And the obviously the customers and what we have to do here. But there's a balance in the prioritization comes through the the initial response. And so I'm glad to hear that that was the case. Yeah. And then to touch back to do I still have the same billing I do. Oracle's been very helpful throughout this process, allowing me to serve both sides and progress in both my career, military and civilian, with Oracle.

00;34;34;13 - 00;34;55;21 Unknown And, yeah, I still get Scott reaching out occasionally. Hey, does want to make sure everything's going good with the service as well as here at Oracle and making sure that I have a plan to progress. And three years and still loving it. And you're listening. I know you can't see it, but he's got a smile, Jesse smiling when he says this.

00;34;55;21 - 00;35;21;16 Unknown You can kind of just you can feel it as you're as you're listening to it. So I believe it. What now? You're three years in, you're always looking ahead for something else that allows you to know what are you going to be on for growth? What what aspirations do you have at this point? So within Oracle, the goal would be eventually to land a managerial position.

00;35;21;18 - 00;35;39;21 Unknown And that's that's been kind of my dream for the last couple of years on the human side. Got my MBA thinking about how the system, you know, the progression naturally there's there may be some opportunities in the near future. I do express my, you know, my wants. So I know it's been it's been heard and people are listening.

00;35;39;21 - 00;36;03;22 Unknown So one day I'll be there. And then on the military side, I'm looking at company command here within the next year. So that's that's another big step. And any officers, especially army officers time is, leading an entire company, planning the future for that company. What what training looks like, if there's any missions coming up, as in the guard we have, you know, we serve two missions.

00;36;03;22 - 00;36;30;17 Unknown We serve our state and our and our nation. And, we are frequently called upon for both. So making sure that we're ready to assist in both facets, whether it's national level, overseas deployment or within the state, because the Oregon and Washington, whatever island fires. So that comes about every year yet to maintain that certification and, and, make sure you're ready to answer any sort of natural disaster or any state need.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;51;27 Unknown And so which state is the unit in that you're serving now? So I'm still in the Oregon National Guard. Again, I touched a base earlier about people right. Me being in the Oregon Guard for that deployment, I met a lot of people. And after we were dismantled, we we all went in different ways, different units. And I come back to running into them occasionally.

00;36;52;00 - 00;37;11;12 Unknown They're all the other units that I've been a part of. And the reason I'm still in the Oregon garden, commuting up to six hours once a month for drill is the people you know, I've made those bonds, and that's why I'm still driving to get down there and to work with those people and, good rapport. So I'm out of Oregon.

00;37;11;14 - 00;37;38;20 Unknown Got it solid team. Right team. Yes. Devin. All right. Jesse, any any final thoughts for anybody listening that you want anybody to hear if you're a service member and you're not part of Maven, come join Maven. Maven doing great things. Just, one big thing that I love Maven does. I love being physical. Physical activity is one of my hobbies.

00;37;38;23 - 00;37;59;03 Unknown So the Travis Manning Foundation right to the 29 was the chat as many and what I was, a gym host here recently. So I got a bunch of my military buddies, over the weekend, and, we had a good turnout, and we supported the Manning Foundation also back in, for 911, they did. The Rock also had a group of military people, and I, we can do that.

00;37;59;03 - 00;38;26;00 Unknown So, there's a lot of opportunities within Maven at Oracle to progress the career network. Again. Networking. Right. It's been the underlying theme of this, this interview. So consider network whether it's within Maven or just in Oracle itself, if you're a reservist in the National Guard and you're worried about your career progression, both, an oracle and a military, I'd say don't be too, too worried about it.

00;38;26;02 - 00;38;49;11 Unknown Oracle has a good program in place to assist us to move forward in both sides. Just make sure you talk to both leadership, military and civilian, to get a better understanding of how that looks so they can assist you in any way that's needed. And if you're a veteran who is no longer serving here at in Oracle and part of Maven, and you're interested in joining the Oregon National Guard, let me know.

00;38;49;14 - 00;39;09;09 Unknown We have, low recruitment numbers at this time, but we do this cool of being called guard for a day where you come out and relive your experience as a service member. And usually we make sure those days are when you do something fun, like white wine, helicopter style. All right. I'm not even mad at you. That was that was not shameless at all.

00;39;09;09 - 00;39;25;24 Unknown And for for the Maven plug. I didn't ask him to do it. He did it on his own. And then again, he's smiling. You can. You can feel the smile through years as you're listening. All right, Jesse, well appreciate you. Thanks for taking a minute. I know it was last minute and you made it happen. Very grateful for you and your service.

00;39;25;24 - 00;39;47;16 Unknown And I speak on behalf of all of us. We are thankful for everything that you're doing and anybody else that's out there in the reserve guard serving and going on your temporary duty, whatever. It's a deployment or training or anything like that, you know, always keep moving forward. So appreciate you. We'll look forward to seeing you soon. And next time we're in Seattle, we'll get together and have some coffee and maybe go for a run.

00;39;47;18 - 00;40;08;04 Unknown Definitely, yeah. Do you have any? If anyone has questions about how the, you know, being activated and working at Oracle, you know, feel free to reach out to me on, on the Oracle email and then, LinkedIn, if they want to talk about how reservists and guard life interacts with Oracle. Absolutely. So I'll put their contact information for our LinkedIn.

00;40;08;04 - 00;40;23;15 Unknown And then any other information you want to share offline, you can send it over and I'll put it in the podcast description so they can reach out if there's any more questions Chris. All righty one. Keep moving forward.

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We explore Pat’s journey, rooted in strong family influence and an innate drive to pursue her goals without hesitation. Pat opens up about her path to self-discovery, shaped by a deep sense of self-awareness and an unrelenting competitive edge that pushes her to rise above every challenge she faces. Pat highlights the value of thoughtful observation—knowing when to pause, evaluate, and listen before speaking or acting. Whether you're navigating a career pivot or working to better understand your own capabilities, Pat’s insights will inspire you to think more deeply about identity, preparation, and how to effectively translate your existing skills into new opportunities. She encourages others to research what’s required for the next role, embrace continual learning, and take bold steps toward their goals with clarity and confidence. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patsmth/ https://www.oracle.com/veterans/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;33;04 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by Pat Smith, Oracle principal security engineer and Army veteran, where we explore Pat's journey rooted in strong family influence and an innate drive to pursue her goals without hesitation.

00;00;33;08 - 00;00;56;28 Unknown Pat opens up about her path to self-discovery. Shaped by a deep sense of self-awareness and unrelenting competitive edge that pushes her to rise above every challenge she faces. Grounded in possibility and resilience, Pat highlights the value of thoughtful observation, knowing when to pause, evaluate, and listen before speaking or acting. Her ability to take on tough, high stakes tasks reflects a rare combination of courage, adaptability and solution oriented thinking.

00;00;56;28 - 00;01;18;07 Unknown Pat doesn't shy away from discomfort. Instead, she leans into it, earning the trust of those around her by demonstrating competence, reliability, and strong commitment to results. Whether you're navigating a career pivot or working to better understand your own capabilities, Pat's insights will inspire you to think more deeply about identity, preparation and how to effectively translate your existing skills into new opportunities.

00;01;18;07 - 00;01;36;11 Unknown She encourages others to research what's required for the next role, embrace continual learning and take bold steps towards their goals with clarity and confidence. This episode is a must listen for anyone who wants to lead with purpose, grow through challenge and be recognized as someone who delivers real impact. We have all we need to become the person we want to be.

00;01;36;11 - 00;01;55;16 Unknown Let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Pat's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Good morning Pat. How's it going?

00;01;55;18 - 00;02;16;24 Unknown Good morning. Going great. How about yourself? I'm doing all right. Thanks. Happy Monday. So funny thing, people say that. What do you think people say? Happy Monday. I don't know, because Monday everybody usually dreaded after the weekend. Right. Yeah. They want their weekend to be a little longer. A little bit longer. Yeah. So. So we talk about the weekends and coming to work.

00;02;16;25 - 00;02;48;01 Unknown You know we're going to talk a little bit about you and then what you do. And before we started recording for everybody out there, I asked Pat how it was going. And I guess the Monday already started. So there's a lot of a lot of things going on already. And it's interesting if you, as you hear Pat talk about her, not only your experiences here at Oracle, what she does, and you probably understand how things keep moving and, what we do for our customers and for the for the company and supporting the effort of what whatever the collective organizations do.

00;02;48;03 - 00;03;07;17 Unknown It'll be clear. So. But before we get into all of that, Pat, would you tell us a little bit about Pat? Good morning everyone. My name is Pat Smith. I've been an Oracle roughly three years. I am former military Army go Army storm. I served in the Army and an army reserve as well. I went to Germany.

00;03;07;18 - 00;03;30;03 Unknown I'm in a different places. I ended up deploying to Southwest Asia as well. And, once I got out of the military, I started working for the Department of Defense. I work for DoD. I've, been a member of Homeland Security for. I work for U.S. cert, and I also work for the, FBI. Before retiring from the FBI.

00;03;30;03 - 00;03;53;22 Unknown I go on into the civilian sector. Boom there. In a nutshell, all right, all, have a good day. No thanks for that. And so you've done a lot. And so for all of us out there, sometimes I learn things because I, I would like to have, the, the guest share for the first time some of their experiences.

00;03;53;22 - 00;04;14;23 Unknown And so some of these things I'm learning for the first time. So let's, let's talk about, why you joined and, you know, wherever you grew up, in kind of the circumstances you found yourself in to find yourself in, to be able to, you know, planned on, I think I'll join the service in why Army? So, I came from a, military family.

00;04;14;23 - 00;04;33;28 Unknown I guess you could say my father was Air Force. I I'm the youngest of six, and all my brothers and sisters had gone into the military. Some were officers, some were enlisted, and I graduate. I was in high school, and I was like, well, to get some little extra money over the summertime, I'll go into the reserves.

00;04;33;28 - 00;04;50;13 Unknown It's a couple hundred dollars for a weekend out of a month, you know, to go to drill and I'll have something in my pocket. So for me, it was just like, okay, and then it'll teach me the discipline and my thing about discipline and knowing how to do stuff on my own, transitioning from being a high school student.

00;04;50;15 - 00;05;11;20 Unknown So eventually having to be out there on my own in college. So I went into the reserves. When I was in, 11th grade, my mom had to sign because I was too young to sign for myself. I was underage, and, I went under what they called deferred entry. So one year I did basic training. And the next year, when I was a senior, after my senior year, I did my ATC training.

00;05;11;22 - 00;05;36;03 Unknown So I did that for I was in the reserves for about four years. I went I went to Louisiana Tech University, where I majored in biomedical engineering. I stayed in in college through college, and then I'm from Louisiana, and I was like, okay, I want to get out. I want to see, I want to travel and I don't want to pay for, but I want to be able to still be able to maintain a lifestyle and take care of myself and not have to call home.

00;05;36;03 - 00;06;01;24 Unknown Mommy, daddy, can you send me money? So I was like, well, most family I can go travel for a couple of years, do what I want to do and come on. So that's what I do. I got into the Army, I enjoyed the Army. The Army was a great experience. It taught me a lot. Definitely discipline, definitely taught me a view of dealing with a lot of different people from different places, different personalities, which was really a very good experience for me.

00;06;01;26 - 00;06;26;08 Unknown And after a while I ended up staying. I ended up getting married, having two kids and going out. Not for the honeymoon, I'm guessing now, and off and on and 11th grade. How was that? How was that experience on campus in high school when you chose to do that? And was it common in the high school that you were you were going to to where other kids were were choosing that?

00;06;26;10 - 00;06;42;20 Unknown I didn't know anybody personally that had that had gone into the reserves. I just checked into it. I thought about it. I check into it. Like I said, coming from a lot of my brothers and all my brothers and sisters being in and my father being in, I was like, hey, it doesn't seem too bad. It seems like a good benefit.

00;06;42;20 - 00;07;02;23 Unknown And plus I would get the money for to help out with my college education as well. So it wasn't intimidated to be the youngest person there, one of the youngest people there walking into basic training, first time really being by myself where there's no family member with me, having to go out there in the world and listen and do all this stuff, it was an intimidating.

00;07;02;23 - 00;07;21;09 Unknown But once I got into the flow of everything and understanding, I really enjoyed it. Got it. And how was how was it breaking it up and over the, the summers to, to go to boot camp and then it, how did that did you learn anything from the first time you went in and then when you went to it?

00;07;21;11 - 00;07;40;10 Unknown I think that session, it made it a to me. It made it a little bit better because I got that chance to kind of like decompress from the intensity of being in boot camp. And, you know, all the high energy you have to run to get places faster. Got to be here on time and all that structure and just all the little basic training is a little intense.

00;07;40;12 - 00;08;00;03 Unknown And then having that time to go back, relax, reset, going to drills still during that year on and then go on to I, I t was a little bit with way easier to me and it wasn't the physical aspect. Basic training that I found to be, you know, stressful because I'd always like, ran track, play basketball.

00;08;00;03 - 00;08;16;26 Unknown I was already a athletic person. So the physical part wasn't me. It was just getting used to the structure. And you have to be here on time. If you all the time you're late. So you have to beat everybody 15 minutes early. You have to make sure, you know, and the rushed nature of things and the precision of things getting used to that.

00;08;16;26 - 00;08;37;20 Unknown But once I locked in, I was good. So when I went to I t I didn't, I had the time to okay, I got this. I had everything organized in my mind how I knew was going to be. So it flowed really easy. Got it. So you slid in there that you were an athlete. How did how did that competitive nature contribute to the ease as you're going through?

00;08;37;22 - 00;08;52;28 Unknown Not only that, but even after that, how did that contribute to the choices you've made? I always want to be at the front of the line. I was not going to let anybody outrun me. Got it? I had the, I always shot to be okay. I want to be. If I'm not number one, I'm going to be in the top five.

00;08;52;28 - 00;09;12;09 Unknown I want to be at the top of the list. I want to, and but that's. That was me even before I went into the middle there just kind of have a competitive spirit and more so not with other people, but to outdo myself if I did, if I did a certain score one time, okay, we're going to have to work to do better the next step, the next time and to just constantly improve.

00;09;12;09 - 00;09;35;29 Unknown And I, I take that into just everyday life. I want one of the things I always tell my kids is I want to be better today than I was yesterday. Every day. And it doesn't have to be. Everybody thinks when you say something like that, it has to be something groundbreaking or something like life changes. No. If you learn a new skill, if you learn something about your job that you didn't know yesterday, you've improved.

00;09;36;01 - 00;09;55;01 Unknown If you learn a new vocabulary word that you didn't know yesterday, you've made some type of progress. But just make sure that you're progressing in some way every day to improve upon yourself and not let yourself just stay stagnant and get complacent with and comfortable with where you are. That I like that, that that's a hard one because you you nailed it.

00;09;55;04 - 00;10;15;04 Unknown You know, a lot of times people think they got to go big to to have that feeling of, of progress or success or an achievement. And you're right, the little things and I'm, I appreciate your perspective on that because it is sometimes misguiding. And then we, you know, might hesitate. Everybody thinks that they have to they think they have to change the world.

00;10;15;04 - 00;10;35;22 Unknown But you can change the world one step at a time. That's like the saying they always say you eat an elephant one step at a time, and all the little steps add up to that monumental thing and lead you to, towards that goal that you want one step at a time. Yeah, I like that. So we're going to put a pin in that one too because we'll come back to that okay.

00;10;35;25 - 00;10;59;15 Unknown Because because it is it is it is a mindset. And somewhat of sometimes a conflict for for those that get used to having to achieve even that at some point, the conditioning of even the little things that build up the attention to detail. And, you know, if it's taken out of context of what you're trying to achieve for goals, life goals, professional goals, career goals, educational goals, whatever it is, you could there could be a misstep.

00;10;59;17 - 00;11;23;03 Unknown Yeah. So, so we'll come back to that. So biomedical engineering. Yes. Okay. I had a minor. Computer science. That's amazing. What, what why that what was was there anything leading up to that that get. You had the curiosity? I was a nerd at heart. I got my first home computer. I'm not going to say what it is because I'll date myself.

00;11;23;06 - 00;11;51;14 Unknown I got my first computer at home. Computer. And I fell in love. And I just became all the type of nerdy kid, the popular little nerdy kid that I love computers, I love technology. Ever since I got my first computer and biomedical engineering, I became really. I wanted to help people with computers, and I thought medical would be a great place to help people, to help engineer something that could save somebody's life or make their lives better.

00;11;51;22 - 00;12;25;11 Unknown So that's why I chose it. Got it. Any specific circumstance that had you specifically planned on that, that that you envisioned then and then chose that path, or was it just a general focus area that somehow you were influenced by? I had, I had one of my grandparents killed. They started to fail and I started thinking about people that have things like kidney failure and heart failure and have to be on these different types of like, maybe Dallas machines or different machines that will help them to improve their lives.

00;12;25;11 - 00;12;52;18 Unknown And so that kind of like got me to start thinking, I would love to be a part of people who could engineer stuff like that, to be able to help people to better their lives or correct conditions, possibly that they ran into. Got it. All right. Moving through this, because you laid down a lot. You so so you graduate college and then, help us see where your your mind's at.

00;12;52;18 - 00;13;13;24 Unknown Now, what direction are you pointing at that at that time, Burnout from education a little bit. Being under the guns with such an intense class schedule and just wanted to take the time out, and I wanted to travel, see the world. And I didn't want to pay for it. That's the bottom line. I don't want to pay for it.

00;13;13;26 - 00;13;36;07 Unknown So what job could I get at such a young age that I could go different places and I'll pay for the military? And so I said, okay, the military is great. Out is I didn't see any negative to being in the military because as long as you think with an open mind and don't put yourself in a box, you can turn stuff to your advantage.

00;13;36;10 - 00;13;57;29 Unknown And to me, the military had all the advantages of things that I want, I would have I will get paid. I will have a place to stay that I don't have to pay for. In the barracks, I get food, I stay in shape because I have to run every morning and I go to different countries. I can go to another country, I go to Germany, I can go to Korea, I can go to different places.

00;13;58;02 - 00;14;18;05 Unknown And so it was just it was just college burnout. Yeah. That's a combination I guess is like, well, yeah. So let's all expense paid for a career choice. Maybe. Exactly. What most did you end up? I ended up going and, math. And I ended up going into computers. Okay. When I was in the military and working in signal.

00;14;18;08 - 00;14;35;13 Unknown And so I ended up being the ESL. So when I found out, okay, you went to college for this. Okay. Well, you're going to be a computer person. So I was always doing everything, you know, the the person in the room when you mess up your stuff for your computer. Well, I can't get this done making sure before they call the information system cybersecurity, shall I say, is the new term.

00;14;35;16 - 00;14;54;08 Unknown It was information system security, where you secure it, make sure everything was secure via scans of all the systems going around, making sure all the systems of update. And then once 911 hit, the big cyber word came out. I was like, well, we were doing that before cyber became the buzzword, but now that's the buzzword for it.

00;14;54;08 - 00;15;13;17 Unknown So I've been so I'm kind of dating myself, but, yeah, I was doing it before with the big cyber word. Got it. So I'll help you with the dating yourself and I'll, I'll get in front of that for you. So I remember when I was at Fort Hood, the there are our tech and I forgot his name.

00;15;13;17 - 00;15;37;04 Unknown But our tech for at the time where I was working, he had access to windows. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so the IBM PC, something or other. 386 yeah. That thing with the sloppy disks. Right. So yeah. I, you know, I needed to work and I wanted to work from home and I had one and it, he sit here and he gave me it, but he didn't know what kind of computer I had, but.

00;15;37;04 - 00;15;59;16 Unknown So it was a shot in the dark. It. I literally stayed up, I don't know, 12 hours trying to install that on, on the machine. I never I was never successful because I didn't understand what was going on, but right told me what to do. So yeah, I remember those days when you had, software, hardware, sometimes incompatible issues where you just think it should work and you hoped it would, and sometimes it it didn't do as you did.

00;15;59;23 - 00;16;25;29 Unknown Exactly. Yeah, but that's the fun stuff. Figuring it out, making it work. Absolutely, absolutely. But you have to have the background and I guess the curiosity, like you did right? Okay. So how long how long were you in the Army? Ten years. Ten years. I end up getting out after a few years after my deployment, I came back with a condition that was that I got while I was over there.

00;16;26;01 - 00;16;45;24 Unknown And I ended up being medical out because I couldn't stay, and not because I didn't want to, but because my condition wouldn't allow, was that sorry to hear that? Was that that must have been a conflict. I mean, because you just said you didn't you didn't necessarily want to get out, but you had to get out. So how did that how did that for you?

00;16;45;26 - 00;17;03;06 Unknown It was hard because I felt like I didn't end on my terms. And I'm one of those people. I want to end it on my terms, if at all possible. And it was hard, but then it was the understanding where I had acquired a life threatening situation where just because of the medication I took, made me ineligible to stay in.

00;17;03;11 - 00;17;25;01 Unknown So there was I really had no option to stay in because the medication that would save my life made me ineligible to stay in the military. Well, I can't imagine it was a hard adjustment just knowing that, okay, you're dealing with something that's a big deal. So what I what happened? I ended up coming back with a it's a blood disorder and I just throw random blood clots at any time.

00;17;25;01 - 00;17;47;26 Unknown I can be okay one minute and then I can just get a random blood clot anywhere. And because I had to be on blood thinning medication, it's automatically disqualifier for me. At that time in the military, it was hard dealing with because you're dealing with multiple things, you're dealing with coming back from war. You're dealing with coming back and finding out you have a medical condition that now impacts you for the rest of your life.

00;17;47;29 - 00;18;06;25 Unknown And then you're told that you can't stay in and do your job. So it was a lot to deal with, a lot of disappointment that I had to go through and deal with, amongst other things. Not, like I said, not getting out on my own terms. Okay, Pat, what are you going to do now? How how am I going to manage this disorder when I get out and everything?

00;18;06;27 - 00;18;25;23 Unknown But then I just had, after Phyllis, I guess. Sorry for myself for a smart, had to say. Okay. What's best for you, what's best for your family, what's best for your kids, and how are you going to make the most out of this situation? Because it's easy to lay down and give up. But I'm not a quitter.

00;18;25;23 - 00;18;51;06 Unknown So I fought and I found my path. And then let me do Oracle, I love it. It's somewhat of a conflict because it's it's, you know. So how how are you how's the fight going now? The fight has actually gone do it. I've actually been, my condition is actually really stabilized a lot. So now I don't have as much battles because initially I was in the hospital at least 2 or 3 times a year.

00;18;51;09 - 00;19;08;26 Unknown For extended stays because of it. And I almost died a couple of times, but I fought through. But now I'm in a more stable, the more the most stable, honestly, I've ever been since I've had the condition, which I'm thankful to God for. So everything is actually going really well right now. It's good.

00;19;08;26 - 00;19;18;03 Unknown Dear. Good to hear. I'm glad to have you here. Thank you. Glad I'm still here.

00;19;18;05 - 00;19;47;19 Unknown All right. Maybe for a long time. Yeah. Yes, yes. Here's to that. Okay. So then, so then you get out and now you've, you worked and you talked about three organizations Homeland security, U.S cert and FBI. So let's let's listen to what you what you did. So once I got out I actually the crazy thing about it is I was actually flying home when the Twin Towers that I was in Germany, that's where I got out.

00;19;47;19 - 00;20;09;03 Unknown I was in Germany, were scared to fly home on 911, and we got the news, and I was in the, hotel on base on Rahman Air Base. And, we saw it hit and we were out processing. So we found out that all the airlines were on the ground. The only one that they would let fly back into the United States was Lufthansa.

00;20;09;06 - 00;20;32;23 Unknown And we managed to get on that flight the next day in the chaotic airport, which was filled with everybody from the United States, seemed like they were trying to get home. And I remember being in the airport with my husband and my two kids who were about to turn one, and one was three at this airport attendant. She was like, hold out, hold my hand and don't let go.

00;20;32;23 - 00;20;50;10 Unknown I'll get you through the crowd because you have small kids. And she literally got us through those hundreds and hundreds of people, that car people, and got us to where we could check in so we would be sure to make the flight. So I definitely I'm grateful to her for doing that. And then we kissed the ground when we got back home.

00;20;50;12 - 00;21;10;06 Unknown Oh yeah. And then after that I went to, we're stationed in Hawaii. So I went to Hawaii, where we were at school for our airbase. I got a job working as a federal employee on school for avarice. I started out in chief for, working for the lieutenant colonel there. And then I went to G6 and eventually to G2.

00;21;10;08 - 00;21;33;14 Unknown I worked on Schofield for a while that I moved to, Fort Shafter, where I work with, GCS Global Command and Control Systems for a few years. And then we moved, to Fort Gordon, Georgia, and I worked at the Wounded Warrior Division that they had just, stood up, work there. And then we were doing another move to Virginia.

00;21;33;17 - 00;22;01;02 Unknown So I said, okay, I saw some DHS jobs. I said, okay, I'm applying. I don't know if I'm a get in, I'll apply. So I pay off the NHS and miraculously, before I left Fort Gordon already had an interview to go into Homeland Security and get the job with U.S. cert. But in between this time, I had an unfortunate medical incident that almost took my life, and I was in the hospital for a long time, and I physically, I had a blood clot that was so catastrophic I couldn't walk.

00;22;01;02 - 00;22;19;13 Unknown When I got out of the hospital, I physically couldn't walk, so it took me a while to go from not being able to walk to walking with a walker to a pain, to eventually rehabbing myself. And that happened over probably like a year and a half time where I couldn't just walk on my own. I got to Homeland Security.

00;22;19;13 - 00;22;36;17 Unknown I wanted to U.S. cert. I was on their detection division, so we did things like write the scripts and everything that went into the sensors. We monitor things around the world. I can't say too much about what it was. And when the new center that they had opened for Homeland Security, I actually got to meet Janet Reno myself.

00;22;36;19 - 00;22;59;07 Unknown But it's okay. All right. Janet Reno and President Obama actually came to the facilities when we did the ribbon cutting and everything. So that was a great experience. I work there and for I was there for, I think for like five years and DHS for like five years. And one day I was, came home and I got a call and, he said, this is Charles Gibson from FBI.

00;22;59;07 - 00;23;13;29 Unknown And I was like, stop, right, call on me. I thought it was a prank call because I had never applied for a job at FBI. So I didn't understand how they got my information. And while I was getting a call. So I thought it was a joke. And he was like, no, I'm serious, I'm not joking. And I was like, okay.

00;23;14;02 - 00;23;41;03 Unknown And then he said, I have a job that I think you'd be wonderful for. Are you interested? And I said, oh, I'm saying to myself, of course, is the FBI. Most people would love to get it. So I went in and I interviewed and I stayed at the FBI for about four years at the FBI, worked on the, Cloud First project, working with a lot of cloud vendors to help FBI move their things into the cloud and become more cloud friendly.

00;23;41;09 - 00;24;04;23 Unknown I was over I actually wrote there, cloud security guy and help, for FBI and help wrote some stuff for the secret working, on the, secret site on the cloud and things as well for them. So a lot of, regulations, documentations, a lot of the cyber, Tiger teams like that did the, high three for In the Cloud.

00;24;04;24 - 00;24;32;23 Unknown I was on that Tiger team that produced those high three, requirements. And then, after that was done, that was, that project took a while, a few years because it was big getting them in. And then I said, okay, I want to go see what the civilian sector has to offer. I don't necessarily have to get totally away from government, but I want to work for a civilian company because with the military, everybody knows everything is a little bit more restrictive on what you can and a little less innovative in some ways, not less innovative.

00;24;32;23 - 00;24;56;15 Unknown But there's just more tape for we Go too deep is what's high three. So they're the standards for the FedRAMP. The high three standards are standards that have to be met in order for a cloud service provider to be able to process classified government documents on the system within that cloud. Got it. Did you ever find out how your name got in front of the FBI agent?

00;24;56;15 - 00;25;17;07 Unknown According to this day, I don't know why you didn't ask. They didn't tell me, okay? They didn't tell me. That's great. Yeah. I mean, your brand obviously preceded you at that point or somebody or somebody spoke it somewhere. So yeah, it ended up there. So I mean, you just said it and that's a good one. So it stood out to me.

00;25;17;07 - 00;25;58;18 Unknown So as you're working through the choices you're making and the effort you're putting in and the results that are the outcomes that have occurred based off of what you were doing, how was that working as far as building a reputation, building your brand, getting your name to be recognized as somebody that will be top of mind when they have an open position and they call you, did it ever occur to you, while you were making the choices and doing these jobs, performance, taking on the difficult projects that everybody goes away from seeing, seeing the whole I try to see the whole picture and see what the holes are in it.

00;25;58;20 - 00;26;20;13 Unknown So for instance, like when I went to FBI and I walked in, they had the first project that President Obama had signed for federal organizations going to for almost two years. But because it was so huge, nobody, nobody either wanted to or they didn't have a person that was willing to or with the knowledge to do it because nobody had dealt.

00;26;20;16 - 00;26;42;11 Unknown I guess, with security in that form of going to the cloud or didn't want to learn it. So I took it on and I said, okay, I'll make it happen and made it happen. So it's thinking of I try to think outside the box, okay, my job says this, but my job goes into how does it connected to the other things around me or what the organization does.

00;26;42;14 - 00;27;05;23 Unknown And that's how you see the holes in what you might currently have within your organization. What do I connect to? What is the goal of what what we have to accomplish for an organization? And I think about taking on those things where you have to go and and I had to go and, have meetings with people at the, Google's at the Microsoft, you know, at the Verizon Cloud people.

00;27;05;23 - 00;27;23;10 Unknown I had to deal heavily with Amazon and go to talk to them. Just being willing to put myself out there and be like, okay, I'll take it on, you know, and just not limiting yourself because I found that a lot of people, it's not that they can't do it, is that restriction they put on themselves for the fear of doing what if I mess up?

00;27;23;17 - 00;27;45;00 Unknown Okay, if you mess up, correct it and move on. Most great, lessons I learned were when you make a misstep and then you come up with a, a good comeback. That's better than what you thought before. But a lot of people just limit themselves in their mind because it's all about how you think. It's a mindset now is that it absolutely is mindset, and I love that.

00;27;45;02 - 00;28;13;08 Unknown So the versatility of being able to see things that maybe sometimes others aren't focused on or yeah, you just have what was on the sports. Right. The you see the field of play. You're seeing that is that is that something that you had a stronghold on early in your life, or is that something that just developed over time with your experiences up to that point, to where it refined your ability to see things that others weren't paying attention to?

00;28;13;10 - 00;28;39;18 Unknown I think it came from my parents when I grew up. I was always that really quiet, observing kid. I was a kid that read the encyclopedia and dictionary over the summer just for just for kicks. So that's how nerdy I was. I still am. So it was just always being, always knowing and understanding from my parents. The loudest person in the room is not necessarily the person that knows the most or has the greatest insight.

00;28;39;21 - 00;28;56;26 Unknown Before you speak, take time to step back and hear everything and look at the full picture. And my parents always taught me that, so I always live that way. I don't, and I always tell people I don't speak up much in media initially because I'm trying to assess the room. I'm trying to assess what what's going on and get a complete picture.

00;28;56;29 - 00;29;22;18 Unknown And then that way, in my mind, I can say, okay, well, there's a whole here are this gold with that. And it gives me a clearer picture and a better understanding. And I think that's why I can see the holes. Did you ever encounter anything that that was misunderstood as someone that would just sit back and be quiet meetings and it would be mistaken as some other behavioral component, or, you know, those types of things to where you'd miss out or I've never missed out.

00;29;22;18 - 00;29;41;02 Unknown But I think it initially when I initially do that for a few meetings, people think, well, she doesn't speak up until I open my mouth and I'll tell people, I say, I speak up, I say, but I like to speak with information and inform them to just speak, to be heard, because there's a lot of people speak because they like the sound of their voice.

00;29;41;04 - 00;30;05;02 Unknown That's another thing my parents taught me. Don't speak just to hear your own voice. When you speak, you need to have something to say. And so that's how I kind of got myself. It has it is never hurt me. And then once they work with me, they understand. It's like, oh, she's analyzing everything because I'm very analytical. She's analyzing and looking at everything, and then she's going to speak when she has the information because I don't want to misspeak and be misinformed.

00;30;05;09 - 00;30;27;10 Unknown But to me, that's worse than not speaking at all. Nice. It's probably considered, in my opinion, only my opinion a lost art. I agree the way the way that I believe, the way social media is influenced to feel like we have to, top somebody or, you know, pull out the more extreme now everything has to happen faster.

00;30;27;10 - 00;30;58;10 Unknown And in first, that it kind of interferes with the ability to have that innate ability to do what you just said sit back, observe, absorb, you know, watch things as they occur and then get to a part to where it matters to speak, speak with purpose and then the business sector. And I'll take Oracle as an example to me, like there are a lot of cloud service providers before Oracle came out, right, Amazon hit the ground run and got the first thing with the government, and they were locked in with the government for a while, and they were the big dog with the government.

00;30;58;12 - 00;31;20;02 Unknown But Oracle came up with their cloud and they paid attention. Oracle did the exact same thing that I do, but at a on a corporate scale. Oracle sat back. They watched. They watched the mistakes that others made. They watched with a hole in the gap for an oracle, came in and failed. So they did exactly that. It's almost like a corporate strategy or, you know, a strategy that businesses use.

00;31;20;04 - 00;31;37;23 Unknown You don't have to be first. Look at Apple. Apple, they don't have to be first. Other companies do stuff, but they stand there and they're $1 trillion company because why they let you go make the mistake. Then they come back and they find the holes that you missed. They they correct your mistake and make a even better product.

00;31;37;25 - 00;32;00;14 Unknown The sound bite. This is I'm biased, but not if you know. You know, you nailed it. A lot of times people will say, and I'm absolutely not an expert in this part, but it's just an observation that you don't find that Oracle goes out loud, right. And the smart, you know, the types of marketing is very intentional and deliberate and things like that.

00;32;00;14 - 00;32;23;02 Unknown So, you know, a lot of times people I mean, well, let me ask this. Did you know about Oracle before? Oh yeah. I'm a nerd. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a dumb question of course. Yeah. But Oracle is the quiet kid in the room. Oracle was the quiet kid in a room observing. They were there, observed in one during their analysis paying attention and that everybody was like, okay, they're quiet, so they must not be doing anything.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;47;15 Unknown But Oracle was working in the background. They weren't the loud kid on the bus saying, yeah, I'm doing this. And they were like, they're the quiet kid taking notes, being observant. And then they just moved in silently. Got it. So FBI change. Yeah. Now you're looking at the next move, KPMG. And when I worked for KPMG, what made you go there?

00;32;47;18 - 00;33;18;21 Unknown They had a job that was really interesting to me. That I wanted to do, I wanted to move out into the civilian sector and make a difference there. But knowing that because of my clearance level that of course I was going to be involved in government stuff as well. Still, which was fine. So I moved to KPMG and I was with KPMG for like three years, and I left and I went to another cyber company that was veteran owned, and what pulled me to that was because it was better or no, it's called Invictus.

00;33;18;24 - 00;33;35;25 Unknown And I went there because it was better and on. And I like the fact that it was veteran owned. They came in, they offered me another position that ended, I had a contract that worked with Dia them worked on some projects, and they had the contract. And so I ended up getting laid off during the Covid for like seven months.

00;33;35;27 - 00;34;01;11 Unknown So in between that seven months, once again, don't know how I got a call from Oracle Recruiter. I don't know where that came from either. I imagine it was probably my LinkedIn profile. I could say. And they reached out. Her name was Ryan and she was very, very upfront with what Oracle was looking for. She was very upfront with the process, the amount of interviews, and Oracle was getting their certification during that time, she said.

00;34;01;11 - 00;34;25;19 Unknown So she said, I'm gonna be honest with you, we're going under this so our interviewers might be busy. It might take a while, but if you're just hold on, we're serious about the offer, basically. But just let me know if you decide to take something or if another organization is looking for you. And at the time, I was actually the, Situation Room at the white House, I was under consideration for that position, and I actually interviewed for it.

00;34;25;19 - 00;34;47;07 Unknown I actually got it. And I told Ryan and I thought about I got it and I accepted it, and I was like, okay, white House Situation Room Oracle. Then I said, after I accepted it two days later, I, rescinded my acceptance because I wanted the opportunity. I saw in my mind the opportunity of Oracle being greater than working in the white House Situation Room.

00;34;47;09 - 00;35;03;07 Unknown I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, because a lot of people will be like, why would you take why would you rescind the offer to the Situation Room? Because of its high bids. And you you get to do this, that and the other, and you're in this place as where all these political people and you'll be able to see this.

00;35;03;09 - 00;35;26;14 Unknown And that was an important to me. The thing about it is, if I'd work for all the big three letter organizations and partnerships with projects and things, so how does that benefit and how is that going to benefit my career going forward outside of that aspect? How was it going to grow me as an engineer? How is it going to grow me as a person in my skillset?

00;35;26;20 - 00;35;47;20 Unknown It wouldn't, but Oracle would. The Oracle would give me that ability to work on these different projects to expand my different horizons, to be to be able to work in stuff that like, generative AI are the new up and coming technologies where I wouldn't get that in a white House situation. I'd get what I've always been working on for the past several years for most of my life.

00;35;47;27 - 00;36;05;29 Unknown And the federal system. But Oracle gave me something different to actually go out into all civilian areas and access areas that I wouldn't be able to access. Working with the situation Room. Got it. So I was going to I was going to take a minute to go back to. I was like, well, yeah, your LinkedIn profile probably contributed to it.

00;36;05;29 - 00;36;31;27 Unknown But we had some pretty good recruiters also, and it seemed, it seems though, that, although that is true, that is more interesting thing to cover real quick. And you landed on this and I love that you did, because the fact is, it's what you want. And I think that if we kind of peek into transition in the components and you've transitioned several times, so not just from the military, but even for that, you know, you transition from high school mindset into a military environment.

00;36;32;04 - 00;36;51;24 Unknown It's a different mindset to come back to high school, to go back to the military and then go to college. And then, I mean, all of that shift in focus and attention. It's no wonder you just ended that statement with, this is why I chose this path, is because it's going to give you the things that you want, and you landed on that.

00;36;51;26 - 00;37;19;20 Unknown How did you land on that specifically to know exactly where you can assert, probably arguably, just for context, two of the most significant choices, one could ever have at the white House or private sector. For me, I looked at the the long haul. And when I say that, I mean the long haul. For your security as a person, what do you want as a person?

00;37;19;23 - 00;37;37;29 Unknown It goes back to kind of like the Lao kid in a room versus the silent kid, right? The white House working on the white House Situation Room. Okay, plenty of publicity. You can be in the limelight. You can be in the thick of things. You can be in that in that area. But with that comes a lot of extra stress on top of a job.

00;37;38;06 - 00;37;56;01 Unknown Right? Just being in that environment and all that entails. So I was like, yeah, that would be nice. But I don't really I'm not I need to be in the limelight, at the forefront with my name, shine and type person. I'm the type person. I can work. I can work silently in the background and I'm happy either way.

00;37;56;03 - 00;38;42;19 Unknown But to me, because of who Oracle is of the organization, what they've done already knew about Larry Ellison and and just how they were as a company. To me, that value was more than anything, knowing that I will have the opportunity to work on innovative technology to move forward, that can make changes and everything, and just how people use their computer and how people with disabilities use the computer, and how you research thing and how just everybody, elderly people might use a computer or RC computers and how we store that data and secure that data at a more global scale, because not everybody is going to be on a a federal system.

00;38;42;19 - 00;39;06;10 Unknown So, okay, once we lock down, they're locked in. But what about everybody else in the world? What about your kids and your grandkids? You know, how are they being able to touch them? Because I worked and done this presentation on something called Cyber Kids before teaching kids about the security of the internet and the pitfalls of the internet and how to stay safe, and how parents can keep their kids safe online.

00;39;06;12 - 00;39;31;16 Unknown So an organization like Oracle would let me do that more, and it would also let me defend it against those bad actors. Like I had when I was in U.S.. So I can kind of do the military thing without of being military. That's amazing that because that it's hard to say because I don't want to consume time on it here, because it it's hard to believe that it's, you know, sometimes people will say that they hear what you just said and they'll be like, okay.

00;39;31;18 - 00;39;56;02 Unknown But the the depth of what the words are that you just talked about to explain the purpose and and again, it's a biased perspective, but, you know, the things that Oracle's involved in and how how far and how deep these things contribute to the things that we take for granted and simplicity of those things. I mean, you certainly oversimplified it with the depth of all the complexities.

00;39;56;02 - 00;40;19;23 Unknown You know, it's all of these bigger institutions. Yeah, but what about these? And yeah, the folks that are easy to be lost in the shuffle because it's, you know, not big money, not big opportunity, whatever the reason is. And so you got to focus on these, these other little areas that are very specific to how we operate as a, as a global economic contributor to not only society, but things in general, education and whatnot.

00;40;19;23 - 00;40;46;22 Unknown So how excited of Shift gears, how excited are you with the the AI project? Oh, I haven't worked on a much. I've looked into the generative AI here I was on I got a free beat into it here. But Oracle, I'm very excited to eventually put on another bigger project that I'm working for our team right now for Oracle and I what I see of what Oracle's doing is exciting, but every little piece that Oracle is putting in place is a big picture.

00;40;46;22 - 00;41;04;10 Unknown Plan is like the like I said, it's bytes from the elephant that all stalk all strategically place and for everybody else is like I have to be the first one and I'm gonna put it out. But you're putting out a subpar product. It looks good. It's shiny, it works, you know, for the most part, but it's missing some depth to it.

00;41;04;13 - 00;41;23;13 Unknown And Oracle, that was again that kid in the background that paid attention. And they're strategically placing their chips. So foundationally they're going to be more set. They're going to have more of the bases covered. And it's going to all feed into that big picture of what Oracle has and what they want to move. And so the future got it.

00;41;23;13 - 00;41;52;28 Unknown So as we kind of segue and transition out now that we just talked about that and having been here over three years, what are you doing here at Oracle? I'm a principal security engineer with the Threat Voluntarily Management team, where we deal with the different threats and vulnerabilities that are out there using the, cvss vulnerability listing and things that come out with our teams and helping teams to make sure that their systems are secure and within compliance.

00;41;52;28 - 00;42;17;13 Unknown So that's where I'm working right now. Got it. And what are you what are you interested in in the future? What do you have your sights on since your ambition and all of your, aspirations have clearly been indicated in this conversation? What's next? What are you looking to do, either on the next project or in addition to what you're what you're working on now, the next project or things after this?

00;42;17;13 - 00;42;42;21 Unknown I would like to do, I would like to get more into the I feel more to involved in seeing how Oracle's generative AI functions and getting some getting involved in that. That would be the next big thing that I would like to delve into. Got it. So going back to the pin, were earlier you were you were talking about one step at a time and I'm just, paraphrasing.

00;42;42;21 - 00;43;06;05 Unknown So when we transition and this is somewhat of a message to those that are still serving or maybe got out recently, or maybe not even recently, but they're, they're in a situation I wouldn't call them stuck, but they're contemplating the next move. What do you recommend is the kind of this the high level steps to follow to to to help them just achieve what it is that they're trying to do.

00;43;06;07 - 00;43;30;04 Unknown I think one of the biggest things that I've noticed that a lot of military have in the transition, and it's hard because first of all, the military is its own world. How you think about things and how you, carry things out in the military is different than a civilian sector. And I think a big part of transitioning is has to be a mindset shift from military to civilian.

00;43;30;06 - 00;43;53;25 Unknown And a lot I don't think enough of that is talked about because it's a harsh you have to make, especially if you're a person in leadership, your, NCO or officer, and you're used to giving orders. Well, the civilian sector doesn't necessarily work in that way, and you're very structured on rank structure. And the military, a lot of times civilian sector doesn't work that way.

00;43;53;25 - 00;44;27;12 Unknown You can be talking to SVP and you just might be a regular I.T person and they'll talk to you there. There's more. Yeah, we have this rank, but we're kind of flat. We respect that you are that SVP but I'm still a person right. And a lot of it is the transition to how honestly the civilian sector no longer sees the military, who you are as a military person, and that is part of your identity as a person is being sergeant such and such are major, such and such in the in whatever service.

00;44;27;14 - 00;44;49;03 Unknown That is who you are. That was your identity. Well, when you step away from the military and you retire, you get out. You no longer have that identity. That's not it's part of who you are personally. But the world doesn't see that. You know, as long as you're in the world of the Army or whatever military or service, they see that because you wear it every day, you wear that rank every day.

00;44;49;06 - 00;45;12;18 Unknown But the world doesn't see that. So it's not taken into account, you know, so they don't see you as that person. They see you as civilian Peter Smith, you know, or whoever. That's that's what they see. So when your transitioning from the military to the civilian sector, the mindset needs to be is how do I want the civilian sector to see me?

00;45;12;20 - 00;45;47;20 Unknown How am I going to present myself as a civilian? What skill do I need to have in place while I'm transitioned, or do I need to work on years in advance, whether it be certification, finishing my degree, and all of that? What can I get? While I'm still in the last 3 to 5 years to get completed so I can present myself the way I want to be present in the civilian sector and kind of like have those milestones in place when you know you're getting out, and then if you don't have the luxury of doing it for planning out there for years and you get out unexpectedly, then okay, what are my next steps?

00;45;47;20 - 00;46;10;21 Unknown What do I need to do to make myself competitive in whatever field it is I want from a civilian perspective, not from what I did in the military, but just as a sheer civilian. What are the things that I need to do to project myself the correct way and to make myself formidable in the marketplace? Just ask Plano Pat Smith, not Sergeant Smith, you know.

00;46;10;24 - 00;46;39;22 Unknown So that's that's the first step I would do and then go do those things one step at a time. You don't have to you don't have to defeat all this at once. One step at a time. Little things, making sure that you have a good resume that's well-written. Make sure all those classes or courses that you might have taken in the military, if they convert over to knowledge in the civilian sector as a part of a knowledge base, make sure you convert that over to civilian knowledge, because that counts.

00;46;39;25 - 00;46;58;22 Unknown And we don't think in the military, some of the stuff that we did, we think is regular everyday stuff, and we take the classes, whether it be computer classes, whether it be other engineering, whatever, because it's just part of the job and dealing with the equipment that we deal with. So we don't take it into consideration. But that converts over to to a civilian course somewhere.

00;46;58;25 - 00;47;15;24 Unknown So take advantage of doing that. And the biggest thing is the mindset. And then you don't have to do everything all at once in the military use okay, get it done. Just make it happen. But you can take time out on civilians like, okay, how do I need to go? Where do I need to go? What steps do I need to take?

00;47;15;27 - 00;47;34;21 Unknown Research those steps, research those things on whatever job it is you need to do if you want to be a nurse. Okay. What nursing school? Can I be an LPN first and just go to a technical college for 18 months and get my LPN and then work towards getting my degree so I can be a RA? Or can I go and be a CNA and do steps?

00;47;34;23 - 00;47;51;13 Unknown You know what I mean? To, to kind of like not shake your life up as much as, as much as possible to make a smooth transition. Put those baby steps in there, whereas the Oregon is the ultimate goal. But if you get out and you get a CNA position, you can still work towards your LPN degree at night.

00;47;51;16 - 00;48;10;09 Unknown Then you got your LPN and well, you can work for your R.N. license and make it as steps instead of big projects. And I say that's not a stressful dealing with the transition and ask questions. Research stuff on the internet. Find people that you might know that are in your field that are not in the military. Talk to them.

00;48;10;11 - 00;48;28;01 Unknown Hear what they have to say. Listen to the things that they say, okay, you need to have this, but reach out to people. Form a network of people that are already in there that you might know, because there might be other people, even in the military, there might know of people that are transitioning out or have people that they know in the civilian sector that can give you some pointers and find a mentor.

00;48;28;04 - 00;48;54;22 Unknown Find a mentor of somebody that's already transitioned out that can help you through and take advantage of. Some of the VA does have programs for transition. Take advantage of those things. I know it might seem small, but every little bit of assistance in transitioning that you can get the better. So take advantage of those things because it'll it'll it'll it'll help change your mindset and make the transition easier for you.

00;48;54;25 - 00;49;19;29 Unknown That was amazing. Okay. And and I'm not I mean, you hit all of the bigger items. The check check the not check boxes because it's difficult identity. That's that's probably the first one. And this is not for me. It's not debatable for some that maybe you don't have yet realized it like you have. Identity is the number one prevention from moving through the other things that you talked about is deciding, remembering.

00;49;20;03 - 00;49;42;10 Unknown You were you were somebody before you hit the rank or the command or things like that. And that's what people will, will look at. So I love this. So identity the mindset shift to understand identity, skill development, networking relations, shipbuilding versus networking. Networking is different. Very intentional very specific thing which is fine. But relationship building is the other thing.

00;49;42;10 - 00;50;08;12 Unknown Yes. And that's probably the the distinction. And then of course the planning of being able to once you identify all of these different components, you plan for it work the plan and go. Exactly. Yeah. Pat Smith, I love the way that you stated these things in such a methodical way in order. It explains exactly the path that you kind of walked us through.

00;50;08;14 - 00;50;36;03 Unknown I enjoyed the conversation. I appreciate you making time. Any final thoughts for anybody listening? Now I just want to say thank you for having me on the podcast, Chris. I really appreciate it. Oh you bet. And then thank you. I'm grateful that, we were able to connect. I do love the way that Maven does their stuff internally to where even for us, it introduces folks that right beneath our nose, we have a lot of relationships that we still need to continue making and creating connections.

00;50;36;03 - 00;50;49;16 Unknown So, it's a pleasure to have met you and had this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you Chris, you have a great rest of your day. You too tired at one? Keep moving forward.

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His leadership journey shaped by early family influences and a strong sense of service, Howie graduated from the US Naval Academy where he commissioned into the United States Marine Corps and spent his entire enlistment overseas learning what it truly takes to lead by example. Howie shares valuable lessons on navigating change, building community, and thinking strategically about your next steps—especially when transitioning careers. From "trust but verify" to embracing optimism and knowing when to say no, Howie’s leadership philosophy puts mission and people first. Coming to Oracle through our Oracle Veteran Internship Program, known also as OVIP, Howie is bringing those same principles to his role, and we’re excited to see what he’ll accomplish next. Howie's Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hmchan16/ Oracle Veteran Info - https://www.oracle.com/careers/culture-inclusion/veterans/#rc30veteran Service 2 School - https://www.service2school.org/ Microsoft's MSSA Tech Bootcamp - https://military.microsoft.com/mssa/

Breakline - https://breakline.org/

FourBlock - https://fourblock.org/

-------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;47;19 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by Howie Chan, Oracle senior technical program manager and former United States Marine. His leadership journey, shaped by early family influences and a strong sense of service, led Howie to graduate from the United States Naval Academy, where he commissioned into the United States Marine Corps and spent his entire overseas learning what it truly takes to lead by example, how he shares valuable lessons on navigating change, building community, and thinking strategically

00;00;47;19 - 00;01;09;09 Unknown about your next steps, especially when transitioning careers from trust but verify to embracing optimism and knowing when to say no. How his leadership philosophy puts mission in people first. Coming to Oracle through Oracle's veteran internship program, known also as over how he's bringing those same principles to his role, and we're excited to see what to accomplish next. We have all we need to become the person we want to be.

00;01;09;09 - 00;01;29;17 Unknown So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Howie's contact details in the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Good morning Howie. How's it going?

00;01;29;19 - 00;01;49;11 Unknown Hey, Chris. Pretty good man. How about yourself? Doing all right? Thanks. Yep. It's, the beginning of the week, and it's early. Not real early, but early enough to get to get us a good baseline to have a great conversation. Sure. Now, I appreciate your time. Happy to do this. Yeah. No. Likewise. And, you know, for everybody listening.

00;01;49;11 - 00;02;08;22 Unknown You know, how he's how he joined us through one of our hiring channels. And I'll let him elaborate on those things and, and talk about how it is that we came to meet and what we're talking about today. But before we get there, Howie, tell us a little bit about you. So, yeah, my name is Howie Chan. I was born in the South.

00;02;08;29 - 00;02;27;29 Unknown I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and most of my life in Huntsville, Alabama. From there, I went to the U.S. Naval Academy and commissioned into the US Marine Corps as a communications and signals officer. Over the last 70 years in capacity. So my entire career overseas, three and half years in Asia, three and half years in the Middle East.

00;02;28;01 - 00;02;51;18 Unknown I got the Marine Corps at the end of 2022 and took a travel sabbatical in 2023, traveling the globe from there. Joined Oracle, through Oracle's veteran internship program, over last year. So grateful to the Lord for opened a door to be able to do a current internship to a full time offer. But, that's essentially how I got here, was through Oracle's veteran internship program.

00;02;51;20 - 00;03;25;03 Unknown Got it. No. It's great. So Knoxville, Was it was what was growing up in Knoxville like for you, you know, how did that lead to Huntsville? Yeah. Candidly, you know, I was I was I was on there Knoxville til I was about seven years old. I've one older brother and my dad being a medical doctor, he had a really crazy work schedule and so when my brother and in middle school, my dad was on called time or, like, on duty all the time, and my brother mentioned, like he wanted to see my dad were often and we wanted to be doing more family things.

00;03;25;03 - 00;03;45;26 Unknown And so my dad made the decision to move our family from Knoxville, Tennessee down to Huntsville, Alabama for better work life fit, and he was able to find that. And that's how we end up moving from Knoxville to Huntsville. But but yeah, I've been in the South once all my life that that makes that so. So about how old were you when when you went to Huntsville.

00;03;45;28 - 00;04;16;14 Unknown That was that. 77878778. Yeah. How was how was that transition from Knoxville to Huntsville as far as friends and going to school and things like that? I think naturally, you know, when you're in a new environment, it's always a challenge initially up front, but you're able to make things work. But, after getting acquainted, I was able to make new friends and build a community and then take those lessons over time as we gotten older and take it to our life today.

00;04;16;17 - 00;04;38;21 Unknown That's you could transplant that and building a community, adapting basically as an eight year old, the same way as you can do as an 18 year old, in a 28 year old and so we'll, we'll come back to that part because it's we got to talk about that. Right. As a as as the veteran affiliated community. We have to talk about that.

00;04;38;24 - 00;04;59;10 Unknown So growing up, what made you go to the Naval Academy? What kind of get us to the part of where you're saying, this is what I want to do, no less? Definitely a fair question. Actually, I would say, you know, look at my family. We come from a family of service. I actually had two cousins who were in the military commission through the U.S. Naval Academy.

00;04;59;12 - 00;05;20;13 Unknown Cousin John, in 1999, you know, joined the nuclear submarine force. And my cousin Mickey, who commission in 2005 joined NSW in the Naval Special Warfare. As part of the teams, the Navy Seal teams, for about 20 years. But they were positive influences in my life and I think we can all relate to that one family friend or uncle relative who joined the military.

00;05;20;15 - 00;05;39;12 Unknown And yeah, I mean, ideally positive influences. But you know, for the fact for my two cousins, they were excellent role models for me. And so whenever they had their spring break or fall break, they would come visit my family, either in Huntsville, Alabama or Knoxville at that time. And yeah, I always loved them. And I view them as like older brothers and mentors.

00;05;39;12 - 00;06;03;02 Unknown And when I came to, actually thinking about the service, the I just reached out to them and they, they said like, hey, you know, you're looking for a great education. You're also looking to also serve the country and give back. Why not go for like the service academies, whether it's the Naval Camera, West Point. And so looking at the different branches, you know, I definitely wanted to other join either the Navy or the Marine Corps.

00;06;03;02 - 00;06;25;06 Unknown And so the Naval Academy, it made the most sense for me. What year was what year is that when you went to the Naval Academy? I was in the Naval Academy from 2012 to May 2016. Yeah, it's you have 2012 to 2016. What kind of prep does it take for someone to make that choice? How early do you need to think about that and land on a path that gets you ready?

00;06;25;09 - 00;06;47;16 Unknown I would say maybe a year and a half to two years and advance. So I think for those who are considering the service academy path, whether they're in high school or even a few years removed from high school because the, the, the maximum age you can join is 23 years old or so. They do accept prior listed folks to actually commission through the service academies until 23 years old.

00;06;47;18 - 00;07;06;18 Unknown Yeah, I would recommend roughly about a year and a half to two years, I think, definitely assessing where you are at physically. There's also a component where besides completing the college application to other than Naval County, West Point or other academies, you also need a a political nomination that's from your congressman, your senator or the vice president president.

00;07;06;21 - 00;07;24;15 Unknown And so they have their own each of those different buckets, they all have their own timelines roughly. They're similar, but they can be nuanced differently based on their own, timelines. But you also have to go through on vetting process to get a nomination so you can complete all the, you know, college applications. You can complete the physical tests.

00;07;24;15 - 00;07;50;26 Unknown There's also there's a physical test component as well too. You can do all those things, but you don't have a political nomination, whether it's your senator or your congressman or vice president, you're not allowed to, receive an appointment to attend one of those academies when you're in. For those that aren't quite familiar with how how the assignment works, because some might hear you say, Naval Academy and I was assigned and then the Marine Corps walk us through the process of where you end up, what branch holistically.

00;07;50;26 - 00;08;07;05 Unknown I mean, the U.S. AmeriCorps is part of a Department of Navy, whether we'd like to admit that or not, but we are. But the Naval Academy is the commissioning source, both for the Navy and the Marine Corps. If you're choosing the service academy as the route of commissioning, roughly, you start with a class of 1200 your freshman year, a year, like we call it.

00;08;07;05 - 00;08;34;05 Unknown And by the time you you graduate, your first year or senior year, there's usually a thousand. And so roughly 75%. So about 750 commissioned US Navy, whereas the other 250, that 25% you commissioned to US Marine Corps. And so the summer and your senior year at the Naval Academy is like they like the justification. Usually there's like an assessment to see like which and validate like which branch of service you like to be a part of or interested in.

00;08;34;05 - 00;09;02;07 Unknown And then based on your academic standings, your performance during that summer, military training, the summer prior to entering your senior year, come the mid fall timeframe, that's when you find out which, branch that you'll be a part of. But for me, I really gravitate towards the US Marine Corps because being exposed to highly, qualified senior leaders, and also officers at the least at the Naval Academy, I was just really drawn to the Marine Corps, especially just the caliber folks.

00;09;02;14 - 00;09;18;05 Unknown Their motivation, it was just infectious. And I want to be part of that environment and be challenged. And, you know, for for me, I seen these people, what they're doing. I want to join one of the toughest branches and Marine Corps. It seemed to be a great fit for me. So it was the people that the calling, the challenges.

00;09;18;07 - 00;09;36;07 Unknown And I would say those are the two things because of what really drew me to the Marine Corps. Yeah, yeah. You got did you hear that cry? Just the battle cry right now while the Marines just celebrating your choice. The words that you just chose to use for sure. So what happens after that? So you get now you're in senior year.

00;09;36;07 - 00;09;57;09 Unknown You know you're going to the Marines. When do you when do you learn what your your job, your role will be whether you graduate from the Naval Academy or or another publicly accredited university, all Marine Corps officers, they all we all get sent to Quantico, Virginia at the 26 week program called the Basic School, where we all learn how to be provisional rifle platoon commanders.

00;09;57;11 - 00;10;26;15 Unknown And so roughly, that's a six month training pipeline. And by the last month or two, you have to rack and stack based on the list of like 26 different places or different job specialties. What we like to consider. And then based on your academic standings, the ratings for the Marine Corps change, they kind of went through like a, a tiered system, like a 1/33, three third, there's a happy quality spread, but it's fluctuated in terms of based on performance versus a tiered system to have a quality spread.

00;10;26;15 - 00;10;43;09 Unknown So someone who's more and more recently and would have a better understanding. But at the time they did a quality spread for our class. So what I mean by that is like, let's say that there's a class of 300. There's like tiered slots. It's like one bucket number one's for the first 100, second bucket for next, and so on.

00;10;43;11 - 00;11;00;12 Unknown They did not want to have particular job specialties to be all lopsided with all like top performers. Otherwise all the other molasses and chop specialties were going to be neglected. So they did a quality spread where, you know, you could be ranked number one and get your first choice. You'd be ranked number 200 and get your first choice.

00;11;00;12 - 00;11;21;17 Unknown You can be like number 300 bomb blast. Let's look at your first choice as well too. But the point being, though, the intent was to have a quality spread where you have high performers across all embassies. So, that was the mindset at that time in 2016 they may be doing today, I'm not sure, but at that time that we chose for me, I got my first choice, which was communication signals for me.

00;11;21;17 - 00;11;40;17 Unknown My preference is I want to be close to technology. I want to be close to being platoons of Marines and actually lead based on, you know, based on leadership development from the Naval Academy and also from coming from the Bates School in Quantico. And the main MOS is word you have the opportunity to do that were either two infantry logistics or communications and signals.

00;11;40;17 - 00;11;58;19 Unknown And so for me, it was a no brainer to choose one of those three. And I was able to get my top five choice of the comms signals. And that's where my journey began. Like it. Were you surprised after after that you had initial understanding of what? What that what do we call job classification? MOS yeah, we call them lessons with.

00;11;58;19 - 00;12;16;21 Unknown Did anything surprise you once you got into the C and you started leading the Marines and actually fulfilling the obligations of the role, any surprises? Oh, man, there's more surprises all the time. I would say that initially the impression we were going to the fleet after all this train, it's like, all right, I got all my act together, all the training.

00;12;16;21 - 00;12;49;01 Unknown And when you show up to your first unit and mission said you actually have no idea what you're doing at first. But that's why you have good NCO, you have good advisors, and you also have good officers, ideally to come alongside you and walk you through the process to teach you the process and systems of how the record does business and the particular with each unit, you know, whether you're in the Pacific or you're in the West Coast or East Coast, each unit has their own preference of how they do business, and so over a period of time, ideally, you'll be able to mold and adapt to that, to that team and unit, to be

00;12;49;01 - 00;13;09;00 Unknown able to use your skills that that's been developed to more through that. And yeah, it's definitely a growing process and learning process. And, you know, I can definitely say that I learned a lot of what to do as a leader, what not to do as leader. And and just have a and in due time, be able to grow my understanding of how the Marine Corps operates and the bigger picture.

00;13;09;03 - 00;13;39;29 Unknown Top three lessons learned. What are they who, number wants to trust but verify? It's a good one. I would say the second one would be it's okay to say no and learn how to have boundaries to, push back within reason. And that's a that's a growing skill. Let's continue that. That's a hard one. But I would say the third one would be just to have an optimistic attitude because, and just roll with the punches.

00;13;39;29 - 00;13;58;08 Unknown So, transmit, verify, learn how to say no. And if there is, I have enough in the sky too. I think those are those can go a long way. Yeah, those those are good ones. You have any one cert? Put you on the spot. You have any one circumstance that where you recall as an example of any one of those three.

00;13;58;11 - 00;14;13;04 Unknown Yeah. I would say trust but verify. I mean it is my first unit. I learned what to do or what not to do it later. I think Trump's a new lieutenant coming to a unit. There's an expectation that you're supposed to learn quickly and perform at the same time. You don't really know anything at the same time.

00;14;13;04 - 00;14;32;08 Unknown Depending on different units. Sometimes some units are under-resourced, both manpower and equipment. And so you just have to learn how to figure it out and you have to work do with what you had. And so the situation where I was was I didn't have a senior leader initially. And so I don't rely a lot on a bunch of, of NCOs along the time process.

00;14;32;08 - 00;14;51;24 Unknown And of course, and with rank and experience, there are things that people are aware of, things aren't, they're not aware of. And so I worked with what I had at the time. I was really grateful to those engineers because they understood where I was coming from. And they also at the same time. And so it was like a balance between trusting them but also verifying with them.

00;14;51;27 - 00;15;12;18 Unknown But I'm very grateful to them from those experiences because we went through a lot together. And whether it's unit inspections coming down from Marine Corps to just supporting different military exercises across the region, I would say that first unit, during that first term was pivotal in terms of development as an officer, in terms of, yeah, trusting but verify and learning how to have an optimistic attitude.

00;15;12;18 - 00;15;30;11 Unknown And it's it's such a lot of tough situations and also learn how to say no. Which it actually helped me out later down the road towards my second to our lot. So I think often back about that first tour, a lot has been pivotal to to follow up. So that so where was your first assignment? I wanted to travel and see the world.

00;15;30;16 - 00;16;09;28 Unknown And so I made a point. Prior to go to Okinawa, Japan was my first choice for the Marine Corps. And I would say that that first unit was with the Marine Wing, Communication Squadron 18. That's based over on Camp Foster and Okinawa, Japan. Basically, their main mission is to provide communications for first marine aircraft, weighing whether it's with tilt rotor aircraft such as Beat Ospreys or skids like Cobras, Vipers, whatnot, or depending on which unit, fixed wings the power of you're attached to the units, but holistically is to provide communication support for the aircraft component of the Marine Corps and the commanding general who supports, first of all, so that was the

00;16;09;28 - 00;16;41;24 Unknown main mission, part of that mission to after I got experience, I've able to commander and eventually pivoted to me becoming an independent S6 or independent, I guess. Trusted advisor, communications advisor for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is, for a continuous deployed unit over in the Pacific that provides a variety of mission profiles for our nation, whether it's from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to our partners in region or providing a lot of power combat power capabilities for our nation and our partner allies within region as well, too, in terms of deterrence.

00;16;41;27 - 00;17;02;14 Unknown But those were the main to mission to the surface. MEU but holistically, that's where I was. So Okinawa, Japan Brewing Communication Squadron 18, eventually, after getting some experience, then pushed a three person view which postured me up for later going down to Middle East later. But I loved every bit of it. I love, I love traveling, and I definitely was able to travel and see the world during that time.

00;17;02;20 - 00;17;27;14 Unknown So learning from your senior and CEOs, maybe some junior NCOs and how Marines are sometimes any pranks shenanigans that you remember when they know that we have a new lieutenant coming in, we're going to show them some ropes, but no, actually had a good bunch. I definitely had to get my employee to our pranks on me. I think it takes time to build rapport.

00;17;27;14 - 00;17;48;06 Unknown And I think that what really built rapport between myself and them and trust me, and going to continuous requests, just they knew the pressure that I was going through. And you sure that giant cared for their well-being? And even though I may have been during my initial my first time being a leader at that situation, they were very forgiving.

00;17;48;08 - 00;18;05;24 Unknown Like, okay, I know they recognize that how he's going through some pressures will work through it, but over a period of time over that year and a half, we really trust each other a lot. You know, they've been never back, you know, just to help me out. You know, as engineers, the main four three Mandela Kowski, Seth Low, Chad Allen, very grateful to them.

00;18;05;26 - 00;18;26;01 Unknown There were corporals and sergeants at the time, E45 but, they were definitely the glue for that. And also my platoon sergeant, Dajuan Phillips and Solis and others. But, they were pivotal in terms of, you know, if I didn't have them. Oh my gosh, I would not have been successful at all. So I'm a product of their success.

00;18;26;03 - 00;18;48;26 Unknown Yeah. That's that's good answer. Support. No better friend. Right. 90% 90%. But I know there's something in there that you don't let you leave it out. So we'll just leave it at though because you're, you're you're doing the right thing. So your second, second, duty station was that, that was in Bahrain in the Middle Eastern.

00;18;48;28 - 00;19;07;26 Unknown I knew that, my time being a camo comms and signal officer that do you location preferences in terms of going to Middle East and being attached? Was pretty limited, but at the time, moving from Japan to the Middle East, my three options were Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. I put that in and that particular preference order.

00;19;07;29 - 00;19;25;07 Unknown And I came Bahrain, which candidly at the time I was pretty ignorant. I was like, I don't even know where the country Bahrain sat. I know what Saudi Arabia is. I've heard of the UAE, I know where Bahrain is. And so after going some googling everything to figure out of all small, tiny kingdom just to the east of Saudi Arabia, but I am going to Bahrain.

00;19;25;07 - 00;19;54;07 Unknown And as Palmer sent G6 or Marine Central Command G essentially in that role, I was providing it communication support for all Marine Corps forces across the entire Middle East region. So whether it's supporting SPE, Mac, Taft, special purpose Mac tasks, or supporting any marine as you come into theater, what is the 22nd you 26, me or whoever? There's a joint Naval Marine Corps command called Task Force 51 five or Task Force 51 from the Navy, joint with a fifth Marine Expeditionary gave them Marine Corps.

00;19;54;10 - 00;20;18;05 Unknown But essentially, these folks would take control of this joint, any Marine Corps forces that come in the region. So I was there from 2020 to 2022. That was a zone challenge by itself. But definitely my first four experience definitely helped posture me to be better equipped of how to support that mission. And I also had, some great teammates as well too, in order to make that successful.

00;20;18;05 - 00;20;36;07 Unknown But the Middle East Centcom was my second choice, and I was able to continue my passion of traveling, seeing the world and doing so in the Middle East. Nice. Yeah, that's that's a good it's a good mix. I mean, it's, it's a long time though. So that's where with two you said three and two. Yeah. Three and two.

00;20;36;07 - 00;20;54;17 Unknown So I was about three and a half. Yeah. December 2017 one to August 2020 was for Japan. And then from August 2022 till November 2022, that was, in the Middle East. Got it. What are some of the some of the key things that you learned now that you had the what's lengthy times in each of those locations, but different experiences, I'm sure.

00;20;54;17 - 00;21;18;10 Unknown So what what was the beginning of where you started to recognize whether or not you were going to continue on reenlist or, choose to transition out? You know, every servicemember goes through that transition work, whether you're to your first enlistment after your fourth four years, if you're a junior military officer, in terms of initial five years or so, I think we all have that conversation.

00;21;18;13 - 00;21;33;03 Unknown And so, you know, I recognize that people come from different units, right? Some of them may have a really positive experience, some you really have a really crappy experience. And so that really dictates and shapes people's decision process of whether they want to get the heck out as soon as possible or they really love it. And if we continue it.

00;21;33;04 - 00;21;52;01 Unknown So I do recognize that it's going to vary for different people. But I enjoyed my time as much as it was challenging. And I made the decision point. Probably as I was moving to the Middle East, I was thinking about myself. Do I want to go back to Okinawa to become a company commander and join, third Marine Division in terms of that track, you know, career trajectory?

00;21;52;01 - 00;22;14;23 Unknown Or should I pivot and just pivot to the private sector and I was leaning probably a 6040 split initially, 60% up getting out, 40% staying in, while I was in Middle East, mainly because I had some family circumstances. My family, and something I didn't mention earlier is that after my, you know, after I went to college, my folks became empty nesters and moved from Alabama to California.

00;22;14;26 - 00;22;38;05 Unknown And so since I have been away from home for over almost five years now, it was five years, it was time for me just to come back home and be closer to family. And so the decision in terms of being closer to family and also looking at the career trajectory too candidly to see a 4 to 5 in terms of within the community, some loved it, some maturity, and we're just okay with it.

00;22;38;07 - 00;22;56;25 Unknown And I, I recognize that maybe that, my perspective is limited compared to other people's experiences, but at least with my experience in my circle, it was a confirmation for me. Just talking with them candidly from like 1 to 1 about their career trajectory, is that just hearing their stories and the challenges? It was for me, it was time for me just to move on based on this conversation.

00;22;56;25 - 00;23;15;19 Unknown So. So yeah, that's a long way of me of saying that the decision process to move out was initially was moving to the Middle East, and at the same time, while I was finishing my second tour, I was already having conversations with different folks, both who are thinking about those who stayed in in terms of understand why they wanted to.

00;23;15;19 - 00;23;38;01 Unknown And I started talking to other, folks who recently transition. We're going through a transition themselves, or those who are two years removed as well, too, because I want to have a holistic approach of what people's experiences were in the transition, because it's definitely not easy, and everyone's transition is very personal, and it's gonna look very different. That talk.

00;23;38;04 - 00;23;59;28 Unknown So let's can we circle around that topic for a little bit. So about how long from your termination date or separation date did you start that process. Was it as you were going to Bahrain or early while you were there? Discharge the question of how long did it take me? I would say it took roughly about one year.

00;24;00;02 - 00;24;23;04 Unknown I made is when I got back from leave in October 2021, while still station and the Middle East, I made the decision thought process, thought process to actually leave. I started the administration process at least formally lay my battalion commander know and others a decision thought process. And so that way once giving due diligence to the unit to make sure there's like unit continuity, to make sure that our operations are impeded.

00;24;23;04 - 00;24;46;13 Unknown Based on my decision to leave, it also allowed both from the senior advisors and also the officer corps to do in terms of manpower projections, in terms of once you onboard the next batch or crew for to replace myself. But, yeah, I started and verbalized that conversation in October 2021, went through the admin process. By the summer 2022, I think it was like June 2022.

00;24;46;13 - 00;25;16;12 Unknown That's when I got official resignation papers were approved. And I basically, because I really enjoyed my time in the Middle East as I just to write it out until my replacement came in around the late fall of 2022. Got it. Yes. And so I'm asking because when we get when we get this far in a conversation with, well, recent service members who transition to veteran status, it's always an interesting like it's not it's not even a discussion.

00;25;16;12 - 00;25;53;08 Unknown It's just to understand the timelines because you all have branches, different branches. Consider the available resources at certain times. Right. So that, you know, generally speaking, a sweeping statement is officers probably get a little bit more information earlier when the longer you're in two years out, you start processing or thinking about the idea to where you can have an opportunity to process and then, you know, enlisted maybe a year out and, you know, so it's in a in a timeline of what you're indicating, a five years in a first term, first enlistment.

00;25;53;10 - 00;26;13;20 Unknown What what is the typical timelines that people start to consider these things? Because what we're finding, again, anecdotal data, what we're finding is planning is sometimes more prominently last minute and last minute in the sense of within a year they there's a decision to make, you know, I don't want to do this. I want to do something else.

00;26;13;20 - 00;26;36;11 Unknown Or for whatever reason is the reasons matter less. It's just when you when you land on that. So looking at the priorities and the process, you mentioned that you started to network and and ask people both in who who are thinking about it what their experiences were, that, is that a common thing? Do you think that somebody like you is planning to get out?

00;26;36;11 - 00;26;57;29 Unknown And then you started to ask around to, to get information that would help you with that decision, or is that something that you found yourself to be different in that sense than others? I think the general principles are the same. I think that the way I like to view it, and I think what makes it different, it's just like the types of people that you're with in terms of where they are severely.

00;26;58;04 - 00;27;16;14 Unknown Well, I don't say severely, but it greatly will affect your decision process. So that's why I, I would encourage all veterans, regardless whether you're also in listen to really because you don't know what you know, to really encourage to you to reach out to other military veterans across the community to find out their journey from the military to where they are today, regardless of industry.

00;27;16;16 - 00;27;33;10 Unknown You know, the example I like to think about is like concentric circles, right? So in your inner core, you got yourself in a dead center. And then as you as you branch out, you have your family friends, right? Like, oh, how did you know Uncle Joe or my neighbor Bob or whoever? How did we get to do our job?

00;27;33;10 - 00;27;52;10 Unknown They are today, right? And as you're expanding from your family, friends, then you're going to your former teammates as your buddies, whether they finish your enlistment or they finish their off for, you know, a term, you asked about their process and then from there, whether you went to college or you didn't. But if there's any alumni that you know of, those are folks that can reach out.

00;27;52;10 - 00;28;11;12 Unknown And eventually when you get to the outer rings of the concentric circle, that's using LinkedIn is a fantastic tool. In order to help narrow your search of reaching out and connecting to different veterans and to reach out to them at different seasons of whenever they transition. That's true. That's a good point. And that that's a good plan, you know, to define.

00;28;11;15 - 00;28;36;00 Unknown And then ironic that you say circle, find who within your circle and how that that circle is expansive and there's layers to the circles and the relationships you have and those you serve with, those you maybe didn't. And then you use tools to be able to extend that process, like LinkedIn or social media in some capacity, where you can be intentional about looking for specific individuals that fit mostly with what you know.

00;28;36;03 - 00;29;11;26 Unknown Because like you mentioned, you don't know what you don't know. Sometimes you know what you don't know. And that that's part of the process is to get to that part. Oh, I didn't think about that. Let me go pursue that. So when it when it comes to the process, at which point did you start to feel like you had a good grip on the outside world, the civilian world in where to go and how to position yourself so others can see you for you, not the uniform you were wearing or the rank that you had, I think is going to differ based on folks.

00;29;11;26 - 00;29;44;17 Unknown I would say for me, I'd say it's taken me probably a little over a year, year and a half. But I'm still continue to learn that right? Because, you know, it is a major lifestyle change from the military to the corporate sector and the civilian life. But if I had to say that, you know, if I encourage veterans regardless, like those still in the service to think about getting out, those are transitioning or or those who Rafe transition out, it is, I think, a framework to encourage those folks would be the one is to define what your successes.

00;29;44;19 - 00;30;11;03 Unknown And it's okay not to know initially what your success is. But I think in this discover self discovery process, as you reach out to different veterans and, teammates, former teammates, you're able to get a picture in terms of what you like and what you don't like. And I think it's the first time in your life where the Army or Marine Corps or Uncle Sam does have to tell you, hey, you're going to go to your second choice duty station or your last duty past duty station of choice.

00;30;11;06 - 00;30;35;19 Unknown So I would say that, so you're all thinking about this is to think about the location, think about, you know, the salary, what you're expecting post military and even the type of role and function you might be part of. And it's okay to be really honest, to say to yourself that, hey, if the Marine Corps or Army or whoever plays me into a job function like our MOS, I really didn't want to do, it's okay to say that you didn't want to do it, and you can play it, pivot.

00;30;35;27 - 00;31;08;24 Unknown And whatever your goal you're think of to pivot from what you did to Army or Marine Corps to a completely different function. Whatever you see, the gap is, if any of you need to go to school, which you can definitely leverage your GI Bill. And there are plenty of like, fantastic nonprofit organizations that help both officers and enlisted, especially the enlisted, there are resources such as like, you know, services schools, which is a nonprofit program that helps, veterans, leverage your GI Bill and pivot and serve as advisors and get help them matriculate to the school of their dreams, regardless of rank.

00;31;08;27 - 00;31;30;03 Unknown And they potentially pair you with veterans who've gone through it themselves. So, whether it's parents with enlisted, with enlisted or officer, with officer or so on, so on, that's a fantastic resource that veterans can leverage to use to bridge that gap. And they see an interesting gap between their skills and education to their dream job. But yeah, I would say, number one, define your success.

00;31;30;03 - 00;31;46;24 Unknown And within that success, even if you don't know if that's okay, but just start having conversations with veterans about, you know, what they do, how they get to where they are today. And in those conversations, you're going to be, you know, you'll soon find out in terms of what you're okay with and what you're not okay with.

00;31;46;27 - 00;32;03;24 Unknown Like for me is I know I want to be in the West Coast because my family's in the West Coast. And this time frame, you know, I talk to different veterans in different industries, whether it's consulting, finance, technology and consulting and finance live. But something that I do not want to do with the long hours of any 100 hour work weeks.

00;32;03;24 - 00;32;24;05 Unknown While the salary may be amazing, but the work life fit is horrible. And so the reason why I got out is so that I can be closer to family. And so, you know, for me, and because my interest in technology intrinsically, the technology sector seem to be the best fit, and there are different programs I can help you pivot in the tech space.

00;32;24;05 - 00;32;48;11 Unknown I mean, obviously, Oracle's then our internship program is a fantastic program. I'm a product of that today. For those who aren't familiar with that program or Oracle Veteran Internship program, essentially it's a 12 week internship program to provide corporate experiences and exposure to these transition military veterans, transition veterans, and military spouses. And I would say that the program offers to do three things.

00;32;48;14 - 00;33;13;10 Unknown The ones that validate what you're interested in in tech space. So you're building your industry interest. Second is that you're valuing the job function or role. So I know that a lot of veterans tend to gravitate towards project management. As a go to, as you go to job. But some folks may not enjoy project management. And so but then if you look at the list of what it has to offer, there's so many different roles in the tech space.

00;33;13;12 - 00;33;30;24 Unknown You do sales for the Customer Success Post-sales, but there's so many different job functions that veterans can do and can succeed and do. So with that 12 week internship program, you're able to validate whether this is a particular job role and function that you want to do. And the last aspect is what's not guaranteed. But there's a potential for employment depending on that.

00;33;30;24 - 00;34;04;16 Unknown There is headcount available for that. But there are resources out there to help their, transition into the next, next step. But for those who are interested in technology and interested and having a corporate experience, in a well-organized way, I would definitely strongly encourage Oracle's veteran internship program. There's also a newer, initiative called Cloud Launch for new grads, that's open to both military spouses and veterans, where if if veterans are interested in pursuing a career in sales engineering or cloud architects, it's called cloud launch.

00;34;04;19 - 00;34;29;02 Unknown That's something that's, that's that's a particular path that folks can consider. And I believe there's also something within that suite. I'm not too familiar with that. But from I understand, I think that's what does a lot of, veteran hire initiatives as well, too. But at least for those who are interested in Oracle, you can either choose the Purple Veteran Internship program, which is the cloud launch, and you could have you can also choose and that me and regardless whether yeah, I mean those are just fantastic resources you can consider.

00;34;29;02 - 00;34;52;19 Unknown But there's plenty of options out there. Let me pause right there, Chris. I know there was a lot on one take. Let me know what percentiles I can try to address now. That's good. You just saved me a lot of words because you covered the things that that I was hoping we we could discuss. But going back to one of the options, because I'm curious when when you were thinking about getting out, did you know about skill bridge?

00;34;52;22 - 00;35;21;19 Unknown I did know about Skill Bridge, and I would definitely encourage veterans to definitely leverage that. For me, in terms of my billet, I wasn't really afforded the opportunity to have skill bridge, mainly because it's a high priority billet in terms of I was a part of. And so and it's a lot harder to transition overseas and that I say it's doable for I mean it's I'm sure it's doable for those overseas, but there's a lot more challenging to transition from overseas rather than back in Conus in the United States, continental U.S., actually U.S. soil.

00;35;21;24 - 00;35;43;27 Unknown I would definitely leverage skill bridge if possible, but I recognize that it's unit dependent. So whether you're a baton commander or there needs to be a unit, I mean, it's I'm content on their approval. But if you can, I would strongly, strongly advocate for all veterans, regardless of rank after enlisted to leverage that, because that's a great first taste, corporate sector and kind of the three things I talked about.

00;35;43;27 - 00;36;02;24 Unknown Right. This is a particular entry you want to be a part of. This is a it's a job function that you want to do. And it can be a potential source of employment. Yes. And you landed on the distinction as well as the benefit and that that's part of some of the challenges that service members face is being exposed to those opportunities.

00;36;02;24 - 00;36;23;15 Unknown So I'm very grateful you brought them up because it does matter. The most important component you talked about is when you start to identify your successes, you're going to be able to now relate to opportunities that can continue, that allow you to continue on your successes and that does include the research, the networking, the conversations you have with others so you can learn about those things that you weren't aware of.

00;36;23;15 - 00;36;44;21 Unknown And skill bridge sometimes seems to be something that not every person, every service member is made aware of because of one thing or the other. And so with this conversation and conversations like these, we hope to bring more awareness to those serving so they know what their options include. It's case they're not getting a complete download of of what's available to them.

00;36;44;28 - 00;37;05;28 Unknown So thanks for sharing those things. And how how did you end up hearing about Oracle Veteran Internship Program over it? It kind of goes back to number one and talked about earlier about your network and reaching out. So I went through LinkedIn and I just started looking at veterans in different parts of the industry. And at least in terms of defining my success, I knew I wanted to be in the industry of technology.

00;37;06;01 - 00;37;23;13 Unknown And so I started reaching out to different veterans on LinkedIn and just asking for, hey, whether they were in person, I would be for a cup of coffee, or whether it's just the nature of being so spread out across the states. She's asking for a 15 20 minute chats over zoom or whatever, and some would answer some or not respond.

00;37;23;13 - 00;37;48;07 Unknown You get a mixed bag of responses. But for those who did respond, there was one veteran who responded and he mentioned to me about open. And so I first heard about Covid, probably, ooh, I think that's the fall of 2023. That's when I first heard about that. I actually applied. And for the December winter cohort, I did not get accepted, but I was not deterred by that.

00;37;48;11 - 00;38;07;10 Unknown So I made a stronger application come the second round. And I was fortunate enough to get in. But it's a long way of me of saying I, through a LinkedIn outreach to another veteran, ever veteran, patient forward. That's how I was able to find that open. Yeah, no thanks for sharing that. And there's a couple anomalies inside that before we, transition to close, it's, calling out the distinction between a networking.

00;38;07;10 - 00;38;28;07 Unknown You know, you can get your networking game, improve your networking game, you know, if it's important. Networking and splitting hairs on this. Networking is networking where you're just reaching out and you're trying to establish a basis of connections. And I think that's the distinction. And if we kind of split hairs on words, what you really trying to do is make connections through networking.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;54;11 Unknown Right? So networking is a process in my mind. Connections is the intended outcome. I want to connect with people that are in a space that I want to get to, or in this case, using a channel like LinkedIn or social media or some other avenue that's available to you, email, text buddies, you know, the buddy system. There's a pass through at some point to where a tool like in this case LinkedIn, becomes almost critical because not everybody uses it.

00;38;54;11 - 00;39;16;05 Unknown Some people will know to set it up, but they don't. As you may have experienced, some of those non-response is include people. Just don't look at it. It's not meaning they're ignoring the messages that come in, but, like anything else, they could also be overwhelmed with the number of questions they get. But it is important that we remember to reach out to those to give people an opportunity to pay it forward.

00;39;16;05 - 00;39;35;16 Unknown Because I love that you said that. Not everybody knows how. Like, what can I do? So as we transition and close out, what are some of the things that you want to leave with the listeners of, you know, not only what you going to do, but what what do you what advice do you give others to to help them understand what they can do to help?

00;39;35;21 - 00;39;56;09 Unknown Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's a good reminder to ourselves that just remember, like we used to be in those other people's shoes initially in terms of getting out sometimes, like whether you're a decade out in terms of the transition or maybe five years or maybe four, maybe just recently. Just remember, in terms of where the other people are coming from, in terms of whether it's a transition and they're going to ask questions.

00;39;56;12 - 00;40;13;02 Unknown And of course, you know, we may be a little impatient in terms of the way they ask questions, maybe a little too direct. There's a there's in the corporate past that we needed. But, you know, we need people where they are. And so I would encourage for folks just to continue to pay it forward, because I would like to think that for where we are today, it's a product.

00;40;13;02 - 00;40;26;18 Unknown We're a product of other people's input that are paying it forward are those who took the time to mentor us, but it's going to pay for, I mean, that's what we're here for. That's what you sign up for in terms of the services to, you know, so it's a is a community service and so committed to the team.

00;40;26;23 - 00;40;46;10 Unknown And so just because we need a uniform, yes. There's an element of we have left the service. But it doesn't really we don't really need it because intrinsically it's but if you've been a part of it, give up our last word. So if you do pay it forward for at least for those who got out, continue to pay it forward and then for those who are transitioning, yeah, I would say classically.

00;40;46;13 - 00;41;09;20 Unknown Yeah. Number one, define your success and be honest yourself. It's okay not to know. And the second thing, for those who are thinking about the practicality out number two is to talk with veterans and different in the transition, especially from. So that way you get a holistic approach of being informed of what it's actually like. So I would say those who recently got out, those were a few years out and those who got out like a ten, like a decade or so more.

00;41;09;20 - 00;41;29;16 Unknown So that way you can have a holistic approach. And the third aspect would just be continue to network and start with the concentric circle model of like start with the family, friends, your former teammates, college alumni that applies to you, and going through at least an outreach. So that way you can help validate, the industry and your own success from those conversations.

00;41;29;18 - 00;42;06;21 Unknown Yeah. It's solid, that sound I will sprinkle in. The three lessons learned also can be universally applicable to this, right? So trust but verify when people are coming to you and they're asking some things and hey, I did this. You trust that they they have because this leads to the next thing. It's okay to sometimes say no and push back on people to do a little bit more diligent effort into preparing, because if you don't do anything and you ask somebody for time, it can lead to being overwhelmed towards, that's maybe why you're not getting the help and support that you expect when people are capable of paying it forward, but sometimes give you the

00;42;06;21 - 00;42;26;10 Unknown impression that they're not because, you know, and that's the last thing is optimistic attitude you expressed that you talked about in 2023. You tried to apply or you applied. Try to get in through all of it because you were wanting to now experience what it was going to be able to provide, and you didn't get the results that you had hoped for.

00;42;26;10 - 00;42;43;19 Unknown So you get back at it and you came back, and now here you are. So great lessons to be learned, great advice, how that you're given. Thank you so much for making time today. Appreciate. You know thank you Chris. And yeah, for those I mean I'm not sure everyone dropped my LinkedIn when I happy to connect with other veterans in thermite LinkedIn and more than happy to help out.

00;42;43;21 - 00;42;58;16 Unknown Okay. Got it. Yeah. So, how we how he's information contact details will be in the podcast description. All right. Howie, appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Chris. Cardi one keep moving forward.

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After serving 36 years in the US Army from 1966 to 2004, with a two-year break in between, SMA Tilley shares invaluable insights into how his military service shaped his life, allowed him to care for others, and inspired his ongoing mission of service through business and nonprofit organizations. He emphasizes the importance of bringing people together and discusses his deep passion for addressing one of our community's most pressing challenges—mental health. SMA Tilley shares a heartfelt story about the power of supporting one another and the impact of collective action the role hope plays in driving meaningful change. From stories that bring smiles to discussions on the traits of effective leaders, the value of teamwork, and the importance of planning and transition, it was an honor to hear from SMA Tilley. It is a rare opportunity to hear experiences of history through a personal perspective and we’re grateful for the time SMA Tilley shared with us. https://www.linkedin.com/in/12thsma-jack-tilley/ American Freedom Foundation - https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-freedom-foundation/posts/?feedView=all American Freedom Foundation - https://americanfreedomfoundation.org/ Your Next Mission Podcast - https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-next-mission/posts/?feedView=all Your Next Mission Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/6j5iMzkVBDX4XjgTVQiXOu?si=3168463fdc764529 ------------------------------------------------------------- Podcast Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;42;27 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by retired 12 Sergeant Major of the Army Jack Tilley. After serving 36 years in the US Army from 1966 to 2004, with a two year break in between Saar Major till, he shares invaluable insights into how his military service shaped his life, allowed him to care for others and inspired his ongoing mission of service through business and nonprofit organizations.

00;00;43;00 - 00;01;03;01 Unknown He emphasizes the importance of bringing people together, and discusses his deep passion for addressing one of our community's most pressing challenges mental health. Sergeant Major Tilley shares a heartfelt story about the power of supporting one another and the impact of collective action and the role hope plays in driving meaningful change. From stories that bring smiles to discussions on the traits of effective leaders.

00;01;03;07 - 00;01;21;06 Unknown The value of teamwork and the importance of planning and transition. It was an honor to hear from Sergeant Major Tilley. It is a rare opportunity to hear experiences of history through a personal perspective, and we're grateful for the time, Sergeant Major Tilley shared with us. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. Let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent.

00;01;21;07 - 00;01;35;14 Unknown As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family Sergeant Major till these contact details are in the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;35;16 - 00;01;59;02 Unknown SA major. How are you? Hey! I'm so pumped up here today. I'm excited. Yeah. For all those out there listening, we we almost forgot to hit record. We were going on a good path. Just what we were talking about already. So both of us enthusiastic about being here in the presence of each other to talk about some of the some of the things that are important today and always have been and kind of being transformative and thinking about the future and what we can do to work together.

00;01;59;05 - 00;02;16;07 Unknown So, so our major, you, 30 plus years in the service and you just got done talking about why you join, if you wouldn't mind just going back and rehashing that? Sure. Absolutely. Well, you know, I spent 36 years in the service. People say. They say over 30 years. No, no, I want to make sure you're missing 36 years of service.

00;02;16;09 - 00;02;34;24 Unknown Yeah, I, yeah, I, I wasn't planning on joining the military. In fact, I was, I always tell people I was a terrible kid. I had no direction in life. And I remember when I. When I graduate, I. And I did pretty good. I graduated 117, but I was sitting on the Columbia River and we was all talking about, you know, different things.

00;02;34;24 - 00;02;56;16 Unknown And I was drinking the Olympia Beer Day and somebody said, hey, what are you going to do with your life? I said, well, I don't know. And the guy says, hey, you want to go to college? And I said, hey, guys like me don't go to college. Low self-esteem. Nothing's going right. No direction of life. And then the next guy that it was, I think it was Prentiss Boykin, unfortunately got killed in Vietnam.

00;02;56;16 - 00;03;12;21 Unknown But he said, let's join the military. And I said, sure. Why not? I had no idea that was fighting a war. And so I went basic. I did jump school. And then six months from joining the military, I was, fighting in the streets of, of Vietnam. And in fact, I was in the Tet Offensive in 68.

00;03;12;21 - 00;03;31;15 Unknown That's another story back, back a long time ago. But the big, big change in my life real quick. Oh, I bet. And quick to when we had first talked on your next mission podcast with when you and I were talking about that, you had talked about getting in and then you had gone to Vietnam and you'd come back and you'd gotten out for a short stint.

00;03;31;19 - 00;03;55;01 Unknown What was the decision behind that? Well, a couple of things. One is that, I had a commander that really made me mad, angry, and sometimes in life you let people affect your performance. You know, you said, well, despite you, I'm going to quit this job. Dumbest decision I ever, ever made. So I had a commander that, I didn't like, and I thought I could never deal with a guys like, in the military.

00;03;55;02 - 00;04;15;14 Unknown I said, that's it. I got out and I stayed out about two years, and when I was out, I never really fit in. I mean, I always missed the military. I had a great time in the military. Military was good to me. And so I stayed out about two years and, and I used in fact, I actually drew up the I drove up to Fort Lewis one time on, I was going to, Seattle.

00;04;15;14 - 00;04;34;12 Unknown So I stopped at Fort Lewis and watched these guys train and and do all that stuff, and, you know, and I went back home and I told my wife, I said, jeez. You know, I wouldn't mind going back in service. I mean, it was good for me. And so I went and seen a recruiter and he said, hey, look, you know, you can come back any time you want to do that.

00;04;34;16 - 00;04;53;28 Unknown As a staff sergeant, I got to be a staff sergeant about two and a half years in the military. And so I talked to him, and I left at about, I think it was about 2 or 3 weeks later, he called me on the phone. He said, hey, look, if you come back and within the next 30 days or when you are, if you decide to come back after that, you'll come back in as he want.

00;04;54;00 - 00;05;09;20 Unknown I said, what he said the policy. I said, what do you mean to say right now? You can come back to your, you know, the rank you got lose all your time of grade. But, but if you wait that one month, you come back as a private. I'll start all over again. I said, okay, and about three days later, I was down there at the recruiting station.

00;05;09;26 - 00;05;32;23 Unknown I went over to maps, you know, signed back and did all the testing in and then, you know, got my date to go back into the military. So I came back in. Is this I gotta tell you one funny story. So I got to Fort Jackson, and, and I just fell in with all the privates. And so we're March around doing all the stuff, and then with the, clothing, got my clothing issues, got my uniforms and all that stuff.

00;05;32;23 - 00;05;52;02 Unknown And I was a staff sergeant and a rank on. And so I think it was right after I got my, on my, fatigues at the time, I, first started calling. It's our winner. Is is Tilley. I see us first. Are aren't you a staff sergeant? I said, yeah, he said, then put your rank on. Put the rank up there.

00;05;52;02 - 00;06;10;14 Unknown I said, okay, so I put my rank on, fell back into the formation and there's one private looked at me, says, how did you get to be a staff? Well, that drill sergeant said I was marching real good. And so he promoted. Yeah. Oh yeah. But I had a great time there. So yeah, it's good one. The,

00;06;10;16 - 00;06;27;03 Unknown Well, I have to believe because I, when I went through basic not to reminisce too much about this stuff because it's not where we're going. But there was a, there was a, a man that came in, he was a specialist, and we didn't understand it. And we we kind of figured it out later on how to how to use that.

00;06;27;03 - 00;06;53;29 Unknown So did that how did that affect how everybody else was learning around you at that point? Well, it, you know, I tell you, I didn't have much to do with him. You know, I marched from point A to point B and process. And so they didn't really and I started pulling, CQ at the time, but I didn't they asked me a lot of questions, and I tried to do all I could to help as much as I could, but, you know, that was, you know, you've seen in the first week or so, I think it was a week and a half that you stayed there and then you process out.

00;06;54;06 - 00;07;14;09 Unknown So not, not really, not a whole lot. Yeah. For that time, I didn't have a lot, a lot of interaction with those guys. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious that that kind of had some, some connection later down the road. On how rank helps or hurts learning or, you know, this is probably no one's going to believe me.

00;07;14;10 - 00;07;36;13 Unknown I was never worried about being promoted. I just thought, you are what you are. And everybody, I always tell people you everybody climbs a ladder, and you just get off at different rings in the ladder. And, if I got out of the Army's a staff sergeant, I'd be. I've been content if I got out of the Army as a sergeant first class, I'd have been content, but I never really,

00;07;36;15 - 00;07;59;14 Unknown I just always wanted to do my job and work as hard as I could with the people around. You know, I told people that before, and they probably saying that now. That's baloney. You probably a politician or something. I'm the farthest thing away from a politician. But I just always wanted to work hard because the army, the army, quite frankly, changed my life and allowed me to grow up and develop and see so many things and so many different people I've met throughout my life.

00;07;59;14 - 00;08;15;10 Unknown I, I always used, I told people, even I wrote a book, but in the book I said I went from Vietnam. When I went to Vietnam, I went from 18 to 55. And I grew that much during during war. And, so, you know, the Army was good to me, and I just wanted to do the best I could.

00;08;15;11 - 00;08;32;00 Unknown In fact, we can talk about this later. I never wanted to be the sergeant. I did the Army. I just wanted to be. I was going to get out work for USA because I was working on finding me a job right there, but, yeah, I never, I think people that, people are that, you know, you everybody wants to be promoted.

00;08;32;00 - 00;08;58;16 Unknown And I understand that too. But I think sometimes people get so, so motivated about, hey, I want to move to the next level that they're not very good at the level they're at, if that makes sense, because I'm concerned about, hey, I want to be the boss. Well, to be the boss or to be in charge, you got to do your job the you know better than anybody else, or work with the team and show people that you can develop and motivate and get people to do the best they can within their organization.

00;08;58;18 - 00;09;18;21 Unknown And the ones that the people at throughout my military and in civilian life, the one the people that I run into that are more concerned about promotions or advancement aren't necessarily good leaders. I think sometimes. So you mentioned that and I just I hadn't planned on this. It spurred a thought in my head on focus, focusing on the present.

00;09;18;21 - 00;09;43;20 Unknown Become the master of your craft, what you're doing now and then, things will take care of themselves is kind of how I'm oversimplifying what you're saying. That's exactly what I mean. Just to stay focused in your life, I, I've talked to a lot of people, about this. Stay in your lane of responsibility. And as you get, as you move up in whatever organization is, your lane will open up a little bit more, you'll have more responsibility, and you can help more people.

00;09;43;22 - 00;10;03;28 Unknown But the key to success in, any job that you're doing is people. How do you help the people that are around you? How do you make how do you make them successful? My job as a as a leader or a small business owner or even just outside the army? It's not about me. It's about how do I make the people that I'm working with more successful so they can take my job?

00;10;04;01 - 00;10;22;23 Unknown You know, they sort of push me out, you know? So it's about it's about people and their families and and treating them with dignity, respect and, and just getting the best at them. And another thing I, I like the dog. You see this. But the other thing is how do you motivate people that are around you to get the best out of them?

00;10;22;26 - 00;10;42;08 Unknown You know what? Everybody is motivated by something different. You know, some people you can pat on the back, some people got a kick in the backside. But how do you get the best out of those people? And and as a leader, you've got to look at those people, see where they fit. You know, where, you know, I may not be the best mechanic, but I'm a good cook, you know what I mean?

00;10;42;08 - 00;11;07;08 Unknown I might not be the best salesman, but I'm the best. Whatever. But you can find out where they fit in in life and and, you know, sort of pat them on the back and push them up and, and stand them up and make them feel good about yourself. No, I like that. And thank you for that because you're however however that came to you, it's still how it is today for many of us, if not all of us, that they they kind of split up to two different types of people.

00;11;07;08 - 00;11;33;26 Unknown You got some that believe that and understand that to be for what it is. And they they wholeheartedly invested in that mindset of understanding that so much that they it's they embody it. And then you have ones that have more of a theoretical understanding on what that means. And then it's awkward. Sometimes it's clumsy as a leader to be able to try to do those things, which is that reciprocating lesson that's learned is I'm learning how to become a good leader by having been put in a position to lead you.

00;11;33;28 - 00;11;51;16 Unknown And so we're going to make mistakes together, and then we're going to just kind of reciprocate that effort to to learn. Either way. How does that how does that look in today's world when we're thinking about the first thing that you had mentioned, we're we're conditioned to focus on where we are so we can be mission ready, paying attention to what's going on.

00;11;51;18 - 00;12;12;19 Unknown But then as we get near transition and I'm we're going to jump around a little bit, we're going to when we get near near transition, we still embody that same mindset. We're not looking ahead to prepare for that next step, which is the hardest. Yeah. Well the problem is and I'm glad you're talking about transition. The problem in transition is, is you don't want to pull away.

00;12;12;21 - 00;12;26;05 Unknown You want to keep doing your job. And you say, man, they can't they can't do that job without me. And I've got to be there every day. In reality, that you're going to, you know, a lot of I can't remember the actual number, you know, a couple hundred thousand, I guess, get out of the military every year.

00;12;26;08 - 00;12;42;03 Unknown But, what you've got to do is you you need to start that transition process about two years out. And I think what happens is people don't do that. So what do you do in that two years out? Well, finish up your degree. If you got an associate's get a bachelors. If you got a bachelors, get a master's.

00;12;42;08 - 00;13;04;02 Unknown So focus on all that stuff and make sure that if you have any bills, pay all your bills, put money aside, know where you want to live, you know, start, have a good resume. There's so many things that you ought to do. I think the people that, that don't transition very well is the ones that wait until the last 30 days or the last 60 days, to get out of the service.

00;13;04;02 - 00;13;24;03 Unknown And they're scrambling, don't know what they're going to do, and they're confused. And I'm going to say one more thing, too, is, is that, I've talked a lot about on my show, on a podcast about the fact that we have about 200,000 people incarcerated that are veterans, and about 86,000 are homeless, but more than 125,000 and probably that number is a little larger now.

00;13;24;06 - 00;13;47;14 Unknown But more than 125,000 and taken a life by suicide. And you go back and start thinking about transition. Why do they do those kind of things? It's because they don't fit back into society and they're struggling and there's nobody to talk to. And, for the people a little less than a day, there's a lot of veterans out there that, that are your friend or your brother or your sister that'll listen to you and try to help you out as much as you can.

00;13;47;14 - 00;14;08;15 Unknown So talk to them. You're not alone. Everybody goes through struggles. You, me and everybody else. Reach out to somebody and talk to them about whatever those issues are. Special on that transition. And then the last thing I just say about transition, I, I was very lucky because I retired as a sergeant major of the Army. And so I know there's a lot of doors open for me that there may not be open for a lot of people.

00;14;08;16 - 00;14;35;26 Unknown I understand that because I'm certainly not going to be anybody else. But the fact of the matter is, I used to look for companies that had, leadership that are veterans, maybe an owner of a company or an a senior leadership within that organization. And if you can find those, even Google those on the, on the website, say, you know, veteran owned companies or people who had a veteran lead or whatever, reach out to those guys and, and make sure you reach out and tell them about your military service and charm you.

00;14;35;26 - 00;14;56;07 Unknown 214 and have a resume and and, and they'll help you out as much as they can. But you may not. Again, going back to where you fit, you may not be a good fit for that organization, but I guarantee you they'll probably help you go somewhere else. I'm going to kind of just unload the list of things in my head at this point that hopefully we can touch on is, how do you determine the fit?

00;14;56;09 - 00;15;11;20 Unknown A lot of the struggle is is deciding that what I did is what I need to do in the future. And we we know differently. We know that you don't have to do that. You can go ahead and figure out how to do something different, what you want to do. It's an opportunity to recreate who you want to be, what you want to do.

00;15;11;22 - 00;15;40;16 Unknown And then you talked about big picture early on in the conversation. You're talking about those that can understand the big picture. That's an acquired skill set that is done through connecting with others by having the mentors, which we talked about before. So on those two topics themselves, when you're saying two years out, how do you learn about what you yourself is going to need if if you think that you don't need it, hopefully that translates.

00;15;40;19 - 00;15;56;23 Unknown No, no. I said, well, I think the key to success, I think that, yeah, but we talked about a minute ago, we talked about before too, is you gotta have a mentor. So I tell you, I always said you need to have 2 or 3 mentors. So I have somebody that's already been in the service that got out of the service that you can reach out and talk to about.

00;15;56;23 - 00;16;18;06 Unknown Hey, look, I'm thinking about doing this or I'm thinking to do that and just sort of talk about those kind of things, before you get out of the service. But. And then the other thing I do is, I talk to my wife a lot. I've been married. I'm married a long time anyway. But I talk to my wife about what we need to do as a family because, you know, you had a team in the military of all these people around you.

00;16;18;06 - 00;16;35;13 Unknown But when you get out of the team that you have is your family to. And you got to make sure they're involved in that discussion. And then the other thing is, is, a lot of people set expectation expectations, I think just a little bit too, you know, they want to get out, make, 2 or $300,000.

00;16;35;15 - 00;16;53;19 Unknown Again, it goes back to where do you fit in? How do you grow? How do you develop? How are you preparing yourself for success? Just because you, as a senior NCO in the Army or in the military, Navy, Marine Corps, whatever. But, senior is your senior officer doesn't mean that you're going to have the ideal job when you get out of the military.

00;16;53;23 - 00;17;14;20 Unknown You have to go back and and prove yourself again that you have those qualifications. So, yeah, it's there's a it's it's, because of what the military teaches you, you have a lot of leadership, a lot of a lot of things that you can share with any organization. So I think that's a that's a strength for, all the people that served in the military.

00;17;14;22 - 00;17;40;14 Unknown Yeah. Thanks for that. And congratulations. Is it 58 years? 55. It was five years this year. But who's counting? The 709 58. Congratulation. You may be out of here now. You know, I, I tell you what, I tell people this all the time, too. Is that, nobody is successful by themselves. I have came home so many times and told my wife, you know, I can't believe what this guy did today.

00;17;40;17 - 00;18;03;09 Unknown And she'd say, well, Jack, I thought you did that once. And I'd say, well, wait a minute, that was different. Well, the answer is you need somebody that gives you checks and balances. You know, you get. I used to tell people all the time that every time you're promoted, your head swells a little bit, you know, in your head gets and you think you're smarter and smarter and smarter.

00;18;03;12 - 00;18;19;19 Unknown And the answer is you're no different than you was yesterday. You just got a different job. I get it. I'll tell you another funny story. I was, down at Fort Knox when I was, competing for to start my the Army and I. And I was a Centcom sergeant major, so I was working at a four star level there.

00;18;19;22 - 00;18;38;18 Unknown And, I went into this conference, and they had my seat all the way down at the end of the table. Not you, I don't care. And so I bring up, talking points and things I think you ought to do is the armored community and that sort of. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's good. Yeah. That's good. That just, you know, that sort of was nice to me and all that stuff.

00;18;38;20 - 00;18;56;14 Unknown Well, that evening they announced that I was a sergeant major in the Army, and I was the next election to start major. So the next day I came to the conference. My chair was right dead in the center. And everything I said was the smartest guy in the world. The answer was I hadn't changed from yesterday. All right.

00;18;56;19 - 00;19;13;03 Unknown So, the if you want to be a good leader, be a good listener and be a good communicator and be able to say, hey, I was wrong about this is probably a better way to do it. And when somebody comes up with a good idea and it's not your idea, give him credit for. Hey, that's a great idea.

00;19;13;03 - 00;19;31;22 Unknown Let's do that. She's okay. Let's go. Let's move out. Don't be afraid. I mean, again, we're successful because all the people around us, you know, use their brains, you know, use their ideas in your thought. And if you do that, then you'll grow as a team and you'll develop, and it'll get better and better and better and better all the way through there.

00;19;31;22 - 00;19;50;13 Unknown So I've always I was, when I first got to be to start, maybe there's two things I really wanted to work on real quickly. One was, I wanted to bring all senior in sales to one location, at down at Fort Bliss. And I said, hey, we're going to have a conference are meeting, and somebody says, who's going to pay for it?

00;19;50;13 - 00;20;12;17 Unknown I said, well, I don't care. And then the second thing I want to do is start a NCO and soldier of the year program for the United States Army, for the Army bring Army. And I was able to accomplish that. The first year or so in the Army. But, I put all those senior and chosen together in one location, and it was just, one star and above, but all in one location.

00;20;12;17 - 00;20;30;15 Unknown And they asked a guard reserve and all the rest of them, and I did that. So, so we could build a team, a stronger team. And we we did a golf ID event. We went out to dinner and we did. We got stronger and stronger as we went along and we really worked with each other. So I thought it it and they're still doing that now or continuing to do it.

00;20;30;15 - 00;20;58;22 Unknown So I think it builds a stronger team anyway. It does. And it was obviously I think you and I are similar in that sense. The value of bringing people together is sometimes uncomfortable. It may be, when when you are indicated like what you said, if you find yourself without saying it, but doing it is to be the most humble person in the room where you can hear feedback and you can see that other people have great ideas and you're willing to share that credit or give that credit instead of taking it, then it becomes simpler.

00;20;58;27 - 00;21;17;17 Unknown The further the further you get away from actually have to decide or do things, because the team around you is is activating its where everything gets set as the example of what you want to achieve as a leader, I would imagine. Yeah, yeah. No I'm sorry. The I think the other thing is that they have to trust you.

00;21;17;19 - 00;21;30;19 Unknown If they don't trust you, then they're not going to support you. And they got to believe that, you know, if I say something as a leader, if I say something, I'm going to do it. If I say, hey, I'm going to be here at 8:00, a little small thing about 8:00, I'm going to be there at 750, probably.

00;21;30;21 - 00;21;49;26 Unknown Right? Yeah. But if you put the word out, if you say something, do it. And if you can't do it, go back and tell them, hey, look, I tried to do this, I couldn't accomplishment, and this is the reason why we can go with a different route. But here's where I am right now. And I think a lot of people, just listen.

00;21;50;03 - 00;22;03;05 Unknown Yeah, I got it and then move out. I used to, when I used to travel, I used to have a couple of trip coordinators. They'd be with you and they'd take notes. Everything that anybody put out. And when we got back, I'd say, okay, what's, you know, what's what do we have to do? What do we have to accomplish?

00;22;03;12 - 00;22;22;04 Unknown And I'll be damned, they they better get every one of those accomplished. At least go back and say, look, we're working on this is where we're at. Here's what we're going to do. And somebody called, the officer said, I have a problem this summer. I wouldn't just drop it. I'd get them to the right location and then, write it down, somebody to go back, say, hey, if we accomplish this, you know what?

00;22;22;04 - 00;22;42;01 Unknown It's finished. Come back and tell me what's going on. And I think a lot of times somebody will have an issue and they'll put it out there and they'll just sort of say, okay, that's your issue. I'm done. You're not done. You're not done until it's accomplished. Even though you gave it to somebody else. Reminds me of the story that I think I shared with you because of what you just said.

00;22;42;08 - 00;23;01;06 Unknown You know, you're going to if you're going to be the good listener and you're going to take in the input, you better act on it. So they see that it's actually, so in the early early 90s, I was in Korea and I was doing the, the soldier of the quarter, soldiers of the month, been going all the way up to the, you know, company, battalion, brigade, so on and so forth.

00;23;01;06 - 00;23;21;19 Unknown While I earned, earned a spot to have dinner with Sergeant Major, Army kid. Oh, yeah. You get squared away guy. Yeah. So it and, you know, I was allowed to bring two soldiers with me. So I found, you know, the two that that I wanted to bring with me. And they shut down the dining facility after hours where it was, me sergeant made an Army kid.

00;23;21;26 - 00;23;43;13 Unknown So major mixology and, I was just playing golf with him. Great. Go away. Yeah, just play golf for the last week, I was. It's amazing. I'll. I'll send you a picture if you'll take it. I'll send you a picture of us together. Back in 1999. Sure. Yeah, that'd be great. So we were sitting there and he asked the question, you know, so what?

00;23;43;16 - 00;24;01;09 Unknown What can I do for you? Some along the lines. What can I do for you? Or, you know, what's on your mind? Something like that. And the short story is, you know, the camp that we were on had a real small, fitness facility. Jim had 1 or 2 things that had the universal weights, you know, the stuff that you saw in high school back in those days.

00;24;01;09 - 00;24;17;27 Unknown Well, I asked, you have free weights if we can get some dumbbells, that would be great. And I compared it to the camp that was next to us, who's obviously had more budget, whatever. So he listen, I gave the example and I'm not going to tell you what the example is because I don't want to embarrass myself. But, you know, he they were confused.

00;24;17;27 - 00;24;33;24 Unknown They scoffed at it. I could tell now. I could tell what they were. What they heard was ridiculous. But the next day, the lieutenant or, XO come over and or the platoon leader came over and and called me out of formation. So I came over to him, says, let's go. Getting the Humvees is, where are we going, sir?

00;24;33;24 - 00;24;51;03 Unknown And he says, we're going to get your weights. And he said it in such a way that I, I didn't see it as the thing that I had hoped to happen coming, come to fruition. So, so as we're driving, we're going downtown Korea to try to find a place to buy the dumbbells. And I asked him, I said, so how many we get?

00;24;51;03 - 00;25;11;10 Unknown And he goes, well, we have $50. That's like, okay, all right. So we ended up being able to afford one dumbbell, which we ended up bringing back. And we kind of it didn't serve its purpose, but it was the running joke as to, you know, careful what you say. Prepare the UN, but also know that somebody worth their salt is going to follow through on that commitment.

00;25;11;10 - 00;25;27;27 Unknown So the thing that I learned is he felt he followed through well, the thing about it, the other thing is, is take good notes. Could have been when you go back to their ask those questions. Hey, last time I was here, you had, this, this and this, and. Hey, what's the status of that now? Yeah, the,

00;25;27;29 - 00;25;48;26 Unknown Yeah, I used to follow that people to go wild. And how do you remember that? Well, you know, we keep notes and stuff. So when I come back, I'm going to make sure I ask those questions. So. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sergeant major, I got to tell you funny story about him when he was, he come to Germany when I was a division soccer major and we hosted him, and, so we took him around and showed him the division, did all that stuff.

00;25;48;26 - 00;26;08;29 Unknown And so we got to, Graff and beer, gave him a briefing and all that stuff. He's. He's really a great guy. And, so we got ready to go that they had these green old German bus, vans. Most of the time they wouldn't run very good. So I say, Sergeant Major, I'll see you later. Got him in the van, closed the door, and drivers tried to start the vehicle.

00;26;08;29 - 00;26;25;02 Unknown I wouldn't start, so. Oh, I can't believe it. And so I said, hey, guys, Sergeant major, don't worry about it. We'll get you. Go. We'll push this van and get it going. So I had all the sergeant major back there pushing and we started pushing. And I looked at my left and there were Sergeant major. Can't push him wrong with me.

00;26;25;04 - 00;26;43;00 Unknown It's nice. And it started up. He jumped in. See you guys later, Dick. So yeah, he's quite a guy. He's really a good guy. Yeah, it was a good time. It's a good time. So since we're talking about it, maybe some folks listening aren't as familiar, but what what is the role? Or at least when you were disarming an army.

00;26;43;01 - 00;27;03;28 Unknown What what was the role and and what what did it serve for the community? Well, first of all, the sergeant, the army, it was the voice of the noncommissioned officer corps. So I routinely testified in front of Congress, usually once or twice a year. And when Congress were to have issues or concerns about stuff, he'd come down through my office and we'd, you know, check it out, see what the issues so that's the first thing.

00;27;04;03 - 00;27;24;27 Unknown And also inform the secretary of the Army, Secretary of Defense, the chief of staff, the Army, the division staff or the, the Pentagon staff there, or the Army staff about what's going on. And I traveled all the time, and I traveled, I think it was 800,000 miles and three and a half years. And what I do is I go to all these, installations and talk to not just senior NCO.

00;27;25;03 - 00;27;43;27 Unknown It's all soldiers and take good notes and find out what the concerns was within the army. And, that's what I did. I sort of flowed information back and forth, you know, what's the issues? And and it worked out pretty good. Biggest complaint is always the same thing. It hadn't changed a day. The biggest complaint was money.

00;27;43;29 - 00;28;04;25 Unknown Oh. At the time, an E9 would make, I think, I think base pay for an E9 was, $3,000 and $31 a month. That was his base pay. A captain made more than him. So during my period of time, I started by the Army. We went from, I think it was 3430 $400 to over $5,000, base pay.

00;28;04;25 - 00;28;22;20 Unknown So we got a pretty good chunk of rise. But it wasn't just them. We had, a targeted pay from E4 or five, six, seven, 8 or 9. And what I always thought was a buy went from 4 to 5. I should get 5 or 6. Seven or dollars, pay a 6 to 7, same thing. And so we worked real hard on pay and quality of life stuff.

00;28;22;20 - 00;28;50;19 Unknown That was really my focus in the time you were in. I mean, that's a significant timeline. So if we can talk about readiness and how significant events changed the trajectory of our readiness. So you were Saam rated Army from 2000 to 2004. So before before 2000, you stepped into the role. And then what occurred during that timeline, can you share with us the significance of what you now had to undertake?

00;28;50;22 - 00;29;14;12 Unknown Well, when I first got there, you know, I got into 2000, but, you know, of course 911 happened. That was, you know, when the plane hit the Pentagon and, we went to war. That was a, you know, one of the biggest things that happened to me, in fact, in fact, I'll never forget that day I was sitting in my office, and, David, Chad, which was the public affairs called me, says, you got to turn on the TV.

00;29;14;12 - 00;29;29;11 Unknown And I did, and I turned to watch the, plane hit up in New York, and I went out the office. I said, hey, look, this is not a mistake. Something's going on. I had to go to Fort Meyer to speak to somebody. And when I was going to Fort Myers and I finished talking, I was coming down the hill.

00;29;29;11 - 00;29;51;25 Unknown That plane actually hit. And then I went back over there, went back into the Pentagon, made sure all the everybody was out of their offices. And I went around to the front of the, of the building where the plane had hit. And I went back in with General and Austin. We sort of worked our way, to the, the wreckage there and probably about 30 or 40ft or so.

00;29;51;25 - 00;30;12;23 Unknown Smoke it. We couldn't go any farther because we want to see if we can get anybody out. And then of course, there was mass confusion. And then we we came back out and people were running everywhere. Anyway, it was just a terrible day for our country. You know what bothers me when I talk about 911? What bothers me is, is, how quickly we forgot about what happened on that day.

00;30;12;25 - 00;30;34;20 Unknown And, the lives are lost, not just, you know, Pennsylvania, New York and the Pentagon, but it's, you know, for 3 or 4 days in a life, we, the country, the country, I think, pulled together real close with everybody. And we all wanted to help each other out. And we're all Americans and all that stuff. And then after 3 or 4 days, we all sort of went our separate ways again.

00;30;34;23 - 00;30;51;21 Unknown And it was just again, it was just a tough time, not just 911, you know, we got an award we're deploying, you know, a lot of stuff. And so the rest of my time in the military is usually deployed in and going and checking on troops and see how everybody was doing over there. So I stay pretty active, like I said, traveled about 8 or 9000 miles.

00;30;51;21 - 00;31;21;28 Unknown But it was a blast. Half of my time in Sergeant Major, I was a little rough. Yeah, I can imagine. And thanks for your leadership before, after and during. Of course, because it I think when I had first met you, you know, it hit me because I, you know, after being out for as long as I have there's a, there is a, a point to which you, you feel disconnected on certain things, reminding you of what you used to do and who used to do it with, and those types of things.

00;31;21;28 - 00;31;51;07 Unknown And the subtle reminder, especially generational. So in my era, getting out in the 90s, you know, it's it becomes more challenging to be more connected to where, where things are today and things like that. And so it served as a subtle reminder of connection on the level of difficulty of what you and many others had experienced during that time line, but how it shifted the attention to to be more prepared and, and then focus on the things that we had learned through those last 15 to 20 years to transform and become the force that we, we, we want to be.

00;31;51;08 - 00;32;15;23 Unknown We need to be and then take it into transition. So as you've now been out a couple of decades, taking that, taking that lesson in those lessons and what you're doing now, let's let's talk about that. On how how it drives you to continue to want to do what you do. Well, the, well, I, I don't know, I, I love the Army.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;40;28 Unknown And I think, again, I said before the Army changed my life and helped me so much. And it's all part of my family will always be part of my family. And so I want to do all I can to help veterans and families as much as I can till the day I die. And there's a lot of people just out there struggling, and they just don't, sometimes they sometimes they struggle and they don't know why, and they don't know why they don't fit in.

00;32;41;00 - 00;32;58;05 Unknown And, they don't know who to talk to about whatever the issues are. So from my little perspective, you know, doing our podcast or doing our hiring events or whatever, I just want to do all I can to help the veteran community. And I said it already, we as a veteran community, we need to pull together and put our arms together.

00;32;58;05 - 00;33;14;03 Unknown Whether or not you spent three years or are 36 years in the military, put our arms together and sort of talk to each other and help each other out as much as we can, because I know I get it. I tell people all the time, I'll help you with everything. You know, everything, anything, anything I can help you with, I'll certainly.

00;33;14;03 - 00;33;30;14 Unknown I'll be out. Don't think I won't do it. Gives me a bunch of money. I'll only give it to my grandkids and stuff. There. There's nothing wrong with that money now, but, But I just. I just think we gotta work together as a team, and I think we're missing the bullets sometimes. I came back backing up here a little bit.

00;33;30;16 - 00;33;50;03 Unknown I came back out of Vietnam, and I had anger issues for about 5 or 6 years where I struggled just fitting in. And it wouldn't take much to do, to set me off about stuff. And so that was me. And I know there's a lot of men and women that get out that just struggle and just try to find the right space where they fit in.

00;33;50;03 - 00;34;14;07 Unknown And, and I just sometimes I worry that we're just not doing enough, but we're not doing enough because we won't pull together. We just got to pull together a lot more. Yeah, and thanks for that. And that. And you're right. And then when you look at some of the I mean, the statistics help support, I guess putting something in a perspective that allows us it's tangible, right?

00;34;14;07 - 00;34;36;01 Unknown When we have a number and something hard to look at, it's the intangible things that are very challenging, you know, with over 47,000 organizations focused on a military affiliated community, what are your thoughts on how to bring people together when there's so many choices out there for, I mean, how would a service member that isn't doesn't have a mentor or hasn't thought about these things?

00;34;36;01 - 00;34;58;16 Unknown Maybe it's early career young enlisted junior junior officers, whoever. How do we make a decision or determine where to go first? With so many options? Yeah, that that really makes it tough. You got to do what's right for you. However, I think, somebody like me go to your next mission podcast on me, follow me on podcast, listen to the podcast, do whatever.

00;34;58;18 - 00;35;14;13 Unknown We're we're growing every day. We're growing. We probably get it. We probably get 100 followers a week or something like that. But, we're growing every day, and I guarantee you, if we can get. You know, I've always said to everybody, if we can get a million or a couple million people, that that'll follow us. Numbers count.

00;35;14;14 - 00;35;30;29 Unknown People listen to numbers. And if you got those numbers, then you can you can enforce a lot of stuff. That's what we got to do. Whether or not you're fallen AUSA or NCUA or whatever organization want to follow, that's fine. That's great. But we have to have one spot, one sweet spot for all of us to pull together.

00;35;30;29 - 00;35;53;00 Unknown I don't think we've I don't think we've found that sweet spot. Yeah. You're right. And so you have the American Freedom Foundation. Talk about that a little bit and then see if we can't get you to that million followers. Yeah. Well we, we, we start off by doing, we start off by doing concerts with me and Ted and, you know, we did a concert for about ten years.

00;35;53;03 - 00;36;12;27 Unknown Alan Jackson trace action. James out of Martina McBride. Lee and and was able to give away about $13 million. You know what was doing that? But all the concerts and stuff like that. But, I don't know. I think there's just a lot of people that struggle, that just I, I just don't I just don't want to pull together.

00;36;12;27 - 00;36;28;20 Unknown I think they get out and they, they look at the bad stuff versus the positive things in life. You've got to look at the good stuff. Everybody's going to have a hiccup in life goes up and it comes down. Everybody's going to have problems. Everybody's going to have issues. But don't dwell on the it. Don't dwell on the bad things.

00;36;28;21 - 00;36;50;22 Unknown Well, you know, think about the positive things and keep a positive attitude. I think as long as you do that, you certainly should be okay. I hope he is okay anyway. Yeah. Hope. Hope. Give people hope. Yeah. That being said, anything to close it out. So our amazing. Well, the, I think I told you on the I have to tell you about my son Brian, I think I did.

00;36;50;22 - 00;37;11;14 Unknown I told you, should I tell you about Brian? Briefly. But, if you could. Well, I tell you, I, I talk about, well, I, I don't think there's, I don't think there's a person I know that has went to war that doesn't get closer to God. And every time somebody struggles, or something's gone wrong, they get the, you know, they say a prayer.

00;37;11;14 - 00;37;32;19 Unknown And I'm no different than anybody else, you know, probably about the most religious person in the world. But I'll tell you a story, something to happen to me. I, I had my oldest son had pneumococcus meningitis, left him, temporarily blind, temporarily deaf, 20 to 30 convulsions a day. And, and quite frankly, it's hard for me to tell a story.

00;37;32;19 - 00;37;52;15 Unknown Usually I don't cry or tear up a little bit of struggle through it, but. But I always thought you'd die. By the time he was 7 or 8 years old, and, and my, my wife talked to, she said, just keep doing your job, stay focused in life. You know, it's about, it's about God. It's about believing.

00;37;52;15 - 00;38;19;07 Unknown It's about doing what's right for, you know, your fellow man and woman. And I remember I went to Fort Lewis was like, I was at Fort Lewis, and Brian was at the Madigan Hospital there was it, was in that community anyway. And, I went to tag gunner and my wife called me, says, now this is after you had meningitis, came holidays on like 4 or 5 different kinds of medication that control seizures and is here and was coming out left.

00;38;19;08 - 00;38;38;26 Unknown And seven years is trying to grow up again. And and my wife called me says Brian sick again and said, what's wrong? See what I know? And I said, well, let me, let me ask the first sergeant. So I'd come home. And so, of course, I hustle and home. I can't remember how far Jack Ma was, which is a few hours drive away.

00;38;38;28 - 00;38;58;06 Unknown And I went home and I went right to the Madigan Hospital, and I seen the doctor and I said, hey, doc, what's going to happen? And, you know, it's not you know, it's, now those are tough. I can't we're talking about struggle and and try to get through everything you're doing and being a soldier and taking care of your family and doing all those things.

00;38;58;06 - 00;39;33;03 Unknown And so, doc, what's going to happen? And he said, I don't know. And so I did what anybody else did. I went found me a chapel, a small annex at the Madigan Hospital. And I got down on my hands and knees and I said, God, either let him live or let him die. It's not fair that, that he's going through this, that again of the time he is having these, you know, 5 to 15 seizures a day and just a little small seizures and all that, all this medication and, and, and we don't know if he's going to make it.

00;39;33;06 - 00;39;43;05 Unknown And so I said a prayer, and the next day they got another order.

00;39;43;08 - 00;40;11;09 Unknown And so, I tell people all the time that, everybody struggles. But you got to believe. I believe in life, believe in God and believe in yourself. And it'll. And you can work through it. But, you just can't just can't quit. And that's, that's the thing that I tell everybody, just don't quit. Just keep keep moving forward.

00;40;11;09 - 00;40;31;18 Unknown And and if it would have turned out bad, okay, so be it. But but it didn't. It didn't. So believing in yourself, believing a lie, believing in God, believing that you can do anything that you want to do. But the only thing it stops you is, is you. You got to believe.

00;40;31;20 - 00;40;57;11 Unknown Thank you, Sergeant Major. Thank you for the story. Well, that's that's, that's that's being real open with everybody. And and you got to open with people and tell me how you feel. So, just, again, we all struggle. Everybody struggles, but but help each other out. That's the key to success in life. And we'll leave it there.

00;40;57;13 - 00;41;05;26 Unknown So our major thank you so much. Appreciate it. God bless and have a good one.

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Beth shares her journey from attending the Naval Postgraduate School to 15 years in the private sector before joining Oracle. Beth discusses how her experiences shaped her appreciation for pace and purpose, and the importance of bringing people together to stay grounded in our impact and goals. We also highlight a book that emphasizes the value of diverse skills in boosting both personal growth and the ability to contribute to the needs of others.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-sammons/

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Episode Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;31;26 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer. In this episode, I'm joined by Beth Sammons, Operations chief of Staff and Maven chapter lead to discuss her journey from attending the Naval Postgraduate School to 15 years in the private sector.

00;00;32;02 - 00;00;51;13 Before joining Oracle. Beth shares how her experience has shaped her appreciation for pace and purpose, and the importance of bringing people together to stay grounded in our impact and goals. We also highlight a book that emphasizes the value of diverse skills, and boosting both personal growth and the ability to contribute to the needs of others. We have all we need to become the person we want to be.

00;00;51;13 - 00;01;09;20 Let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Best contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;09;22 - 00;01;50;01 Good morning Beth. How are you? Good morning Chris, I am well. How are you? I'm doing all right. Thanks. Well, welcome. And we're happy to have you and have this conversation. You know, you're sitting here because of the reputation that you have seemingly built for yourself to where people have recognized the type of person you are and how you contribute in all kinds of different ways that we'll talk about, specifically within the Maven community, inside of Oracle here, you know, how you've contributed in doing things for the community, maybe in and as you talk through this, it's related to what you grew up being surrounded by or the location in which you live

00;01;50;01 - 00;02;12;03 and things like that. But, you know, I think it's a good example of the elements when you come into Oracle, when you come into this community, the military affiliated community, you know, you you never know. Obviously, who you're going to meet. But once you settle in, you start to feel like there are things that you can do and that discovery and that curiosity builds relationships.

00;02;12;03 - 00;02;30;14 And that's the essence of of how it came about. So before we get too far into these things, you want to share a little bit about those types of things where where you're from and how you navigated to get to where you are today. Well, thank you for having me, Chris. I want to just start with that, I appreciate it.

00;02;32;06 - 00;03;05;21 So my background, I was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and didn't have a huge military influence ahead a little bit in my family. But, I went to undergrad for business management at Purdue, and I ended up getting my MBA at naval post-grad. And I think that's a good portion of where I spent a lot of time with military and, spent two years in a different cohort and getting to do and have like a virtual MBA program, which was really neat.

00;03;05;21 - 00;03;33;07 It was a program designed for naval officers, and it was good exposure and all that. But I did that while I was in one of the federal agencies that got three letters and doesn't like to be talked about, but I spent about 15 years there. I started out in government contracting, and I was a contracting officer, and I ended up moving into I do project management.

00;03;33;07 - 00;04;06;00 We kind of built a new financial system. I helped on that project that in a way, and really liked it at the budget. And then I spent some time doing that and working in the IT division, and ended up becoming a unit chief. And because I just loved managing people and helping develop their careers. And so I managed a couple of different software development teams and shops and different, like, testing type organizations, and then a little over three years ago, I left the public sector.

00;04;06;14 - 00;04;29;23 I really thought I'd be there forever and retire there, but I ended up getting an opportunity to come here to Oracle and work in Oracle Cloud. I am a chief of staff, to our head of Sovereign Cloud. And I also, a couple of months ago, that manager bug bit me again, and I just missed managing people and helping develop others.

00;04;29;25 - 00;04;55;25 So I became a manager again. Actually, just a few months ago, literally. And so as I got that itch as well, I started mentoring. So like the last year when I was an individual contributor at Oracle, I was just missing management so much that I mentored in the Oracle Veteran Intern program, and a couple of cohorts.

00;04;55;25 - 00;05;24;00 But I also mentor and like the Oracle Global Mentoring, where you can be paired up with someone who, you know, has similar interest or is you're where you're trying to develop your career in that area. But at Oracle, I've had a lot of Oracle volunteer events and a lot of that kind of introduced me to Maven. Honestly, it was just a colleague, who sat a couple of rows down for me in the office and said, you do all of this like giving back and volunteering your time.

00;05;24;00 - 00;05;42;12 Why aren't you a part of Maven? And I said, you know, explain to me what Maven is. And then I said, well, I'm not a veteran. And, and he said that that's okay. You don't have to be a veteran. You just have to appreciate them. And I was like, well, that's very much something I'm passionate about. And so I've been a part of Maven since.

00;05;42;12 - 00;06;01;14 But I just like in the last few weeks, started helping out and that Maven, DC, Maryland, Virginia chapter. And we're going to try to have more volunteer events, more ways to connect in our area. Because there's a lot of opportunities in the DC area, to give back and to help veterans. And I want to be a part of that.

00;06;01;17 - 00;06;38;12 I'm also a mom of two young boys who keep me quite busy carting them around to activities and enjoying their energy. Yeah, you're being subtle. Yeah, yeah. Yes. I think someone asked me yesterday about work life balance and I'm like, I'm not really sure what that means anymore. Yeah. You just shifting your attention from one thing to the other at this point, a lot of it is, you know, I work, and for the most part, we're able to work hybrid and remote, and there's a lot of people interested in that, kind of flexibility.

00;06;38;14 - 00;07;02;08 But I come into the office every day simply to get out of my house to see other adults. I mean, to feel a little bit more calm coming to work is how I come down. Yeah, it makes sense. There's value in all of that. So thanks for that. Thanks for sharing that. The how did you end up going to or what made you lean towards going to the Naval Postgraduate Academy?

00;07;02;10 - 00;07;23;02 Yeah. So because I got my undergraduate degree in business, you kind of always think at some point I'll go back and get my masters in it. But when you work in the federal government, you know, a lot of those principles that you learn in undergrad about, like maximizing profits, just kind of they don't pan out and you don't use them.

00;07;24;27 - 00;07;57;28 And so as much as I wanted to get my MBA, I hadn't really thought about the best way to do it. You know, I didn't want to spend a huge amount of time going to an elite school, if I wasn't going to use it. And if I was going to stay in the government, where you're really just trying to spend all of your budget like their goal, but we had know a couple of seats in a special program, that was virtual with naval post-grad, where we all got to kind of come together and one day a week, instead of going to work, you got authorized to go to class

00;07;58;01 - 00;08;30;06 that way. Other classmates across the country. And so I got accepted into that program. It was a huge opportunity because I sat next to people who were doing similar work on kind of the DoD civilian side. They were doing finance and budget work, but also sat next to helicopter pilots. And, one of my colleagues was working on the F-35 program, which was at the time, very interesting and probably painful if you ask him.

00;08;31;12 - 00;08;55;01 But it was really good exposure. Our we had a Norfolk group as well who a lot of them worked on subs. And so it was very good exposure to understanding, what, you know, enlisted military go through, how they're, you know, most of, the classmates we had in the two year program didn't even get to stay living in the same spot.

00;08;55;18 - 00;09;27;15 The moving around part of it, is something that it's, not a lot of people, you know, in the civilian life who don't have a lot of military friends. Understand? Once you understand it, you realize, like, military families go through a lot. And part of Oracle veteran intern program and mentor to couple of military spouses and have understood, you know, some concepts about, you know, their resume may have to have them jump around every few years.

00;09;28;15 - 00;10;02;09 And it's not that they're job hopping looking for a better opportunity or something like that. As some people interviewing them, they look at it's more that, you know, you are going where the military sends you. And so I got a lot more appreciation at naval grad living, the DC area. You also just have a lot of friends and colleagues who are either in the military at the time or, veterans themselves, and you kind of understand and empathize a lot more with the struggles that they have coming back into, you know, getting out of the military.

00;10;02;09 - 00;10;34;14 And how do you transition? And it's a very different workspace. I was scared moving from public to the private sector. It's certainly different, but it's it's much more different. You know, I was never deployed or anything like that. I didn't have to go through that change. Yeah. And thank you for recognizing the challenges. You know, I'm sure we all agree that everybody experiences challenging, situations and, and relative to their environment and their, their, choices and things like that.

00;10;34;14 - 00;11;10;23 But it's, you know, it's the unique acknowledgment, the acknowledgment of the unique situations that we, we, you know, when we choose and civilians alike, when you choose to go on and take on a role that where it's the norm, where you're constantly going, where the team needs you, let's say. Yeah. And the perspective that you gain from it, I think is going to be obviously it's going to pay dividends on the work that you're doing now and who you're surrounded by, because it's easier to connect with those when you understand without even speaking, you know, just knowing that they've gone through some of these things and you can be more relatable in the context

00;11;10;23 - 00;11;31;19 of empathy and things like that. As a leader, which you've emphasized that something that you missed and you have a strong desire to do is, you know, not just mentorship, but also leading the teams as you're growing business and applying the principles of the career choice that you're in the industry. So thanks for that and a wordy summary to get us on to the to the to the next thing.

00;11;31;19 - 00;12;00;21 But it's, you know, you talked about struggle. So in your, in your transition from, the three letter agency into the civilian sector where you are now. What share some insight of what you maybe didn't anticipate or didn't expect, but you learned. Yeah, very relevant actually. It was just, talking to someone yesterday who's interested and worried about making that leap from the public sector to the private sector.

00;12;00;23 - 00;12;35;26 And I was ultimately scared as well and not sure which company, you know, I'm going to make the jump, which I'm to go to. But I think the biggest change was the pace. And I think a lot of us who have worked in government and I know military is very similar sometimes the pace is really, really fast because it's something mission critical and urgent, but a lot of the pace of change and the pace of policy that I worked in for a long time and the pace of it was unfortunately, you know, beholden to a lot of security and compliance and governance process.

00;12;35;29 - 00;12;58;13 And it seemed frustratingly slow at times. And so really, the big pitch to leave the public sector was for me, it was, do I want to sit here and wait in line for the next few years and migrate a lot of our systems to the cloud, or do we want to kind of build it? And that was exciting and an interesting challenge for me.

00;12;58;16 - 00;13;25;00 But coming over here, the big difference I think was definitely pace and it took a lot of getting used to. I came over at a time where we had a giant solicitation drop that week, and so I didn't sit around in orientation for very long. I just kind of jumped in because I had a background in contracting and I saw where I get out there, but I think the pace of it is just it's such a benefit.

00;13;25;03 - 00;13;45;15 I know a lot of people worry about like burnout and how that will affect them, but I think it's also amazing to see, you know, one of our customers in the cloud has a problem, and it's amazing to see the amount of executives and the amount of people that we can throw at that problem very quickly and solve that problem and one of the OCI values is put your customers first.

00;13;45;18 - 00;14;05;25 And that's a huge important factor to everything that we do. But it's also nice I, I stay within a group that we call ourselves Sovereign Cloud, but we really support the government and within the US and globally. And so it's nice to also be able to explain to everyone the importance of what our customers are doing. They have mission critical applications.

00;14;05;25 - 00;14;31;00 These applications are very important for many of them. We have DoD applications running. They're supporting our veterans. We're working with a group that's going to be moving all of the veterans electronic health records over to one of our cloud rooms, and it's helpful to have that perspective and understand why what our customers are doing is so important, and that we can bring the pace of change and support that they need.

00;14;31;03 - 00;15;08;01 And it's nice being on the side that gets to help with that. Yeah, I was just thinking about that, how the the correlating factors of being on one side and then going to the other side to help drive some of the issues that that you experienced. And I say issues, but some of the feelings you had on the experiences of pace, probably skills and security, I mean, processes, all of those factors weigh into things that, you know, probably drives us to look in other areas of where we can provide more value, which it sounds like you did so and so for everybody listening, OCI is Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

00;15;08;03 - 00;15;30;05 And most, most will know that if you're paying attention to what what Oracle is and has become. But the transition in the mindset, you covered a little bit of it and you landed on it with the work that you're involved in is including the veteran community, but also the health records, I mean, the importance of it and the relevance of it.

00;15;30;05 - 00;16;02;13 You know, how is this to share your feelings about the impact that you feel you're having now with that responsibility to be a part of that effort? Yeah. So that was one of the careers I had when I left the government was, well, I still feel that same sense of mission. Because at the end of the day, you can kind of feel like, well, our job is actually just to make money, but I think we've been able to bring that sense of mission to a lot of our teams that my boss is very helpful in this, but we bring in on a monthly basis to our team.

00;16;02;13 - 00;16;31;23 We have like a spotlight speaker. And we bring in customers, we bring in potential customers, we bring in some of the Oracle Global business units who are running on our cloud and show the actual mission that, they're supporting. So, for example, we have a safety global business unit, and Oracle is running local and state law enforcement like a suite of tools, but they are running an emergency management system.

00;16;31;24 - 00;17;11;12 They're running, you know, police law enforcement videos in the cruisers, you know, pull cameras, all of it. It's all integrated into what we do. And we've been able to reinforce that with our teams and show them, you know, our teams are doing a lot of operations work, deploying changes. They may never speak to a customer. And I think it's important to put your customer in front of you on a regular basis so that you understand their mission and why what we're doing has to be done with a sense of urgency, because we have really important customers out there that if we have an outage, there is an emergency management system that's that's gone down.

00;17;11;17 - 00;17;39;04 And one of our US local organizations. So I think it helps to drive home that sense of mission and importance just by hearing from your customers. We also bring in a lot of partners. My team, tries to bring in more partners and have more collaboration engagement with, US defense and intelligence customers or partners as well. And it's good to hear from some of those partnerships, the work they're doing to support our customers.

00;17;39;04 - 00;18;00;07 And they're going to run it on Oracle Cloud. But it's nice to see what new partners like Palantir and Anduril are doing and and how they're helping serve. A lot of them are helping serve us. Department of Defense. That's amazing. I mean, that's a great that's a great concept. And we can we can look at it simply. We're human.

00;18;00;07 - 00;18;28;23 And sometimes we may lean towards forgetting our purpose, you know, because of how our lives are shaping our mindset and our attention, focusing on things, internalizing things. And so I love to hear that what you're doing is bringing people in to remind us and keep us focused, keep us aware of what we're actually affecting and impacting when we contribute the customers, the experiences, the subtleties behind that.

00;18;28;25 - 00;19;04;00 You know, I'm hopeful that everybody's understanding the importance of that. So they can always be reminded that this is why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah, no it's good. So so now so you're here and and you're doing these things and you've become more familiar with your surroundings enough. And I'm kind of floating around it. So the relationship that you've, the relationships that you've created here talk a little bit about those and, and share some of the, some of the value that comes from meeting different people in different roles and how it contributes to the things that you're doing.

00;19;04;03 - 00;19;30;28 So I and the position I have as a chief of staff, a lot of the people that I work with. So I directly support our VP. And so from day one, I have kind of always been in meetings and supporting and reporting to, a lot of executives, which was an interesting change. I think the piece of that that can be difficult is that I have to be very succinct and clear.

00;19;31;00 - 00;19;58;16 But I think a lot of what we try to do with, the volunteer events and also what we're doing with Maven is create relationships that you wouldn't normally have. And so we've got different groups. We run our classified ops teams for Oracle Cloud. But I think about a, I think we're now at like two years ago maybe before Oracle kind of encouraged people to come back into the office.

00;19;58;16 - 00;20;17;12 We were thinking of what are the ways that would drive people to come back, like they don't want to come back and sit on zoom all day. And so we started having Oracle volunteer event. And I think the best thing that we've gotten out of that and it's good to get back, but every time we host one of these, we get someone who's never been into the office and they're like, how do I get a badge?

00;20;17;12 - 00;20;37;11 How do I get in the door? But we always have people that as we're doing these volunteer events, they're talking. They work on different parts of this very, very large organization that we work for. Some of them realize they do similar work just in different divisions and lines of business, but it's been a good opportunity for people to connect where we don't normally do that.

00;20;37;11 - 00;20;58;11 I mean, I still come into the office but sit on a zoom call most of the day. And so these Oracle volunteer events are a really good way for us to give back. Our company supports it and helps us increase our social impact. But I think the relationships that we've got there, I have a really, really strong group of volunteers who come to just about any event I have.

00;20;58;14 - 00;21;18;10 We do a monthly volunteer event where we serve meals in the evenings with one of our local nonprofits, and I have a group of 4 to 5 people. I think half of them are actually Maven, but they come out every month and they're there. I had some of them in the snow the other night. They're like my ride or die group of volunteers.

00;21;18;25 - 00;21;36;06 And I have a lot of people who come to all of our in-person events in the office, and they're like, this is the only time I ever come into the office. I work from home the rest of the time. So I think we create a lot of good relationships because we're doing good things that, you know, make us feel like we're giving back as a company.

00;21;36;18 - 00;22;07;05 But it's also just creating those opportunities for people. A lot of times working from home, that was one of the scariest things that I left for government, as I had been in the office coming to a work from home or flexible remote opportunity. It sounds great, but it's also can be isolating. And so I think having these volunteer events and anything we can do with Maven to bring people out and meet in person, helps develop great relationships that we're all kind of looking to that same sense of purpose of giving back and continuing to serve.

00;22;07;08 - 00;22;29;28 I love it, and I, you know, I'm excited. I get chills in the back of my neck just imagining the feeling, right? Because it's, it's common, right? We get it. We we we have life and we do things and we're focused on business, let's say. Right, whatever your priorities are. So you can, take care of the family, take care of the house and, you know, pay bills and things like that.

00;22;29;28 - 00;22;56;21 And it's it's I wouldn't call it a distraction so much, but it is, you know, it serves as a, responsible action you can take to remind yourself of the value and humanity and, and helping others in different ways. And so this one, I believe, you know, there's a there's a bunch of different reasons and the benefits, but, you know, a couple that stand out is the fact that you're going to also provide an environment for other people to explore things that they otherwise wouldn't have.

00;22;56;21 - 00;23;23;06 You summarized it well, but it's also to get them to realize, I didn't think I'd like it. I didn't think I'd want to do this. And I think that that helps us uplift, especially in winter. You know, where it's cloudy, dreary, cold, and you're not going out a lot. You get out and you start to do things, takes your mind off of the monotony and the minutia to be able to now serve that little internal need of service, like you said, continuing the mission to serve.

00;23;23;09 - 00;23;46;06 So they say, yeah, yeah, it's great. Thanks for that and thanks for doing that. And thanks for stepping up to lead that and support that and co-lead. I imagine there's a bunch of people within your your team there that do a bunch of different things. You had somewhat of a segue because you had mentioned the book. And it's the title itself is was the grab for me.

00;23;46;06 - 00;24;06;02 It was the hook, and I was more curious about it. So immediately when you mentioned it. And we here do love to talk about books and things like that. Talk a little bit about the book that you, you mentioned. Yeah. So it was recommended. There is a great book club if anyone wants to be a part of it and or got caffeinated chapter eight.

00;24;06;03 - 00;24;44;07 There's there's a slack channel you can find it, but it's one of the books they are meeting about and reading and book club. And I like assigned reading because it gives me, you know, a motivation and a deadline to finish it. But the book is called Range Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and I was drawn to it because I am one of the many people that are also described in the book that feel I have kind of bopped around to different things in my career, and I think you get a little bit of imposter syndrome from some of that you feel like you were.

00;24;44;09 - 00;25;07;25 We're all kind of taught that specialization is important and it will, you know, make us successful in our careers and I definitely have, you know, I don't I've never been a software developer, but I've managed them and always a little bit of that imposter syndrome. Do I do I belong managing someone who I have no idea what they're doing and working in technology, not having a huge tech background.

00;25;07;27 - 00;25;29;14 And I always thought that way. But, you know, I started in contracting, went into it. It's like a project manager and then ended up managing these teams. But a lot of that is and then jumped over here to become a chief of staff, which I didn't have really experience in it either. And all of those kind of career pivots that I took were off at the time.

00;25;29;16 - 00;26;03;19 And I think because it is that like desire or what we are taught, is specialization and that idea of what is that like 10,000 hours of practice will make you great at something. And the book talks about that from the perspective of, yes, there are there are things that you can learn and do better that way. Chat is a really good example that they use in the amount of practice and starting early with children and getting them interested because is, you know, you can learn rules, there are strategies.

00;26;03;19 - 00;26;33;19 It is you know, all knowable. But the book talks about most of the work that we do is what it calls wicked. But, most of it, you require a lot of different skills. It's not linear and easily learner, and you need a variety of a background. And so the book actually, the author says he started writing this book and started the idea of the book because he was actually giving a speech, too, and it was the Pat Tillman Foundation.

00;26;33;19 - 00;26;54;21 So a lot of really high up military leadership, who came to him afterwards and said they felt they had been told in their careers that specialization was the way to go, and each of them had actually made a career pivot at some point and felt scared of it because they didn't feel it would be valued and that it might derail their success.

00;26;54;26 - 00;27;26;00 And the book gives a lot of great examples across music and art and business and engineering and technology, where there's great examples of people who actually have incredible success because they had a diverse background, because they didn't only know one type of engineering, because the instruments are the most fascinating one kind of think that if you want to become a great violinist, you should start at the age of three and play violin.

00;27;26;03 - 00;27;51;11 Oh, your whole career. But some of the greatest violinists actually learned, you know, 5 or 10 different instruments. And it made them better because they could understand and adapt, to different things. And that was kind of very reaffirming. I've also had many people recently. I don't know why this book just kind of when you're reading something, we've brought it up many times with people that I'm mentoring.

00;27;51;17 - 00;28;16;03 I have a lot of people reaching out from public sector right now who are interested leaving to go to the private sector, but they're very scared. They don't think they're, you know, government skills are transferable. And I felt that way at some point too. But you can't you can choose to specialize for a long time if you want, but a lot of that diverse background will actually help make you more successful, I think.

00;28;16;06 - 00;28;39;25 And it was interesting. It was a very, very good read. I recommend it, but I think it was helpful in affirming for me to know that this strange background I have, where I haven't really met anyone with something similar, but it does make me it can help make me really more successful and more understanding of different parts of this kind of business process that we're in.

00;28;39;27 - 00;29;00;29 Agree 1,000%, and I'm glad you brought it up because it is. So I mean, the story you're sharing and the way you're phrasing things is very similar to the environment to which the military affiliate community thrives in. Right? Dictates their experience. Right? And we hope everybody thrives. But it's a reality of saying, I did this, you know, didn't it becomes a dilemma that I'm going to transition.

00;29;00;29 - 00;29;17;28 I'm going to choose to do something different, do something different in a different place, whether it's doing something different or just doing it a different place, you know, apply the principle of what that means. I'm going to go do something different. We often think about the comfort and security and, you know, the safety and doing what you've done.

00;29;17;28 - 00;29;47;01 But to realize some of those in the the emotional component, and this is my opinion, right? I'm not think I'm qualified to speak too deeply on this, but in my experience, it's to say because of that, because of that belief that I have, I'm going to stick within this area because it's going to give me the thing that I'm looking for when the reality is sometimes we forget to, I don't know, maybe play with the idea of breaking it down like a project plan where you're looking at resources of self.

00;29;47;03 - 00;30;08;04 I can do these things. I do these things. I don't know how to correlate those. And you're able to isolate each one, compartmentalize it and look and say, well, I'm stronger in this area. It's a hard skill, and I'm familiar in these areas, which might be the soft skills in today's world. And I'm I swear I'm going to land somewhere in a minute because we're talking about mentoring.

00;30;08;07 - 00;30;27;28 When we look for mentors, we have a purpose. And so when we see somebody who specializes, there is a play, a place for that, for sure. But there is something uniquely different in the experience of getting to a mentor, somebody in a position of influence that you can feel, you can learn from and realize that you can ask almost any question.

00;30;27;28 - 00;30;51;02 And there's a, there's a, a certain level of familiarity in each of the spaces of what you're asking that. Yeah. And for me blows my mind like, wow, great. This is perfect because it's almost like a one stop shop that allows me to get generally familiar with these areas that I'm not comfortable with yet, and it moves me forward and just gets me, potentially.

00;30;51;02 - 00;31;11;22 It gets me through the situation where I am. So when you're talking about over at the Oracle Veteran Internship Program, where they, you know, the the interns that come in, they're in a specific situation to where that generalization that you're allowing them to hear about will help them get through the situation where they are. If they're looking for a job, looking for an experience and things like that.

00;31;11;22 - 00;31;38;02 So absolutely relevant. And skimming through the book, I probably landed in some of the spaces that you we'll talk about. But you know, the one one place inside here, if I may, when we try to briefly touched about it, touched on it before we started recording here, the desirable difficulties, you know, the obstacles that make learning more challenging, slower and more frustrating in the short term, but better in the long term.

00;31;38;04 - 00;32;02;13 What are your thoughts on that particular statement inside the space? Yeah, I think that's part of a section of the book that's talking about, you know, how we learn and you can like, apply it within. I had young children who were trying to figure out how do they best learn. And I think they have like a study where you give kids, they learn one thing, take a test, and then they move on to the next topic.

00;32;02;13 - 00;32;24;05 But kids who actually, like, dabble in all of the topics, learn it and retain it better. And I think that's helpful knowledge to know. And I think really as we grow, we need to understand how we best learn. I know I can breeze through like 30 audiobooks and not retain any of it because that's not how I learn.

00;32;25;01 - 00;32;47;29 But I think reflecting back and actually every time you go to write a resume is a good point to reflect and figure out what you learned in that role. And I, even as I've brushed up my resume in like the last year, gone back to way previous jobs and thought, how do I frame this differently? And that was one of the changes as I moved from government to private sector.

00;32;47;29 - 00;33;14;05 Like, you have to get rid of all the acronyms and things that didn't make sense to people outside of the government. But what did I learn from that? Like you want your resume to focus on results like, oh, I, you know, decrease costs by X percentage grade. That is important stuff. But what did you learn from it? And it's a question I ask and a lot of my interviews of other people, it's like, tell me about something you went outside of your comfort zone to learn and how did you do it?

00;33;14;07 - 00;33;32;21 And I think that tells you a lot about someone. And I think that's a big piece of anyone coming out of the military. You have had to learn things that didn't make any sense when you started them. Right? Like, how did you go about doing that and how would you then apply it to learning a whole new space if you came into the private sector or wherever you're headed?

00;33;32;24 - 00;34;08;09 And I think using those examples and demonstrating that pretty much everyone I know coming out of the military is really, really good at learning something new, handling stress and pressure. And that's something that we all are looking for in good candidates, someone who, you know, could reduce that learning curve and help add value quickly on my team and someone who can handle the pressure or, you know, the quick turnaround that I'm going to have, and the roles that we're in and I think a resume writing that helps you reflect on that.

00;34;08;09 - 00;34;28;28 But I think it's also something that I think we just went through kind of like a mid-year performance review is a sitting down and how did I grow? I'm one of those people that I always want to have a goal of, what am I going to learn? New what new certification am I going to get? And I think you need to sit down and reflect on like what helps me in my career, but also the same piece of what this book is talking about.

00;34;28;28 - 00;34;49;03 I don't need to sit here and specialize and an oracle cloud and only take for cloud classes what are the other things that are adjacent to what I do that would help make me better at my job? Or maybe lead me to a different career path that I have explored again. And I think I also I will always throw up, volunteering.

00;34;49;03 - 00;35;13;05 But if you're ever worried, if you can do something, there's probably a volunteer opportunity. You don't necessarily have to, learn something new by getting paid to do it. You can find an organization or a nonprofit that needs some help in an area, build some skills there by volunteering and figure out if that's something that the career path you want to go down, or somewhere where you can take those skills and apply them.

00;35;13;05 - 00;35;45;13 If you are looking to change careers, you landed on so many things. There is the connecting the dots. It's, the imposter syndrome, right? It's feeling you're out of place from a from a perspective. And, you know, the exploration of new things as you're reflecting and paying attention to the small things that you might overlook or dismiss because you in the moment don't find value in those things that you're writing down as maybe you're reviewing your resume, you know, and reconciling and tying it back to relevance.

00;35;45;15 - 00;36;10;03 You know, this happened everything. I believe, everything that we're doing is an opportunity to be able to understand how it's connecting to something else. I believe it's all interconnected. And I'm not I'm not blowing anybody's mind and saying that. I'm saying just for me, that this is why I'm saying it is because, like relationships, you don't know how important it is to treat everybody with kindness because you don't know when that may come around.

00;36;10;03 - 00;36;40;16 And that's the situation. Make it make it connect to the situations. Every situation is going to now bring a value and you don't know when or where it's going to occur. But these are the things that we're talking about. When you talking about what you've experienced and what you've learned, it's important to journal it, write it down, take inventory of it because you want to tie it back to help alleviate some doubt that you may have on where I am and why I'm here and those types of things, and especially in transition, because the common question is where will I fit in?

00;36;40;18 - 00;37;17;00 I'm looking for something specific. Sometimes that narrow focus has this overlooked the peripheral because we're so yeah, we're so we're shining the light on very specific things that we believe needs to occur. But sometimes what needs to happen is actually in your blind side. Yeah, yeah. You know, a plan is just a plan kind of thing. So when you're mentoring, tying it back to that, that's part of the occurrence is it's helping helping you, helping us as a mentor, speaking with others who are mentees, it's helping us as well because now it's helping us.

00;37;17;03 - 00;37;31;24 Am I am I who I think I am? Am I as effective as I think I am? Am I as helpful or being an asset like I think I am? And sometimes you'll learn that you I mean you'll learn the hard way. You get humbled it you maybe you're not you're not as good as you thought you were.

00;37;31;29 - 00;37;49;07 And here's why. You know, and that helps us grow even in leadership positions. And you never know when it's going to happen. Yeah, even you even you come in here in this conversation and it kind of bring it back to the book. You know, the Outsider advantage is one of the chapters, you know, and the benefits of an external perspective.

00;37;49;09 - 00;38;15;05 I think you touched on it here, but just because we're now specifically talking about it, what is the value of an outsider perspective? Yeah, the book actually talks about it from the perspective, I think, in engineering of people who have a very specialized engineering or specialized research role. And like they see things the way they see it and even gives like an example of like a specific type of cardiologist.

00;38;15;05 - 00;38;41;27 And that's, that's exactly what they see and that's how they want to act. But I think anyone coming in with different perspectives, and we all bring those but different backgrounds will help you think about a problem differently. And ultimately, like we sometimes we'll see it. We have a problem. We bring in a bunch of different people, and sometimes you get in as an engineer, like, I think too many of us being thrown against this problem.

00;38;41;29 - 00;39;13;23 Then you hear a thought or an idea and none of the rest of us have thought about it, and it's great. And those only come if you bring people in and bring in several people with different backgrounds and different perspectives and different, you know. Agendas of what they need to accomplish. And so I in my role as a chief of staff, I have to think a lot about the financial aspects of what we're doing.

00;39;13;25 - 00;39;33;02 And you can start to think about, like, bottom line of everything but a lot, bringing people in who have different ideas and motivations. And they're thinking about, how do I keep work for my employees and how do I, you know, grow them and grow their careers. And so we'll all get better ideas from that. And they have very specific examples in the book.

00;39;33;04 - 00;40;03;07 It's a great chapter about huge innovations that have come about because they brought people in who weren't specialized. And I think that's really amazing to see. Good to remember that you have value even if you don't have a very specialized background in something. And I think that's important to remember, and it will help us, you know, have better ideas to have better project outcomes and, and results, hence volunteering.

00;40;03;11 - 00;40;21;28 Right. So this this all ties back to bringing people together. And you know, you can classify it or categorize it however you want. Volunteering work, workplace in the office. You know, when you bring people together, there's a higher potential of new things occurring because of a realization. Oh, I didn't think of it like that. Or the obviously the importance of taking a break, right?

00;40;21;29 - 00;40;57;24 You know, when you're so focused on it, the theory is get up, walk away, give yourself 15 minute, take a walk, get distracted. And sometimes those epiphanies occur when you least expect it in the shower. You know, we're walking your dog. You know, some of these elements are the the essence of what we're talking about. And, and and, you know, as we kind of wind down this conversation a little bit, it's, you know, it's great to have you on be able to talk about these things because your perspective from where you started and how, you know, I'll say evolved or maybe you know, how you kind of, you know, shifted your attention through from as

00;40;57;24 - 00;41;20;14 your experiences were, you know, shaping your mindset to change life, change, maybe, you know, maybe it's a bunch of them. But all the factors that you talked about early on as to as to why you were now looking to do something different, those started from somewhere else, I'm sure. And those are a walking example of how information is important for us when we're open to see it and hear it as it's occurring.

00;41;20;17 - 00;41;42;00 Instead of being and it have jokes, being stubborn and not allowing it to kind of freely flow into into what you're doing. Volunteering is one of those elements, you know, reminding ourselves what service means and, you know, bringing customers in, bringing partners in to bring a perspective to remind us that whatever you're doing, don't forget this is why you're doing it here.

00;41;42;02 - 00;42;17;28 And that's for everything family, personal life, professional life, things like that. You know, there's a there's a ton of things that we could go through, inside this space, inside this book. I will touch on one thing, and then I'll ask you if you want to, you know, mention anything on your own specifically, but, you know, experts and and the ones that know what are some of the pitfalls based off of what we just talked about, what are some of the pitfalls of engaging with somebody that is, is, supposed to be an expert or someone who knows a lot about something?

00;42;18;00 - 00;42;48;14 Pitfalls of an expert? I think they have gotten really great by doing things. They're known set of ways, and it can really help them in certain situations, but it gives them kind of a myopic focus, and they don't always see the broader options of perspective and kind of see the force and everything. And so I think it can also help link if those experts think with an open mind and think, I would I approach this problem if I were someone else, if I didn't know everything that I know.

00;42;48;20 - 00;43;10;21 And so there are pitfalls, but there are ways to kind of try to avoid them. And there are plenty of experts that we absolutely need out there. If you have a doctor, you would like them to be an expert and have, you know, as much expertise and years of experience as possible. But I think it's it's good for those of us who are generalists and helps us know that, like, you can take a career pivot and and do something different.

00;43;10;21 - 00;43;27;22 It might be a better fit for you. I think that's good to be open to that as well. Yeah. Well thanks for that. And that's a good, good summary. So any final words or things that you'd like to share with the audience? For those of you who are or alone please I'm just going to do another pitch for volunteering.

00;43;27;22 - 00;43;44;22 You can lead an effort. You can lead a project. You can lead an event. It's not as difficult as people think. That's what a lot of people think. It'll be a ton of time. I'm happy to help you with it. There's a whole community, social impact, community leaders and awful. And you can reach out to any of them for help.

00;43;44;24 - 00;44;03;06 And that's what I'll leave us. Got it. Thank you so much. And for anybody else outside that's not an Oracle employee. Get with your community. Get with any workplace and where you are, get with your you know, even if it's your neighborhood. Think about the things that you can pull people together for and find value in that and pay it forward.

00;44;03;06 - 00;44;24;12 So Beth, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for the input. Like I said, we could have gone down a whole bunch of different paths to discuss this further, but, I think this was a good scraping the surface on what people can consider, you know, whether you're a military service member or a military spouse. The transition does sometimes play mind games on how you can focus on things.

00;44;24;12 - 00;44;41;02 But remember, use your use your network, use your support mechanisms. You know, bring people together, get a perspective and ask for help. We're all here to help and keep moving forward. Yeah. Thank you bet. Thanks, Chris.

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We're excited to bring back Halty for a discussion surrounding The Honor Foundation’s growth and success that includes Vector Accelerator - Accelerating the veteran journey to clarity, confidence, and conviction for life. If you’re a service member within a year from separation or a veteran from any branch of the US Military, you’ll want to hear this episode and learn why you would want to consider leveraging this program to support your transition. Do you have a family member, friend, co-worker who fits into this category? Share it and support the possibility of them finding ways to learn more about themselves in different ways they may not have realized possible. https://www.vectoraccelerator.org/ https://www.youtube.com/@VectorAccelerator https://www.linkedin.com/company/vector-accelerator/posts/?feedView=all https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelghalterman/

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Mike’s clear line of sight into the small things that gave him the tools to be successful is credited to his humility, self-awareness, and commitment to leading people. We talk mentors, change, commitment, integrity, patience, and much more! This is definitely an episode you’ll want to make time for! Mike Reavy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkreavey/ David Cross - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-b-cross-b856657/ -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;28;25 You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve what one of the main podcast, I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And in this episode I'm joined by our cohost David Cross, senior Vice President and SAS Chief Information Security Officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;27 - 00;00;51;11 And today we are joined by our special guest, Mike Reavy, Senior Vice President for security engineering at Electronic Arts, and also an Air Force veteran. We're really excited about this episode because of how many slivers of information we touched on. Mike's clear line of sight and the small things they give him the tools to be successful, his credit to his humility, self-awareness and commitment to leading people.

00;00;51;13 - 00;01;12;20 We talk mentors change commitment, integrity, patience, and it's packed with much more. This is definitely an episode you'll want to make time for. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity. In genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;12;23 - 00;01;38;20 David's and Mike's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. All right. Good morning, David. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, Chris. It's great to be back. You know, I know the community is waiting for a while for this, so but we have a special edition today, don't we? We do. And there's there's I'll let I'll let our guest talk more about his intro and things.

00;01;38;20 - 00;01;58;25 But we have Mike Reaves, senior vice president, security engineering over at Electronic Arts. And what we're doing today is we're just tapping into our network. We've been talking about it for many episodes, how our networks are important, how wherever we end up, it's always important to keep in touch with others that you've grown up with or experience in different lives.

00;01;58;25 - 00;02;14;17 And as you get to where you want to be, you know, you call in those not only call them favors, but you call in that chat and say, Hey, we have a conversation that we'd love to get you involved in. Do you want to do it? So David reached out to Mike. Mike said yes, and here he is.

00;02;14;18 - 00;02;31;29 Mike, welcome. Hey, thank you. Thank you. I know. Look, I just to be clear, I view this as a as a real opportunity. I appreciate you guys give me a chance to be out here. No check called out at all if I get a chance to talk About what? We're going to talk about, I want to take up take up the time, and I will do it.

00;02;32;01 - 00;02;49;07 So, yeah, let's start out a little bit with your background, kind of just, you know, the typical stuff where you grew up, the choices you made and how you ended up where you are. And then then we'll get into the get into the weeds. Yeah, yeah. I'll try to make this quick, but like where I grew up on a dirt road in a trailer next to a creek named Poverty Creek.

00;02;49;09 - 00;03;04;05 You know, we didn't have any cable television as the joke. That's that's very real. But my dad, he was. He was. He was a retired colonel, so we were only in the trailer while we were building a house. I don't want to give this scene of, like, deep poverty, even though we did live on a creek and and poverty creek.

00;03;04;08 - 00;03;23;05 But I will say what was kind of crazy about that upbringing, it was in lower kind of lower Alabama, northern Florida. It was technically Florida. But I swear I thought our state song was Sweet Home Alabama, where I grew up. And I had a much different accent. But I did. I did. I did manage to get on the Internet back in the early nineties on that dirt road.

00;03;23;08 - 00;03;40;02 So that kind of was a good signal and sort of where my career went. So that's where I grew up. You want me to kind of go into how I got to where I am now because yeah, so where you are in where you just described and you're building a place and then all of a sudden you're old enough to make your own choices and then you do.

00;03;40;04 - 00;03;58;16 So let's go with that. Yeah. So, So, you know, my dad was a pilot. He flew A-10s in other planes. So I was going to be a fighter pilot like my dad, like all my friends, you know, that I was around growing up and but I also had this deep, deep love for computers. So long story short, like, ended up with an option to go to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

00;03;58;16 - 00;04;14;23 And I and I took that option to go to go fly. And my first year there, I ended up breaking my back snowboarding, which was Deckard me for any of the cool fighter jets that I wanted to do and made me think a bit about like, Hey, what I want to do in my life. And that's when I actually changed my major to computer science.

00;04;14;23 - 00;04;33;09 You know, to take up this hobby and maybe turn it into a career. Looking back, you know, as one of these great transitions that paid off really well. So I went to the Air Force getting out of the academy. I actually was a communications officer, worked there. Basically, if you guys know Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, there's a lot of commands there, trans comms there.

00;04;33;11 - 00;04;55;05 AMC's command was there. So it was a big installation and I was part of the COM squadron supporting the networks in the late nineties. So as a young lieutenant, I was technically in charge of 10,000 workstations across multiple commands. You know, as you probably know, there is the senior enlisted personnel that knew what was really going on from my first few years there.

00;04;55;05 - 00;05;16;11 And but I really got a deep a deep crash course and had a support network. And that was the time when there were things like the Melissa virus and stuff going on in security. And so I was in charge of messaging, which was basically exchange back then. And the help desk, which got flooded when, you know, the generals in there just couldn't get their emails.

00;05;16;11 - 00;05;46;20 So that was my introduction to computers in the real world. And then actually my, my, I spent all five active duty years at Scott Air Force Base. My last two years I went to a group called Scope, and they basically did. We flew to every Air Force base as a small team and did a kind of a two week optimization and securing of their network, because back then Air Force networks were basically built kind of out of closets, you know, like maybe some tech sergeant knew what to do and built out a domain on windows into it.

00;05;46;20 - 00;06;04;07 So this was part of the Air Force trying to professionalize their networks worldwide. So as a young lieutenant, young captain, junior captain, I was able to fly two weeks on, two weeks off and lead small teams. I mean, just you don't get an experience like that anywhere else. You know, like they they threw a bunch of training at me, but I was hands on.

00;06;04;07 - 00;06;29;02 I had to, like, go convince people that really, you know, sort of bled over creating these networks, that this young lieutenant, young officers and contractors were going to help their networks and then leave. That's a dicey conversation, right? That's how I got started. And then I had a job lined up with a government contractor. It was kind of the dream job as close to a fighter pilot as you could get, but sit at a computer.

00;06;29;05 - 00;06;45;18 It was computer network attack before we really talked about it dream gig. But then I had an option through some friends to interview at a place called Microsoft, and so who says no to that? So I interviewed at Microsoft and ended up, you know, taking that option instead of the Dream gig. Just because I thought there'd be more opportunities, I'd learn a lot more.

00;06;45;18 - 00;07;04;00 And that's exactly how it turned out. I met a lot of great people. Microsoft, one of them is on this call, on this podcast today, and I spent a decade and a half there now media liability for seven years securing the video game company, probably one of the craziest forms of entertainment that exist in the world is video games.

00;07;04;00 - 00;07;21;03 It's massive. Anywhere you have huge value, you had a lot of attackers trying to get at that value. So we definitely have a very important mission as far as it goes. And we take the ability of getting people a chance to play very serious, like life is serious, you got to have outlets. So we take our job very, very seriously.

00;07;21;06 - 00;07;40;21 So so, you know, Microsoft, we got the truth out now, like Microsoft was not a dream gig, Right. You know, so the truth is finally came out and really the dream gig is that you can play, you know, games all day on your Xbox. That's that's what you're saying for everybody. Yeah. You know, the the young 20 year old Mike Reed, he had real mature plans.

00;07;40;24 - 00;07;59;14 Luckily, the world took care and gave me better plans, took care of me, gave me a better plan. So now there's there's little brief vision of like, hey, you know what? Who says no to Microsoft? And getting that chance was pretty eye opening. I just never saw it coming. Yeah, I imagine it's just one of those things David's talked about in the past of some.

00;07;59;14 - 00;08;19;17 Sometimes, you know, your plan, your focus, your intentions not derailed, but you know, you get distracted or something else draws your attention to it and then you make a choice. So when when you were offered that choice, how excited were you and what were you thinking about? Now that wasn't necessarily in your primary plan, but now, now you have a chance.

00;08;19;18 - 00;08;35;26 Now you have an opportunity. Absolutely torn. I was really torn. Like I said, the gig that I had lined up at this government contractor, small firm, if I said the name, it wouldn't mean anything. But I'm sure I'm supposed to say it because they got acquired. But I had friends that had that I had followed through my Air Force career that had joined that group.

00;08;35;26 - 00;09;02;21 And it was all gravy, like everything was set up great and I had signed. And so there was a relationship there and I had committed. And there's a bit about this integrity and like, I just wasn't sure what to do. And then I get this thing from Microsoft that I remember I went to my parents, right, Because this is I'm still pretty young and I just take a week to think and I really kind of laid it out and I said, Well, what I think this company is going to be okay if I say no, and I will just talk to them honestly about what happens to you if I say no.

00;09;02;21 - 00;09;21;00 Because if I hurt you, I don't want to hurt you because it was a small contractor and then too, I looked at it and I said, There's kind of two principles that have guided my career. And one was, Where do I think what choice is going to give me the most options in life? Because the one thing I knew about, like myself in the world was change is constant.

00;09;21;02 - 00;09;41;18 So the more options I have, the more opportunities I'm leaving open, the better I will probably be. And number two is where do I think I'm going to be the most helpful? And the story I had gotten from Microsoft and what they needed, they really needed help. Like this was the crisis in the early 2000 where Microsoft Security was, you know, kind of under the gun and this government contract like they had tons of great people.

00;09;41;18 - 00;09;58;29 Like I was probably one of the least skilled, you know, honestly going there. I was basically getting offered the job because they really liked me. It was relationship. So where was I going to be the most helpful? What was going to give me the most options and opportunities alive? And that guided my decision. Well, I think that comes into the topic always.

00;09;58;29 - 00;10;16;01 We talk about it many times on the podcast is about, you know, the networks and connections, Right? You know, is that the most important thing for, you know, veterans that are working to make a transition or to kind of make a move, you know, in their career? You know, has that changed in the past 20 years since you and I joined now?

00;10;16;03 - 00;10;39;09 I think I think the network, you know, the connections are really important. And I've always viewed myself as really poor at networking. But then if I look back at my career, networking has done everything for me. Like even the job at Microsoft that they got sat in front of me was because I had gone to Blackhat Def Con Solo in the Air Force because we weren't sending people there yet in the early 2000s.

00;10;39;12 - 00;10;57;02 And I stood out to a guy and when we started talking, he realized I was prior. I was active Air Force and his dad was prior Navy and he got to the Naval Academy. So that was the bond. That guy ended up getting me the interview a microsoft. He wasn't working at Microsoft, but he knew the people and he ended up speaking at a conference in Seattle.

00;10;57;02 - 00;11;11;09 I joined him as Black Hat Seattle back when they had it. I had no money, right like as a and some usually used leave. I think, or stuff like that. But I end up like doing the videotaping for Black Hat. That's how I got a free ticket. I slept on the floor of his hotel room because he was speaking at it.

00;11;11;09 - 00;11;28;00 And that's when a microsoft recruiter overheard me talking when we were getting bagels about me getting out of the Air Force. And I had a job lined up at DC. And she said, Well, we're hiring. Why don't you give me your resume and just that thing over bagels. And I went right upstairs and sent my resume to her.

00;11;28;02 - 00;11;46;09 And I remember she told me later, like she was really impressed with how quick I responded, but that's how it happened. So it was networking on both sides, right? So I think that's always been important. And I actually think the best networking I've done is kind of genuine, like people that I like, that I enjoy talking to it ends up flowing, but I have to I have to be conscious about it.

00;11;46;15 - 00;12;01;27 Otherwise, you know, I'm very comfortable, right? I could sit on my couch all day, look at my shoes, have a shoe collection. I could just look at my shoes. Right. And I'm not going to really meet people. So I think it's important to keep those networks alive if you. So he weaved it in there. So I'm going to capitalize on this that you can't see it.

00;12;01;27 - 00;12;27;28 But behind him, I don't know who four, six, eight 2020 pairs about behind him on display colors the whole nine. It's really beautiful actually if you're loving it. So so thanks for that. So the question might then you know because it is tough choice and your two priorities that you're looking at is, you know, the options you know, the most options for you and then where are you going to be the most helpful and how you assessed it.

00;12;27;28 - 00;12;47;08 I mean, that that's not very typical today where it sounds like the depth that what you were looking at is how many people were in the contracting organization. And then did that. Was that the significant influence of saying, well, that lessens the the kind of the decision making process for me to know that they're going to be taken care of.

00;12;47;13 - 00;13;02;14 I'm going to go over here and and create a new path going my perception that was that I mean, I knew they would be I'd actually had a very open conversation with the person who was in charge of the company, the person that recruited me. And, you know, they were they were okay. And that was a big part.

00;13;02;16 - 00;13;17;04 Like if they had said, hey, this is tough, we were really betting on you. We have, you know, you know, because you know how government contracts were like, sometimes they actually booked work based off of the credentials of the people on the bench. And they had said that I think I would have changed my mind, but they were just like that were good.

00;13;17;06 - 00;13;34;29 And then I'll tell you what, like that relationship stayed alive and they ended up working together on some stuff that was not being very helpful for everybody. So I just say like it was done in a way, in such a way that like I was still and still to this day friendly and friends with some of the folks that were part of that group.

00;13;34;29 - 00;13;50;13 And that group is kind of moved on. So yeah, like I think that's a great point is element is like there's an element, as we all know, don't burn bridges of the past and things like that. But also I think is that sometimes maintaining those connections and you know, helping out of you never know that hey, you could help them.

00;13;50;13 - 00;14;04;04 You may have met the right person or you need make a change, but you can you can repay or, you know, kind of reciprocate back to them. And I think that's maintaining those network is a very, very important because you never know you could be one year from now, maybe not for ourselves, but one year is now a five year turn out.

00;14;04;04 - 00;14;23;00 You come across a man, wow. Because of what you paid there, they're there to help you when you need it. That is exactly how it played out. As they needed something down the road. You never would've seen it coming. But it was all done with integrity. It was all done with mutual respect and just open transparency. And as a result, like when it up doing a lot of things together over the years.

00;14;23;03 - 00;14;51;10 Yeah, that's the sorry David said. And I just want to touch on it because when we're talking about the topics that were seemingly just kind of naturally going into is like transition. It's a decision making level, the loyalty of what I had, how do I maintain that? And now when I'm struggling with feeling like I'm not being loyal to this and then I'm trying to go out and do something different, that feeling, that angst, that that uncertainty as to what's going to be the impact it sounds like it turned out.

00;14;51;10 - 00;15;10;01 And that's what I think, you know, for me, I just want to make sure anybody listening is clear on is you can still have that integrity and the loyalty and how you do those things to preserve that. If you just imagine down the line, it's a small world. And I know David's talked about this before, not only veteran community, but also the security communities.

00;15;10;01 - 00;15;29;20 Very small in a sense. Right. So the relationship component, I think was key. And you kind of just played that card well, Yeah, I think I think it played out the you know, looking back as best I could have ever hoped for, you know, Mike eventually, like, you know, you know, and Chris, just talk about loyalty like Air Force, right?

00;15;29;21 - 00;15;49;11 You know, your family's Air Force. And you mentioned Navy. You would actually Air Force people. You would actually work for another service. What where did I hear that before it? Yeah, it is. You know, I've met a few Navy people that I can actually really respect and get along with. Now, tell us about them someday, but we'll go on to that.

00;15;49;13 - 00;16;08;25 But there's been there's an element of, you know, the service is that, you know, it's not just we're all veterans, right? We're all together. Right. And I think that's a connection I think many people don't make sometimes. Is that is that even though we know the Marines are very Marines, but like, hey, we're all together, all you have a common mission.

00;16;08;25 - 00;16;25;23 We think of things like the Gulf War or major conflicts like we're all in together. It doesn't matter what service we are. And I think it's you know, from a network perspective, I think people keep their eyes open and much broader. Yeah, I think it's kind of like sibling rivalry, right? Like, you know, sibling siblings pick on each other because they're bonded because they care about each other.

00;16;25;23 - 00;16;44;02 They can do it. And people see it from the outside to like, what the heck's going on? Like, you guys hate each other, like, now, like we're here in it together, you know? And that's that's why we can do that. Yep. Yes. So, so now you've made the choice and you're obviously looking back now. It was it was a good choice.

00;16;44;03 - 00;17;11;13 It turned out that, you know, there was some connections later down the line. What's happened since then that you felt probably were aren't the things were unexpected or, you know, where you were introduced to things to where there were some contributing factors of how you made your decision, like the awareness or just kind of the knowing yourself? Well, just to explain a little bit on how things progressed since making that choice.

00;17;11;17 - 00;17;25;12 Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, when I when I made the choice to join up with Microsoft, part of what I had been doing in the military and, you know, you get a you get a lot of this as a young officer, you get a lot of this at the at the Air Force, any service academy. Like I love it.

00;17;25;19 - 00;17;43;17 So when I say something negative, please understand this is totally, totally backed by so much positive. But when you join the Air Force Academy or any military academy, I think they tell you like you're the best of the best, you're the cream of the crop. You're going to be the future leaders of the world, the like. You really get a lot of a lot of talk that you're awesome, right?

00;17;43;19 - 00;18;00;25 And I think part of me started to realize there wasn't much separating me from all the people that I knew that did not go to the service academy. And that started becoming immediately apparent when I got on active duty and I started seeing like the noncommissioned officers that were just amazing and I was like, why do they, you know, teach us that?

00;18;00;25 - 00;18;17;24 They did teach us a lot more, but I just remember that. So I do remember like when I had when I had finally decided to leave the military, which was a tough choice. But what I finally decided to leave the military. I wanted to take a position where I wasn't going to be a leader. I wanted to be an individual contributor.

00;18;17;26 - 00;18;37;20 I just wanted to work like I think I had just been. I was tired of I had been taught leadership principles since I was 17, you know, And I and I my first year at Microsoft, I was working in this group where we dealt with all the vulnerabilities coming in to Microsoft for all of Microsoft's products and the way the team was set up.

00;18;37;20 - 00;19;10;16 You had program managers who helped manage the relationship with all the hackers that were finding the vulnerabilities with all the product teams at Microsoft that maybe had like Internet Explorer Windows, they needed to fix the vulnerabilities and then we had this team that was the the deep technical team that understood the vulnerabilities. And to make a very long story short, after about six months at Microsoft, I realized I was never going to be as good as these tech guys, these deep, deep tech guys that like folks like there's a gentleman named David Ross who passed recently, like just so smart, the best in the world at what they were doing.

00;19;10;16 - 00;19;26;25 I'm like, I'm never going to be that good. Like, I could try. I might get 90% of the way there, but it took me ten times the effort than it would be for me to actually be a people leader and manage people and motivate people like that I could do would be a lot more helpful to the organization and what I wanted to do.

00;19;26;25 - 00;19;40;21 So I think that was one of the first points where I was like, What I want and what I can do to be helpful maybe aren't the same thing at that level of maturity. That kind of hit me. I think it was just it was the caliber of the people that let me realize that. And I think that was one of these other kind of forks in the road.

00;19;40;21 - 00;20;01;23 For me, it's like really what I want and what I what I am best at or what I can be the most helpful doing may not be the same thing. Yeah. And so I was thinking that now when you said that the people that you're surrounded by, so I'm guessing then it naturally puts you in positions in the environment where most of the people are, because I don't know.

00;20;01;23 - 00;20;17;10 And you can tell us most of the people around you were very supportive in allowing you to kind of find your way. Is that right? And I just I think I think where that comes in to like being veterans and stuff is like, yeah, people were supportive and helped me find my way. But the other thing is they started recognizing the stuff that I was taught and how it was helpful to the organization.

00;20;17;13 - 00;20;37;07 And so like, I don't know, you know, if this is going to be universally true, but I'd say it's probably true for the majority of us in the military. We learn a lot. We learn a lot about working as a team, accomplishing a mission, staying motivated, staying focused, working through distractions and keeping on on target. Like we learn a lot.

00;20;37;07 - 00;21;01;06 Like you don't get that everywhere. So this gentleman that I mentioned who was like the best in the world at this technical capability, like he learned a lot, right? But what we learn and it's not something everybody gets like this person didn't learn all that. We get that in the military and that can if you can align that to the organizational needs, that can really accelerate not just your career, but it can it can accelerate what the organization is trying to do.

00;21;01;06 - 00;21;18;25 So I think that's one part of what it was for me. It was like, you know, I had like eight years of leadership training and here I was trying to do, I don't know, like five years of assembly, reverse engineering, you know, in my spare time. So I could do this. One thing I wanted to do as a non leader like that doesn't make any sense.

00;21;18;25 - 00;21;35;27 Like we were I was given this. I was given this experience and this training. I should use it for the best effect. So I think, Michael, you raise a great point of, you know, leadership and things and many companies, right. You know, that of hey, they may have some gaps, they may have some needs and often, often sometimes they may make change.

00;21;35;27 - 00;21;51;19 And I think this is where military veterans are often and can be the best change agents because A, they like you can say, here's the mission, here's the challenges, Right. You know, here's what we need you to do. Right. And, you know, the veterans really know how to operate that say, and they may need to learn something as part of it and say operate, make it happen.

00;21;51;19 - 00;22;11;24 Right. And be that voice. Be that that catalyst and things like that. And often when change is needed, veterans can be some of the best choices in bringing into your leadership team. Absolutely. I mean, just take it to the core. What the military is compared to what you do in the private sector at like just one of the fundamental truth about being active duty in the military, you're probably going to move every 2 to 3 years.

00;22;11;27 - 00;22;34;18 You're probably going to change some sort of career, something every 2 to 3 years. Like you don't have that kind of change baked into private sector tech roles. And we deal with that just on the norm. Well, die bomber in new team, new mission, go figure it out. Get it done like we just that's part of our bread and butter And so like you think about what you want to do to take an organizational change at a private company like a veteran's going to understand how to work through change.

00;22;34;18 - 00;22;52;03 They've been doing it their whole career every few years. Now. Building on that, though, I would say the other point let's sort of take the converse of things is what is the biggest challenge you think veterans is like, Hey, they could be leaders, they can adapt to change, but what's the biggest element you've seen in your experience when hiring or bringing your sons in?

00;22;52;03 - 00;23;13;02 They've transitioning. That is the largest gap or change that they need to make to adapt to the civilian world. Yeah, I mean, this is such this is such a good question. This is such a good question. And I think it kind of varies between where folks are coming in from, like somebody that's coming in with five years versus somebody is coming in with 25 years.

00;23;13;05 - 00;23;35;11 Right. It's different. You know, one thing that's the same is you need to learn the culture of the organization right away. Does it matter if five years, 25 years, you need to understand the culture, You need to find mentors that can help you understand the culture. You probably need to find more than one mentor so you can bounce, cross cross views and triangulate to build your own truth around the culture of an organization.

00;23;35;11 - 00;24;09;02 How the wheel really moves In an organization like 525 years. You got to learn that because it's not going to be the same one that you came from. I don't care what company you're joining unless it's you're going right back into the military. It's going to be different. So he got to learn that. But I'd say, like the folks joining with 20 years, you know, long, historic like great career, like coming in as a leader, one of the things I've seen that has been disappointing and just like I wish you could go different is folks come in with this background in leadership and they think their leadership is going to just naturally push them forward,

00;24;09;05 - 00;24;24;22 that it's going to be recognized and immediately appreciated because of what they did in service to the country. And unfortunately, that's not true. These most companies, they're just meritocracy. So it's going to be. What did you do for me lately? What have you gotten done? What impact have you had? And your credentials aren't going to get you anywhere.

00;24;24;25 - 00;24;42;26 Where your credentials are going to come into play is how you're able to leverage those for impact in the organization or the timeframe that you're there. And I think that's just hard because you come in with a service, this historic career and it's just it bring it built helps you build a network immediately and make connections immediately. But it's not going to get the job done.

00;24;42;26 - 00;25;00;14 You're not going to get a great end of year review because of what you did for 20 years in the military. So, Mike, you're saying that just because you're wearing the academy ring, I don't have to bow down and kiss it? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I thought for sure that was going to happen. I, I end up not wearing the rate because nobody seemed to care.

00;25;00;17 - 00;25;20;07 I was lied to all those years. So there's one. I'm going back to the dad jokes because you said, you know, multiple mentors to get cross views. David We're not talking about David Cross views just so we're clear. But I'm from who? I'm here all week. All right. So the meritocracy, right? So and I think you just landed on something, you know what?

00;25;20;07 - 00;25;44;12 What I feel is expected. What I feel is earned, how I feel about how I'm supposed to be treated. You know, we use the ring as a symbol, you know, an academy grad. But it's basically any any any role to wear even during the academy said, you know, basically you're awesome coming from a workplace situation if you've never even served where you've been told, you're awesome.

00;25;44;12 - 00;26;11;02 You know, we're talking about competency driven evaluations, performance reviews and things like that. To wear hard conversations to help guide people correctly where you're giving them information that is contradictory to how they feel. And David's been a big proponent of this. You know, feedback has the sting and the good ones actually know how to deliver it. Tell us about one experience that burst your bubble, if you will.

00;26;11;06 - 00;26;28;01 my God. Yeah. I mean, an experience. It wasn't it wasn't me per say. I mean, I can give you an experience about me, but that was, you know, I was coming in with five years, but some of that came up with like 20 something years. There was this six and I helped recruit and vote organization. I just thought they walked on water like I didn't work with them when I was active duty, but I saw how they showed up.

00;26;28;01 - 00;26;45;20 I knew a bit about their career or they ended up being the commander of a group that I was attached to as a reservist because I did the reserves for a couple of years, active after active duty. So they were also I mean, I knew what impact they had. The military, they joined, they failed horribly. And I had my fingerprints like I recruited them.

00;26;45;20 - 00;27;09;02 I sold I sold him to people like he joined into this in this role. And, you know, he just never really adapted to the culture. And, you know, I could tell that after a tenured career that got him to Oecs, he thought like rank had its privileges. And what he said would go like really getting people on board when there was no formal authority per se.

00;27;09;02 - 00;27;28;20 I was not especially cross organizationally was not a skill set they had developed and not a skill set that it looked like they really wanted to develop. And so that really burst my bubble. That's when I that's when when you said when you when you ask the question and I kind of just like you can't say it on the podcast, but like, I'm just grabbing my forehead is because that was the one that really hurt.

00;27;28;22 - 00;27;54;28 Yeah, because it hit me that like what got them there did not help them here at the time. And they really and I felt like if this ever happens to me again, you never, ever know anybody coming in from the military after a long career into a very senior role into a private organization like a tech company. I want to grab them and just be like, okay, here's the crash course and what you got to let go of what you're getting yourself into, you know, before they join.

00;27;55;00 - 00;28;10;17 Well, I think that always comes in. I think maybe the biggest mistake for some is that with putting aside all that things of the elite ism and all that, that's like you got to have a great mentor and peer mentor that's really going to give you the here's the hard to heart is like, this is not a mission that you've ever expected before.

00;28;10;19 - 00;28;31;26 And if you're not ready to take this on in understanding this, you're going to fail. You know, the mission is going to fail. Yeah. And like Chris said, I love what you say, David. You know, feedback, good feedback, important, critical feedback has to sting. You have to deliver words really hard. And I think a mentor like that in the context of a manager, an employee, of course that matters.

00;28;31;26 - 00;28;46;26 But as a mentor it really matters too, because you need a mentor that can really bust through that so you can feel it. I remember, you know, going into Service Academy, they had me meet up with this guy before I decided to join is like, I think he was like an insurance salesman who had graduated at some point in his life.

00;28;46;26 - 00;29;10;22 And he told me about how miserable life was at the academy, just how bad it was, how horrible, how he woke up with a in a hole in his gut every day. And I needed that because I still said yes, like I knew what I was getting into. Right. And I think being able to deliver that kind of message is something that you do in the military because you because you got to weed people out earlier, they're going to hurt the people around them, you know?

00;29;10;24 - 00;29;31;14 So I think it's important to be able to communicate that. Yeah. No. And you landed on something that's that's common today, no matter where the candidate comes from, is commitment, understanding, commitment and what that means. And I think what I heard and what you just said is you got something from somebody that potentially could potentially be perceived as negative.

00;29;31;14 - 00;29;55;13 It's you're giving me a negative experience, but that's X, Y, and whatever. But you looked at is like, well, it's real and I'm going to use it. And that just reinforced your commitment to make the decision. Talk about commitment. You know what what are some of the key factors that contribute to us getting past some of those things that we create on our own that prevents us from making the right decision?

00;29;55;16 - 00;30;14;26 Yeah, I mean, I think I think one is we're kind of grown with that. No, we're not. We're not going to let the mission fail attitude and a lot of ways. So whether that's a personal mission or an organizational mission, I think that's part of what we get as a indoctrination through our time in a in a in a military career as veterans.

00;30;14;28 - 00;30;34;17 And so like whether that is we're not going let the mission fail at this. You know, we're kind of in the to use another services term because we don't have this term in the Air Force that you're kind of in the sack. You just kind of grunt through it. Like I remember first a few years of my time in Microsoft, like I was basically my career was doing well because I was the last man standing.

00;30;34;20 - 00;31;01;13 It was just too hard for a lot of people. And I just had the resilience and the commitment and maybe I was too dumb to quit, right? But I just kept pushing through it. That's part of commitment. The other part of commitment is being willing as as David said, to embrace a change and to make a change when when it's early enough, where the change will save the mission and not so late that everybody sees the need, because when it's so late that everybody sees the need, it's usually too late.

00;31;01;13 - 00;31;26;24 But it's easier as a leader to get people on board. But when you see the change before the pain is really there, you have to communicate that change. And people may not believe in the Y yet you have to like bring them along and that's hard and that there's commitment involved in doing that. So that I love this part because it wraps a lot of what you've already talked about, our experience conditioned mindset.

00;31;27;00 - 00;31;54;12 We're instructed, trained and brought to believe on how we can influence outcomes, whether it's change, whether it's I recognize situational awareness, I'm observant, I'm connected to something where I can see it. So let's talk about that piece real quick. When you have somebody coming in, no matter where they come from and you can talk about the veterans, they see things faster, like we see the organizational structure, we see the culture, and we kind of just say, I've seen this movie before.

00;31;54;14 - 00;32;15;05 I already have the answer in my head. Talk about what you just said as far as like leading change and how sometimes people aren't ready to hear it until sometimes it's too late and then then it's easy. But when you're that person that sees it early, what are some of the behavioral components that are gotchas on how we now deliver what we see?

00;32;15;08 - 00;32;32;18 That's really good. That's a really good question. You know, there's a there's this dance. Remember the Nokia burning platform memo that went out and Nokia, the telephone company, the the right. David, do you remember this? Yes. have. And it was becoming pretty clear that Nokia was losing market share, even though they had been the dominant phone maker.

00;32;32;18 - 00;32;50;21 I mean, who who you know, if you're around our age, like you had the phone, you played snake, everybody did. Right. The candy bar, Nokia phone. And after the iPhone, you know, an Android, it became pretty clear Nokia wasn't going to make it. And and they did a burning platform memo. It's public it's kind of famous and like basically saying, hey, we've got we're on a burning platform.

00;32;50;21 - 00;33;06;24 We have to make massive change. I use that as an example of courageous communication, but also probably a little too late. Right. And so like at that point, it was pretty easy to communicate the difference. I'm sure there was a percentage of the population that Nokia felt like everything was going to be okay. Still, at that point in time.

00;33;06;26 - 00;33;20;00 So there are some people that needed the memo, but there was a lot of people and a lot of folks in the market like, hey, they got to make a change. They're not going to make it. So that's kind of a too late thing when you see a change before that, before that, before that pain and you need to communicate it.

00;33;20;02 - 00;33;46;01 One of the big trappings is that people get it. It's the hubris, right? It's just like everybody sees it, everybody knows it. And so when I communicate, it's going to be no big deal. That's a trapping, because what you're going to have is either going to have to use because I said so type language when people push back or you're going to end up having to fight against other parts of the organization, whether inside or outside, that to get them to embrace the change.

00;33;46;04 - 00;34;06;00 And you may never make it finished, you may never finish the change, you may never make it complete fully. It may be so long that you shouldn't have done it in the first place. Could be the worst of all situations. So what it really requires is the ability to bring people on board and communicate a vision and a need and kind of make them feel it as their own.

00;34;06;02 - 00;34;25;27 What was the is it was it a patent quote, general patent quote that said, you know, never roughly like never tell people what to do. Just tell them what's needed. Let them surprise you with the ingenuity. Like you have to give an up autonomy to the people underneath you. We're like, we have this need for change. And maybe they actually know the steps you want to follow in sequence to make that change happen.

00;34;25;29 - 00;34;40;05 But the way that you can actually get that change to land is people make it their own and just sort of point and you can watch and you can guide, especially if you know where it needs to go and. That and that I think is a real skill and you have to have that. I mean, the quote I just gave is from a general in the military.

00;34;40;05 - 00;34;53;23 It's something we learn in the military is how to get people on board with the mission and make them feel embrace it as their own. Yeah, I think that's a great story and things like that. And I think back to my time. It's about resilience, it's about focus. It's also being patient as well and not giving up as well.

00;34;54;00 - 00;35;10;22 You know, I can go back a long time ago like, you know, the Windows XP timeframe and I own the encrypting file system. I wrote this 100 page spec that when you should have full disk encryption, I won't mention names. They said the meeting ended after like 15 minutes. Like we're never going to do this. No one's ever going to pay for this.

00;35;10;27 - 00;35;27;06 Well, what do we do a few years later? we have bitlocker, right? So but like, you know, what Bob Muglia told me is like, you know, before in a different story, it's like it's like, hey, sometimes when you get set back, you don't just quit and walk away. You st patient resilience, right? Stick with it right in the time will come.

00;35;27;09 - 00;36;00;06 Yeah. No, I think that is such a good point. Patience. Organizational patience is a is a learned skill to. I don't think it's something that you're just born with. And I have seen and they've probably seen this too. I have seen what you call them in the Air Force fast burners like folks that are just, you know, amazing impact driven people that can get so much done, just not eight, not able to have the organizational patience and they burn out or they get frustrated or they cause drama.

00;36;00;09 - 00;36;20;12 And and if you can have that organizational patience because there is there's another truth sort of in the market, in the business world, the nonmilitary. Well, I'm sure there's an allegory in the military as well. But like sometimes you have the right idea too soon. The market's not ready. So having the patience to recognize that you can see the opportunities when to slide that and that's good business.

00;36;20;15 - 00;36;36;13 And it's kind of core to what success looks like. I mean, Microsoft had the tablets. Yeah, I joined in the early 2000, so. Right. You know, and right idea, probably not the right time for the market. Like people had to get used to playing on glass first which happened with the iPhone because they wanted their music with them wherever they go.

00;36;36;15 - 00;36;55;07 Once they got used to playing on glass, you could have an iPad, right? And it was a lot more streamlined and having to have a tablet that could spin around and also have a keyboard because people were already comfortable with glass. Like, I don't if that's exactly the way it plays out. But that's that's my interpretation of the way the market worked, even though, you know, Microsoft had some pretty amazing tablet computers in the early 2000s.

00;36;55;10 - 00;37;19;22 Yeah, we had the Zune, which I still use, you know, at my desk. You know, you can see it because that's audio, but I still have the Zune. I still run with it, you know, every day. So I know I now know two people that use the Zune, David Cross and Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes. But you know, it might going back to a little bit about, you know, the fast burners, like it's, you know, the civilian world, like it's the Ferraris, right?

00;37;19;22 - 00;37;44;24 You're going to have Ferraris in the team. And it is a management leadership. Right. How you got to put the guardrails on the road. Otherwise, you know, you know what's getting jog your gaming language, right? You got a you the open map right at the games while you run all over, right? You know. Yeah. What you know how do how do people you know that are the fast burners of the military survive in a, you know, a slow moving corporate world.

00;37;44;26 - 00;38;01;09 Yeah. No, that's that's a that's a great question. And I love the kind of the analogy there. Right. So you've got one hand, you have Ferraris, but maybe need like some sort of like tank, like a like a like a g-wagon. They can really just push through all the muck and get things done. And how can you make one the other?

00;38;01;12 - 00;38;20;03 And I think actually, as a leader, like you can recognize the opportunities that are kind of paved. Like there are things where like the mission, the organization, the culture all lines up, but you can just run and get things done. And maybe it's not the biggest impactful thing, but it lets the Ferrari run and they sometimes just need to do that for the engine and for that talent just to stay happy.

00;38;20;05 - 00;38;34;01 So you find those, you let them run, but then you kind of use that to say, Now we have another tough gig coming up and that's kind of where you can teach them how to be a little bit more resilient to be that G-wagon that can just plow through the mud and get something done and pull out with it.

00;38;34;03 - 00;38;59;22 Now, maybe someday we'll meet some people that have Ferraris and G-wagon back. See if this analogy plays out in the real world, but bring it and put it in the mud, specifically the job crafting. So as you as you're speaking and I'm thinking about, there's a ton of Ferraris and there's a ton of kit cars that have the body of a Ferrari, but the insides maybe, I don't know, red flier, I don't know, something like that.

00;38;59;22 - 00;39;16;13 Right. So it's not quite made or built to sustain what their what their perception is creating for them to think that they can do these things that fast this way. And that's common. So you just kind of smash some things together. You know, you talked about how veterans, you know, are used to moving around a lot, 2 to 3 years.

00;39;16;13 - 00;39;40;27 If you take that in the private sector, it's like, well, your job hopping. That's how I consider success. It's what the job asks me to do. And I get promoted by take and duty stations and roles and things like that. So there's this interpretive translation that sometimes occurs for those that are smart about how to talk to others and learn more about what they do and how their change is apparent on, on, on paper.

00;39;41;00 - 00;40;20;06 But when it comes to now, having somebody where you understand what their ambitions are and how they're dialed in their capable of doing things, but you see that they're going to get impatient. Have you have you what are your thoughts on now creating that that that role of responsibility from other needs and kind of merging in some things to help pacify the ambition of somebody to where you're creating things that don't necessarily in the original job description, You know, you're actually making me think of another sort of truism that was hard for me to wrap my head around when you say that, which was sometimes you got to be okay letting talent go because it's

00;40;20;06 - 00;40;38;29 the best thing for them and the organization, even if they're amazing and like we are driven as leaders in general to not have negative attrition. You never want a good person to leave. And that kind of works against us. But I will say there are times, Chris, that you cannot do what you said where there there they are.

00;40;38;29 - 00;40;56;24 They are not going to be happy in role where they are. And I will say that, you know, especially in cybersecurity, I'm sure we don't have a monopoly on this, but especially in cybersecurity, when somebody takes a role at a different company, they're not dead. To us, that network is still there. And we talked about that at the beginning.

00;40;56;28 - 00;41;14;18 If you if you help them, I have actually helped myself. I've helped lose talent is I could tell it was the right thing and it was hard because it was going to cause more work for me. Right. So that's one thing I will just say is and then usually like we were talking about earlier, it will come full circle.

00;41;14;20 - 00;41;32;15 And if you have any kind of career, you're going to end up helping each other out again down the road. You know, Spirit is kind of interesting because we actually have bad guys just kind of like we have the military. And so if you really think about it, regardless of the company, in a lot of ways, we are all fighting the common enemy, which are the bad guys.

00;41;32;15 - 00;41;45;23 And so if you think about it that way, it kind of helps me wrap my head around what I just said. But I will also say that there are times where I've had some of my best director reports have really challenged me and they've really made me think about like, am I self-limiting in our mission? What else could we be doing?

00;41;45;24 - 00;42;06;21 Is there another part of the organization that's failing that we can help out in and this person really good at it? So to your point, Chris, about how do you create opportunities for somebody? A lot of times you look at where the where the business need is, like the the the biggest mistakes I made is when I tried to create something for somebody and it wasn't aligned with a business need because corporations are made of people, but they're not people.

00;42;06;23 - 00;42;25;00 Corporations are not people. They're not going to be nice. They have to survive. They have shareholders. You know, they're public. So as a result, like, you cannot get crossways is from what the business needs in the name of trying to get somebody is career ahead, you know. And if you do like maybe you'll get away with it for a little while because there is some slack in there.

00;42;25;00 - 00;42;44;21 You know, you never know. Nothing's it's not a perfect system. There are some friction and some lost. And so there's areas for people to do work inside the system that may not be perfectly aligned with the business and help them grow some skills right there, some room for that. But I will say like if you really try to create a you call a job crafting a role for a fast burner who's, you know, growing outside of their role.

00;42;44;21 - 00;43;00;17 But you think there is a need like tied to the business need that's going to if you don't, that's going to be bad for them and bad for you dog track and and that and that was good. You caught me on that one because that's a good that's a great response is is because a lot of people are fearful of the patriot.

00;43;00;17 - 00;43;20;20 Right. It's that asterisk on them. You know you had X percent a trip in this timeframe. I'm you know, are you a good leader? Are you effective leader? And the reality is the micro perspective is well for the greater good, this person's maybe my business, but the industry could use this person somewhere else. And you just I kind of alluded to it.

00;43;20;20 - 00;43;41;04 You know, you're thinking big, big picture for security. This person could be a great fit somewhere else and still contribute to the greater good of the industry itself. Yeah. So business goals in my mind translates into industry specific things, which is and I will say like we still work for a company. So like if you've looked around and there truly isn't a business need that fits that person's role than yeah, then that's an option.

00;43;41;06 - 00;43;58;04 But where I would make a mistake would be if there was a business, see where this talent could be really helpful and I let them go. I probably made a mistake. So really it goes all back to the business and how they align the business to the person. Well, there's the other element. I think as we all run into sometimes is that every company is not going to grow in size increasing.

00;43;58;04 - 00;44;21;04 You know, organizations are going to grow everyone's and things like that. And sometimes when someone gets hits their peak right in their given role, there's not an opportune move up. When they stay there, they can fester, right, and create more sickness with someone else. Good. They're unhappy because then sometimes it's the best thing to do is to help them go to a better role or where they can move up where they can't in the current organization.

00;44;21;08 - 00;44;39;25 And that's healthy for everyone. Yeah, no, it is. And I will say there's also times where like sometimes folks that that are festering is because they haven't had a chance to have that next layer of accountability. And so for them, they feel like they could they could do better, they could do different, but they've never had that opportunity to have that that higher level accountability.

00;44;39;25 - 00;44;55;19 And they're festering because they think they know how to do it. So you got to give them a chance to get that next layer of accountability to try those things. Maybe they work and they have something to teach a stall or maybe they don't and they're more effective for it and they understand sort of like how to work about that next level.

00;44;55;21 - 00;45;16;09 Yeah, no, it's good. And that that comes down to as we wrap this up to keep things moving, you know, that think critically about work, not only you as person trying to find your way, but how you're responsible for others. One, they're trying to find their way. So you're also required as a leader that's in charge of somebody or has direct influence over somebody's mentor, manager, or doesn't matter.

00;45;16;11 - 00;45;41;02 Think critically about what your skills are or how your perspective is now open enough to see opportunities for others to grow into and then, you know, make those hard choices. On letting people go and digging deeply to find out, you know, where the true business need might lie. If you're not seeing it out outright. So we could have covered a bunch of other things that specifically in the security area, maybe we'll do that for another time.

00;45;41;02 - 00;46;06;12 But Mike, as we wrap this up, anything specific you'd like to let anybody know, whether it's veterans service members transitioning, getting ready is somebody that's been out for a long while still trying to think through change. What would I say? I don't know. I will. Look, nobody's got a checklist like, you know, my dad retired 26 years. He would say, like, there's just not a checklist for some of the stuff.

00;46;06;14 - 00;46;24;23 Right? As a pilot, you have the boldface, you have the checklist. So I would say like for anybody coming in to private organization, you're trying to figure out how to make your way. Don't wait for somebody to hand you the checklist. Look around, figure out like what's going to align with what you want, what aligns with what the business wants.

00;46;24;23 - 00;46;45;09 Don't wait for, you know, some government form to come down with the process and a SRP like make make it happen, whatever the need is, identify it and make it happen. Don't wait for a checklist, because I will say that was probably one of the first things I had to learn. You know, coming in as a young lieutenant early on, Captain just made captain was there wasn't a space for the stuff.

00;46;45;15 - 00;47;06;05 We're all trying to figure it out. And I think your ingenuity is there for a reason. You know, you can help yourself and help your work by just taking that lead. So one thing is, you know, the podcast I was like to mention is like, Hey, what's my book recommendation? And, you know, thinking about presents and other things like the latest book, it's an older book like ten years old, but that kind of came across.

00;47;06;05 - 00;47;21;22 It's called Executive Presents The Missing Link between Merit and Success Highly recommended, I think, to our to our audience and things like that. But Mike, I know in the Air Force you guys don't read books, but so what would you recommend for the upcoming game? The current VA? You know what I recommend as a game. Yeah, why not?

00;47;21;22 - 00;47;54;01 A college football game is college football. I'm not even a football guy, but I had a fire of college football. I think I mentioned I grew up in the South. I had to get an Alabama Auburn game going with my Alabama relatives in town up here in Seattle. So yeah, we've got all kinds of amazing games. And if if sports aren't aren't your thing, keep an eye out for the next battlefield and play the current battlefield because that is as a military you know podcast you know talking to veterans you know call of duty gets a lot of attention but battlefield is pretty amazing and the next one's going to just blow, blow people's minds.

00;47;54;04 - 00;48;15;27 We're excited now. Yeah. Is it really in the game? It is in the game. I was just wondering if we can do that or trademarked. We had one. He said, I'll let you know what happens. And I have to give up a couple of shoes. Yep. Mike, really, It's pleasure to meet you. Thanks for coming on. David Anything as always.

00;48;15;27 - 00;48;31;14 It was easy and it made Mike, you know, mentioned it, things like that. It's not about the checklist. It's about making things happen. That's how you win. Awesome. And say, Hey, this is so much fun. Thanks. Thanks for giving me a chance to come out here. I really appreciate it now. Thanks for coming on and thanks for making time and appreciate your message.

00;48;31;14 - 00;48;45;10 It's it's a it's a sticker. It's going to definitely have an impact on at least one person just trying to think through these things. So thanks. Party one, Keep moving forward.

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In this episode, David and I discuss how to prepare for career change and choices. We took this opportunity to get David's perspective on how important decisions begin with planning and being flexible. A plan is just a plan and sometimes what we thought would be the path to the goal changes unexpectedly. We need to anticipate that things won't always go as planned and say yes to the opportunities that rise as a result. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;28;06 You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the MAVEN podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And in this episode and joined by our co-host David Cross, senior Vice President Sass, Chief Information Security Officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;07 - 00;00;44;12 Here we are, folks. Season three. It's been a while since we've come together to deliver a new episode, and we're ready to kick off our new season with new conversation. These newer topics sometimes bringing back previous guests and maybe we'll go deeper into past conversations. We hope all of you are well and putting in the work to be better.

00;00;44;14 - 00;01;00;15 If not, listen in and maybe we can help change that. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;00;19 - 00;01;08;12 David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;08;14 - 00;01;48;27 All right, so season three, first episode of Season three. We're coming at you for career oriented conversation, joined here with David Cross. Many of you already know. He's our MAVEN podcast co-host and he's got specialization in a particular career field. So as we were talking about what we should be considering to discuss in this new season as we roll into summer, but career choices, you know, this might be the season where many of you are getting ready to transition, whether out of service or from careers where being relevant matters and trying to understand what it takes and what people look for.

00;01;49;00 - 00;02;15;03 David's going to share some information I'll probe a little bit on, you know, before you make the decision, what are the considerations? And we've talked many, many times about this particular topic or decision making process in previous episodes. You hear about it a lot in everywhere else. Probably every self-help book is critical thinking, some sort of element of emotional intelligence, things that go into how you're going to decide what you're going to do.

00;02;15;06 - 00;02;32;03 It starts from, we believe, what do you want to do and the passion that comes through that. And so, David, it's nice to see again. You know, Chris, it's great to be back, right? You know, it's kind of like, you know, I'm we're excited about this next season here. It's kind of like your favorite TV show, you know, Netflix, right?

00;02;32;03 - 00;02;50;00 You know, selling Sunset. I know you get really excited every time there's a new season and kind of like, you know, when they went down to Orange County, Right. They kind of got to change it up a bit and talk about that. So, you know, I think this is going to be a fun season of like we talk about careers, maybe we have some some outside guests, you know, that also help us in like, you know, how do we make this transition?

00;02;50;02 - 00;03;09;12 We want to mix it up and kind of, you know, up it a bit and get people excited about it. So it's sometimes these seasons take a little longer than we like, just like Netflix, but we're, you know, we'll see. We can do better. So if anybody's been paying attention to every episode, David says, I look forward to these things.

00;03;09;14 - 00;03;26;11 It's up to you to decide if I'm really a fan of I don't know what you said. Would you say the sunset selling sunset? You know, I know you like all the real estate and the cars they drive and, you know, the Hollywood properties. So yeah, you know, we'll talk about that another time. Yeah, another time. Yes, it is.

00;03;26;11 - 00;03;46;17 You know, it it is always interesting. You know, sometimes we take a little hiatus to, you know, focus on other things, but also, you know, take priorities as they come. And maybe it's just a another way of just realizing what else can we do to be more impactful and how do we consider, you know, reassess and this is the after action review is like, how were we effective?

00;03;46;17 - 00;04;07;03 And, you know, are there other things that we should try in order to make sure that we're keeping up with the things that people will want to talk about or want to listen to? And so the one thing that we can never get away from is career choices, because we know, you know, that's that that's an important area of conversation in any circle that you're in.

00;04;07;06 - 00;04;30;28 Excuse me, but it's just a matter of understanding the depth in which to go into these these things. And so we're talking security, cyber, career choice. You know, David, I'd like to get into some of the depth of what it what it means to consider what choice you're going to make, what career choice you're going to make. But, you know, let's start with this one.

00;04;31;01 - 00;04;54;21 What matters most? Is it theory or education or experience? You know, it's a great question, Kristen. I know this like a big debate. Like I was at a conference last week and people were you know, we were talking a little bit about is like, do you have to have a degree, you know, to be successful in computer science or do you have to have a degree to be, you know, successful or get into cybersecurity?

00;04;54;24 - 00;05;13;12 And the answer is, I'm going to say, no, you don't. However, right. I think it's really the most important point is there's different ways to get into things, right? You know, just like getting into sports, writing notes to some people. Do you have a professional trainer, some people are. They get their their parents, you know, you know, kind of guide them.

00;05;13;12 - 00;05;29;26 Other people, it's natural. But ultimately, it's like, what is the result you want, Right? You know, saying that if you're a tennis are running, right, you have to have a set of skills, right? And you have to be able to demonstrate those skills. Like right now, I think around the world and certainly we're watching late this weekend, the Olympic trials.

00;05;29;26 - 00;05;45;06 Right. You have to have a set of skills. Are you in the Olympics, are not like, can you take a get a degree and get in the Olympics? No. You have to demonstrate your skills. So I think that's the point here. Everybody is like, if you want to get to computer science, can you write a program? yeah.

00;05;45;09 - 00;06;03;04 Can you show me that you can write a program? Can you put it on GitHub and let me see it? Same thing for cybersecurity, right? Can you pen test? Can you identify a vulnerability? Right. Can you evaluate a threat? Well, can you show me Right. It just like diving. Can you dive in the pool, not make a splash?

00;06;03;04 - 00;06;26;18 Show me. Right. I think it's the best place to start. No, I like that. And thanks for that. And that that I feel like many who would be listening would say, Well, that's the scraping the surface. It sounds like you have very specific examples. And I would assume then if I'm taking notes, that if if you as an expert or would you consider yourself an expert in these areas.

00;06;26;20 - 00;06;46;22 Yeah, there's always debate. Am I an expert or subject matter expert or am I an influencer to say I'm going to say I have 30 patents in the United States and most almost all of them are security. So I'm going to say, yeah, I am an expert for today. Buy that for a dollar selling sunset clip right there.

00;06;46;27 - 00;07;15;18 You see the reference there. Gotcha. That jokes. All right. So 30 patents in the U.S. You correct. Okay. So I'm going to put a pin in that one. We'll come back to it. So, you know, off the top of your head, you were talking about very specific examples of something that somebody would have to prove to you and show you and say, So can you help us figure out what if if I were to be someone who is interested, I have and I'm going to put a pin in this one, too.

00;07;15;18 - 00;07;42;19 I have a passion for technology and it just so seems to now drive me towards security because of either the career field seems to be trending or somebody told me that it's place to a place to go or what have you. For whatever reason I'm interested in it. What are some of the things that I would look at that somebody like you who would, you know, are are you're worth is going to be determined based off of the things that you're able to demonstrate.

00;07;42;20 - 00;08;05;12 What are the top things that I would need to focus on to be able to make sure that I'm aligning beginning my career choice or beginning the skill development that I can make sure that I'm not veering too far away from. Sure, I will. I'm going to go back a little bit to kind of my career and kind of like, how do I truly break into cybersecurity right now?

00;08;05;12 - 00;08;23;24 I think that there's a lot of people you hear about, go take this class or get this certification or this thing's on Coursera and magically you're a cybersecurity person. In the end, I'm going to go back is it's about demonstrate something. So I got into Microsoft. I was in I got I won't do the story of like how I get in Microsoft, but I got my foot in the door of Microsoft.

00;08;23;24 - 00;08;40;02 But I wanted to be in security. I wanted to be in Windows Security. And at the time I was in Microsoft Consulting, just like Oracle Consulting, right? But I wanted to be in the product group. I wanted to be in the Windows Security product group. At the time, I said, Well, David, you know, there's program managers are hiring.

00;08;40;02 - 00;08;59;08 Is that how do I be one? They said, well, program managers, they write white papers, right? They actually speak at conferences to our comfort customers. So, okay, so then what did I do? So I was working with customers and I found a need. Right? Because just like being in like in business, right? You find a need this time it's going to go way back.

00;08;59;08 - 00;09;30;26 This is the Windows 94.0. And they also had a thing called Windows Certificate Server 1.0, an exchange server, and say, How do you connect a certificate server to the Microsoft Exchange Server and CMS so you can actually encryption right in in in your your exchange email deployment. There was no real documentation about this. So what I did is I worked on with the product group and others in my free time and I wrote a white paper about it.

00;09;30;26 - 00;09;51;07 It became the Microsoft whitepaper, like, how do you integrate certificate server exchange CMS and getting it all to work? And it became a public white paper, right? There was a need, there was a demand and people like, bang, this is useful, this is valuable, this is security. And Mr. Cross, you did it. Another element is they said, well, they speak at conferences.

00;09;51;10 - 00;10;07;15 Well, I'm on the clock. I'm in consulting. Right. They don't pay me to go to a conference like now. So I wrote a paper or an abstract, things like that. And I went and spoke at Microsoft Tech. Ed And then I also spoke at the RSA Conference. I took vacation on my own time because they're not going to pay for me to go do this.

00;10;07;15 - 00;10;27;21 I took vacation. I got good scores on. There's to say, this is what I want to do. They said, okay, David, this is nice. But, you know, that's a one year one hit wonder. Like, just kind of like your favorite bands you talk about Chris Quinn before this podcast is Well, I spent time with that. Here we go there.

00;10;27;23 - 00;10;52;29 So I wrote another white paper right? I ended up writing, you know, over the course of a year, five white papers in my free time spoke at two conferences and said, Will you let me in? Right? And I said, Maybe you're not the best that we thought of, but great. You showing the passion things. We talk about this package, that passion, determination, the ability to learn right, and ability to adapt right, customer focused.

00;10;53;01 - 00;11;12;28 And they let me in, right? And that was the start of the journey, right? But coming back to Element is identifying need, right? Identify gap right. Go right about it. Create an artifact, create a deliverable. So how do you demonstrate you can do something? You know, Chris you think about is you know think about kids in school, right?

00;11;13;01 - 00;11;29;28 Things like how do you know what they're doing? Can they write a paper? Can they produce something? Do they have a project that's the trick here. And once you have, it's very tangible. And I would say, gosh, we'd let you into our company. You know what a junior position is like? Yeah, look what I wrote. Look what I can do.

00;11;30;01 - 00;11;52;17 It's very easy to convince someone that you may be eligible for that. Got it. There's a ton of good nuggets in there. Thanks for that. So the need and demand, I mean, that I think probably is a place to start for some of this is to recognize the need. And again, I go back to the individual need and the external need.

00;11;52;18 - 00;12;12;27 Right. So do you need it? Do you want it? Do you need to feel like you X Right. And that I think, is important. Do you feel like you need to do this? Do you feel like you want to do this right? And what's the difference? Right. And I think some of this is circling around a personal passion because you're talking about using your free time to do things that are setting you up.

00;12;12;29 - 00;12;34;05 And I'm oversimplifying it, but it is, in fact, one of those things to say, if I'm wanting to achieve these things, then I, I need to consider how far you're willing to go in order to have success there and some of what you were sharing. Again, you know, cutting it down to very simple approaches is to say, I want to do this.

00;12;34;12 - 00;12;54;17 You use phrases like foot in the door. That's common, especially through veterans or service members getting ready to transition. I just want to get my foot in the door and I will represent recruiting. That was advocate on the side hearing from a candidate. I'm just trying to get a foot in the door. Be careful with that because it's it's important for you to believe that.

00;12;54;20 - 00;13;11;11 And that can be something you keep inside your head. But if a hiring manager hears this from people now, it draws the question commitment. If it means that I I've given you a chance to get a foot in the door, don't misunderstand it to be don't misunderstand that to be something that's going to help you in every case.

00;13;11;11 - 00;13;29;14 Because now I, I as a hiring manager, I may shy away from that because now I'm looking at I want you to be here for as long as we need you and you want to be here. That indicates that you're going to be here until you have what you need to move on to something else because your long term goals don't include what you're interviewing for.

00;13;29;14 - 00;13;44;15 So put a pin in that one. But need demand. Do you want to do it? Do you need to do it? Is this going to be fulfilling? If you're in a second phase of a career, you've probably achieved all the things that you wanted to in the first one. Is this a transition from something that you're well established in?

00;13;44;17 - 00;14;06;04 If it is, you probably already understand the key elements of what to do moving forward. You may be questioning what you've already achieved, has given you the already existing mindset and skill and attitude to represent or demonstrate your desire, your ability in these types of things because you've done it already. But sometimes we get tempted to forget that because it's new.

00;14;06;06 - 00;14;24;09 We think that we have to start from zero, but maybe you don't. So, David, maybe let's hit on that. What? By the time that you were saying before you went into that first role where you wanted to get your foot in the door, what did you already acquire? What had you already acquired and accomplished to get to that part?

00;14;24;11 - 00;14;41;28 Well, I think the I don't know if I've talked about this before, but element is I've looked at the company right. And what is kind of like the basic, you know, kind of criteria they're looking at for someone that would be valuable like. So I was going like, you know, my first role was Microsoft Consulting. What do they need to do?

00;14;41;29 - 00;15;03;23 Right? And so I tried to understand, you know, this is the days before LinkedIn, and I think we had heard of Monster Board was around back then and is like almost 29 years ago. Right. You know, it's like, what are they looking for? You know, what do they want people to have said, I they actually have this called the Microsoft Certifications, the Microsoft Certified Professional, the MCP program.

00;15;03;23 - 00;15;30;16 Right. And so it was kind of expensive at the time, but like, I'm still in the service. I took a a week of leave. Right. And of Malcolm all day is just a convocation of like a week on leave, right. Taking and things like that. So I went to took a microsoft class, you know, my third party, right, Because this is like 30 years ago, you know, like $2,000 or $3,000, very expensive for one week class.

00;15;30;16 - 00;15;48;13 Right. They said, I'm going to go in, take the certification class in tech, not are learning it right, get certified, take the you know take the exam and saying, hey, I've got the bare minimum, like give me a chance because I know that I could demonstrate at this time. Right. Getting those exams in courses were a demonstration of the skills that I had.

00;15;48;14 - 00;16;05;17 Right. That was in addition to that, hey, in my home time. Right. Things like that still in the service. Like I had a computer, I installed Windows 93.51. Right. I'm learning the Windows and T system, right? Because I knew this is what they need people to do. This is what enterprises are doing. This is the job I want.

00;16;05;17 - 00;16;23;21 So I'm going to get hands on my free time doing this type of things. And eventually it did this all. It said Microsoft, give me a shot at it. I've got these skills, right? Can you give me a shot and just just let me in and I'll demonstrate it. And a lot of a lot of work and demonstration of that.

00;16;23;26 - 00;16;48;21 And I got in. And the reality is also sounds bad, but it is the what I wanted is that I was doing consulting other things outside of Microsoft, but I wanted in the club, right. I want in the high tech I took a 50% pay cut to get into Microsoft because it was the long term. I was going for the long term, not the short term win a 50% pay cut of my stupid, but I knew I was betting on the long term.

00;16;48;21 - 00;17;13;05 And that's what you have to think about. Everybody. Yeah, that's the sacrifice. Right? So it's it comes down to just to summarize, what I heard is, you know, fundamentals. You establish fundamentals, certifications is, you know, top layer of understanding through information, right? You're getting the acclimate to be familiar with. And then what the key thing here is the connection.

00;17;13;05 - 00;17;35;08 And we've already talked about this, how important it is relationship building, right? So when you're when you're asking things of others, it's the reciprocating value, right? It's I'm give me a chance. I'll give you this. Give me your time. I'll give you this. You know, there's there's that part. So the relationship building seemed to appeared to have been key because you're you're you're you're asking somebody to bet on you.

00;17;35;10 - 00;17;57;10 And so through this demonstration of things, you know, it's it's important for us to remember that. The other part here is you said it, you took a 50% pay cut, which means it's only half. Remember, I was talking about you don't have to start from zero if you already acquired or accumulated something. So I know it's not the same, but just the context of some being symbolic.

00;17;57;13 - 00;18;16;05 You didn't take 100% pay cut. You took a 50% pay cut. So it means that you were in some place and then you wanted to shift and you did these things to prove value. You established yourself in a way to understand the fundamentals of not only the skill sets, but relationship building to to get somebody to want to listen, let alone bet.

00;18;16;08 - 00;18;33;10 And then, you know, you had to make a sacrifice and you determined what was going to be acceptable for you based off of the perspective that you have. This is a long term game. This is this is the marathon versus the sprint thing. I think you put I think you got me spot on there or, you know, four things.

00;18;33;10 - 00;18;51;18 It's like it's a transition. It's a choice. Right? And you take with every choice, it's kind of like there's opportunity costs, right? You know, there's physical cost, there's logistical costs, all the things. And you make these choice for that transition and that's what you go for. You're making a bet, right? Just like you make a bet on the roulette wheel in Las Vegas.

00;18;51;18 - 00;19;17;16 Right. You're making a bet is that return can be big enough. I bet the return was going to be big enough and it proved to be true. But and that's what it's all about, the choice you make. Yep. Choices. So. So let's. Let's go then. So now. Now we've established kind of the mindset you should have, right? This is, this is, you know, for those of us and I'll split it up into some categories to make sure that I'm speaking to each of you, whoever you are.

00;19;17;16 - 00;19;38;26 Right? So there's the early career folks beginning, which means that you've spent your latter part of, you know, your late teens, early adult life doing something to get to somewhere. So I'm speaking to you. You know, we're talking about those the mid-career midlife stage, right. So that could be, you know, anywhere from the mid to late twenties, all the way up to whatever.

00;19;38;26 - 00;19;56;22 Fill in the blank. Right. And then you've got the other right. And that's those of that of, you know, if you go by a job description, it's, you know, 0 to 3 years, 3 to 5 years, you know, 8 to 10 years. Think of it in the context of that. When when you're looking at qualifications, somebody is presenting you what's what's necessary to qualify for this role, to have a conversation.

00;19;56;24 - 00;20;14;16 You're determining at that point, do you do you match? And if you don't, you're thinking about who you are and what you bring to the table. And then you're you're landing on what am I willing to do and what am I willing to not do? What am I willing to sacrifice? So you're building your boundaries. That's important. So now you're at the table.

00;20;14;16 - 00;20;43;13 You have this conversation and you land on the opportunity where somebody is presenting it to you and then says, okay, show me. And then, David, you had mentioned, you know, I've done these things, so I'm going to kind of mix this really quickly into this next questions, because what does it take to get to 30 patents? Well, I have been in the industry for 30 years almost, but what does it take?

00;20;43;15 - 00;21;06;10 Well, the first part is like many things, it's it's like, you know, a running race. Right. What's it take to complete a5k? What's it take to complete a ten? Okay. Well, the first and foremost, the first one's the hardest, isn't it. Right. But with that said is how do we mostly get through the first one? It's usually because you have an inspiration.

00;21;06;12 - 00;21;27;11 You have someone that you look up to. You have a model, right? And often I think for many of us, for you know, that really get into running and races, especially after our, you know, high school, college, whatever, just in life saying, you get to go start doing a you're going to go do a half marathon, someone inspires you, someone coaches you, Right.

00;21;27;18 - 00;21;52;07 How you find someone, right. To help you through that first one. And after that, it's kind of like after you do your first five K, Chris, you know, is in the second one much easier. No big deal. Right? And I think that's what happens is you get you get that a coach and I think that's a big part of our topic here is you find someone inspires you, someone this that motivates you, find someone that can help you through that first one.

00;21;52;10 - 00;22;20;17 It just like in the career and from there it's then, you know, practice, practice, practice. Got it. Thanks for that. And that was intentional because a lot of us want, metaphorically speaking, we want the three patents. Now, I want to get to where you are, David. Now, why I'm asking that question after establishing what we did early in this conversation is because it takes it takes a couple of things to get to that part clearly.

00;22;20;17 - 00;22;42;28 And I'm not trying to be insulting to anybody who's listening. What I'm saying is, don't forget, it takes a while to get to the part of what you're going to consider to be the goal. And you don't know when or how long it's going to start or end, let's say. But you got to decide. You have to decide what it is that you want to do.

00;22;42;29 - 00;23;02;09 You have to now consider what it is that you're willing to do and not do, and then you present that and then you start. And I think any entrepreneur will appreciate this. Just start like you indicated, here is the first one may be the hardest, but we often know that if I'm not familiar with it, it's not comfortable.

00;23;02;11 - 00;23;20;05 I'm uncertain. I don't know what's going to happen. And that sometimes creates the self-talk to where we hesitate, we procrastinate. We, you know, we set it for next year. Tomorrow, we always say, I'll get it to the next time or whatever, but just starting is going to get you in the mix because it's not a one time one hit wonder.

00;23;20;07 - 00;23;53;07 It takes repetitive motion in order to get to the parts that help you understand through the experience what it takes to build the experience that when you get to experience or when you get to demonstrate it to somebody, they can hear it in the examples that you're providing. So you chose to go into this field. What were the determining factors after you've gotten your foot in the door and as you progressed, you know, what are some of the things that you seem to have introduced to keep you, I guess, moving forward?

00;23;53;07 - 00;24;13;03 But more, more so, you know, not only maintaining your motivation, but your inspiration, your desire to continue to grow. What are some of the things that you can talk through as far as what got you to want to continue? Well, I think it's hard. I think, well, I'll give you the hard part and then the easy part, Right?

00;24;13;05 - 00;24;36;25 The hard part is the reality is you need to work on something you love, right? And because it's hard to do something for 30 years unless you love it. Right. And I think there's a lot of people that say, hey, you can make more money doing X, right? Or but you really love working on cars. Right? You know, is like, can you some people can do it, others cannot.

00;24;36;25 - 00;24;57;03 Right. I think the thing for me about what I loved about security is it's always dynamic. You know, I think one of my strengths and weaknesses is that my brain is always working right. It's always going to be moving If I'm not, I can't sit there for 5 minutes and my brain not working, I'll go crazy. And so I have to be reading or doing something or running, running.

00;24;57;03 - 00;25;16;19 I can't be running without listening to something. I'll I'll go mental. You know, I have to let a podcast. So the thing about security is it's always dynamic, it's always changing. Everyone says it's always a horse race between the attackers and the defenders because it's always a horse race is very dynamic. And for me, that keeps me energized, right?

00;25;16;21 - 00;25;34;23 And because of that, then also also there's a demand. Let's do the simple economics thing, supply demand, right, to supply people that want to or can work on security and the demand of people that need to work on security, great. It creates a nice economic benefit right on that. And so I like things in life are simple, as simple as that.

00;25;34;23 - 00;25;55;09 So great, you know, it's a win win. And so I think that's what continues to drive me. There's always ways to move up, but you do reach a point in your career and say that, Hey, I'm happy, right? You know, because it's about we got the topics of work life balance. Work life choice, you know, is what people think as you move up in the world and move up in the ranks of a company in management, Right.

00;25;55;11 - 00;26;15;00 Life gets easier. It gets harder and harder. You always have to make a choice. It's like, what's enough? Enough's enough right here at the right balance. But that's a whole nother, I think, podcast on it right? But also, I'm going to go back to another point here is you talked about moving up. Is that the again, it's about a marathon, right?

00;26;15;00 - 00;26;28;28 It's a career at the long term is that I think I talked about it at a conference last week is that you stop, you get your foot in the door and you don't move to the top of the ladder in two years. Right. People that say, I want to be in security, I want to be a CSO, right?

00;26;29;00 - 00;26;46;05 It took me 30 years to be a C, so right here, 25 years to be a C, So right. Did I do it of one step like I became a leader of a five person team. And my next step is to become a CEO of a 300 person team? No, it's about a long term marathon plan. It will take time.

00;26;46;05 - 00;27;14;12 Right. And you're making a bet to get that point. And then you peak, you know, but it's not a it's you have to think about all the steps along the way. And those steps could take you 15 years. Did you know that when you started? I did. I did. I think is you know, I could say the my dream when I joined Microsoft at the beginning, I says, you know, the product people said, after ten years, I want to run, you know, building 26, Building 26 was it was windows at the time.

00;27;14;12 - 00;27;32;13 So I want to be running windows. Right. Be a vice president of Windows. Now, ten years later, I wasn't running windows, but ten years later I was running Windows Security Organization. You know, so I said a big aspiration, a big goal. I didn't get the at the end, you know, the full thing, but maybe it was little bit too aspirational.

00;27;32;13 - 00;28;01;08 But I got a big, you know, major achievement, you know, going from nothing to ten years. I'm running the Windows Security organization, something that affects the whole world. Can't complain. Well, in that and you and you hadn't planned for that. I never had say this clearly. It wasn't part of your plan to be that specific in Windows security because you were wanting to do just Windows, not just windows, but focus on Windows, which for me, not knowing the depth of it, is different, I'm assuming.

00;28;01;11 - 00;28;23;12 Was that a shift in your original plan? I mean, you know, did you realize that you were moving away from your original plan as it was occurring? Because sometimes when you're in the middle of it, you don't realize what's happening. So was that was that something that was occurring where you realized all of a sudden or did you see it evolve over time and then you started if your mind's always working, did you already connect this as things were happening?

00;28;23;12 - 00;28;43;25 You you were keeping a pulse on the shift away from the original goal. Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's a great question, Chris. I think it's it's kind of an evolution as you evolve. It's like you set a plan, right? And there's an element of you see some benefits of things and like what you get into a rhythm on you know, it's kind of like running routes.

00;28;43;25 - 00;28;58;13 Let's go back, you know, is the word of analogy. Like you start to run like, I'm going to run a marathon. But then you're saying, what routes do I want to train with? What routes do I'm comfortable with, What shoes do I like? Right. You kind of start to get to really to say, you know, yeah, I would do a marathon, but I'm not going to do a trail marathon.

00;28;58;13 - 00;29;15;00 I'm not going to do a Boston marathon. I just want to do a nice flat marathon or I want to do one that's, you know, of, you know, this type of terrain or you know, of type of things. And that becomes your preference And you're like, that's okay, right? You know, you adjusted because of how you feel, how you get comfortable with it.

00;29;15;00 - 00;29;31;06 And that's a big part of it. And as I got more and more security, that's where I wanted to be. I realized, no, this is me, right? This is who I am. I'm not the Boston Marathon type. And my going to try to be that right. And I'm happy with that. And so that's I think exactly you described.

00;29;31;06 - 00;29;50;01 I got it. So excuse me. The message then is don't forget who you are. Right. And the things that you've achieved indicate who you are. And if you want to have stretch goals, it's absolutely fine. But just keep in mind, because what we're not wanting to do is have you be tempted to stay where you are and then use the excuse?

00;29;50;01 - 00;30;04;24 Well, that's just who I am. No, Sometimes it's a choice in certain things to where it's who you choose to be. But if you want something different and you go back to what we just previously talked about, you know, what do you want to do and how do you envision yourself getting to where you want to be? What are you going to sacrifice?

00;30;04;24 - 00;30;30;17 Those types of things. So so always a demand, always changing. You'd mentioned that today. How important is security? Well, as you see in the news every week and it's kind of like, we did a podcast or we talk about, hey, the we've got a deal. I think this one will come out later. But like in of all the car dealers, right, You know, the software used by all car dealers.

00;30;30;17 - 00;30;48;19 Right. They're all shut down, right. You know, because of ransomware and cybersecurity. Right. It hasn't ended. It's you know, it's continued to be number one for until I die. Right. I'm going to say that for sure. Right. Of confidence in saying that. And I also plan on living for a much longer time, not looking. I die quickly here.

00;30;48;19 - 00;31;08;16 Everybody will keep running those flat marathons. You'll be fine. There's no risk. I pulled back, right? Is like I'm not aspirational. Go for marathons anymore. Half is good enough for me at this stage, but it's still important, right? That's great. It's something I love. It's still important. You know, I've chosen that and I stick with it. Right. But the same time, Right.

00;31;08;17 - 00;31;28;04 I hope I have switched companies. Right? I was at Microsoft, which I love, right? I went to Google. I've been Oracle. I do make switches, right? Because sometimes you just say that maybe I get too comfortable or like, hey, I'm not you know, I'm not expiring, aspiring to anything anymore. Right. And that's when you take that little bit of a a minor reset or a minor shift, Right.

00;31;28;04 - 00;31;47;00 Saying I need to adjust a little bit, make a move and where you go. And I think that's where the most enjoyment comes from. The do you think or how do you think technology influences that last part where there's always a demand it's not going to go away as technology becomes now, everything you know, again, I'm summarizing, right?

00;31;47;00 - 00;32;07;26 But how important is it where the technology or the the place in which you do this, how important is that in your decision making? it's very important. And coming back to our conference last week, they spoke it is there is discussion which are about CISOs in a technology and people staying up to date. Here's a reality. Someone called it out.

00;32;07;26 - 00;32;25;08 I said, CISOs, if you're not learning A.I. right now, you're pretty much you're done in two years, right? A.I. Artificial intelligence is not going away. It's going to affect almost everybody, right? We go back to, you know, computers 20 years ago. If you're not learning, a computer are going to be able to keep a job. No way. Right.

00;32;25;11 - 00;32;51;28 Nowadays, can you can anyone get a job and not use a computer anywhere anymore? Right. Almost impossible. Right. There's maybe a few things. Agriculture, maybe not. But putting that aside. So now looking forward in many of our jobs is not just technical people, but he is part of the life for the rest of our lives. Right? If you can't adapt to that, you cannot learn that you're going to be stale in two years.

00;32;52;02 - 00;33;19;06 Right. And I think that's the reality. And two years may be an arbitrary time selection. Maybe not. I don't know. It doesn't matter. But the point is, whatever the timeline is, it goes by quick. Right. And so the preparation, the steps involved in order to get you ready as an individual that's looking to pursue something either for the first time or transition from where you are into something different, which is in the space security.

00;33;19;08 - 00;33;42;15 There's things there are things involved that takes time to accumulate based off of everything that we're talking about. So with that, what do you feel is the most significant change that's occurring outside of what you just talked about? Outside of I boy, that's what A.I. is going to change a lot, right? I think in a lot of good things, you know, But, you know, I won't say necessarily bad things, right?

00;33;42;18 - 00;33;59;07 You know, born and raised in Detroit. Right. And they said, you know, the seventies, eighties, Right. Robots are going to kill all the manufacturing. Now, they didn't. It was just a shift. Right. I think I give you the same thing I think is what's the other you know shift is I think the air power is still the biggest one.

00;33;59;12 - 00;34;22;29 You know, top of mind is that how do we there's a good analogy that or a talk that people say that the people that use AI are going to be more productive than ever. Right? That people who don't use AI are the people that are going to be in trouble. Right. And I think that's reality. So, Chris, are you not using AI in creating the transcript for the podcast?

00;34;23;02 - 00;34;43;00 We are. See, did you think you think about it three years ago? Could you think of that? You thought of that, that we would, you know, have a you know, in thought of that would you know, that's a great point and half jokes but not because that change adapting to change I think is kind of the the subsequent parallel here.

00;34;43;00 - 00;35;01;00 Right. It's a for me, that particular case when I was presented with, hey, we're shifting the format now you have to review the document. I was absolutely not on board initially, right. And it was because it was to me, it was an inconvenience. I had to read through it. Is it is it translating properly what it did do?

00;35;01;02 - 00;35;30;03 And I'll be very specific with this had this conversation last night, as a matter of fact, with a couple of my peers in the team that I was working on. It's making me better as it translates in the way that I'm communicating. Am I articulating? Am I enunciating how I'm speaking is actually now being captured in a way to where I'm looking at it and say, and I use that kind of a symbolic way of understanding if it's if it's putting into words the language that I'm using and the way that I'm phrasing things.

00;35;30;05 - 00;35;49;19 Is it understood on the other end? Is it being received properly? And so I'm looking at it from that perspective that allowed me to find something in the inevitable right changes and inevitable right. We do it every minute of our life. It's changing and evolving. But I had to I had to get my head wrapped around the reality that here's the thing that we love to do.

00;35;49;19 - 00;36;09;16 We love having the conversations technology that's using or that's being used in order to improve. This particular offering is incorporating A.I.. It's using now that technology to take words and make it available and accessible for other people. So I had to kind of think and rewire my brain on how I'm adapting to change. And it took a minute.

00;36;09;18 - 00;36;28;29 And then after a while, I started to establish a better understanding of its use through critical thinking and emotional intelligence, just consideration of others. I think, is the premise of it. It's going to be beneficial to somebody. So then I was able to adapt to that. And I think that is the the initial reluctance, you know, kind of what you're hinting is obvious.

00;36;28;29 - 00;36;48;25 Hey, Chris, you're using it today. You know, did you know? And the answer is like, yeah, I didn't really think about it until later. So there's that. I think that's part of the process also is, you know, spinning it back to career choices. It's not going away. And it's not just technology is not going right. Security is absolutely not going away.

00;36;48;25 - 00;37;11;13 In fact, it's, you know, one 2% necessary for everything that's here. The changing of it, you know, the things that are involved includes not only the use of it, but how it's now being are influencing society in ways that it's modifying the way we're thinking about what we're doing right. And it's giving us a better estimate of how effective we are.

00;37;11;13 - 00;37;31;18 And I use my example, use yours, but it is helping make you better if it's used properly, right? I mean, there's other things that, you know, when you kind of how do you say when you take it and not take it for granted, but you abuse it, you know, and used for other things, There's that too, which is kind of indirectly the same, but.

00;37;31;20 - 00;38;08;04 All right. So going back to careers, somebody decided this is what they want to do. What can you tell them right now today, if somebody was in front of you asking for that that break, what do you say? The. Yeah, the you know, the I have to say, I mean, to go back to A.I. right now, there's of compared to like machine learning from, you know, ten years ago it was very hard to learn and it take a lot you know, but almost people had to go back almost to college or college level, you know, kind of education to really how to use it.

00;38;08;07 - 00;38;33;24 A.I. is much different, much simpler. And there's a huge demand for people to use A.I. and how to use A.I., everything from prompt, not just from a security perspective, but I think as if anybody wants a leap in a change. Right now, A.I. is crystal clear. There's lots of opportunities, and if myself, I'm learning it because I don't want to be phased out to be stale in two years.

00;38;33;26 - 00;38;49;23 But if anybody is, you know, saying you got a little bit of freedom, you got a little bit of time, and it's not going take a lot of time, and you want to jump into a new world that's exploding and not going away, jump into A.I. and there's training and education, other things jumping in. There's tons of opportunity.

00;38;49;23 - 00;39;09;15 Everybody, I'd like to see that someone actually knows A.I. and how to help implement it, you know, in a company or applications or other types of things, you can't get a job. Yeah, I think something else is wrong. Got it. What would that be considered From what you just said, like the most basic place to start, Is it just diving in?

00;39;09;15 - 00;39;32;23 I mean, how. How would I know exactly where to start today with what's available in order to not get ahead of myself by just doing a search for A.I.? Learn A.I., and then you start there where I don't want to start in the middle. I want to start the beginning. Yeah, I think there's a limit. So I think there's tons of things on Coursera, Microsoft, Oracle, others.

00;39;32;23 - 00;39;51;15 Right? You all have had introduction to A.I. and how to use it in their systems and actually getting to be an implementer or a user, right? Or someone that can be a practitioner, you know, in these things is all these companies are looking to implement. But not everyone's ready to jump on it. Like is like many companies, they want to start doing it, but they need some help, right?

00;39;51;15 - 00;40;07;13 You're like, Great, Google learn it, right? And then you can help other companies that need that talent. Because I know there's there's many companies, especially small and medium businesses especially. Right. It's like they're going to have people learning and onboarding to this in helping them know they need it. And they're going to hire people that can help them with that.

00;40;07;17 - 00;40;34;09 And that's an opportunity when there's a need, that means that's something you go after, right? And it's crystal clear everyone's trying to do it. Ooh, I was getting ready to kind of just taper us off to the start. But you just mentioned one thing. How do I stand out from others if everybody's doing it and everybody's using it and everybody's trying to learn how to do it, how do I stand out to be the David of 30 years ago today?

00;40;34;12 - 00;40;48;22 You know, I think coming back to an element is, you know, showing the the the artifacts of that. Right. It's you can start for easy. There's lots of things. Do you do you have a blog right. Do you have a podcast? Do you have a video blog? Right. You have a YouTube channel, right? Do you have a GitHub repo?

00;40;49;00 - 00;41;10;23 Do you have a medium, you know, kind of or substack, you know, kind of things? If you know some things, write it down, create an artifact, right? It's not about writing big white paper to write a blog, you know, do a podcast, you know, things like that, build your repository, build your portfolio of things you know how to do, and then you put it in your resume and say, Hey, Chris, you know, I heard you're looking for someone.

00;41;10;26 - 00;41;25;05 Take a look at my work right? You know, say people like, I look at your resume, I don't know if you know, do it like, hey, go look at my web, my, my YouTube channel, go look at my my medium blog and things like that and show you that I know what I'm doing. Right. And and guess what?

00;41;25;08 - 00;41;45;03 People will be interested, right? Because it's so easy. Because they don't have to interview you. Because people do it. Like interviewing people that might be worthless. No, it's a waste of our time, right? We only want to interview people that we think are going to pass and are be great. Right? But if you make it so easy for someone to see that what you can really do in total safety, right?

00;41;45;06 - 00;42;01;10 They're like, great, They're going to pick it. If you got the stuff, they're going to grab you really quick because it's so easy and safe for that, right? Do the investment. I know. Chris, do you like to be you know, you want to be a movie star, You know, many years ago. Right. And you had your your portfolio of all your pictures and everything's like that.

00;42;01;10 - 00;42;15;26 You got to have pictures, right? You got to be a movie star. You want to be a model. You got to have pictures, kind have a portfolio. So you want to be an eye, you want to be in security, you want to be in, you know, technical create your portfolio, make it available publicly, and then point people at it.

00;42;15;28 - 00;42;35;02 Now, I have to say, you're bringing up things that I'm wondering if you're trolling me and because you're in security, are you are you doing is there some subversion here that you're actually finding things out about me and you're finding in the depths of the dark web? I'm understand. Anyway, and we're back. So. Yes. Got it. So it tracks.

00;42;35;02 - 00;42;52;13 I mean, everything that you're saying, David, is it saying, you know, there's there's effort involved? Probably having a solid plan. Initial plan doesn't have to be 90% bulletproof, but you need to start with a plan that's going to help you where you are, get to the next step or to have a vision with Chris and see if there's a plan.

00;42;52;13 - 00;43;11;06 It's like I say, let's go to military, right? What's the target? Who is the target? What is the target? Then you build the plan to take out that target. Right? Fair point. And you said that in the past. I mean, you're consistent in that. You need to understand where you want to go, but also anticipate that things will things will change along the way.

00;43;11;11 - 00;43;28;03 And you were a good example of that, right? So in ten years, your plan shifted a little bit, wasn't entirely off base. It was just, you know, the azimuth just veered off from the original target in this case. So, you know, but be gentle on yourself as that occurs. Right? I mean, I think this is one of the things that's important for us to know that.

00;43;28;03 - 00;43;50;25 Nobody's harder on us than ourselves, I would hope. Right. Because that keeps us dedicated and disciplined. Right. And, you know, the motivation is you. It's not something external influence, you know, that's inspiring. It's not motivation, things like that. I think it's just a matter of be true to who you want to be. Right. Understand who that is, how you envision yourself, you know, a year, two years, five years, ten years from now, what do you want to do?

00;43;50;25 - 00;44;15;21 When do you want to retire? When do you want to separate from the workforce and live your best life in the ways that you imagine? Whatever it is matters less, but have that trajectory lined out with a variation, an understanding of a variation of degrees that will occur over time and be okay with it. Give yourself permission to be okay with change and then, you know, read the transcript in the know how it can be used.

00;44;15;21 - 00;44;54;10 Just to use myself as the example of what change includes. Any, any last comments? David And that's kind of I think the is I think always always expect the unexpected, right? You know, and things like that. It's like, you know, is, is we get into rhythm, we get happy with the way things are going, making progress. But then always be aware that hey, the unexpected, right Could be a minute from now, a week from now, a year from now, always being aware, being always self-conscious and is part of that I think is we've talked about before is like be self-critical, always asking, you know, feedback from others or your peers, your mentors, like where am

00;44;54;10 - 00;45;08;27 I going to stumble? Where am I about to fail? What am I missing? If you don't ask that, you know you're going to get blindsided every time. Yes, And that's a great point, too, because you've mentioned that before. You know, feedback having you're in your circle, somebody that's willing to give you the hard feedback that should stay. Right.

00;45;08;29 - 00;45;27;16 And that's the best quote that I've heard from you. Top, top three at least. Probably number two of the reality. You know it. You want to hear you want to hear those hard realities from others to help you get better. So thank you, David. And if anybody has any further cause I know we're just scraping the surface on this, I hope it was helpful for everybody.

00;45;27;16 - 00;45;47;17 But, you know, if you're if you want to shift careers or enter the workforce in the in the security space or A.I. or whatever, David, is it okay if people reach out and if so, how? Absolutely. You can find us on LinkedIn, you know, things like that. Always happy answer. I answer everybody that's always looking for some advice or connections, things like that.

00;45;47;19 - 00;46;06;26 I can't take on mentees at this point, but at the same time I always ask questions are answer questions, and in return I'll say, Hey, please listen to our podcast and kind of spread the word.

Yes, please. All right, everyone, keep moving forward.

Let's roll.

View Details

We're excited to have Dr. Smith join us to share his thoughts surrounding change and how we respond to external and internal factors. We cover considerations of how we can prepare and where we may learn to make minor adjustments to how we perceive external environmental situations by better understanding context.

This is one of our more exciting episodes where we're provided the opportunity to discover more about, not only ourselves but also how we may consider ways to serve and support others through change.

A Dr. Smith quote from the conversation: "Bring it every day".

We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So, let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinsmithphd/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissspencer/ X: mrdbcross

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Episode Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;28;18 You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight Employees, Partners, organization fans and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the MAVEN podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And today's episode, I'm joined by our co-host David Kross, senior vice president and SAS chief Information security officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;24 - 00;00;51;16 And today we have a special guest, Dr. Justin Smith, neuroscientist, CTO and passionate advocate for data analytics and all things stress. We're excited to have Dr. Smith join us today to share his thoughts surrounding change and how we respond to external and internal factors. We cover considerations of how we can prepare and where we may learn to make minor adjustments to how we perceive external environmental situations by better understanding context.

00;00;51;16 - 00;01;11;17 This is one of our more exciting episodes where we're provided the opportunity to discover more about not only ourselves, but also how we may consider ways to serve and support others through change. A Dr. Smith quote from the conversation Bring it every day we have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve.

00;01;11;18 - 00;01;25;23 Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Doctor Smith's and David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

00;01;25;26 - 00;01;46;09 MrdbCross How is it going, sir? Chris It's great. I'm excited that we're now getting more guests on our podcast because we're going to get up there. You know, we're going to have more listeners than the All in podcast, so just stay tuned for 2020 for everyone. There you go. Today we have a special guest with us, Dr. Justin Smith, and he'll introduce himself and his brief background.

00;01;46;09 - 00;02;04;08 But you know, what we're talking about today is how to how to maneuver and navigate through change. Dr. Smith Absolutely. Hello. Thank you very much for having me. My name is Justin Smith, and my background is in neuroscience. That's what my Ph.D. is in. And the reason why people I jokingly say I won't make my brothers call me Dr. Bias.

00;02;04;08 - 00;02;35;00 Just you can call me Justin, but my Ph.D. is in neuroscience specifically and stress and decision making. And I get asked or brought in to help work with groups that groups or individuals. Interesting. An interest in enhancing their decision making under extreme stress, but also understanding how the brain works under dynamic circumstances. And I think that's very applicable to what we're talking about today, this idea of change and transition and kind of what's happening specifically to you as individuals, but also to the groups that you're part of.

00;02;35;03 - 00;02;58;09 Well, it's pretty exciting, Dr. Smith, that really having you, because not many people know is that actually about 12 plus years ago, I actually had a brain aneurysm. Right? It ruptured. You know, I had the hemorrhagic stroke and my brain needed to change under a lot of stress and things like that. It's amazing to, you know, to talk to someone and how people can go through these things and how the brain can change and how people can change.

00;02;58;09 - 00;03;19;15 When you're under stress, our life and life changes. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a an incredible story. I'm happy to see just my brief interaction already that you've done a fantastic recovery. Those are very can be very life altering events. One of the one of the things I'd like to talk about, it's kind of bring it in for us today, kind of jump jump the agenda a little bit.

00;03;19;15 - 00;03;42;29 But the idea of neuroplasticity. Right. And so in your case specifically, David, the idea of how does our brain repair itself when it's going through or has experienced a specific injury. Right. So an aneurysm is a very specific injury. And the mechanisms that happen on both these structural meaning like parts of your brain change and able to grow and adapt, we call that neuroplasticity.

00;03;42;29 - 00;04;21;29 But also how do you learn new things or go through and your brain changes? And essentially the idea of memory is being formed, but also the plasticity of how do you become better at something through experience? And the mechanism is essentially very similar. There's a couple of nuances that are differentiated, but what's fascinating is that our brains have this incredible ability that we knew about for about 200 years ago or so, but then we've really been able to show in the last 30 to 50 years that our brains can actually change and adapt and grow to appreciate experiences and also, you know, overcome injuries that happened to us.

00;04;21;29 - 00;04;43;06 And so I think that's something where when you're going through or you perceive that you may be going into a time of transition and or change, how do you prepare yourself for that? Right? How do you build in those building blocks to know I'm going to have something that's going to be pretty dynamic or stressful, potentially occurring, even just going home to see friends and family for the holidays all the way to a major life event.

00;04;43;09 - 00;05;01;15 How do you prepare and change and adapt yourself so that you can respond as best as possible? That's always that's always a fantastic conversation. So thanks for that and let's jump in right to it. I mean, that's that's what we're here to do, you know, and this is just to remind anybody, this is this is an idea based off of some things that David.

00;05;01;15 - 00;05;42;25 Mr.. Mr.. CROSS So you got me ready with the formalities. I was thinking about. Dr. SMITH. It's columns that Tom just in the idea of, of being able to understand when we're about to enter something right in a situation, a conversation. David you and I have been talking about these in the series of conversations on previous podcasts. You know, when we're recognizing that something is about to occur, how do we how are we going to create the awareness for us to know what we're going to need to do to prepare for this appropriately so we can be informed enough, but also understand our limitation, you know, because we don't know what we don't know, but

00;05;42;25 - 00;06;03;06 we have to be able to recognize that we need to be prepared for the things that we don't know. So when we do fail, we can respond to that accordingly or appropriately to where we don't stop. We've got to keep moving. So just then, if you wouldn't mind maybe taking it from that to say, how do we understand that something's about to occur?

00;06;03;09 - 00;06;20;09 Yeah, absolutely. David, you have one thing you want to add before he jumped in. Well, yeah, I think that I was going to ask maybe another part of that question to you. Is that a big part of it I used to think about is like you is all about having a vision, right. And a plan. Right. And then that's what drives your brain to get there, right?

00;06;20;15 - 00;06;36;16 Or am I being naive? You know, obviously like last podcast talk about, you know, being useful and the tools and saying, hey, you have a vision and a plan and that's what drives you. Is that being too simplistic or is that part of the whole story? No, I think that's very much a part of the whole story, right?

00;06;36;17 - 00;06;59;06 We are, as a species goal driven and plan oriented, and I like to use evolutionary examples right? When you're going to go out and gather food, whether it's berries or you're going to procure meat from some something, some animal, right. Usually go with a plan. You know, I tend to wander around aimlessly and waste expenditure and calories on just randomly going to see if I can find a new blueberry patch.

00;06;59;08 - 00;07;16;20 You were going to specifically say, I know there's blue blueberry patches here, here and here. And because our species, we're thinkers as well, right? Not just going to go to a blueberry patch and gather blueberries. We're going to hunt our way there. We're going to hunt anyway back right here and optimize when I have a plan to go through and say, you know, what is it we want to do?

00;07;16;21 - 00;07;39;01 What are the goals we'd like to accomplish today, even if it feels informal? Right. Those still are kind of structured. Portions of our day are weeks or months and I would argue our years are kind of the overall arc of our life as well. But I think it's not too simplistic to say how do you create a plan and set goals for yourself and a group to understand, okay, this is what the this is what we're shooting for, right?

00;07;39;01 - 00;07;57;27 And kind of breaking it down in business. We do this a lot. We here's the here's the house on the Hill we're trying to build. How do we get there? How do we build these smaller building blocks that are accomplishable and spur planning and all that kind of stuff, Right. To to hunker down and tweak instruments or our instruments or whatever it is that you're doing that cousins causes effort or takes effort to do.

00;07;58;00 - 00;08;30;03 But having a plan is very much how our brains are organized structurally as well. I would argue, to be able to optimize, be able to accomplish those things for the basic level, for survival. Right. We most of us have those needs. Metaphor Listeners podcast. So how do you plan to do it for organizational advancement? So in part of that planning, because you're talking about these things too, where if you've never done it before, it's easy to say, you know, here's what I think I need to do, and then you stop there and then you learn, right?

00;08;30;03 - 00;08;54;05 So this is some of that developmental process that you mentioned earlier about the growth and how that becomes a valuable. So how much is this kind of a qualitative quantitative thing about how much effort do you think you need to go into typical situations in life stages and and, you know, maybe jobs or performance or relationships or even the climate like seasons, right?

00;08;54;05 - 00;09;11;04 So we're going from summer to fall, fall or winter, and then what occurs inside those seasons. Yeah. And so this is where I would say you start to see a spectrum occur, right? Individuals who do very little to no preparation just kind of go with the way to the flow, all the way to individuals who are preparing for seasons and or events at that.

00;09;11;04 - 00;09;27;07 Really, I'll just use the word elite and or extreme event, right? Where they going to try and control as much, if not everything that they can. And so depending on where you feel like it's the most appropriate place for yourself to fall, and this is where you can really start to see it in the workplace or even just in human performance.

00;09;27;09 - 00;09;44;06 Individuals who prepare more perform better. It's a pretty clear cut correlation. It's not, wow, they're really good at that. They're good at that because they practiced it for years and years and years of their speaking where there's a certain skill worth. You're an athlete, you know, if you're leading a team meeting, you know, that's not just thing you happen into.

00;09;44;06 - 00;10;19;15 Those are those are finance skills that you're able to practice and build upon. And so for the transitions, right, is understanding what are the potential transitions you're going to experience. How do you figure out those before they occur? Right. And then if you're if you're a planner who thinks diligently, right, the military has a bunch of acronyms for this as well, but you have your primary, secondary and tertiary plan knowing that they're all three going to be a little bit different in the end because dynamics and things change in the world evolves around us constantly, but at least have some structure to hold on to as you're going through this dynamic situation.

00;10;19;15 - 00;10;39;27 And that's the part where setting yourself up for success is really key, right? And so, again, to use the evolutionary example, 10,000 years ago, you know, we were looking at when winter is coming, seasons are changing. You got to start storing food, storing things so you can make them this long winter because things are growing, peaches gotten harvest, blueberries, got to save them.

00;10;40;00 - 00;10;57;18 You know, Dr. Smith, this really brings, you know, another question to my mind, and since you are the expert here is, you know, there's always left brain and right brain, and I can't remember which one's which, but right brain is more structured, methodical, and the other side is is more creative, artistic. Right. And we talk about visions in planning structure.

00;10;57;18 - 00;11;24;11 Does it matter if a person's left brain focused or right brain focused, or am I just making up a crazy thought? No, no, I think so. This is the hard part. From the neuroscience perspective. We view bilaterally like the split in your brain as being essentially a redundant system, right? There is there is specialization, right? So your right hands control the left hand, push your brain, you know, your eyeballs, cross your optic nerve, goes back and crosses it, gets back to your occipital lobe in the back of your brain.

00;11;24;13 - 00;11;44;21 So there there is a duality or there is a bifurcation right between the two lobes. Your brain. But how it's organized in terms of people being right brain and left brain, I this is my personal opinion. I think it's far oversimplistic, right? Because all of your brain is working more or less constantly all the time. And we do see individuals that are more creative, right?

00;11;44;24 - 00;12;06;09 But it's not creative because one side the brain's functioning at a higher percentage or higher perspective and some people are more analytical or more, you know, logic based, you know, less we can say less creative, right? Less creative. In the same way they're not able to paint and draw pictures readily. But that just might be because they're using different forces of brain that are more optimized to how things are running for them intuitively, or we call it in neuroscience.

00;12;06;09 - 00;12;24;13 It's called the default mode network, right? So essentially it's that what's the Hummer? What's the idol of your brain when you're at rest and then you're able to bring it up to say, I have a cognitive task. Can you take care of I have this big thing I need to prepare for. How do I prepare resources? How do I plan how to prepare myself physically, mentally, you know, all those kind of things.

00;12;24;13 - 00;12;43;08 And that process takes your whole brain, like all the parts of your brain from your cortex, all the way down to your limbic system. The emotional, you know, emotional portion of your brain. And so when it gets to the idea of left brain versus right brain, I it's just it's too simplistic for me. This what I like to say.

00;12;43;10 - 00;13;01;29 Well, that's great to hear. Certainly I can say from my experience when I had my ears and my my speech center, which was on my left, left behind my left eye. Yes. Will be damaged. Right. I'm still paranoid today that I don't speak properly, but it is amazing of how my brain evolved, you know, adjusted so quickly to say, well, I need to still speak.

00;13;01;29 - 00;13;24;16 And I actually I all the language just started coming back and things like over time. And that means I can adapt and I think that's maybe our our our conversation today. How do you adapt right? How can you get through stress, stress or a change or a challenge? Yeah, absolutely. And so using your example is really, really illustrative for us today, because that is exactly neuroplasticity, right?

00;13;24;16 - 00;13;53;29 You have a large damage to the course of your brain is responsible for a very specific process. And this is what do I do this often? I'm still I get excited and I'm like, this is incredible. You're brain to have a damaged that's just that big area yet parts that were closer near it are able to pick up some of that functionality right and you're able to train and bring in and your body kind of helps to move those resources that your neurons can connect again, to say this is a core functionality of existence for us, it's speech, right?

00;13;53;29 - 00;14;11;15 Understanding and processing and be able to speak language. We have to figure this out. And so you practice it, right? You go to these therapies, you do all these things that are that are hard and take effort, but your brain is able to kind of overcome that deficiency or that that injury that I experienced. Right. And that's that's phenomenal.

00;14;11;15 - 00;14;25;24 And so where that leads us for the transitions and the change portion is knowing that there might be a change coming up and, you know, it's going to be stressful. What do you do to prepare? Right? So number one is you figure out what that area might be, right? So let's just say it's a big transition for your family.

00;14;25;24 - 00;14;42;06 You're moving across the country, right? We have this cool thing called the Internet. You're able to do a bunch of background research and say, where's I'm going? Where do I want to live? Kind of paint that picture for yourself. Right. The other part, too, is you're able to ideally if you're moving, is let's use that as the example, right?

00;14;42;08 - 00;14;59;04 Hopefully able to save some money to say, I'm going to make an advanced trip out there and this goes in that person that's super logical and can do a bunch of planning, right. And then make an advance about there and not tell your whole family, send one person, your family, maybe, hopefully the person that's really interested in deciding what parts of town you want to live in or what you want to have as your living situation.

00;14;59;06 - 00;15;28;16 You will do a little reconnaissance of that area to say this is a this looks like a great place on the Internet and on a map. Then you get there and it's an area that's under heavy construction. And they're not there's no end in sight. That's not a place you want to bring yourself or your family. But what you're able to do during that process, and this is where even if you don't have to physically go somewhere to practice, this is the key part, the practice of thinking about what is it you can do to prepare for these big transitions are going to go through, helps to restructure and organize your brain, if that makes

00;15;28;16 - 00;15;44;14 sense. Right? So it's doing those kind of thought experiments is thought exercise and even going through and asking yourself and thinking about where would I like to live? Sounds super easy. Intuitive, right? I don't care. Apartment, condo, house, it's fine, doesn't matter. But then it's way more nuanced that do I want to buy water? You want to buy a golf course?

00;15;44;14 - 00;16;05;09 Do I live by the road, the airport, and going through and say, okay, what are those options? And laying them out for yourselves that your prefrontal cortex, your executive decision making process in your brain can really start to step in to say, I know that we as a unit, a family unit or use individual really appreciate I'm happiest, healthiest when I have access to a green belt to ride my bike and go for runs.

00;16;05;09 - 00;16;34;21 Right. Or I like to play golf every day. So if I can move in or out a golf course, they have accessibility to, you know, these are things to start to practice in the exercises. Again, it doesn't sound like exercise. We talk about physical exercise and these those mental exercises to be able to prepare for these types of change is setting yourself up for success so that if you have to make that big transition and most people say, wow, you had you found out in 30 days, you moving across the country, your response if you thought about it ahead of time because you had an inkling that might be happening is yeah, but I already

00;16;34;21 - 00;17;05;25 have a really good idea of what I'm looking for and I've got a list of places I can contact. And I have a realtor that I have kind of on standby, right? Those are things that, again, seem like they're completely tangential to the idea of like, how do you prepare for big transitions? But it's the idea of preparing yourself and your brain to practice and exercise this cognitive thinking that you're able to do so that when you have to do it and this goes down to really specific situations as to as well, you're able to kind of rely on those experiences and those resources because they're readily available and you've trained them up, if that

00;17;05;25 - 00;17;29;11 makes sense. If I'm if well, if I'm transitioning right to our military family, you're transitioning right? You have a network of people to where anybody that you're asking if even if you overhear it, but if you're intentional on trying to find out and pursue investigate, like you just said about, you know, connaissance. Right. You're trying to figure out ahead of time whether or not this is something for you, it's safe to say.

00;17;29;11 - 00;17;50;28 Then you have to identify and be as accurate as possible by thinking critically about what's important to you and understand the levels of importance. So to prioritize these things. Yeah. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And that's something where, again, going back to our spectrum of laissez faire people, they don't they go with the wind all the way to individuals who are, you know, really large, you know, meticulous planners.

00;17;51;00 - 00;18;06;09 Understanding where you fall on that spectrum is key. But also it takes resources to think what makes me happy and healthy. Right? And it's easy to say I'm a go with the flow kind of person, but all of a sudden you find yourself not in the place that you're you recognize. After six months, you're not very happy or healthy.

00;18;06;09 - 00;18;36;12 And why is that? Is that things that you can change in your environment is that the career path? Is it the new job you took within the organization that you thought would you be really good at? Turns out it's really hard. It's not a good fit for you, right? How do you how do you make sure that you're able to stay self-aware, which again, it sounds easy to say it's a skill to practice that then when you go through to these major large changes and transitions really helps you to say, I know that I'm very good and comfortable when I get to these situations, but I need to practice these other types of situations, right?

00;18;36;12 - 00;18;53;27 And that's where the business side comes in to us. If you know, you have to give a talk to 30 people and you're comfortable doing that, what happens is 30 people that are three levels above you. How do you practice for that? How do you think about what's that audience going to want to hear that's different than talking to 33 individuals that are your peers, right?

00;18;53;27 - 00;19;13;12 And so, again, transitions change that planning ahead of time is really key and critical. And again, it's a skill to practice because it's like golf. You never win golf. You play it and get better, hopefully, but at some point you're like, okay, I'm still practicing, still getting better, I'm still hopefully enjoying it. But you never you never win.

00;19;13;13 - 00;19;28;17 You know, you kind of continually practice it. I think that's kind of just like the we always talk about lots of books and I say, Well, what's the best book? When you think about presenting? I say, Well, go get the book on the presentation. Secrets of Steve Jobs. Right. And how does Steve Jobs get really good at presenting?

00;19;28;24 - 00;19;55;02 Because he practice, practice, practice, practice, practice straight. And I and I think that's what it's all about. Whenever you need to do something and be successful at it. Practice, practice, practice. Chris What's your favorite book? Isn't that the Malcolm Gladwell saying 10000 Hours? Yeah, it's repeatedly it's the outliers because it does talk about very specific things. That's relative to not only time in a place to where it just so happens to be that it was convenient, right?

00;19;55;02 - 00;20;18;28 If you're in the right place at the right time, then you just your opportunity. And then there's the ones that actually put in the effort, put in the reps, develop that skill set based off of repetition and things like that, which Dr. Smith, you've talked about in the past, how important repetitions are and then the outcomes of those acts and how you're going to now develop the awareness to know what you can do better and what you shouldn't repeat?

00;20;19;00 - 00;20;34;27 Yeah, absolutely. And that's that feedback loop in training, right? So if you're really diligent about your training, you want to have a near immediate or real time feedback loop of did that work or did it not work? You know, we do it oftentimes we're we'll send a survey after we have, you know, a big all hands meeting. What did you hear?

00;20;34;27 - 00;21;01;06 What did you like? What could we change for next time? You know, leaders want to know what what worked, what didn't, how we adjusted for the future. And that's, again, a skill you can practice or think about often. It's easy to say it's hard to do, right. I think that's that's pretty gets down to in practicing takes effort and cognitive resources which are finite and so making sure you're able to prepare yourself as best as possible to leverage those resources appropriately is key.

00;21;01;06 - 00;21;22;22 And that's one of the other points I really enjoy making. I think it's super important. It sounds again, tangential, but it's extremely valid and is really important. And that's the idea of exercise, physical exercise, specifically voluntary exercise. Right? And so whatever your athletic ability is, challenge yourself. If you want to go for a walk for 30 minutes every hour of the day, Right, Do that.

00;21;22;23 - 00;21;40;10 That's your exercise. The big thing I have to say is making sure you're getting your heart rate elevated, your break a little bit of a sweat like that's that you're physiologically moving your body in in a meaningful way. You know, you don't run an ultramarathon or do 100 K like that. Sometimes it's not good. And those have certain effects on your body that aren't always great.

00;21;40;10 - 00;22;10;18 But the reason why exercise is so potent and powerful, this is a probably good transmission to the idea of stress is our bodies are really good at mitigating stress when we have access to free exercise or we're able to move our bodies. Right. So there's two components that. One is the physiology. Your body gets better at moving things around through it, through your blood system, through endocrine system, through, you know, the lymphatic system, the parts that move things through your body when you're when you appropriately exercise or use that system with intention, especially, it's voluntary.

00;22;10;18 - 00;22;28;23 That's the key part, is it gets better doing it right. It's kind of like if you haven't done a certain exercise a long time, you're like, I'm going to go out and lift weights. That first two or three weeks back is really hard because your body is like your brain says, I know how to do is a dumbbell curl like it is all day long and your muscles are freaking out because they haven't done it in such a long time.

00;22;28;23 - 00;22;48;03 Your bone structure may have changed. You know, you may have had an injury or coming back from ulcers. This different makes an impact. And so starting where you are is key. Building up your physiologist, you have that physiological response. But also this is the part to where I think it was probably five or six years ago. Now they're finally able to get a real time image of the brain while you're breathing, right?

00;22;48;03 - 00;23;03;20 So you can see inside the skull and watch the brain. So all of our textbooks, until about ten years ago had the brain is this just static thing that stuck inside your skull? Well, it turns out when they did a race, they were all kind of played as a movie. Our brain moves as we breathe with our heart rate as well.

00;23;03;20 - 00;23;24;13 Right. It's this incredible like, my gosh, this thing is actually not just this static, you know, mushy gray matter. White men are stuck in a box. It's moving and it's moving with your breath, with your respirations, your situation system, all these things change it. And so what happens is the more you're able to build up the appropriate level of physiology for you, for yourself, right.

00;23;24;16 - 00;23;43;27 You're able to not only think better and more clearly because you're kind of resources will be able to be moving around much faster. You're able to physiologically have a response. It's appropriate to a certain stressor. And that's the key thing, right? So if you're feeling completely unprepared and overwhelmed, you have to stop and say, what is it that's overwhelming me?

00;23;43;29 - 00;24;06;04 And after time, that's a very difficult question to ask yourself as well, because it could be personal, it could be professional, it could be systems that are under your control, somewhat out of your control. Right. But be able to stop and say, okay, what's what's bugging me, What's stress me right now, How can I deal with that? And the more you're able to leverage voluntary exercise in your life, the better you will be at doing that.

00;24;06;06 - 00;24;34;22 You know, Dr. Smith, that I can't agree 100% more certainly to those things is that certainly whenever I'm stressed for the work life, whatever, I go for a run. Right? And it's amazing of how much just a5k run. I'm not as hard core and you know, Chris and his his 50 K, you know, kind of sprints and things like that but my little five K running boy, it's amazing of like how that can just reset everything, reset your brain, reset your body like okay, I'm now able to, you know, take on things and also the element is he made his luck I don't know.

00;24;34;24 - 00;24;53;25 But literally one week before I had my brain aneurysm, I ran my first half marathon race. And in some ways, I believe to this day is that my body, my mind was conditioned for stress, you know, in a race of that type. And that's maybe one of the reasons I survived, is because of that. But I could be wrong.

00;24;53;27 - 00;25;20;14 I was not a medical doctor to send it very clearly. But I will say you were in a far better position for recovery because you prepared for that ten K then had you been sitting on the couch and been completely sessile or just not moving around for two or three years before that injury happened? Right. And that's where in health care we see this massive split of individuals that have what seem like near miraculous recoveries, but turns out like, no, that person casualty's a triathlete as well.

00;25;20;16 - 00;25;39;27 It's like you. Their body is ready to respond to stressors that may come into it, whether it's injury, internal or external, whatever it may be, versus, you know, people that are let's just say, not as conditioned to have those types of responses because what we see or what we think about, especially especially with exercise, is, a person's weight's going up or down, right?

00;25;39;27 - 00;25;58;14 You look at the overall physical structure, what we don't think about is what they do internally is your blood pressure. How is your heart looking out? What's the rate of oxygen return from your lungs all in that just before you even get into the brain chemistry, Right. It's all affected. And exercise is an extremely powerful tool. And again, using the evolutionary examples, right.

00;25;58;14 - 00;26;25;13 We weren't meant to sit behind computers for 8 to 10 hours a day, like we're supposed to be out walking around doing stuff, thinking and talking, interacting with our peers and being social as well. But moving is a big part of our existence and it should be. So I think that's part of it too. Where I get to work with certain groups is the idea of letting it and letting everyone know it's okay to take 30 minutes to go outside and do a walk like that will your productivity will increase like we've seen it over and over again.

00;26;25;15 - 00;26;45;28 Your response to stress will become better for sure if you have even just a small amount of movement in your day. And I think that's where we start to see that on the other side, the negative side of chronic health conditions of people that aren't moving around very much. So it's it's again easy to say, hard to do, but building it into your day and planning for it can be very key.

00;26;46;00 - 00;27;14;04 And that can it goes the idea of stretching or having those large changes, that preparation, that anticipation for those big changes, they come up. Yeah. So part of the part of the plan and I think this is something that's commonly omitted from the plan is self care. Right? And so this this is along the lines of, you know, interestingly, when I'm trying to do something to be better at it, you know, I'm thinking about the external factors and how I'm looking ahead externally, meaning out of out of self, right?

00;27;14;04 - 00;27;33;12 I'm saying, well, if I need to go to the store, if I need to, you know, I want to work towards a degree or a certificate or something to that element, there isn't a lot of these things that I'm adding the value or incorporating the value of the physical element that that's necessary for me to function, hydration, nutrition, rest, I mean, all of those factors.

00;27;33;12 - 00;27;52;02 So can we kind of just touch on some of those things because your perspective on how how the brain is what it is and you just started to explain it, but how it needs the nutritional components to be able to optimize its function and things like that. How does how do all of these things connect? Yeah, so that's one that's a really big question.

00;27;52;04 - 00;28;09;17 But to kind of take it in smaller bites and chunks, right? So how does it all connect? One of the ways that I like to kind of describe this to think about it is the idea of context. And so when I say context, I mean in two different ways. I mean the external context to you, the physical environment that you're in, your surroundings around you, right?

00;28;09;17 - 00;28;27;00 So like literally the room that you're in or the space that you're occupying external context, and then also your internal context, what's happening inside your body, inside your brain. This is my favorite joke with the whole scientists is like, we can't point to a thought like we're told about your mind, Like we don't know where the mind or you can't put your mind.

00;28;27;00 - 00;28;52;28 We think it's in your head, right? But our our neurochemistry, our physiology inside our body is new. What's happening can be your considering talk about is your internal context. Those two things are related. They're interconnected completely right, because your external environment influences your internal environment. But what I like to say, and this is why I think is fun, is as humans we have this really unique ability and that is to think.

00;28;53;01 - 00;29;11;27 And when you can have an experience that's external. So an external context is a stressful situation. You have the ability to say, I'm going to put this as best as I can, right? And so I'll use my self as an example. If I get stuck at a dinner party or some sort of gathering and it is just a really dry conversation or something's happening, right?

00;29;12;04 - 00;29;25;06 And I don't want to be the person who's going to dominate the room, because sometimes I think that's fun to do as well. But sometimes it's not. It's the idea of sitting back and saying, How can I make this more enjoyable for others? How can we and we call it steering the conversation. How do you steer this conversation?

00;29;25;06 - 00;29;58;22 So it picks back up again? How do I help control these external contexts? Because in my brain, my internal context is like, this is boring. Like I don't want to be here anymore. What's going on right? And so specifically to do that and usually I talk about this more in more applied circumstances in terms of individuals that go into extreme stress environments, meaning life or death situations, but for us that aren't usually facing those situations on a day to day basis, hopefully the idea of how do you take care of or set yourself up for success in the best way possible, right?

00;29;58;22 - 00;30;19;18 So exercise is very type of exercise. Next to it is nutrition, hydration, Right. And so making sure you're meeting your body's needs for what you're asking you to do and this is another fun fact I really enjoy talking about is when you and Chris, you should know the answer because you heard this one before, I think. But for individuals that are playing in a elite grandmaster level chess tournament.

00;30;19;20 - 00;30;38;10 Right. How many calories do you think their body or their brain or their body overall is burning in a day? Like what would you say if you had to guess? David Wow, I'm stuck with that. I don't I don't have a good guess on this one, actually. Okay. Would you guess it'd be low because they're just sitting there and they're just playing chess all day?

00;30;38;12 - 00;31;01;01 No, I don't think so. I think that that is hard to say. It doesn't make sense. But now that sounds like I'm being comedic. Doesn't right now. It's all good. So what's amazing, right, is when you watch somebody play at the grandmaster level, these really intense chess tournaments, what we see externally from the external environment is they're sitting there and they're staring at a board with pieces on it.

00;31;01;01 - 00;31;22;07 Right. But what's happening to them internally, their internal context, their brain is firing and they're thinking ten, 20, 50 moves ahead, They're playing what's happening, what they think the strategy of their opponents going to be. They are literally thinking at the most cognitively resource intense level possible for hours on end. This isn't like a 30 minute speech chess game.

00;31;22;07 - 00;31;38;28 Like these people play games over and over again the other day. So it's fascinating is the number of changes a little bit, but you can think about in terms of it's a lot, right? So the idea is it's either eight, it's up to 8 to 12000 calories a day, which when you sit there and think you're like, holy cow, that's day.

00;31;39;02 - 00;31;58;02 So, Michael Phelps is swimming in the Olympics. He was eating 10,000 calories a day, right, because he was in the water training and racing and to feed his fuel's body for the physical exertion. But what's amazing is those grandmasters in chess, they're literally thinking their way through their caloric resources to their body because they're thinking so hard, they're playing these games.

00;31;58;04 - 00;32;13;28 And so that's the idea of what nutrition do you need? And this is where I get to have fun. Another group specifically. But knowing that you're getting ready to go do something, it's going to be extremely stressful. How do you set yourself up for success? And our brains run on glucose and oxygen. It's kind of the way you can think of it, right?

00;32;13;28 - 00;32;31;01 So simple the simple sugar glucose and need to be able to breathe, right? So before you go and you think it's stressful, especially if you know it's an event that's coming up, I usually don't have any with my desk here. I usually keep the organic gummy bears like the kids Gummy bears, right. That are just really just you know, it's like honey, Honey is a great example.

00;32;31;01 - 00;32;49;02 Those honey shots for athletes and they take without running, do laundry and stuff, having glucose on demand that you can boost yourself up, help special blood sugar. It's all the physiology kind of comes together, but setting your brain up for success to say, Hey, we're going to boost your brain, I'm going to boost you up with glucose so that you can have the resources you need for this.

00;32;49;04 - 00;33;07;07 Hopefully a medium to short duration, high level of cognitive load to deal with the transition or change you're going through, especially into an acute event. These are acute event examples. We talk about chronic events in a moment, but then also understanding this is another fun study was done probably 15, 20 years ago now. But it's not just any but individuals.

00;33;07;07 - 00;33;29;28 They measured respirations during an intense test. I think it was in the category also after medical school or law school to get into. And what they found was individuals that had the same resting actions, meaning they weren't holding their breath when they're taking a test, individuals that were able to have the same respirations throughout the whole test experience scored significantly better than individuals who are holding their breath during the testing process.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;49;00 And again, it makes sense because when you do something, it's hard. What do you think about what happens? You go we ask you a question like how you think about that and you hold or pause your breath, right? And so recognizing what your breathwork is doing at the time, especially again, these are acute stressors, can help to actually improve your performance.

00;33;49;03 - 00;34;03;10 And so when you watch like Olympic athletes are great because they're on camera all the time before they're getting ready to go and do their event. When you watch them, a lot of times they're doing these deep inhalation breaths. They're helping to saturate their body with oxygen. They're thinking about it. I guarantee you they've had a snack for the last hour.

00;34;03;12 - 00;34;25;28 Right. All these sort of subtle things that we do intuitively at elite athlete athletic levels. But to understand now the physiology, especially the neuroscience of why that works so well, that's what's really key. And so there's these really foundational building blocks of chronic stress. You know, make sure you have access to voluntary exercise, right? You'll make sure you're eating a healthy diet that's appropriate for the caloric intake and exertion that you're going to have.

00;34;26;01 - 00;34;41;28 So if you if you know, you're going to be biking 2 to 3 hours a day, get that smoothie in the afternoon. If you're not, you're not sitting through 6 hours of intense strategic meetings. Maybe you don't need the smoothie to have. You know, it's nice to have a dessert by Nita. And so I'm putting all those together I think is really kind of part of the key.

00;34;42;00 - 00;35;03;12 What makes so much sense now. Right. And it's elements of, hey, we got a hard presentation, you got hard work to do. It's your brain needs the calories. And let's come back to that. You know, the continuous runner theme that we have on our podcast is, you know, there's a running I've done a measurement myself and it makes sense now is that, hey, I'm running a5k, it's flat, it's straight, right?

00;35;03;12 - 00;35;18;14 I'd like to think I just get into a zone. I know some runners are going get mad at me, like you get into a zone. You're not thinking right. And I know exactly how much weight I'm going to burn off, but then I do a5k in a a mountain trail. Right now it doesn't. It's not because of hills.

00;35;18;14 - 00;35;49;29 It's like I have to think about every single step, every single move. Because if I make the wrong one, I'm going to fall over. And how much more energy you consume. And it's not from the physical energy. It's like the brainpower. I'm exhausted from your brain perspective, from that same five k distance. Yeah, Yeah. And what's really fun and what are the examples I love to hear, especially from runners, is once they start doing more of those mentally engaging runs, they say it's really hard to go and run a flat five k on pavement because you get you, you want to do it.

00;35;49;29 - 00;36;08;22 Your body says, let's go and try this right because it's fun and you're doing it voluntarily. I think that's the other part that's key, but it's it's engaging. Yeah. So then I think, Chris, we got to see you doing some hills, dude, and not just doing those trademark KS around the Redwood Lake. You know this guy, He's trying to get me into a what, a 25 minute ten.

00;36;08;23 - 00;36;32;14 Okay, so it's baby steps. So just to kind of get to where we are and summarize what we've taken, you've taken us through at this point. It's it's the planning, right? So becoming intimately familiar with what you're trying to do, it requires that you understand yourself better. And that comes through a true inventory of what you've achieved in the past.

00;36;32;14 - 00;37;01;13 And then, you know, somehow coming up to a methodology of categorizing things, of capable, not capable, want, don't want, you know, need, don't need things. However it works for you, you have to come up with some theory that is applicable to to what steps you're going to take to get in motion to move forward. And that's the preparing the, anticipating, you know, going through the experience, reassessing because the growth is going to now uncover some other patterns that you didn't know that you were going to benefit from.

00;37;01;13 - 00;37;31;24 And so you realize it. You know, even we're talking about nutrition, this little this little tweak and how your body's identifying stress and then acclimating to stress the recovery component, which is not often spoken about, you know, how you recover from these activities, from the physical component, the biological component, the mental component. You don't have to restore all of these things where I don't know that everybody's realizing that just sitting idle, the perception on the outside with the chess analogy is, you know, you're not really demonstrating physically anything outside.

00;37;31;24 - 00;37;51;14 Do people think that you're actually doing something, but internally you're expanding an enormous amount of energy to where it can be draining. You put it into word the context of what we're talking about. Again, military family, you know, the deployments, the idle time. There's still this thing that you're now putting your body through to assess, should I be doing something?

00;37;51;14 - 00;38;16;23 I should be doing more, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. And then the families being brought through those experiences on the same same context, the deployments, time away, time back, getting associated through the relationships and all that stuff. That's putting a weight on us to be able to understand what we need to do to prepare for that. But then it's the decision to get out of an environment that you've been in for an enormous amount of time, say five, ten, 15, 20 years.

00;38;16;26 - 00;38;40;19 You know, what are some of the things that you can do where, you know I'm thinking positive psychology, you know, things that you can reinforce through the self-talk of understanding a how to get through a moment to get unstuck or just make sure that you're not going to remain stagnant if that's how you feel. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think this is a really, again, key component, especially when you go through major life transitions, right?

00;38;40;27 - 00;38;59;27 Is one is again, I think I saw this 16 times today, but easy to say, hard to do. Number one is recognize that it's hard it's hard to do like this is going to be stressful. I think just accepting and recognizing that sounds easy, but it's so like we're really good at denying things. I mean, like, I can get through this.

00;38;59;27 - 00;39;13;15 I'm just going to brush in the rug, recognize it's hard because when you recognize that something is going to be hard or be difficult, you then recognize you have to put effort into it. Right. And so then once you know, you put effort into it, this is the part of having a really be and this is why our brains are cool.

00;39;13;21 - 00;39;33;11 We can take that into the context of a giant transition that they separate from. Military is a good example, right. And switch it. So it's not this it's not a negative event. You can look at it and frame it for yourself, Change the internal context you're experiencing into a positive or just this is a transition I'm going to be going through and making it as positive as possible.

00;39;33;13 - 00;39;50;29 Right? And so that kind of gets the idea of the positive psychology of how do you think about challenges. You're going to have to go through. And once you recognize that doesn't have to be a negative challenge, it starts to become fun because then you kind of start to gamified, where do I want to live? What do I want to do with a second career?

00;39;51;00 - 00;40;11;06 What do I want to do in my retirement? What what does getting back to being self aware? What does bring me joy and happiness? What makes me a better at being a partner to my in my significant other, to my kids, to my people in my life. And so I think that's again, one of those things that you kind of talk about or hear about this bajillion books written about it, right?

00;40;11;09 - 00;40;30;28 But it's the idea of changing an internal context that you perceive that you're telling a story that you're telling yourself, which is why our brains are different. Fantastic. Because I'll say the military is a good example because you see, you have to think it's really hard and difficult to do. But the more kind of selecting the groups you get to work with or you go into, you recognize you're surrounded by people that have chosen to be there.

00;40;31;06 - 00;40;58;03 They want to do those hard, dangerous, let's be honest, exciting tasks because it's not mundane. It's the trail run with the rocks with the side of the cliff exposed. You can have to run it through or around or find a bridge to go across that river. Right? These are challenging things that when you kind of set it into a positive framework, become challenges that you want to do and you want to accelerate out and accelerate and you want to accelerate your experience going into those so that you can come out of them as best as possible.

00;40;58;06 - 00;41;14;20 And so I think that's something where recognizing that you have the ability to say this is again the idea I'm not, I'm going to be okay. There today or I'm going have a good day today, right? If your days go and carry one piece, you got in a fender bender in the morning and your lunch spilled out on the floor.

00;41;14;22 - 00;41;32;23 I'm going to get there today. You know what that means? I could figure it out. I'm going to solve this problem, this car wreck. It sucks, but I can figure this out. I'm okay. That's one thing, right? It's about okay, I'm okay. This happens part of driving a vehicle on the roadway. Also, my lunch is malicious. Tash, I want you to tell us if you did, but you're like, okay, how am I going to solve this problem of finding my new lunch?

00;41;32;23 - 00;41;59;15 How I'm going to steer every source of calories to my brain by taking those things that could easily spiral to be very acute negative for an individual and saying, okay, this is a challenge I get to solve now, right? Just that that small, subtle flip from on what's happening to me to how can I influence the outcome. And that's where you start to see individuals that we call resilience to resign, individuals they are extremely good at telling themselves, I can solve this situation.

00;41;59;20 - 00;42;16;21 I don't know how yet, but I know I can solve it. Right? And so that's where those kind of core features that we see people that are really, really good at adapting to change, which we're all not very good at it, but people that are better than others, potentially, they're really good and. A lot of times they don't even realize they're doing it.

00;42;16;23 - 00;42;28;18 It's that I'm going to have a good day today. I'm going to an awesome day out. I can build in three things that I love to do today, right? As in this is we kind of get to the setting, the plan, we talk about the beginning, but setting up something that's fun to do in the middle part of the day.

00;42;28;22 - 00;42;43;16 You have it takes a minute your life and it's like filling up the joint through the end of the day, right? That's enjoyable. No takes. My friend can tell you that I'm having a great deal, a great day, as well as small, subtle things do not just influence yourself, but also influence others. I think that's the idea of kind of getting back to that.

00;42;43;16 - 00;43;08;20 How does it all come together? You know, that's not that's a four Ph.D. dissertation right there, but kind of recognizing that you can change your internal context and then you also have influence often your external context as well, even when it seems like it's outside of your control. I think that's kind of those things where the more we understand and think about it in those terms, the more able people are to find tools that work for them so they can mitigate the situations as best as possible.

00;43;08;23 - 00;43;30;19 Yeah, I agree. So the the idea that there's context, how you shape the context to understand how you can motivate yourself because you've probably at some point, if you've done this repeatedly, you've created a discipline where that means that you have the routine already set there. Isn't it an external factor to motivate you? It's just because, you know it needs to be done.

00;43;30;19 - 00;43;57;18 You've already acknowledged and accepted, which I think is some of the things that you know have been consistent. David And what you and I have been talking about, the one thing that I can't help not bring up is the value. So the value component, because if we're talking in our situations to where maybe there isn't something that's obvious about what you're needing to do to make sure that you're not being complacent, that you're prepared is to understand, are you in what you're doing right now?

00;43;57;18 - 00;44;17;25 Are you creating the value for others to leverage, to not you in a position to where you have to change or transition to? That could be a career, a job or a task, something to that effect. So I don't know. Do we dive into a little bit with the time we have left? I can give I can give a quick a quick sort response.

00;44;17;27 - 00;44;38;18 It won't take hopefully too long. But on the idea of creating a value, I had an amazing coach and I was playing at this football and it was a team sport and this coach came with so much passion and he played the collegiate level. So his techniques were off the charts like he was really good at all. These things needed to kind of build into a beginning athlete.

00;44;38;18 - 00;44;53;13 And we were playing high school football. But one of the major takeaways and he'd say this and every practice was bring something to the party, because if you're the fastest runner, bring your speed. If you have fast runner, but you have a lot of a lot of personality to share with the team, you're a great man. Bring that right.

00;44;53;13 - 00;45;12;13 Bring that value as we just talked about. Bring it every day, Bring it every moment. You're able to bring it and think about if you're not bringing it, how can you bring it? Right? That's the one thing I think when we get into the idea of large transitions, especially in organizations that are going through an external change that may be completely out of your control, like the macroeconomics of situation.

00;45;12;13 - 00;45;32;27 Right. But how can you, with your behaviors, moment to moment, day by day, bring the value that you have to add and be able to demonstrate it and to show others this is why I'm here and this is what I'm good at. This is why you have me right. I think that's something where you know particularly that to yourself, to know when you can lean in, when you can express those, when you can bring bring some to the party.

00;45;33;00 - 00;45;51;14 It's a huge dividend. And the fun part from my perspective is, you know who those people are who do it diligently and you want them on your team. Very apparent. I need that person here for this project. They're excellent at this business. They bring it every day. Yeah, that that goes with the thing that we've talked about. Seek to understand Right.

00;45;51;14 - 00;46;22;24 Ask for feedback, make sure you're aligned. Do the check ins, take action, proactive action to where you can understand that value and make sure that you're you're connected to what people are expecting. You know. So Dr. Smith, that certainly I think you've given a lot of great advice, a lot of great insights here. You know, but the one thing we always love to ask is then there are people that would like to learn more, learn more, you know, kind of get some similar motivation or direction, you know, what book or books might you recommend to our audience?

00;46;22;24 - 00;46;43;14 Because we love meeting all those, you know, those playthroughs. And for recommending books, that's how we, you know, that's how we pay, you know, that's how we, you know, put food on the table. So if you any recommendations we'd love to if you could share Yeah yeah. So one I think just looking for recommendations are going out and searching on your own to find out what areas you're interested in.

00;46;43;21 - 00;47;02;29 That's the first step, right? Because each of us have our own like, you should read these ten books, which is fantastic. But I think curating it to yourself is really key. One of the books that I enjoy discussing, or at least kind of talking about for individuals, is Daniel Kahneman book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow. Right? It's an older, older book is a psychologist slash neuroscientist.

00;47;03;02 - 00;47;26;21 It's been around for a little while, but it's got the idea of how do we think about thinking involved? And then also some of the background. He's a good storyteller, so it's an easy read. The other thing I like to tell people to is don't get so caught up all the time in the the mechanistic books. It's like the positive psychology if you can, if you can stomach or read science fiction, right?

00;47;26;24 - 00;47;43;11 There's interesting ideas that you can kind of tend to bring in from places that you might not see the connection into your everyday life. Right? And so some of it, some of the things that I enjoy doing as of late is reading science fiction from like the fifties because they had this amazing view, what they thought the future was going to be.

00;47;43;14 - 00;48;04;02 Some of it's pretty spot on. Some of it's just totally nonsense, but it changes your perspective on where the problems are trying to solve today and how do people before me think about some of the problems that are still here, Right. So politics, great example, right? Social relationships, great example, technology solutions that we have to have because of the challenge you're facing, whatever that, you know, event that's happening.

00;48;04;08 - 00;48;29;28 So I would say explore different genres as well, not just kind of those how to be better business books because there's a ton of out there and a lot of them are very, very helpful. But you know, routing it out I think is important as well. Got it. To be be diverse in your discovery. Yeah. Yeah. All I can say is, Chris, can you open up the pod bay doors please be jumping out or in which way you got.

00;48;30;00 - 00;48;34;29 My name's Dave. So that's my. That's my line.

00;48;35;01 - 00;48;57;03 Got it. Well, good stuff for Justin, Dr. Smith. Thank you so much, David, as always, it's a pleasure For everybody listening. It's applicable based off of the effort that you put into it. And I think from that, if you just understand your thresholds, you know, just start with where you are. As Dr. Smith had mentioned, for all the things that matter.

00;48;57;06 - 00;49;17;07 All right. It's not just the physical components, everything else, right? It's it's a process. And so with the D.B. Cross's analogy, if you're a runner, right, it can be a sprint depending on your situation. It can be a marathon, depending on your situation, depending on your injuries. Right. All of these factors that way in to the limitations, know them, get to know them and then use them.

00;49;17;09 - 00;49;27;23 All right, everyone, thanks for joining. Thanks for listening. Keep moving forward. Let's roll. Thank you.

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Impact is about results. Impact is delivered by having clear and measurable goals that are regularly tracked with milestones. Understanding how to achieve impact or what the desired results should be is sometimes not easy. This is where we want to tie back and leverage some of our previous episodes on connections, communication, and visibility to help others in driving impact. Short and long success personally and professionally is all about driving the best and highest impact. We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. --------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;28;17 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maiden podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS Chief Information Security Officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;29 - 00;00;51;20 In this episode, we discuss impact. The impact is about results. Impact is delivered by having clear and measurable goals that are regularly tracked with milestones. Understanding how to achieve impact or what the desired results should be is sometimes not easy. This is where we want to tie back and leverage some of our previous episodes on connections, communication and visibility to help others in driving impact short and long term success.

00;00;51;24 - 00;01;08;02 Personally and professionally is all about driving the best and highest impact We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode. And please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;08;07 - 00;01;24;11 And don't forget to send us feedback, suggestions and topics on what you would like us to cover in future episodes. It helps spread the word to the broader community David's contact details are in the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn Morning, David.

00;01;24;19 - 00;01;33;16 Good morning. I'm excited. Seems like it's been a couple of weeks here, almost taking too long. And this for get to there because we want to have impact, right? You know with our community.

00;01;34;01 - 00;01;36;29 Impact sounds like we're talking about impact.

00;01;37;10 - 00;02;03;27 Well, in the end, you know, Chris, it's kind of everything we're talking about is why are we doing this, right? Why do we, you know, talking about, you know, connecting in relationships and communicating? You know, it's because so we can have more impact impact our lives, impact on our jobs, impacting our careers. And so I kind of start thinking about how can we help people to, you know, have some best practices understanding how to have the largest amount of impact.

00;02;04;09 - 00;02;12;01 That's right. To discover what your purpose is probably has a lot to influence whether or not you feel like you're being impactful.

00;02;12;17 - 00;02;31;26 Well, you know, I think as many companies are certainly high tech companies now is you know, I don't get into the performance reviews and things like that. Maybe that's a whole nother podcast in itself. But it's really people want to say, you know, measure how much impact did you have? You know, what were your results you know, did you have big results?

00;02;31;26 - 00;02;45;18 Do you have major results? Do you have minor results? And I think then we should really talk about how do you measure these things? How do you drive for impact? Right? How do you know when you may not be measuring or looking at the right things?

00;02;46;00 - 00;03;10;16 Yeah, that's right. You touched on a couple of things inside that already as we're just kicking this off. So I think when when you know what you're supposed to be doing, the questions that come in are somewhat of what you introduced as well. How do I do that when you find what's important? And then you say, well, how do I know it's going to actually yield the results that everybody's considering or expecting?

00;03;11;05 - 00;03;34;02 You know? And so you have the OKRs, the KPIs, you know, even in response to a question, could give an indicator as to whether or not you're aligned What I guess the you or the group had discussed is what is needing to be done. But I think there's also some room here to talk about some of those other things that maybe aren't measurable or at least maybe hard to explain.

00;03;34;02 - 00;03;52;04 Maybe there are measurable if you if you're skilled at being able to interpret what's happening so maybe maybe we'll kind of focus on some two key areas, you know, the obvious things and then the ones that probably aren't as commonly referred to or understood, but is a part of the equation.

00;03;53;03 - 00;04;12;07 Well, I think that's a great point in that because sometimes it is when we're part of organizations and goals priorities and things are top down, right? And saying, these are things you hit us like, okay, the impact I'm having is based on those goals with their top down, that's very easy. But also sometimes we work in organizations where it's not so crystal clear.

00;04;12;08 - 00;04;28;28 Right. Or your goals aren't so well defined. Boy, I wish we we're in the military again, right? Everything here's the mission here. The tack is this which had to clean this all written down. It's a checklist. You either did it or you didn't did not do it. It's a lot simpler sometimes. Sometimes that you also say it's hard to.

00;04;29;08 - 00;04;44;02 But I think one of the things is that, well, how do you measure or identify the impact you need to have if it's not written down? It's not well stated. Out, you know, in obvious ways. Right. And I think that's maybe part of our discussion today.

00;04;44;24 - 00;05;04;16 Yep. So start with the basics. So you in your personal life, in your professional life, you have them, they may be named differently or phrased differently or even set up differently, but you have a mission statement, you have a vision, you have goals, you know, and then from there you could develop all the actionable items that will be your strategy.

00;05;04;16 - 00;05;31;16 And then the team definition where you can break down tasks by role and things like that, and you can start to put the resources in motion to to begin the path towards those objectives. So maybe to bring value and understand the type of impact is do I think we'll start with clarity? First, we need to understand it.

00;05;31;26 - 00;05;54;01 Well, I think that's where we talked before. Communication and listening, asking questions comes into play right and I think kind of tying those together is, you know, one of the things I think is when you don't know what the impact should be or needs to be. Right. It's often it is how you ask questions of, you know, a person or organization or a manager is what are they looking for?

00;05;54;06 - 00;06;21;07 What do they need? You know, what results do they want? What is bothering them? I was love to say that, you know, the best employees often go to their manager and say, let's keep you awake at night. What is worrying you? Right. What are the biggest problems, you know, in your mind? Because, you know, if you solve those problems, the things that are keeping your manager and your organization away awake at night, those are the things that will have the greatest impact.

00;06;21;27 - 00;06;58;27 You said that and thought of I think it was General Mattis I'm the one that keeps the others awake at night or something to that effect is is this quote. So, you know, and I think we look at it as clearly we can talk about it in all kinds of ways. But when you look at it where you have external goals and internal goals, so if you're a customer facing the customer, facing any any entity outside of what you or your organization is, and then you have internal because while we're doing this, everything that we've spoken about in previous episodes and what all of us have rooted into our being is I want to get something

00;06;58;27 - 00;07;28;01 out of it also. So value is twofold, right? I want to be able to provide value to the external entities. Our customer focus our organizational goals and things like that. But if I don't feel fulfilled, then it's not reciprocating value. And I want to make sure that we're also including the impact. It's got to be impactful not only for the purpose of why we're driving towards common goals with others, but we want to also have an impact for ourselves so we feel fulfilled and we can continue the motivation and the desire in that purpose.

00;07;28;23 - 00;08;04;27 So, you know, when we talk about impact that this leads to and it just so happens, it's men's Health Awareness Month, right? And so it can be anybody's it doesn't matter, you know, to have your mental mindset preserved you know, impactful, being impactful also has to include that that internal component. And so when we think about where we're going and it's got to be measurable, what are some of the key elements that can serve both purposes?

00;08;06;02 - 00;08;23;29 You know, I think I'll be bad. I say, you know, let's bring a book into the conversation like we do for every podcast. Right. And so, you know, Chris and I say, please be useful right? And what am I talking about here? It's like, well, I'm going back. You know, I'm going to you know, are Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest book, you know, B would be useful, right?

00;08;24;07 - 00;08;42;05 And I've actually been reading it recently and I think one of the things is that of kind of tying this together and I thought was just great for, you know, our podcast this morning is that you it's not just about building a vision. It's not just, you know, understanding things. It's that really of how you're investing in yourself.

00;08;42;05 - 00;09;02;04 Right. To realize a vision, to realize a goal. And having the impact. And it's not just something that you spend 5 minutes on. Right. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about his book. He said, hey, when he was trying to be a weightlifter or, you know, Olympian. Right. He spent 5 hours a day. Right. You know, working out. Then he should only do two and a half in the morning and two and a half in the afternoon.

00;09;02;05 - 00;09;21;24 Right. And he said this is the same as actually if you have a vision for your life or you have a vision for what you want to achieve. And he said you may have to spend 5 hours a day to do it, but that's because that's an example of doing something above and beyond to have the ultimate goal, the ultimate dream.

00;09;22;12 - 00;09;29;08 And I think that's a great book to really kind of emphasize and kind of use as a catalyst for this conversation.

00;09;30;29 - 00;09;59;05 That's a good example because I think what I heard from that was a description of lessons learned. And so in the process of pursuing objectives or goals, right. So in this case, by building, right? For that example or scalability, you know, increasing the organizational scalability potential or effectively delivering X within a certain amount of time frame you could, you could, you could say that we did that.

00;09;59;16 - 00;10;38;03 But what the other components are that consist of what happens while you're doing that can also be perceived as impactful. You know, hey, we did this. But when while we were doing that, we also learned this. And so in this case, you know, there's a a time frame in which things were allocated to perform a particular task. And then as time went on, it was learned that, you know, addressing how that timeline was split up to optimize the ability to be more effective, more efficient, more scalable, more sustainable, you know, there's an outcome there that you wouldn't really understand until you had actually gone through it.

00;10;40;03 - 00;11;03;05 What kind of building upon that example is he said what? He went to make a movie like a Terminator. He said, yeah, he spent 5 hours a day. Right. You know, there's I it being blindfolded and shooting a gun. So he never blinked again. Right. Or he's trying to become you know, the governor of California said he spent 5 hours a day, you know, studying all the issues and things like that because he said the impact he had was enormous or he wanted to have is enormous.

00;11;03;06 - 00;11;06;14 So he had, you know, invest enormously to achieve that.

00;11;07;00 - 00;11;40;07 Yeah. And most of us can relate to that. The more you're ever you're putting into something, you're in control of that. And so I can't help but think about a word that can help describe this, because there's an element here that we're all understanding. It's necessary is leadership where we have informal and formal leaders. But these are the ones that are in a hierarchal or oppositional position of influence that guide or take us from one place to the other and then be able to manage it effectively the results.

00;11;40;07 - 00;12;00;27 And so we can stay on track. But I think a lot of those things, as you learn, is to be impactful is the perception that you know, hey, David, the way that you're doing that is impactful. Keep going. Or, Hey, David, in order to achieve a greater impact for what we're trying to do, you know, would you would you be able to do this, that or the other thing?

00;12;01;08 - 00;12;25;11 In those two examples of the many, we can start to talk about the management or leadership style to where some of us as we learn and we grow, we need less oversight. Right. And that's now I'm going to introduce to micromanage micro and macro managers. Right. So some of us perform at a high level when we have a lot of autonomy that that's gained through experience.

00;12;25;11 - 00;12;48;05 And that, again, you've earned that by being impactful. What are your thoughts on how the dynamics between it within an organization? Let's say when you have multiple people in an organization trying to do the same thing differently? What do you think some of the elements are that we have to continuously watch to make sure that we're reciprocating the impact?

00;12;49;18 - 00;13;08;28 So I think one of the things that we talked about in like I think in our previous podcast about communication is one element is being clear on what the results will be. Right. So you can think about stuff like, hey, this is the impact people want you to have. It is the result they want you to achieve. But you're going to be clear, is it is the results they're going to achieve?

00;13;08;28 - 00;13;33;04 Right, because you could be off on that. You you know, you could you could perceive incorrectly. You could think incorrectly. And really when you what sometimes writing things down and asking maybe this is what we want to achieve. Is that correct? And then people validating it. That is very, very important because otherwise the impact you think you're going to have may not be the the actual results that are achieved.

00;13;34;01 - 00;13;39;21 What happens when there's a breakdown during that process of pursuing clarity?

00;13;40;05 - 00;13;59;00 Well, I think a bigger question is then there could be breakdowns at the beginning and are be breakdowns along the way. Right. And so I think it's it's kind of upfront is saying just like, okay, are and B are just saying like, hey, this is what we're going to achieve and these are the results. And sometimes I think it's very important to call out who is the customer of that result.

00;13;59;00 - 00;14;18;23 Right. And say an internal customer. External customer, maybe a person, maybe a group. Who is the customer? Right. And what are they going to achieve? And people agree with that. That's a good point. And then also, I think is always having milestones along the way saying how are the results are achieving the results? We expected right. You know, are we continuing measuring that?

00;14;18;23 - 00;14;20;27 If we don't, you can get off track very quickly.

00;14;21;21 - 00;14;45;28 Yeah. And I can't help think of the word mastery at that point. Like you know, a word that would help define how skilled you are to be able to recognize what does it take? So again, previous episodes have included elements of what we can put in our toolbox. So we have these levers to pull when we need to and how to become effective communicator.

00;14;45;28 - 00;15;12;21 How do you make sure that your understanding how to make, how to make yourself presence or be known the visibility component right where others see you and what you're doing? Because of course, that's you know, that's one of those milestone Check-In points where people can see what's occurring and then know how the different leadership or how the different roles will contribute.

00;15;13;18 - 00;15;32;05 The value of those roles they gives at a time or a period of time will go by and something will change. And we know this all the time. Organizational change, right? So something happened last week. We made we had a discussion. We made some some goals and some tasks. We distributed the tasks and we said, let's check in next week.

00;15;32;05 - 00;15;54;05 Well, within that timeframe, things changed. Something happened. So in the journey we've discovered and we made some accomplishments that changed the dynamics or the trajectory or the plan. So we have to check in every now and again to make sure that whatever's occurred since the last time we talked, what you just said is are we aligned or are we still in line for the things that we had discussed before?

00;15;54;13 - 00;16;12;24 Or what has changed? And this comes to back to I think is the mastery or the skill of the one, you know, really good program managers or project manager. We're going to stay on exactly what we're talking about. And effective leaders will also understand you're going to be able to understand now what everybody else is saying at the right level, the detail.

00;16;12;24 - 00;16;32;23 Because what you and I had talked about before, I can't remember when you as as a senior vice president or exposed to a lot of high level discussions, that is a culmination of everybody else's tasks passed up into context. So there's some relatable messaging that gives you the sense of what's going on.

00;16;34;11 - 00;17;13;17 I think one of the points, let's call it the real world example, right? We work on a result, right? It's very easy to find. The trap is like, I'm going to enhance something, I'm going to improve something, I'm going to extend something. Right. In an element of seeing that. Well, what does that really mean? Right. Those are ways where so many people fall into the trap of like you have ambiguous or ambiguous know impact goals or have ambiguous results and really want you to say, is that okay, we are going to improve the performance of the system and we can get 10% more power savings.

00;17;13;17 - 00;17;37;00 You know, things like that is like, oh, okay, you can measure it any time you try to have a goal or deliver impact that you can't actually measure in a physically or logically, it's always going to be a trap of mis, you know, missed results. Rate is I think it's easy to create things that are saying that you're going to improve something, but like, oh, how do you measure that?

00;17;38;01 - 00;17;54;11 Chris So let's say, okay, we're going to make this a podcast. We're going make this podcast, you know better. Okay, how do we measure that right now? We said we're going to have 10% more listeners next month. Like, Oh, okay, we can measure that. Did we achieve that or not?

00;17;55;11 - 00;18;39;04 Yeah. I think what you in between that you had said something about kind of equated to the e autonomy. Somebody is going to discover something and then realize real time maybe that something else is needing to be done. And I think that comes back down to the skill sets that have developed over time where communicating in this case is going to be necessary because if it hasn't been discussed in the plan, now we're getting down to the next level of a plan or goals that says, hey, if if we're doing this, we're going to expect this is our contingent planning piece planning right?

00;18;39;05 - 00;19;10;07 We're going to say, if we achieve this and this occurs, then this, then we're going to define what that is. That way we know that if it doesn't happen the way we expected, we're going to have to stop, reassess, and then recalibrate what we're going to do and then get agreement to continue on. What do you think would be the inhibitors or the ability, the things that would prevent us from having that occur without being too disruptive?

00;19;11;10 - 00;19;29;26 You know, actually, I think this is raising a really good point here. I think one thing is, is that jumps to mind immediately is people don't want to plan up front. It's easy to kind of jump in and get it running down, you know, running down the road and realizing like, okay, what's the time I really wanted to achieve here?

00;19;29;26 - 00;19;50;06 Right. Well, no, you need a planet just like a marathon or half marathon or five days. Like, you know, you're going to go in in a race. It's like, okay, what's your goal? You define that upfront, don't you? Or, you know, Chris, I know you run lots of marathons, right? So would you actually kick off or running 26.2 miles and you say, oh, I don't know what I'm going to how fast I'm going to go I'm, you know, whatever it is I'm going to finish.

00;19;50;06 - 00;19;57;20 So so then why do people start trying to have impact without measuring planning what the results are going to be from the very start?

00;19;57;27 - 00;20;36;03 They're defining what it is now. You're right. And I think we're stumbling across it now that, you know, to be impactful is relative. It's a perception based opinion, and it has to be something that everybody understands whose opinion it is right. To be impactful. Is it my managers for me, if I am trying to achieve goals successfully and make sure that I'm doing my job properly, then my whoever's in charge of me, whether directly or indirectly, whoever has influence on me, right?

00;20;36;03 - 00;20;59;09 Because I'll be I may be working with other other teams and people where that collective feedback is going to come back to some gatekeeper, whoever that may be, that will have an influence on my my career, my future, or me being able to continue on this particular project or task or effort. You know, it's just one of those things that it has to be agreed upon, you know, who's whose opinion matters.

00;20;59;09 - 00;21;24;19 So to bring impact, we have to understand who the stakeholders are, who the decision makers are, who the ones that matter most, and then who are the other key components are personnel that matter, but play a particular role in how it can be a collective input that provides that perspective into that key decision maker, that key leader. That's a good point.

00;21;24;20 - 00;21;27;12 Is defining the team, you know, who who's involved?

00;21;28;14 - 00;21;47;07 Well, I think that's a I don't want to get into there at this point, but it's almost like the race, right? Is kind of like who's who's a participant, right? Who's the approver? Right. Who's a reviewer? Right. Who's an informant? Right. And just like that, planning those should be defined upfront is part of it because you never want to say okay, here's the results and here's the plan.

00;21;47;13 - 00;21;53;18 Well, I don't know who's the approval of this. Right. Wow. What a horrible spot to end up in.

00;21;54;23 - 00;22;31;21 Yeah. You don't you don't want to learn after the fact. And then you get surprised because then we're talking about morale. You know, the the impact that has occurred has an effect on not only the organization. And we keep saying organization. I'm going to box this in. This is this is everyday life. This is everything that occurs in what we do, even from waking up and doing whatever you doing to get ready to go, whatever it is that you do here in the day or the night or whatever, it's just an understanding of I'm supposed to be doing this and here's why and here's where I know I don't need to do it anymore, right?

00;22;31;22 - 00;23;21;14 So we've achieved something the the people, the, the ripple effect, the people that are impacted by different context, the people that are affected. When we drive towards being impactful, we have to have that to be a consideration. Because if we're too focused or narrowly focused on that one thing and we don't do what you just talked about, plan accordingly, to where we can know the risk factors, we aren't capable now of truly capturing what that ultimate outcome, which we can consider to be the impact, what that ultimate outcome can cause, because then we may end up doing what's common when we don't plan effectively.

00;23;21;14 - 00;23;22;16 As we cause more issues.

00;23;23;14 - 00;23;42;16 Absolutely. You know, another thing, Chris, I was thinking about here is that I think you touched on a bit earlier is that as you get down into the implementation or the execution of a plan, the plans can change, right? Because there can be variables that aren't known, right? You could run into blockers, you to run in obstacles. You could run into you know, difficulties.

00;23;42;16 - 00;24;07;28 And so the plan can change. And that's not that's not bad, right? It's was that you're always understanding and watching for it. And that's where the milestones come in saying, okay, the assumptions that we had, the variables that we knew in various we didn't know. Right. Is there some change? So then let's update our plan. Let's update the results let's check in with all the reviewers and the participants with check in with the approver is like, is this the right new plan?

00;24;07;29 - 00;24;11;29 Is this the right new results? Right. And that's very, very important. To always keep in mind.

00;24;12;28 - 00;24;35;07 Yeah. So maybe, maybe let's toy with this idea. Let's, let's apply it to something specific because I I don't know about you, but I feel like we're so ambiguous at this moment that I know, no, we're being impactful in this conversation. But I do think that we've set a good framework by introducing a bunch of different things. So, one, you have to know what you're wanting to do.

00;24;35;25 - 00;25;05;24 So let's apply it to transition. Let's let's spread it across any type of transition. You're moving from one place to another. In this case, we'll keep it with our veteran affiliated community and we'll say we have service members getting ready to make a choice when there's too much information out there and there is a lot of information, it's probably too much, but some of it may be considered to be valuable based off of how you're seeing it, right?

00;25;05;24 - 00;25;23;02 Whatever lens you're wearing and how you feel and all those types of things. And your scenario could be unique in a sense of where it's applicable. Got it. However, the bigger picture is, generally speaking, there's a ton of information out there, and it's hard to choose which one. It's like a thought, right? If you don't know where to start, stand in front of your garage.

00;25;23;02 - 00;25;42;26 You see, you want to clean your garage and there's a bunch of stuff that you have to do. Where do you start? Have to know what you're trying to achieve. These are your objectives. Your goals doesn't have doesn't matter if it's short term, near-term, long term, it has to be something. And then from there, it's to say, Well, how do I think I need to get there?

00;25;43;07 - 00;26;17;04 And this is key because this now comes back down to what we've always been talking about is the mindset, open mindset, growth mindset, close mindset, fixed mindset. You know, Carol Dweck has that book mindset where it's fixed growth. You know, all of those things factor into to understand some other things that we've talked about. Your mindset could shift based off of little acts of or events that have occurred to where now you've learned something and now you need to make the adjustment, which is what we've just been talking about.

00;26;17;18 - 00;26;46;04 So you have to know what you want to do. You have to think about how you're going to get there. You have to have an open mindset to know that as you pursue this, you're going to learn some things and you have to be willing to take what you learn and apply it. If you think about all of the other folks that have also transitioned, one question that I always want to ask somebody is What made you stop listening to what people have shared with you about how to do this?

00;26;47;18 - 00;27;07;17 You know, I think, you know, one thing comes to mind is there to issue you read out the there's great examples and steps, Chris, is that you got to write it down, right? How many people are successful in just things that are in their memory or they're in their head? Right. Or they talked about once. Right. I can't think of too many examples of that.

00;27;07;21 - 00;27;31;05 Or how do you have check points with your team, your organization, if it's not written down, you say, yeah, let's go off the top of her head every once a month. Like, how are we doing against our results and what was our results? Did I remember correctly you know, so it's one things on that because when they're written down, right, you can reference them, you can use them, and they will reinforce all of your structure and behaviors.

00;27;33;02 - 00;27;57;18 Right? Yes. It's an infinite loop. And if you don't have it in front of you, you don't have a focus right now. You could I could be wrong. I'm absolutely not skilled and experienced in the depth of what that could be. As far as a specialization you know, having your thoughts versus writing it down, you could be focused on your thoughts if you're very skilled at it.

00;27;57;18 - 00;28;17;20 But is that a way to do it? Maybe there's a technique that you're introducing now is to say, well, instead of that and relying on that because that can be so elusive, then write it down. And when you write it down now, you have a point of reference. How often do we like because you've labeled me some running fanatic to where my knees would argue the point.

00;28;18;06 - 00;28;46;26 But when we're out doing something, walking by ourselves in our in our own mind and we think about things, how often do we have this epiphany? So things change. If you have recall, great if you have the ability to recall through being able to see it, you can go back to say, well, that was my thought before. Now I have this new thought and this is journaling, and you're creating a trail of how your thought began and where your thought is growing.

00;28;47;23 - 00;29;10;12 And maybe the thought will end if you no longer have it be a priority, but you have you have the ability to trace it and then go back to these things that can help develop these dynamics that allow you to maneuver through the conditions where ambiguity might be coming. Right. It's determining now there's too much space for me to know where to focus on and I don't know where to start.

00;29;10;25 - 00;29;29;23 And then you potentially have a higher probability of no longer pursuing it, because now it becomes overwhelming. These types of things, you know, to be impactful, you have to be able to understand where you started and where you want to go. So you can lessons learned, you can do lessons learned, but also you can bring people with you and then you can understand what was what was valuable what was impactful.

00;29;30;17 - 00;29;31;28 That got you to that next step.

00;29;33;10 - 00;29;56;11 In kind of building upon that is I think there's one thing as well. It's just your goal and is just you and no one else, right? Yep, absolutely. You can think about it as a point of mind, but anything is like how you bring others, right? From engagement, from a from a collaboration perspective. Like what I even think about recently for us at Oracle, we have our Maven 11 kind of initiative, right?

00;29;56;11 - 00;30;23;17 Is like the 11 days, you know, going up to the Veterans Day, right? We, we use our slack, we use email that 11. We, we called out and said, hey everybody every day, you know, kind of send a slack message, you know, what did you achieve that day. It had impact. It had impact on me is like, oh what I've forgotten about it great is I was a motivated seeing others had big impact is amazing how the impact of one small thing of just using some tools in setting the goals and results and then being public about it.

00;30;23;17 - 00;30;27;10 It was motivating and drove me did it do the same for you.

00;30;29;03 - 00;30;58;16 Did and that's a good call out and while we're there you know huge shout out to the military affiliated veteran employee network board where they allow this idea sharing to come up because that that came from an idea means basically what we're talking about we have a large organization filled with veteran affiliated people. Right so we have spouses, we have family members, we have parents we have veterans, we have reservists.

00;30;59;00 - 00;31;20;14 We have all of those components inside this organization. And we're all looking for something. And when we bring people together, and we discover that commonality, what can we do to be impactful? What do we want to do to encourage to retain that camaraderie, retain that feeling of that purpose? That we can have in that common bond that we've we've shared through generations?

00;31;21;21 - 00;31;50;20 We we came up and we landed on through a conversation. We landed on well, for Veterans Day, let's do maybe 11 for 11 days leading up to Veterans Day. We'll do an activity. And this goes back to the health benefits of being active from the mental state, the emotional state, the physical state, the nutritional value, all of these elements to where we're putting in front of us a target, a goal, an objective and the objective was to try to replicate something in a new environment.

00;31;51;12 - 00;32;08;08 And how we did that was brought people together, talked about what we could do and it's a living, breathing thing. It was occurring over time and it kept evolving. And it will continue to evolve because we've introduced so many different things in alternatives that allows us to do those types of things. So how do we measure the impact?

00;32;08;24 - 00;32;28;22 Well, actually, Chris, let me try that. We measure impact because we used the Slack channel, right? We we had registration, made a Slack channel and we measured, right? We watched who was participating, who was actually reporting the results like that, that we measured it. Right? That was what mattered in the environment. There's a reward saying, well, you don't get swag if you actually don't report it.

00;32;28;22 - 00;32;32;19 So we measured what mattered, right? And we're rewarding people that achieve the goals.

00;32;33;12 - 00;32;53;17 Yeah. Good point. Yep. And we did it in a sense to where we left. We left the, the autonomy there, right? Because it didn't matter what people were doing. We weren't monitoring to make sure that people were actually doing something other than just to, to give an incentive, you know, that they could have a purpose for the next day.

00;32;53;18 - 00;33;10;09 You know, for some of us that maybe pushed a little too hard on this thing that were our physical limitations or our desire and all that stuff was having us in a certain way one day and we did something, we pushed ourselves hard that day and the next day maybe we're a little sore, but we woke up and somebody else was doing something and we were like, you know what?

00;33;10;23 - 00;33;44;08 That person's doing it. I'm doing it. Got us up out and doing it. And, you know, the level of engagement is based off of perception that we talked about. It's relative to those that, you know, in this case were the the creators of it to make sure that it wasn't terrible, meaning, you know, it was safely done. We put you know, resources in to make sure that they have a way to to reference what's needed for them to to to maintain and sustain the things that are necessary to be safe and and capable.

00;33;44;21 - 00;34;07;08 You know, but I think at the end of the day, we defined early on, here's what we're trying to do. Here's how we're going to we're going to measure it. And here's how we're not going to measure it. Measure it. How do you make sure you don't over measure or over state? How are you going to let's not even overstate how do you measure your oversight to make sure that it's not too restrictive?

00;34;08;28 - 00;34;45;17 Well, that's a good question. I think one of the first, you know, gaps or challenged I think people run into is you measuring too much, right? You over measure, right. And sometimes pressure, you know, the analysis paralysis. Right. Is like we have a goal and you say let's have 15 different measurements like now is that really what matters because ultimately and this is sometimes the ah the science behind it is identify is what is the one or two things that you can measure that really will be indicators of the entire impact you don't want every performance angle is it's not like hey in an airplane like we're going to look at 15,000 different sensors and say

00;34;45;17 - 00;35;02;29 we're going to track each one of I know we want to know do we get up in the air and do we land with everyone alive. Right. That's what matters in the end. That's what matters isn't it. So I'm being overly simplistic but I think there is an element is that you really of coming back to who is the customer, right?

00;35;02;29 - 00;35;19;15 And what does success look like for that customer? And then what's at what's one metric, what's one litmus test that we can use for that? Right. And I think coming back to our mission is kind of ultimately is we had engagement rate. You know, it was about how many people engaged, right? You know, it was for the greater the who was the customer.

00;35;19;15 - 00;35;30;01 It was the community itself. Right. And really, I think this was slack and I think it came into play. We could actually see how many people are engaging. And that was a way we measured. And because there was a lot I think it was a big success.

00;35;31;24 - 00;36;07;17 And I would agree. I mean, it's yeah, there's different ways to do that. I mean, we keep talking about it humble, humble, brag about it because, you know, it is it's something we hold dear for for for us for our reasons and we'll leave it there. But so we have we have this this idea we've created a place for those ideas to be shared and heard and regulated I mean, because there's some there's some real far out ideas that that are possible, but probably not in the current state maybe.

00;36;07;17 - 00;36;28;16 And we start to think about futuristic. So in any case, the dialog was created for everybody to come together to think about things in you and yourself. And we have this we'll go back to the transition mindset. We know where we want to go. We're thinking about how we're going to get there. We're having an open mind to consider what happens when I'm going to hear from people.

00;36;28;19 - 00;36;48;00 I'm going to go out, I'm going to talk to people, I'm going to I'm going to figure out how to do this. This kind of the duality of this issue now that's been created as I have internal a perspective where over over a period of years where we always get jammed up is, well, this is the way I've done it.

00;36;48;12 - 00;37;09;21 I'm going to continue to do it this way. And if we're that's why that open mind is critical, because if you're hearing something that you don't like, we all know that sometimes that's what you need to hear when you're not hearing what you want to hear. There's a reason for that. And so when we start to classify what we need to hear as something that I don't want to hear, what do you do with that?

00;37;09;21 - 00;37;27;18 And that's the benefit of now opening yourself up to hear things that you haven't heard previously, because that's where your growth potential could occur. When you have that and operate as an opportunity in front of you and then you act on it. I think that's kind of the fore fourth element here is to be impactful. You have to get to the next step and do something with it.

00;37;29;27 - 00;37;49;28 Well, something like coming back to a point which I think maybe lateral that is, sometimes you can you can define the doors that that you want to achieve and are measuring, but it's also okay to define the things that you don't want to achieve, right? Is I'll say this is not a priority. This is not you know, it's not about this.

00;37;49;28 - 00;38;04;22 It's not about A, B and C, right. Sometimes that gives a lot of clarity on the results you do want to achieve. And there's less confusion because you've got all of of the the negatives, let's say the negative is defined or the non goal is defined as well.

00;38;06;02 - 00;38;25;08 So right. David, so that the non goals I mean these are these are factors are things that we all know, you know, a plant, a plan is defined based off of what's known and even what's not known will be known like, hey, we know this. So we're going to try to do that and be aware of these things.

00;38;25;08 - 00;38;43;29 And that's the unknown, right? So we factor in some of the things that are unknown with the open mind. We're able to kind of make a clear delineation between where our left and right and a backstop would be like if we occur if we encounter too many things that we didn't plan for, we need to stop. So now we have a measure, a time, a timeline to be able to let's reassess.

00;38;44;15 - 00;39;09;11 But then we factor in the things that we weren't aware of, which now comes with other people if other people come into the equation and have input. My question to anybody really is what are you willing because we can't talk about these external occurrences. Do we ever how often do we account for the internal occurrence to say, somebody is going to tell me something?

00;39;10;17 - 00;39;31;24 How am I going to see that as one of those factors that we accounted for? And take ourselves out of what that person saying? This is feedback. I mean, basically you can equate it to feedback. Are we going to hear it for what it is and then do something with it or are we going to dismiss it? And this is listening to your leaders write all of these elements that we talk about.

00;39;32;04 - 00;39;37;18 When you listen to others, who are you considering the ones that are valuable enough to be heard.

00;39;39;20 - 00;40;02;04 Well, I think that's a great point. You know, coming back and communication, listening, right. You know, the connections on, I think a part of the goal is going back to the element of the RACI, the approver, right. You know, who who who is the approver? Who is going to track the results? Is their perception or their acceptance of the results, you know, is that the right person for that?

00;40;02;04 - 00;40;03;29 Right. I think it's very, very important to call out.

00;40;05;18 - 00;40;32;13 Yeah, it's it's it is it's a tough one because when you're when you're intensely focused on a path that has been defined under different circumstance, ounces in the warmth, the safety comfort of wherever you are, you're developing a plan on your whiteboard while you have coffee in your hand. You know, you're you're comfortable and then you get out.

00;40;32;13 - 00;40;59;23 And now it's uncomfortable because the inclement weather, it's cold. It's it's not where you want to be. How does information occur to you in different environments and circumstances where you're going to continue on with the point as as you act, you should understand completely that that's your learning environment. And that's probably the only I mean, this is debatable, but this is me talking.

00;41;01;20 - 00;41;20;08 That's the only thing that you should ever carry into your mindset is everything that's going to happen after I take this next step is something that I need. I need to learn, I need to pay attention to. I need to factor in what I'm going to do next. Now, you can compartmentalize it. You can say well, that's that's important, that's urgent.

00;41;20;18 - 00;41;37;06 That's not as important. That's relevant. Maybe not relevant now. But I'm going to make note. This goes back to what you're saying, writing it down. So you have a, you know, some nuggets and breadcrumbs to go back to you to say so-and-so said something a couple of weeks ago that I didn't know that it meant something then, but it means something now.

00;41;37;15 - 00;41;51;25 And you have record of it and you can incorporate it because you never know when these things will come together to build something. The pieces to the puzzle. You're going to get pieces over time that you never know if it's going to actually surface itself to be relevant in the future. You don't know, but you have to think about it.

00;41;52;20 - 00;41;59;28 Well, I think I spot on, Chris. I that's why we had all the bulls written down for maybe 11 because like everyone on Veterans Day was doing a marathon, wasn't that correct?

00;42;02;15 - 00;42;12;11 I think you need to wear your bow tie and your sweater vest, get out there and do that marathon. If you do that, I'll run with you all right.

00;42;12;11 - 00;42;16;19 As long as I your game for under three 30 Boston qualifier Chris Stapleton.

00;42;17;29 - 00;42;19;05 Not saying it's impossible.

00;42;20;06 - 00;42;28;04 That's right. If it was the end of the world and if we got invaded like in the red movie Red Dawn right. Yep yep. We'll run some marathons yeah.

00;42;28;09 - 00;42;53;29 Chase me and we'll see what happens. I don't know yeah. So you know thinking about where you want to go thinking about how you can get there and your current mindset knowing that your current mindset is not the future mindset think about what you're going to incorporate as part as far as the, the contributors to your growth to know if, if what you're doing is aligned to what you set out to do.

00;42;55;07 - 00;43;18;06 Anticipate that you're going to learn things along the way and have that as your primary objective so you can receive information or clarity without interference of your self-talk or your conditioned mindset that has you thinking, Well, this is the way I've done it before. This is how I'm going to do it again. I mean, there's there's limitations on that.

00;43;18;06 - 00;43;40;01 And I think we all get that context and then what how are you going to incorporate as you learn, what are you going to need to do to be impactful? It takes a little bit of work I think the thing that you landed on early, David, was key the plan. What is the plan? Because some of us just have an idea and then we execute on that idea.

00;43;40;11 - 00;43;58;02 I use your analogy, so sitting on my butt for several months, I used to run sitting on my butt for several months. I go out and try to run that tank. Not good. It's not a great idea. Your hips will tell you things, right? Your knees will tell you things. All right. So I use those as an indicator.

00;43;58;02 - 00;44;07;18 And the analogy of like you can't just get up and do stuff if you've never done it before and think that you're going to get to where you want to be. And if you do well, congrats. You're lucky.

00;44;08;14 - 00;44;26;10 I think a spot on, you know, kind of on closing, Chris, is that ultimately you set your goal, build your plan. Who is the customer? Sometimes the customer is yourself. Sometimes the customer is your boss. Sometimes your customer is an external customer. Then define how you're going to measure that result in a way that you can actually measure.

00;44;26;12 - 00;44;44;21 Right. And the last but not least, right you have regular check points and milestones until they actually look, are we on plan? Do we need change the plan? Are we going to achieve the results or not is sometimes there can be things are coming up but you adjust. You now have a new plan, you have update the customer, update your approval, and then you get ready to go.

00;44;45;15 - 00;44;51;22 Well stated. Last thing, listen to your people all right. David Z it.

00;44;53;17 - 00;45;11;06 Is that it, Chris? Well, we're never ending. You know, our goal is that every month we're going to get 10% more listeners to the podcast and we're not going to we're going to take the variables, we're going to get the feedback on that and we, we're going to continue to strive to that. And because we can keep doing that forever, it can't we?

00;45;12;01 - 00;45;25;10 We could. I'm going to, I'm going to throw something out here. It's just we're talking about that. If you got this far into this podcast, and this episode and you hear this send send David and I have a LinkedIn message and say, I heard it.

00;45;27;15 - 00;45;45;23 We loved it. We'd love to hear from you. And I would say that people that have reached out to us, I respond to every single one. We welcome the feedback and because we want to make this better for the community. And so we're excited to get all your messages. And even though I get a gazillion messages from LinkedIn scammers or what else, I respond to everyone.

00;45;45;24 - 00;45;46;14 Believe it or not.

00;45;47;07 - 00;45;50;12 I believe it already. One Keep moving forward.

00;45;50;24 - 00;45;51;11 Let's roll.

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Reviewing one’s activity and experiences to assess the effect or value of the outcome is what we often do with intention, sometimes without even realizing we are doing it. Thinking about how we performed, interacted with others, or maybe even didn’t do enough is important. What’s more important is how we manage those thoughts where we regulate what we think, how we feel, and what we need to do. There are specific techniques that help! Focusing on the mental and cognitive aspects of our performance is a key component in the complete package of personal optimization. We’re talking Reflection and Regulation. Listen in as Colin and I continue our discussion journey of how EXOS delivers value toward helping get you ready for the moments that matter. Remember to take time to care for yourself. We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. - https://teamexos.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/company/exos/ - https://www.teamexos.com/athlete/military - cyoung@teamexos.com - jmason@teamexos.com - sunderwood@teamexos.com - ahobgood@teamexos.com - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-andrews-institute/ - http://www.andrewsinstitute.com/ - https://andrewsref.org/ - https://andrewsref.org/donate/ ---------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;33;07 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our guest, Colin Young, senior director of Operations with Axios, reviewing one's activity and experiences to assess the effect or value of the outcome is what we often do with intention.

00;00;33;16 - 00;00;55;11 Sometimes without even realizing we're doing it thinking about how we performed, interacted with others, or maybe didn't do enough are important. What's more important is how we manage those thoughts, where we regulate what we think, how we feel, and what we need to do. There are specific techniques that help. Focusing on the mental and cognitive aspect of our performance is a key component in the complete package of personal optimism.

00;00;55;22 - 00;01;12;11 Today, we're talking reflection and regulation. Listen in as Colin and I continue our discussion journey of how EXOS delivers value towards helping you get ready for the moments that matter. Remember to take time to care for yourself. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent.

00;01;12;12 - 00;01;28;08 As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Collins Contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn Call and what's going on.

00;01;29;09 - 00;01;30;10 Good morning. Good afternoon.

00;01;31;11 - 00;01;59;20 Hey, it's great to have you, Colin. You know, I know we've we've got a pretty good schedule going on. And for everybody out there listening, we've got Colin Young here, who is the senior director of operations within XO. And the topic for today that Colin will speak to is focused on reflection and regulation. And in the scheme of everything that we're putting together, how we broken down on these components, it's important that we we cover the whole gamut and make sure that we're talking about how to think about things and consider what you're going to do moving forward.

00;01;59;21 - 00;02;05;22 So the depth will come from Colin and everything that he's going to do to explain it. So Colin.

00;02;06;10 - 00;02;15;04 So you know, you're expecting depth. All right. You know, I usually hang out with my son in the shallow area, but I'll do my best to dove in with you today.

00;02;15;05 - 00;02;17;04 So let's go. Yeah.

00;02;18;02 - 00;02;39;01 So, yeah, so I'm really excited to be here. My background for, for those that probably haven't heard my name is in coaching in general. I started as a strength coach, like many folks who have been with EXOS for a long time. Right. We were athletes performance a long time ago. And have since rebranded and expanded. And so I started coaching at a young age.

00;02;39;17 - 00;02;58;18 I was involved in sports in high school and college, played college baseball and it was a small school. So oddly enough, I ended up being our strength coach my senior year. So I got my first kind of like dabble into that world before I was even out of there. I was an extra science and sports science major, so I really enjoy the coaching aspect of it.

00;02;58;28 - 00;03;27;24 Went on to join athletes performance in its infancy, and we expanded and now we coach in a lot of different realms. We coach in the workplace, we coach incorporate fitness facilities, but still rooted in that kind of like athlete's background. Which I always very much relate to myself. So now what I'm doing is shifted kind of pretty dramatically into more of the mental and cognitive performance side of things, which is still just coaching with a different lens.

00;03;28;05 - 00;03;56;10 And it's just been incredibly rewarding and an educational and just a ton of fun for me to to shift my lens to this new space and understanding how much overlap there is and being able to bring my experience there. So direct director of operations and say a whole lot with the title, you know about it. Yeah, that's, that's where I'm at now is operating a lot of our programs that are designed around mental and cognitive performance.

00;03;56;10 - 00;04;09;00 How can I get the most of myself? How can I get the most out of my team? How can I find the most kind of rewarding aspects of what I do and who I am as an individual each day? And that's that's my focus day to day now.

00;04;09;25 - 00;04;14;24 Got it. Now, I appreciate that backdrop but what position in baseball?

00;04;15;19 - 00;04;41;24 I was an outfielder, and then my senior year I got to D.H., which is like the best position in baseball, especially playing ball in the Pacific Northwest. You know, it's not exactly your season starts in February. It's not the greatest weather. So it's like, all right, I've been playing defense. I'm a step by the space here. Like, you guys are great, you're doing great out there, and then go up and hit, you know, three to five times a game and come back and said so yeah.

00;04;42;14 - 00;04;49;08 I got to say, because of all the great dishes out there, do you have walk on music? What was your what was your song?

00;04;49;09 - 00;05;15;02 We we did oh, man. You know, I think I was always and we'll maybe get to this. Maybe we can dissect some of my own internal workings here. I didn't I wasn't always and still to this day, not like super high volumes go, go, go type music, whether it's hip hop, rock, whatever it is. So my senior year, my walk up song was Fortunate Son by CCR.

00;05;15;05 - 00;05;15;24 Oh, there you go.

00;05;16;05 - 00;05;25;05 It's just kind of like, hey, I'm already hyped up enough to get to the play. Like, let me call myself down a little bit and kind of get zoned in. So yeah, that was my walkup song my senior year.

00;05;25;14 - 00;05;28;01 I like it. Yeah, that that paints the picture.

00;05;28;12 - 00;05;28;29 There you go.

00;05;29;16 - 00;05;33;18 All right. So so about when did you did you join XOs?

00;05;34;13 - 00;06;02;09 Yeah, I did my internship in 2008 it was where I started. And then after that I worked mostly with baseball players, obviously with my background a little bit with our combine prep program that you may or may not have touched on in previous episodes with Anthony or John or whomever. So mostly baseball guys. And then I see it, the longer, longer I've been with the company, the more it feels like a little hiatus.

00;06;03;03 - 00;06;24;18 It was on a paid internship. They didn't have anything for me. I went and got a job elsewhere. I did some coaching at a charter school coach, football and baseball and soccer and everything from like kick and giggle all the way up to two more competitive spaces. And then was a director at the YMCA for a few years at a very young age and three apartments, our wellness membership and aquatics department.

00;06;25;01 - 00;06;41;10 Oddly enough, they just kind of kicked it to me. So and then came back full time with the company in 2011. So and then since then I've held a ton of different roles. Like I said, I started as a strength coach when I came back and then kind of shifted into management and then have shifted and since into this kind of mental performance space.

00;06;41;27 - 00;06;51;22 Got it. And so what's the attract into this mental space that we're talking about and what is, what is reflection and regulation mean to the layman?

00;06;52;15 - 00;07;16;07 Yeah. So first question kind of what, what attracted me to the space? Yeah, my my other major in college was psychology. So that was always kind of around. And oddly enough, I really enjoyed my time at the Y Looking back on it, maybe I didn't enjoy it at the time, but it was it was such a rewarding experience for me to see in the grand scheme of things.

00;07;16;07 - 00;07;45;07 The YMCA is is not known for its progressiveness and excellence in the movement and fitness space. However, if you look at and think of some of the benefits and some of the things of the YMCA as well, it's community and that society just kind of so I really delve into the psychology of how to build a community, how to get someone and many someones to start a habit and keep a habit that's positive for them.

00;07;45;07 - 00;08;09;05 So you learn things like motivational interviewing, you learn things like group dynamics, just kind of on the fly and you see the attitude there. And so that really helped propel my, my interest in it and have since taken that and apply to both to my own teams that I manage within EXOS as well as with the content that we create for this kind of mental and cognitive performance space.

00;08;09;05 - 00;08;27;27 So it's always kind of been around for me. It was kind of accelerated with with the YMCA at the time with that concept of community because you know, we say all the time you could have the best program in the world. If someone doesn't show up to do it, it doesn't matter. And so it's like, you know, they get results from people just because people enjoy being there and coming back.

00;08;27;27 - 00;08;46;14 So it's like, how do you how do you pair the two to really get the most out of someone, get them coming back and then, man, you're really dialed in for one of their and so now, you know, we're where we're at with mental, mental and cognitive performance. It's it's really, really interesting to kind of apply that in the workforce.

00;08;46;25 - 00;09;17;04 And certainly for me in my own personal endeavors as well, and that's where I loved it was probably a favorite topic to talk about a reflection and regulation and what does that mean? So reflection is really just can I observe myself and my surrounding sands critiques sans ego, right? Can I do it without judgment? And then regulation is can I go through that observation again?

00;09;17;18 - 00;09;40;29 Can I then determine what is required of my own performance and those around me eventually? But typically, most of us spend a ton of time on on our own endeavors. Can I understand? Hey, here's the situation. Here's what I understand it to be and here's what's required of me as far as my own performance. And then that regulation gets into a bunch of different kind of wires that we could certainly go into a little bit.

00;09;40;29 - 00;09;54;10 So a lot of people love to just jump into regulation. It's also like yeah, so we can get into it further, but a lot of people love regulation. I kind of have spent an equal time in both, and I think you need both to maximize performance.

00;09;55;25 - 00;10;22;26 Hundred percent immediately. I'm applying it, I think, well, in the past episodes I've probably bored people with how I look at it for me. And when I'm talking to those of you that have this specialization, the principle is if I'm getting ready to go out and do something, I'm thinking about me and kind of translating and what you're saying as far as observing the surroundings, hey, my I'm recognizing my physical limitations or the abilities.

00;10;22;26 - 00;10;40;12 And so I'm going to go out and I'm going to run the mountain or I'm going to run up this hill, I'm going to run or I'm going to walk or I'm going to do something. I'm trying to trying to figure out whether or not I'm capable of doing it with the things that I know and then trying to anticipate whether I know what I should know.

00;10;40;22 - 00;10;50;28 Right. And so I'm just trying to figure out, is that is that kind of the idea between the reflection is you're kind of going through the cycles of your own mind to figure out what you want to do, where you want to do it and how you want to do it.

00;10;51;24 - 00;11;17;28 Yeah, I think, yeah. You summarized it really nicely. You know, there's there's so it starts with kind of drive, you know, we do something calls about a values exploration and kind of understanding what's driving you both in a positive and a negative. Like that's one thing we call kind of the shadow self a little bit. You know, a lot of people call the subconscious whatever it is, you know, we are as human beings are built to kind of go on autopilot.

00;11;17;28 - 00;11;34;10 And a lot of those things aren't necessarily helping us kind of get to that next level and kind of grow and do what we want to do. And so understanding what those drivers are, you might have a conscious driver of like consciously, you and I probably sit here and go, oh, I want to be as healthy as I can be.

00;11;34;16 - 00;12;03;12 I want to go train every day. I want to train hard, I want to eat healthy, I want to be present with my family. I want to do all of these things right like consciously I'm going to say, of course, we're gonna be like, yeah, you know, and but subconsciously, like, why don't we every minute or every hour of the day and every day of the week and every week of the month and month of the year, why don't we always strive towards doing those things which we consciously say Yes, that's what I want.

00;12;03;12 - 00;12;24;16 That's a driver. And that's that's kind of the, the, you know, one of the spaces you can take is, is what is truly driving me. And that's, I think, a great place to apply kind of what we would look at as a reflection. We break reflection down in the name. Reflection is a little bit misleading because it's things it kind of leads you to think retroactively.

00;12;25;02 - 00;12;46;00 And we look at it. You could also use a little bit of a synonym towards awareness and that word might spark things a little bit differently. So we break it down into three spaces. There's proactive and retroactive certainly. So like proactively to your point of doing an assessment, say I'm going on a hike or whatever, doing that assessment, like where am I truly at doing that self assessment?

00;12;46;20 - 00;13;04;17 What do I need? You know, the proactive space and then retroactive would be going out. Like how did that go? How did I feel? What did I experience? What did I do well? What could I have done better right there? Those kind of bookends of it. But then that holy grail of what we categorize under reflection or awareness is real time awareness.

00;13;04;27 - 00;13;25;02 And that's where reflection in regulation or awareness and regulation or almost an inextricably linked. It's also probably the most challenging place to get to when you're trying to upskill in this space of self-awareness for a variety of reasons. So yeah.

00;13;26;00 - 00;13;43;20 Is that just so I'm clear on that one? Because when you said it, I started to smirk. Now I'm running, I've gone through the first two things, now I'm running and I'm imagining how much this running sucks. Is that that part where it's the real time awareness to where you're going through it and then you're paying attention to what's happening while it's happening?

00;13;44;01 - 00;13;45;00 Where am I off there?

00;13;45;16 - 00;14;06;25 No, no, not at all. Yeah, that's that's part of it. Again, within that awareness we've got, we'll break it down for we love turning things into systems. I think that's what's allowed XOs to be great is you've got phenomenal, you know, the coaches and, and string coaches and within each section and with their specialties all over the place.

00;14;06;25 - 00;14;31;26 And that knowledge end up staying very tribal in nature. And with them learning what access has been able to do really well with systematize a lot of this and have it makes sense and this really makes sense to me. So it's like within real time awareness. There's three things that we're looking at. What you're definitely talking about is, is there's the kind of what we got into receptive like physically what's going on within my body at that time there's emotional awareness.

00;14;31;26 - 00;14;55;28 So like what emotions are my experiencing? Like am I, you know, okay, this is difficult. Like in what how am I tackling that? Am I frustrated? Am I, you know, looking at is is as some type of challenge, you know, whatever it is, right? What emotions are bubbling up for you? And then from kind of like a thought pattern awareness.

00;14;55;28 - 00;15;17;08 So, you know, what am I thinking? Where am I going with this? Can you this is where like meditation comes into play really really as a tool to teach this, to help you observe your thoughts, like, oh, wow, this is really challenging. Do I immediately go to school I can take this on? Do I have the self-efficacy to say this is challenging, but it's doable.

00;15;17;08 - 00;15;33;14 I can do this. I know it's difficult. I've done difficult things before. I'm going to do it or is like, I want to give up I hate this. This sucks. Whatever it is, right? There's no right or wrong within that space, but just being aware of which way you kind of go in that space. So like what are my emotions?

00;15;33;14 - 00;15;42;11 What are my thoughts and what's my body telling me doing in the space and being aware of that in real time can can be really challenging yeah.

00;15;42;11 - 00;16;05;13 That that's, that's where I think the discipline in those things is probably I'm assuming that the focus here is to get you to understand there's phases of realizations. You broke them down seemingly in chunks of threes, which is a great start, but it's procedural and you've planned for that. And this this is all again, to reiterate, this is all part of the reflective component.

00;16;05;22 - 00;16;10;28 We haven't gotten to the to the regulation part or has that kind of mixed into each.

00;16;10;28 - 00;16;48;23 Other it certainly ties into it, absolutely. You know, so emotions, right? They'll they're going to bubble up. So they might as humans were designed with these crazy, amazing survival mechanisms. And so what happens is in real time, we take in a stimulus from our environment or even from our internal environment. We might remember a stressful thing in our body is really good and our brains are really good at making something that either hasn't happened or or has happened and isn't happening to us anymore feel very real.

00;16;49;14 - 00;17;13;04 And so the stimulus could be from our external or internal environment. It bubbles it up. And then our brain the thing is that stimulus goes through the amygdala, which is at the base of our school, which is the emotive center of the brain after it's also interpreted by the central nervous system that allows us gets us ready for movement.

00;17;13;09 - 00;17;35;23 So we're already already ready to move or act and we're already feeling things before that stimulus makes it up into our frontal cortex or frontal lobe, which is where our executive function and that's where we actually cognitively and consciously can start to internalize what this is and so that's designed to help us react very quickly to a life threatening situation.

00;17;35;23 - 00;17;56;17 Right. Which was there were a lot more of those back before modern medicine and before our stressors. So it's like these stressful environments. Right. Cool. So my brain is automatically looking at some shaking bushes and interpreting all these different signals, sounds, smells, like it's all those things to say, hey, is that just the wind or a squirrel or is that something a little bit more threatening?

00;17;56;28 - 00;18;16;26 And so I perhaps chose to act it helps us with through emotions, ties it to previous experiences of, oh, it was a squirrel. Cool. You know, I might, you know, by the time he gets to the frontal lobe, I can say, yeah, that's not not a big deal. Or is it like, oh, that really resembles a time where I had to get out of Dodge.

00;18;17;03 - 00;18;44;23 And so it's we're already like anxious. We're already are our senses are heightened and we might already be a little bit frightened or scared. And so when we get a stimulus that is is sent to us there and the stimulus has shifted, now it's I get you know, someone triggered me because I they said something in a way that someone in a toxic past relationship said something or I had a bad manager or my manager isn't great in there.

00;18;45;00 - 00;19;21;08 They're, you know, sending an email in a certain tone and so that starts to trigger. And our body interprets that and our brain interprets then it ties it to a survival mechanism. Oh, if I lose my job, I can't provide for my family. You know, I'm not going to be able to to make things happen. So it bridges this huge gap for us, even though the stressors of change, the response is the same and so we're already fighting against this uphill battle of of the survival mechanism when we have especially stressful or interpretative stress for stimulus into our environment.

00;19;21;08 - 00;19;42;03 And that's where the awareness piece can come in being aware of, hey, I'm feeling a certain way. I'm feeling this physical sensation of, oh, I'm sweating or my, my stomach is upset or my heart is racing. There's the interceptor oh, my thought patterns are going, oh, I'm not very good at my job because I screw this up or whatever it is.

00;19;43;05 - 00;20;12;29 And then now being aware of that, then we can start to look at regulating in that that space. And then we can start to say, Okay, wow, this anxiety is built to help me survive. Right? There's a purpose for it, but it's not serving me right now. So then how do I, in this case, down regulate my body and my brain to help me come to a more we'll call it productive outcome for this.

00;20;12;29 - 00;20;28;28 So that's a long ways. I say it's really challenging. Why it's so challenging to both be aware in the space and also why regulation is so challenging to put into play and why you have to have both. Because if you don't know what you need to regulate you're not aware that you don't. It doesn't matter. We can be all the tools in the world.

00;20;29;03 - 00;20;33;16 You're not going be applying it properly. You're going to be trying to eat a bowl of cereal with a pitchfork or something, you know?

00;20;33;17 - 00;20;36;14 So it's a big old ball. Remember those?

00;20;36;27 - 00;20;38;16 Hey, you know what? Now I'm kind of hungry.

00;20;38;16 - 00;20;42;14 So for charter school, come in front of the TV on the table.

00;20;42;27 - 00;20;43;19 That's right.

00;20;43;19 - 00;21;08;19 Captain Crunch for days right. So I'm so thanks for that. I mean, so there's a couple of things with this to kind of just figure out where it applies in some scenarios. So, I mean, you talked about some workplace scenarios, talked about says anywhere in life, you just basically assessing when you're when you're awake and you look around, things are happening all the time.

00;21;08;19 - 00;21;25;03 You've you've regulated it right now. I know you're going to get to that. But just kind of for for all of us trying to figure out what bookmark where we are. You regulated it in a way, too, where you've now understood it enough to say threat, not threat is that we're saying, right, I'm getting up I'm walking here, no big deal.

00;21;25;16 - 00;21;43;24 But if I'm now same scenario or I'm getting up, I'm the environment's different. I'm in my tent in the middle of nowhere where I already know that there's threats of bears and wildlife and things like that. I'm getting up needing to go walk over there. I'm more alert. It's different because you're regulation hasn't yet the experience of that particular scenario.

00;21;43;24 - 00;21;54;21 So you're developing these patterns that we can maybe simplify our self-talk, right? You're trying to speak yourself through these scenarios. Is that kind of a good gauge for that situation of what you just said?

00;21;55;13 - 00;22;00;18 So you're talking about like in an actual scenario where you're out in the wild or, you know.

00;22;00;27 - 00;22;05;13 Kind of piecing it together and like this reality component of everything that you broke down?

00;22;05;25 - 00;22;32;20 Yes. Yep. So we talk about all the time. Biology will always trump psychology so, you know, self-talk can be great in more of a proactive space, you know, and saying, hey, look, we know that like talking and rewriting even more so helps ingrain things in the brain to to help us overcome. So if you're for example, you know, like your hike or you run or whatever, right?

00;22;32;21 - 00;22;53;27 Like if you get to a point where you're actually anxious or you're kind of beyond just kind of walk all of the norms of of, you know, our emotions and our reactions, psychology and psychological tactics like visualization and self-talk, they get a little bit diminished returns to the point where they may not and may not be be helpful.

00;22;53;27 - 00;23;11;23 And that's where we use things like breath quite a bit to help us use our biology to try to change the psychology. There's this interesting feedback loop, and I'm pointing between my brain and my body if we're on audio here, right? It's like we think of it as like brain and body, but like it's all the nervous system.

00;23;11;23 - 00;23;31;26 It's all it's all linked together. But there's this feedback loop of like my brain in how I thought we talked about how you can relive past experiences, and that will trigger physical response, could be anxiety, could be joy, could be whatever, and then vice versa. We can actually have our bodies say, look, we're in a safe space. You know, we don't have to be stressed out here.

00;23;32;04 - 00;23;51;27 And that's where you can kind of calm yourself down or downregulate. And so we use things like breath, we use things like vision, natural light, movements are all wonderful strategies to help us kind of up or down regulate, because there might be times where a lot of us we're talking about downregulation, there's stress and we need to kind of bring ourselves down.

00;23;52;05 - 00;24;13;08 There's also like, ah, afternoon low, I'm a little lethargic or I didn't sleep well and I need to be kind of dialed for this coming up. I mean, that's one thing why we talk so much with our special operators. The community that we work with about sleep is like, Man, you're starting this huge deficit. We know you're going to be going and going out at different times.

00;24;13;08 - 00;24;32;27 It doesn't matter. You're on the different patterns but sleep when you can because it's always kind of a huge hole to dig out of. But then and you might need to upregulate, Hey, I know I'm going into a dangerous situation. I need to be dialed. I want to have some of those things like adrenaline going through my body because it will focus my attention and energy and I will be more alert.

00;24;33;07 - 00;24;54;07 So there's kind of like, okay, turn the dial up. Turn the dial down. That's where a tie is to reflection. Hey, what do I need in this space? And we really try to use especially for Downregulation, but also for up using using biology to help us out and so that's where like breathwork comes into play is a fantastic strategy both directions, so.

00;24;54;17 - 00;25;21;02 Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. Yeah. So yeah, the second one I was going to you answered already because then I was thinking about movements. If you're, if you're injured and because of in the rehab process, you're having to address that injury the hesitation, the reluctance to do it because you had the pain receptor is recognizing if I do that, move my knees going to whatever I think my knee is going to do, whatever kind of the same thing, different scenarios.

00;25;21;02 - 00;25;23;29 I guess it's just kind of how you're imagining things. Yeah.

00;25;24;12 - 00;25;47;12 Totally. Yeah. I mean, what we're talking about, the ability to regulate the ability to kind of get ourselves up to do the hard thing to to, you know, find space and clarity in a stressful situation, very much like especially there's trauma, emotional trauma, like physical trauma. You're going to avoid it. That's a shadow driver that you may or may not be conscious of for a long period of time.

00;25;47;26 - 00;26;19;02 And so kind of digging into it in the right way and within the right boundaries is going to be critical and doing it over and over again, practicing that just like with rehab. Right it if you have a phenomenal surgeon, put everything back to back together, if you don't kind of get those reps in of putting it through the range of motion strengthening, you know, getting that confidence and like that's oftentimes a huge portion of rehab is like guys physically how the capabilities to come back from an ACL.

00;26;19;11 - 00;26;37;28 But they just it's so tough to trust it there and you've just got to get the reps in. You know, I can change direction, I can change direction, I can change direction. And then when it comes into that kind of chaotic space like on the field, then you don't have to think about it. You don't want to have to be think about it's like you make a make it unconscious.

00;26;37;28 - 00;26;59;21 And so it becomes a habit. And so it just like with that emotionally and regulating, putting yourself in those situations, and creating that tolerance to stress is is is really helpful or understanding, you know, putting the reps in to understand that awareness. Like that's where meditation like a lot of people hate it. A lot of people struggle with it.

00;26;59;22 - 00;27;17;02 Our CEO, you know, that's my I'm on, I'm on. I work with her a decent amount and that's my goal is to get her to just, you know, spend, you know, 5 minutes a month, you know, just taking, you know, stillness practice and kind of bringing the attention inward with no distractions. That takes practice and you can get better at it.

00;27;17;27 - 00;27;35;09 And so, yeah, the injury analogy is, is perfect of, hey, there's something that's driving us in that I'm working around. If I can kind of keep digging into that, keep get those reps in, I'm going to be able to regulate more when there's a little bit more stress. I'm going to be able to understand myself and how I'm going to respond in those situations.

00;27;35;15 - 00;27;40;07 And therefore make it a more productive outcome. So, yeah, it's it's spot on.

00;27;40;24 - 00;27;59;08 Got it now. Thanks for that, doc. I mean, I now I know what you mean where you're going to bounce back and forth when you try and explain one of the other. So I think we covered the reflection part and we've dabbled in the regulation component and let's dig deeper.

00;27;59;20 - 00;28;31;24 Yeah. So I'd say one of the big tools we use is a good representative of up and down regulation is, is breathwork. So we're trying to like, okay, let's make a tangible call and cool. You know, you're going off on bushes and stimulus and you know, things are going to harm me. What I like is it's kind of sounds a little bit out there, but like, okay, let's make it tangible the first thing from a reflective component that we can do is take a few moments proactively.

00;28;31;24 - 00;28;50;03 What is the day going to demand of me? Okay. Hey, I've got a podcast that I've got to chat about and try to sound smart for a few minutes. I want to make sure that I do the right things proactively to get myself ready for that. And then afterwards I'm going to say, Hey, well, why didn't, you know, get feedback from Chris and all that kind of stuff?

00;28;50;03 - 00;29;08;06 And so cool. Did you know, how did I do with that? And then real time I got to make sure, hey, what is my, my current state, my getting really excited talking about this stuff? Do I need to maybe slow my voice down a little bit? Right. So there's there's that component to it. So finding that space, I think, is really crucial.

00;29;08;06 - 00;29;28;14 That's one thing that we straw like that. We we see that high performers struggle with is everybody wants to do more, give me more stuff to do. And we love to focus on being. And so when we're tired, that's where, you know, again, I'll come back to the concept of stillness or meditation or mindfulness, whatever you want to label it.

00;29;29;18 - 00;29;54;29 Some we work with a lot of SEO is a lot of athletes, a lot of special operators. Just give me more to do. I give me the perfect exercise, give me the perfect meal plan, give me the perfect strategy. But when you just say, cool, here's what I like you to do. I would like you to sit alone with no distractions in your eyes closed for 5 minutes and people almost like recoil from that.

00;29;55;16 - 00;30;20;14 But what we're doing is as we're getting better at understanding what's going on internally, and be depending on what your protocol is for your meditation, you're learning to bring your info, your focus and attention to where you want it to be. And it just I know it sounds maybe, I don't know, base level, but think of just truly how powerful that can be throughout your life.

00;30;20;14 - 00;30;41;16 Like when I want to focus and bring my attention to something that's important to me, man. Like, I want to be perfectly I got a two and a half year old, like the days and months are flying by. Do you know he's talking? And I just I still remember and he was just, you know, a little tiny nugget and like, I don't want to I don't want to be distracted from that.

00;30;41;16 - 00;30;57;14 And it's, you know, there's everything is is designed to distract us from it, thinking about what happened at work, our phones, you know, everything going on. What do I have to do tomorrow? But, man, that is what's really important to me right now. And I'm going to do my best to make sure that I can focus that. And so you have to practice that.

00;30;57;22 - 00;31;16;28 You have to practice not getting distracted and so, you know, that's that's for me what's most important. But for others, it could be, hey, I really want to dial an interview. I want I've got to get up for again, our special operator community like I've got to be perfectly dialed and focus for this mission because it is literally life or death.

00;31;16;28 - 00;31;32;26 Right? So like imagine being able to to bring your focus and attention where you wanted to be. So I'm from a kind of awareness standpoint. I think that's that's a great place. Do you have to kind of the book ends of the day for the proactive and retroactive of those are great places to start there a little easier, right?

00;31;32;26 - 00;31;54;05 You're a little further removed from, you know, the real time kind of chaos of of life. And then, you know, the meditative component or the stillness practice, there's a bunch of different ways you can do that, but just sit alone and with with nothing, no distractions for a minute, for 2 minutes, for 5 minutes. And and that can be really, really powerful.

00;31;54;05 - 00;32;24;16 So that's from a reflective or awareness component and then from a regular literary component, especially in an in the midst of kind of needing to get myself up or bring myself down. We love starting with breathwork, and it's really the simple strategy is the longer your exhale is especially and compared to your inhale, the more signals it's going to send to your brain that you can be in this rest and digest state.

00;32;24;20 - 00;32;54;26 So if I have a nice like an elongated exhale there, that's going to start sending signals that, hey, anxiety isn't really what I need here. I don't need my brain and my thoughts to be going a million miles an hour. I just can be calm. And then it's quite the opposite. Like forceful, short exhales you think of like things like athletes or like I always think of like a bobsled or like they slap their legs and then go, right.

00;32;54;26 - 00;33;17;01 They're actually up regulating so we have, you know, a ton of different protocols that can go as long as 25 minutes. They can almost put you in a bit of a euphoric state. When you get there. Yeah, but just like short, you know, power breathing, that kind of stuff. Like is, is kind of the, the simplest way to break that down and utilize your breath.

00;33;17;01 - 00;34;03;09 So most people, I would say throughout the day, breathe too quickly and put themselves into more of this kind of fight or flight stress response chronically which does not serve us. And so most people, we could benefit from slowing our breathing down just in general. And for those that are like colony loss me and meditation but maybe, you know, I want to do something to help myself, breathwork and even just rhythmically breathing without having a crazy protocol, but just focusing a little bit more on that exhale, rhythmically breathing for 5 minutes a day has actually been shown to have the same chronic benefits as far as like morbidity, blood pressure, heart disease, all those things like in

00;34;03;09 - 00;34;24;05 a positive manner in the same way that like meditation can. So like if you're like, I don't really want to meditate, but hey, maybe I'll try that. You're just focusing on my breathing and bringing attention there that can be really beneficial. So you don't you don't need to meditate to calm yourself down a little bit. But there are certainly other benefits of meditative practices.

00;34;24;10 - 00;34;28;02 So yeah, it's so that there's a bunch there.

00;34;28;14 - 00;34;28;23 Yeah.

00;34;29;09 - 00;34;37;07 But so I wrote down some things as you were going through that stuff and so that the kind of the that stuff, I don't mean to undermine what you did.

00;34;37;08 - 00;34;41;12 Oh no, it's totally fine. My wife feels the same way. So yeah, that's about what I do.

00;34;41;20 - 00;35;05;03 It's, it's you know, the, the do more and doing right. And then it's the, it's the, the, maybe it's not what I believe so much is. It is what it could be but I'll say I believe it to be this way as it's conditioned. We've been led to believe that we have to in order to influence or persuade others that were effective.

00;35;05;19 - 00;35;28;14 I'm, if I'm doing more than they'll look at me as I'm being bringing some value. Right. And so I think there's this value component is started in this kind of play games, at least in my life stage, to realize what the value is that is actually giving me the belief that if I do more or if I do X, then I'm going to get the things that I'm expecting.

00;35;28;14 - 00;35;57;29 So the expectations that come from it. And so when it comes now to the the to the flow of thought to believe, when you say, oh, you want to do that, let's start with 5 minutes of breath work immediately. Is it is it do you find that it's because you're telling them something that's so far off when they thought they were going to hear from you as far as what the steps would be on how to get to that high performing out element of breathwork?

00;35;57;29 - 00;36;13;05 What are you talking about? So it's the resistance of what I've what I've been conditioned to believe or understand as far as what is necessary to become a high performer. Never thought about breathwork. Is it more of a resistance to what they've been conditioned to understand or is it something else?

00;36;13;29 - 00;36;34;19 Yeah, you know, that's a good question. It's certainly a little bit different for each for each of us like. Well, again, that goes back to drivers, right? You know what is what is driving the need for this accomplishment, this need to do more? A lot of it is. And this is where we talk with a lot of our clients about a lot of it is not necessarily time management either.

00;36;34;19 - 00;36;56;29 It's about attention and focus management and what you want to do. And so people just want they they want to just add more and really that the limiting factor to their their long term, especially their long term performance, not just performance in general, but like we very much about sustainable performance, right? Like we want you to have a long career in the NFL, in the MLB.

00;36;57;04 - 00;37;12;10 We want you to come home from all the missions. We want you to be able to you know, continue to achieve what you want to in the workplace, where whoever we're working with, it's all about sustainable performance. And yeah, in the short term, doing more can give you more. You get you get more ROI, right? It's a media.

00;37;12;10 - 00;37;34;18 It's also like the same thing of like, oh, why people more people will exercise till the cows come home and CrossFit are the day away and all that kind of stuff. But it's like really the limiting performance to what you want out of your fitness right now is just nutrition. And that requires restraint and that concept of restraint is, I think, where people really, really struggle.

00;37;34;18 - 00;37;58;20 And so, you know, it could be they've been brought up with our culturally or from family, from childhood. A lot of the stuff that we work with is, is, is your stems from that. But, you know, for whatever reason, it's like I've got to hustle culture, right? That's also like media. It's like hustle culture, hustle culture. And and so it's slowly starting to kind of shift back a little bit.

00;37;58;27 - 00;38;31;27 So we're fighting against those expectations. But I think it's that element of restraint that people are really challenged with. It takes it sounds weird, but it takes more willpower for a lot of folks, especially people who are achievement oriented. Like you don't get anything back right away from sitting along with your thoughts for 5 minutes, just like you don't really get anything back from eating one vegetable bowl like you had a bunch of vegetables over time and suddenly, wow, there's a lot of these wonderful benefits, body composition, blood pressure, you name it.

00;38;31;27 - 00;39;02;04 Right. So, yeah, it's it's this we deal with that concept of restraint and helping people to understand the value that like doing less now over the long term is going to pay dividends because you're not going to be burnt out and tired all the time. From Go, go, go. And because you're going to be more present in the time that you do go and do things, you are more efficient at it because hey, you're suddenly more understanding of how you operate internally.

00;39;02;09 - 00;39;06;03 And so you can navigate a lot more different scenarios of that makes sense.

00;39;06;11 - 00;39;45;08 It does 100%. I'm recalling what and I probably everybody that we talked to, whether it was John or Jan or Anthony I'm Stefan and now you it's implying we'll just call it as a break taking a nap. I mean, been talking to John so you're saying is taking a ten minute nap is going to be beneficial because you're going to reset and the optimization of time is instead of staying awake for 24 hours because you believe it's going to give you an opportunity spend more time doing more but you're going to be slower at it less efficient and probably risk injury in some capacity whereas if you took you know in this case context the ten minute

00;39;45;08 - 00;40;06;27 break or nap, you can refocus your body can kind of reset, recalibrate. This is kind of the same thing it sounds like is what you're doing is the same level of decision making that goes into deciding to do something. The restraint component is to say the temptation to feel like you got to do more is the same thing.

00;40;06;27 - 00;40;10;27 Is the temptation is to not take a break. Would you say.

00;40;11;13 - 00;40;14;08 On vacation, spot on, spot on.

00;40;14;23 - 00;40;35;21 The view out there, they're saying that your work life balance is an element of understanding this and that it's tough for whatever it starts with you. It sounds like this is what directing is internalizing, which is the friction part reflection. It's your self. If you understand how you can self-regulate you're saying the biology, I guess, is probably the best way to say it.

00;40;35;21 - 00;40;46;21 Through these practices, these techniques, you're going to see the benefit that can be comparable to allow you to make decisions differently to know what sustainable even means, because you'll feel it over time.

00;40;47;18 - 00;41;08;08 Yeah. And this this is where for me, it's been really rewarding to dove into a lot of the stuff and putting it into practice for myself because this isn't just for sports, you know, you see the application there, right, of understanding your own abilities and, and having that ability to regulate and calm yourself down in stressful situations, you know, fourth quarter scenarios, that kind of thing.

00;41;08;08 - 00;41;29;15 Right? You're going to have an edge over your your competitor right? In the workplace, you know, the ability to kind of have that that ability to stay calm in stressful situations, to be more creative when it's, you know, when the necessity arises to be able to problem solve because you've created that space for yourself to be able to do that.

00;41;30;09 - 00;41;48;24 It's going to be critical and certainly just to be a better partner. Right? Oh, I I'm in an argument with my partner. Right. It's it's it's you know, I think what a lot of folks will say is you're never going to find that. You're not going to argue with just the ability to to come to a common understanding and commitment.

00;41;49;07 - 00;42;10;00 It's not snapping and saying something that you regret later. Right. Because you said, oh, I'm I recognize this internal state. I understand what I need. I can call myself down and I can then respond, not react. And so, you know, it's it's the ability to bring that to whatever scenario. And yeah, it's it's less about going and finding.

00;42;10;06 - 00;42;26;08 I mean, yes, they're breathing protocols. But you said like just breathing rhythmically is going to give you a benefit, right? You don't need to even have a perfect protocol for you. And just creating a space for yourself is is going to be really just so powerful. So.

00;42;26;20 - 00;42;37;06 Yeah. Yep. Okay. Well, we scratched the surface, clearly, but anything else to touch on before we close?

00;42;37;24 - 00;43;16;05 Now, I just I hope that people take some space after listeners for themselves and just see what happens. Be curious about what's going on in inside, and that's just going to help you in so many ways. You know, it's, it's and can be really rewarding because you're just being more present with yourself, with those around you and then, you know, finding those strategies that work for you once you understand where you need find those strategies and you're going to find that, hey, I'm, I'm at my best a lot more frequently when I'm able to do that.

00;43;16;05 - 00;43;23;19 So yeah, go ahead and just take some time and try doing nothing for a minute. See what happens though.

00;43;24;03 - 00;43;26;03 You're doing nothing is doing something. Yeah.

00;43;26;13 - 00;43;26;22 Yeah.

00;43;27;01 - 00;44;02;00 I've learned that when it comes to decision making, when we don't take a position on certain things and then when we sit and lay on the grass and look at the sky and you actually imagine how nice it is to do that and you forget so. Mm. So thanks for that call and thanks for your time. I will, I will say this and take an opportunity to challenge anybody listening then, you know, 30 days try for 30 days, you know, a minute, 5 minutes a day for 30 days journal it just, you know, jot down how you felt before you did it and then when you made the decision maybe jot down why you made the decision

00;44;02;00 - 00;44;24;18 to do it. Try it 5 minutes breathwork. If you're not completely sure what that means, you know, find out from EXO's, go on site, find out what's available, maybe Google some things do do whatever it takes unless you have a resource immediately available where you can ask that person Hey, how do I do this? Find out, do for 30 days and let us know what you get back, you know?

00;44;24;19 - 00;44;30;19 So Colin, if you're up for it, if, if anybody wants to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way?

00;44;31;18 - 00;44;52;08 Yeah, I'm not much of a social media warrior, so probably I'll throw my email out there. See Young at Axios dot com and I always love talking shop. I always love talking about how we can help you. And if you want to understand a little bit more about how to reflect and bring awareness and regulation, your space man all talk your ear.

00;44;52;15 - 00;44;52;25 So.

00;44;54;10 - 00;44;56;28 Got it. Appreciate your call and thanks for everything you're doing.

00;44;57;14 - 00;44;58;00 Yeah. Thanks, Chris.

00;44;58;17 - 00;45;00;08 All right, everybody, keep moving forward.

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In this episode we’re talking emotional intelligence. Building up from previous episodes, we’re connecting a flow of developing our skills to be better contributors to common goals, team dynamics, and personal growth. EQ includes important abilities like recognizing what you observe, how you react, and how others perceive you. Want to improve? Are you interested in becoming a greater asset to those around you? Take a listen and we’ll support you in that effort! We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;28;29 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the main podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS, chief information security officer within Oracle.

00;00;29;08 - 00;00;50;26 In this episode, we're talking emotional intelligence building up from previous episodes. We're connecting a flow of developing our skills to be better contributors to common goals, team dynamics and personal growth. IQ includes important abilities like recognize what you observe, how you react, and how others perceive you want to improve. Are you interested in becoming a greater asset to those around you?

00;00;51;09 - 00;01;05;27 Take a listen and we'll support you in that effort. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;06;00 - 00;01;15;19 David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn Good morning, David Cross. How are you?

00;01;16;03 - 00;01;23;17 You know, Chris, today I'm a little emotional, right? What's going on in the world, but we're going to take it to a new direction here, I think, with our topic today.

00;01;23;29 - 00;01;49;09 Got it. Ten today. We're talking about emotional intelligence, why it matters. Some of the key components to consider when you're thinking about how effective are you, what are you doing to prepare yourself to go out and influence others in a way that they can see what you're asking for, they can understand it. And then more importantly, something happens as a result of that.

00;01;49;09 - 00;01;50;05 There's action taken.

00;01;51;21 - 00;02;13;05 You know, Chris, you know, I think about this a little bit is, you know, IQ, right? Or the emotional quotient or emotional intelligence II. You know, it's one of those things that is I wish could be on every resume. You're looking at people, right? But like, how do you measure it? Right. How you quantify it, right? How do you you know, does someone have you know, emotional intelligence or IQ?

00;02;14;05 - 00;02;34;21 I think one of the challenges at the same time, if you think about our history and your experience, of hiring people, what's sometimes the one number one failure that you sometimes see when you hire someone, they look great, but then they have no IQ, right? It's a total disaster. So I think is maybe something we should talk about today.

00;02;35;16 - 00;02;58;15 I think you're right. And in a lot of those components, you know, that I mean, we can break it down. There's a lot of good references. I mean, let's let's out of the gate, let's talk about one of the main ones that everybody's already familiar with, Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence There are other resources that are self-help, like books coming from a valid, credible resource like organizational psychologists and whatnot.

00;02;58;15 - 00;03;25;05 I mean, the list is deep and you can get into the details of it from philosophical approach to the psychological facts and science and experience you know, all of those things contributing. You know, you talked about some things that were specific examples that contribute to one's ability to know how to navigate the area to where you can understand what it takes to be effective.

00;03;25;13 - 00;03;50;28 Emotional intelligence includes probably starts with, I guess, safe to say, and we can talk about it self. Right. It's it's it's it's your perspective and others perspective is basically the breakdown of the views of who's considering judging, classifying, categorizing, assessing or what have you on whether or not you're doing the things that influence others in a way where there's an honest, true understanding of what's going on now.

00;03;50;28 - 00;04;02;27 True in the sense of perception. We talked about this before. Not everything is real. You know, it's just the way that we see it. And so we just have to do the best to try to acknowledge what it is, in fact, that we're seeing or hearing.

00;04;03;11 - 00;04;25;09 Well, I think that almost brings to my brings to mind a little bit, you know, perception right? It's like communication. Right. Is saying that like sometimes how do you perceive yourself, right. And out of others perceive you. Right. And it's like it's just like communication sometimes is your emotional intelligence. Is that well, are you reading people right in how they are reading you?

00;04;25;09 - 00;04;46;05 Right. And I think it's one of the most important things is your feedback, communication, you know, reaching out to mentors is that do you really have good IQ? Well, how do you know? Have you asked anyone have you talked to your mentor? Have you gotten for asked for feedback? And I think sometimes there could be a major delta in yourself.

00;04;47;12 - 00;05;13;18 Yeah, you're right. That because this I mean, this is a series of things that we've landed on almost accidentally. But then we realized you and I realize that there's a sequence of conversation topics that will have occurred in the previous episodes leading up to this one. Right. Relationships and trust, how you define everything that you just said comes from a place of acknowledging and accepting, right?

00;05;13;19 - 00;05;35;20 You've acknowledge that somebody either you trust yourself or you trust somebody else. You've acknowledged something that has allowed you to decide where you've chosen to accept what it is that is being said. Or given right. So I'm accepting that my self-talk has convinced me because it makes sense to me, which we can absolutely unpack. It makes sense to me.

00;05;35;20 - 00;06;03;16 And so I accept it. This is how I view this. And then what you mentioned is the external influence of somebody else coming to you and saying, Hey, you have really good emotional intelligence, you have a really good ability to understand the audience, the situation, the conversation that's occurring how did they come to be able to assess that to you as from their perception based off of the other things that are almost aligned to what you're doing for yourself?

00;06;03;16 - 00;06;35;15 Right. Because you like it and you're comfortable. You might now find you lean towards that because it is comfort. So you go with that. They might have a personal motive or a preference as to how they have come to that conclusion on where you fit within their assessment based off of their rationalization. So that's kind of the, the catch 22 is you have to understand yourself well enough to trust by acknowledging and accepting the opinion of yourself and others that either agree or don't agree, but you have to get to that part Absolutely.

00;06;36;05 - 00;07;01;06 You know, it's amazing that how two different people could say exactly the same thing in a different in different ways. And the results and the impact and the emotional and emotional impact is completely different. We can go back to our military days, right? We've all seen commanding officers that they give an order and they're so gruff and you feel like you're dirty or worthless, whatever.

00;07;01;25 - 00;07;29;07 And you also have another commanding officer that you can say the way they express it. Yep. Here's an order. It's tough work. But you it feels like they care about you. It feels that they understand the pain you're going to feel from that order and you accept it completely differently. And that's what leadership is all about, is understanding the state of who you're talking to, how you communicate and really evaluating what is the person's emotions, how will it affect their emotions.

00;07;29;20 - 00;07;40;26 And it's also so important that context and it's not just the military, it's the whole world. And there's amazing differences in leadership and impact. Just based just on that.

00;07;41;13 - 00;08;05;07 Yeah, you you unloaded on that one. So there's a couple of things here. So the expectations and expectation settings, it's it's a realization of a standard, right? Or a goal or classification. Somewhere along the line, you're determining that somebody has to be a certain way to be able to do this. Whatever this is, do this job, do this role, do this project.

00;08;05;19 - 00;08;25;24 We have to determine what skill sets are compatible with what the objectives are based off of whatever it is. And I'm using these words because personally we're not walking down the street saying these things, Hey, does this person align to my objective? When you're walking past somebody walking a dog now, you have a preference. That preference has evolved from something that you talked about, where empathy plays a big part in this.

00;08;25;24 - 00;08;49;16 Right? Being able to understand and relate to somebody through empathy is to make them feel as if you care, right? And that's I can kind of the main thing is, you know, emotional intelligence can come down to, you know, several components. But one of the key ones is how you make others feel is a big influence on whether or not you're going to continue to have that relationship in the way that you want it to be or expected to be or need it to be.

00;08;49;27 - 00;09;27;03 You also talked about something for the context. You mentioned context, and that I think comes through the experience, those with more experience. It is safe to assume that they have a higher level of emotional intelligence, and it's an assumption because of the experience. We go back to the first thing in expectation, I would say, and you and I have talked about it before in context, if you and I are going into a situation where there's we're surrounded by executives, there's an assumption that because of your experience, you probably have a better understanding of what the expectations would be in that setting.

00;09;27;18 - 00;09;48;22 Right before we even started recording, we talked about junior enlisted versus senior enlisted, and I'm paraphrasing, the expectations are different, the understanding of different because the level of the role is probably assuming that they don't have yet the experience to put things in context. Therefore, they can't have the same level of IQ because of the fact that they just don't know yet.

00;09;48;28 - 00;09;50;01 They haven't gone through it yet.

00;09;50;13 - 00;10;07;28 Yeah. Spin on Chris. You know, I think we have to keep reminding of ready to go back and listen to the podcast about communication. So when you bring up about context is sometimes ah, experience, I think it means a really good scenario is that sometimes you can walk into a scenario or a situation you don't have the experience.

00;10;08;09 - 00;10;33;06 So then well how do you act? Well, this comes back in communication, ask questions because if you don't have experience and you don't have a context, you can start asking questions that can help you to understand the landscape, to understand what's going on, so that you can have the right perspective in context, in emotional intelligence to act, respond you know, engage the right way versus blindly guessing.

00;10;33;06 - 00;10;40;06 Right. You know, your favorite Seinfeld episode, never assume. Right anything, right? Because you're going to get burnt.

00;10;41;01 - 00;11;06;26 Right. Yeah. As to curiosity, I think as time will go on, you become more intimate with instinct or that gut, that gut feel. Right. The instinctive approach is if something just doesn't feel right, you know the scenario, you're going down the street walking down the street, walk into a conversation. It just feels weird. There's something off that I think also and I'm sure I read it somewhere.

00;11;06;26 - 00;11;33;16 So it's just me saying I know it's I think I've it's been stated before where that is associated. And part of this is, you know, there's these certain instincts that one has that develops over time. With the experience that evolves into what we can consider at a high level to be part of emotional intelligence. You have awareness, self-awareness, situational awareness, so like you said, walking into a conversation or something and you're curious if that is your priority is to understand.

00;11;33;16 - 00;11;57;06 Probably humility plays a big part in that you're humble enough to be curious regardless of how you feel, whether or not you're going to get looked at for asking the dumb question, things like that, where there really isn't one. If you don't know, setting matters time in a place, don't forget that. But that's part of the emotion intelligence if you're curious and and that's how you go into a situation because you're sincerely trying to accomplish something collectively.

00;11;57;06 - 00;12;22;27 We collectively, meaning the same people in the room or the people in the room, are trying to achieve the same thing. Similar things. Sincerity will drive you towards not wanting to ask questions, to learn to contribute, knowing when to ask questions, how to quite the right question to ask. We've talked about these things also. I think it's just an understanding of being able to develop that over time, gives you gives you the opportunity to know you're on the right path.

00;12;23;20 - 00;12;44;00 You know, Chris, the ah, you know, it's kind of thinking on this overall topic and maybe it could be, you know, on a landmine that someone could step into is like is the world global? Now we work for a global company you know, there are people from many different different countries and backgrounds and things like that. Different languages, right?

00;12;44;08 - 00;13;06;13 Is English the native language for everyone in the world? No. Right. And do we all have the same culture and background and gestures? No. Right. And I think this is very, very important sometimes when we work in diverse teams, right. We're not just about out of geographic of ethnicity and backgrounds. Other things is we have to be very aware of that.

00;13;06;18 - 00;13;33;04 Is that how someone's language could it we we could read it incorrectly or treat it incorrectly or improperly. And I think so very different. I won't use any of the typical stereotypical biased examples here, but is that some people could read and perceive right are a statement very differently based on language alone. And I think that's very, very important to be aware of in this overall topic.

00;13;33;24 - 00;14;08;22 100% a great great poll. It's global, right? And if we go into outdated characteristics or an understanding of where we play a part in a global role and we haven't yet been exposed to what that actually means and that that's I'm not I'm not going to begin to try to unpack that one. It's hard because there's a lot of things that you have to do and we talked about this in different ways over the last many episodes is effort the amount of effort is dependent upon your interest.

00;14;09;02 - 00;14;42;20 If you prioritize things, then the effort doesn't necessarily equate to hard or easy. You just understand it's necessary in order to achieve what you want to achieve. That's part of the issue is how much effort is it going to take to understand all of the things that are going to contribute to the success of myself and others. That in itself is probably a solid approach to understand how you can without even trying become better at acknowledging your emotional intelligence, understanding it well enough to say, here are the requirements and here's what I need to do, and then you map it out.

00;14;43;10 - 00;14;55;15 Absolutely. So we're coming back to, you know, hiring people. You know, Chris, you know, you're involved with recruiting and hiring people, you know, which is better high IQ or high IQ.

00;14;57;19 - 00;14;59;28 Yeah, I figured you were going to give me up on that one.

00;15;01;12 - 00;15;11;24 We have to have a fun podcast, right? Chris, do you want us to be boring and everyone? That's what I is it is supposed to be. I was proud to have a podcast here. People listen to Fall Asleep. Not every night, you know?

00;15;12;23 - 00;15;39;11 Yep. So I'm going to give the classic answer that I found myself acknowledging in most intelligence. And I'm saying, well, it's appropriate. It depends. Right. I would like to say that because the way that I look at it is this is the actions where there is nothing that we're doing right now that is our own right. And what I mean by that is we're reacting to somebody else's action.

00;15;40;06 - 00;16;17;16 You don't know if it's this conversation or something. A month ago. A year ago. It doesn't matter. We're reacting. I feel in that way. So it goes back to how you how you prepare in hiring, when you're looking for somebody to fill a role how you define the role requirements by restricting the explanation into a job description. Well, if you're not an excellent writer or translator of thought into words and writing it effectively to where people can now read that without emotion, they just see it for what it is and everybody walks away with the same understanding of what the requirements are.

00;16;18;13 - 00;16;33;07 You should understand that that's part of the problem if you're going to answer that question, because in that you still have to define what it is that you're looking for. And then you have to go through the verbal approach. And so now you have let's say you and I say I'm interviewing with you. I have to do everything that we just talked about.

00;16;33;07 - 00;16;49;12 I have to make assumptions on who I'm speaking with. To demonstrate something that's going to fit into your perception of what you're looking for. I don't know what that is. I just know that I read a job description. There's been somebody that talked to me about the role and somewhat of the culture that I'm the role sits in.

00;16;49;23 - 00;17;01;10 And now I have to make assessments on how do I make sure that I'm being my organic self to you. Without eliminating me from a possibility of taking the job because it's a it's a delicate dance.

00;17;02;00 - 00;17;16;28 You know, Chris, I think that's a great example, you know, and I think as both for hiring managers as well as candidates. Right. Is is hiring manager. You really want you should lay out saying, hey, this is the state of the organization. Right? It could be a very diverse organization. Or it could actually be maybe not so. Right.

00;17;16;28 - 00;17;41;22 And really so that is very clear what the expectations are. What are the needs? Right. So people say, well, I fit into that or not. Right. Likewise, I think as a candidate, you should always look and understand, right? You know, where the organization is. And so that you say, will you be a good match for that or are you going to step into something that it's not going to be where you are from an ego perspective, maybe this will not be a good match or maybe could be dangerous.

00;17;41;27 - 00;17;44;25 And I think we should be open and honest and both directions on this.

00;17;46;14 - 00;18;12;02 And in that, you defined what you can consider to be in a higher ratios of animal, emotional, intelligent individual. Right. You're recognizing these variables based off of your experience. Now, you've you've been in a career for, you know, decades to where you can understand these things. You've accumulated a lot of this information to where it allows you to leverage that and then put it to good use.

00;18;12;05 - 00;18;33;19 Maybe this is the best way to say it. And that's a fair that's a fair way to do it. Unfortunately, that's not across the board from everywhere that we've experienced. I'm sure all of us can name at least one scenario where it wasn't like that. It wasn't transparent. It wasn't a place to where you feel you can be brutally honest with each other and know that it's the position that you're discussing through dialog to get to the end state of knowing each other better.

00;18;34;23 - 00;19;07;11 I think I think you're right. I think in that case, I'll tell you this, if I had to pick one because you asked the question, I would say IQ to me is more important than IQ. And I'm not completely aware of the depths of what both of those mean independently. Of each other. I can just say from my understanding, I would choose IQ over IQ just for the basic nature of being able to relate higher probability of relating to others more often because it's all about people connecting with people.

00;19;07;11 - 00;19;10;28 And you just gave a scenario where your focus was connecting.

00;19;11;19 - 00;19;34;23 You know, I think that I think some jobs will be different, but certainly I think we're we're, you know, maybe used to or very familiar for the past in a long time here, I could say that we're working in teams and organizations in so that having low IQ is dangerous territory. Right. And people that could be really caustic and dangerous and create a bad environment.

00;19;35;03 - 00;19;53;06 But we'll be honest, right? We're not we're not our audience here. The veteran community is not just working in high tech not just working large companies and things like that. Yes. Sometimes there will be some differences so someone can be an individual right and not have to deal with others. Maybe that's okay. I'm not saying have a no IQ is a good thing anybody.

00;19;53;06 - 00;20;11;22 But I think it's like you really need to again, the context of the position and expectations. But certainly I think of that in I'd say almost all companies that having low IQ as a people manager is almost a guaranteed the plane is going to crash yeah.

00;20;11;22 - 00;20;35;24 It's there's probably a higher point of failure in that, you know, because it does I mean, people move things I mean, I'm declaring it as if it's my we know this. We don't we can't do it alone. You know, we need people around us. There's a supporting cast of crew in everything that we're doing, whether you acknowledge it or recognize it's matters less.

00;20;35;24 - 00;21;00;24 But everybody's giving us support in some capacity like we talked about. It's indirect. It could be appearing the independent of each other, but it's not everything that we accumulate is is stored information and recalled at some point, I believe so you know I think the kind of the the summary at this point is, you know, it is maybe the question for you.

00;21;01;12 - 00;21;10;07 We skimmed over it. We talked about it. But you asked me a question. I asked you a question. Should I care more about what others think or should I care more about what I think?

00;21;11;13 - 00;21;19;02 Wow. At first I was I said, oh, this is an easy answer. Then you really stop me there for a second. Right?

00;21;22;09 - 00;21;49;00 You know, why am I hesitating on this one? Certainly at first I was going to say it is it's what everyone else thinks of course. Right. But I think maybe that's you're trying to be clever here, Chris, and give me the trick question. But like what everyone thinks may not be what I really think I am. Right. And that's the maybe that's a problem in itself, right, is that I think I'm a caring, loving person.

00;21;49;01 - 00;22;05;02 But everyone thinks I'm an evil tyrant or an micromanager. Right. And I think the real answer is you have to look at both and saying, do they match? If they don't match, then you say there's a problem that you need to explore and figure out.

00;22;07;21 - 00;22;32;16 Fair, very neutral answer, but I'll take it because it's not wrong. You're right. Situational. You know, if if we if we subscribe to the theory that working together in teams, direct or indirect you know, you have to influence others. And so you have to consider what they're feeling and what they're thinking about, whether or not you're in the capacity that is necessary for everybody.

00;22;32;16 - 00;22;49;04 To feel confident in moving forward. So strength finders, I'll introduce this real quick. We've talked about it before, a scientific approach. If you can go Google it, you know, look it up. I'm sure many are familiar. If not, though, check it out. It's a fun thing to be able to assess where you're in. There's plenty of these tools out there.

00;22;49;04 - 00;23;13;11 But, you know, the defines there's four things that a leader, a follower wants from a leader, trust, compassion, stability and hope. Well, if what you had said is any indication of how any of those four can be impacted, if I don't have that in the leader, I don't have trust I don't have or the leader doesn't have the trust doesn't have the compassion, which we talked about.

00;23;13;11 - 00;23;32;26 You kind of mentioned earlier about how you make me feel. And as a follower, leader doesn't provide the opportunity for me to trust that you have there's a stable environment and then give me hope. And for those of us have jokes, hope is not a course of action, but it does play a part in whether or not you can survive in certain scenarios.

00;23;33;16 - 00;23;55;23 If we don't have any of those for it could break. So I think you're right. It's just a matter of understanding you take into consideration whether people think what or what other people think. But there is a there is a factor that weighs into how you're because it still comes back to you on how you're receiving information, whether or not yourself talking you're true to yourself.

00;23;57;07 - 00;24;01;05 It still has to transmit what other people think and you still have to process it.

00;24;02;10 - 00;24;39;10 You know, the one thing that I still think about in this area is in the question you asked is, is there still an element on what you want your your IQ to be versus your perceived IQ? Right. You know, and and that's really important. I think sometimes that of what you think saying, hey, I'm just being caring and loving and compassionate and, you know, green on the you know, the chart signal that's not everyone sees you as red, blue right.

00;24;41;06 - 00;24;54;13 And isn't that not an important element that everyone should go through on a regular basis? Right. Is just like technical skills. Right. You should have my keeping up to up to speed with my technical skills, but I may keep you up to speed with my IQ.

00;24;55;07 - 00;25;35;17 Yeah, it's a tool I you're that's great talking about that. It abs it is absolute an absolute tool that's necessary to be successful. Now, you can call it different things, you know, don't even call it emotional intelligence. Call it anything else. Like, are you able to understand things that are occurring around you in a way that you can have the same or common language used not only with yourself but with others to be able to address it in a way that you can still take your position because your skill development also is now relative interpretation of the scenario situation, words, actions, observations, all those things.

00;25;35;17 - 00;26;00;12 Right. You have to understand it and know that it's evolving. Everything is development, right? Every every scenario, even if it's it feels repetitious, it's giving you an idea of like oh, that, that equates to a trend as we defined it. What's happening similar or the same as before. And it's common. It's a trend if you're recognizing things to be a trend and you're resisting that influence.

00;26;00;12 - 00;26;20;29 But things are now changing. Now we talk about how you're not being relevant because you're refusing to accept the ever changing environment which now is limiting your ability to contribute effectively. Therefore, what you're probably going to experience is getting pushed out of the circle of that action. Right. You now you're no longer going to be wanted on the team.

00;26;20;29 - 00;26;36;10 Now you're no longer to be valued member. Now you're not contributing in a way that's relevant to the expectations and the goals set forth because you're not accepting the evolution. Now, it's not to say that you have to what it has to what I think is it means that you have to be able to adapt to it and grow from it.

00;26;36;21 - 00;26;53;25 Or make a decision. You either refuse to accept it or you accept it, but acknowledging that for yourself is you're either in it or you're not, and you have to decide. But I think that's the evolution of what you just mentioned, is you still have to pay attention to those things and then decide because you don't want to lose yourself.

00;26;54;14 - 00;27;03;13 That's what we talk about. Bring in your organic self to to the workplace or to the scenario, to the family, to whatever you have. You have to be able to adapt.

00;27;04;05 - 00;27;19;24 So, Chris, I guess this then leads to the one big question I think for the whole podcast here. And you know, I know you're an avid book reader and you know, you read way more than I do. But the real question is how can you improve your emotional intelligence or IQ? What's what do you recommend?

00;27;21;11 - 00;27;30;25 Hmm. Simple terms. Pay attention. That's it. And Dad jokes, I'll give you a dollar to pay attention. How's that for.

00;27;30;27 - 00;27;36;28 You saying I give bad jokes here, Chris? No, no, not at all. Great. I got a guy got a good read on that one. Okay.

00;27;38;06 - 00;27;54;25 Yep. It's paying attention. I mean, you and I, I mean, we I walk away from each conversation. It simply is. You know, I'm not saying that we're going into this conversation to deliver something, and that's it. That's all. It's value. No, the value is that you and I are going to talk and sincerely exchange information in a way where I walk.

00;27;55;01 - 00;28;22;25 I walk away knowing something, learning something, you know, so paying attention to that. Every opportunity that you're presented with by being present, right? If you're paying attention than your present, it's an assumption that will help you figure out how you need to adopt a different approach in order to address the things that you feel are challenging because now you're now you're going down the path of discovery.

00;28;22;26 - 00;28;36;12 When you talked about it early, you know, asking not asking questions doesn't mean necessarily to ask questions than others as much as it also means ask questions to yourself. Are you recognizing what's happening and are you talking it through to be able to know what needs to happen next?

00;28;36;27 - 00;28;50;00 Yeah. So, Chris, you know, what, Brooke, I know you think you've mentioned one earlier. What book would you recommend to people? Right, Alex? I know people love books. And sometimes resources are when you recommend to people that you've read yourself.

00;28;50;28 - 00;29;12;02 Yeah, it's my my default so early, early in what I feel is probably the best way to describe it. My transformation right is when I've hit a life stage in a career stage, too, where I feel like I felt like I needed to do something different, more what have you. I stumbled across a popular one, the emotional intelligence we talked about.

00;29;12;02 - 00;29;33;03 Daniel Goleman. I'm a huge fan of the way that not only the book explains things in the way that he's speaking to these dynamics in the book. It's also, to me, the catalyst of other other areas of skillset development that you need to focus on, right? Is introducing things. And if I were to just do it, I'm going to do this right now.

00;29;33;03 - 00;29;50;29 I'm just going to flip through the book and land on a page. And then it's the chapter is managing with Hart. So, you know, we, we just and that was random. David saw me do it, not that I need to prove to anybody out there listening, but I've randomly flipped landed on that managing with heart talk about and.

00;29;51;01 - 00;29;58;06 Everybody I saw audio I saw on. So we don't have to get into the debate whether this is a fake podcast or not. A fake.

00;29;58;10 - 00;30;10;05 Yeah, this isn't real. This is actually it's not an actual conversation's all I do. You get it. The emotional intelligence, artificial intelligence. Do you see that? That's funny. All right. Coming back in the.

00;30;10;05 - 00;30;10;25 Movie, Chris.

00;30;11;18 - 00;30;37;00 Let's keep it moving. All right. With heart sincerity. You ever you ever. And I think we've talked about the scenario before. If you ever walk into a situation, I don't care if it's a perceived stereotypical way, you know, going to use car dealer or something to that effect where somebody walks up, there's an intent, right? Somebody approaches you with a motive, you can feel it and the words that come next are scripted, not natural.

00;30;37;00 - 00;30;54;07 It just doesn't feel sincere. Right. Well, if you look at that in in its form, you can recognize that person has a job to do and they're trying to execute it based off of what has been deemed to be the appropriate process by the organization that that person's with. But you know, they're still trying to put food on the table.

00;30;54;21 - 00;31;15;20 So there's there's a sincerity in there that they're trying to manage the situation or the people with the sincerity, but having to go through some of these things that may appear to us to be crafted. Well, yeah, everything we do is almost like that. So if you can if you can develop your emotional intelligence in a way through in this case, a book that I'm suggesting I'm speaking of, it doesn't matter.

00;31;15;20 - 00;31;53;07 Pick one just to understand that everything is an introduction to something else. And so if you just follow the path of what that is, you can learn more not only about yourself, but how others are also engaging with you. And then now you can strive for perfecting your craft of human connection to where you can either mitigate that feeling by having it just calling it outright, saying for what it is, or play along you know, at the end of the day, we're all trying to achieve something, but we have to learn better on how we can connect with others to be able to achieve the same thing without having to think about whether or not it's

00;31;53;07 - 00;31;53;17 fake.

00;31;54;04 - 00;32;16;29 Yeah, well put Chris in a certainly I know that if this was a video I was watching right but they're not very good, right? Because it clearly when you see the videos, their beards are always crafted, things like that. And the hats always perfectly on. Right. So that not in this episode. So, you know, so unless they're fooling me, I don't know, they're pretty good.

00;32;18;22 - 00;32;41;18 But different topic on the book. One is that it's not about IQ, but I just kind of came across a recent book called Burn Out for Dummies. And I said, why is this important? How does this apply to said? Well, eliminate is, I think, is that when many people get burned out, their IQ II goes down enormously and it kind it becomes a fire, right?

00;32;41;27 - 00;33;02;25 Someone gets burned out or under stress and things like that. Then they start losing the kind of view of what's going on around them, how they treat people those type of things. And sometimes I think that I think of why this is a great book recommendation. Also, like to makers like people need to detect when they are burning out right because that affects their emotional intelligence and IQ enormously.

00;33;03;15 - 00;33;25;01 There you go. Detect. That's the word of the day. I'm going to I'm going to use it today. More than once. Yeah. You have to be able to understand it, to detect it. The you know, this is where it can become somewhat of a challenge because we can do it in rabbit hole. But, you know, I feel that we all have instinctive ideas.

00;33;25;01 - 00;33;47;28 They're shaped around a feeling right where it comes from. I can't explain and I know somebody can. And we can probably get 50 people in a room and 51 explanations, but you get this feeling. It comes from somewhere and then that that is, I think, the kind of the key catalyst for how you're going to be able to detect not only is it the opportunity, but be able to understand how you're affected by something.

00;33;48;15 - 00;34;21;29 We had we had brought neurologist on, on, on the show in its early stages before this podcast evolved. It was a different one, but talk about stress and his expertize in that area of Expertize was how to manage stress. And part of that talk included, you know, identifying the physiological effects and be able to recognize it early. Now, he was focused on certain part of the special operations community where your physiological response to stress was an important indicator whether or not you can be able to execute in your role.

00;34;22;07 - 00;34;40;15 Right. In I'm being ambiguous, but for those that know, they know the idea, though, is if you understand how your body is morphing or changing based off of how it's responding to a situation, then you have to be able to optimize that and control it and you learn how to do that and there's techniques to do that. So I think you're right.

00;34;41;19 - 00;35;05;12 You know, there isn't a level that you should consider. I think it's a fact that you should consider. You don't you don't have to get to a certain point to understand that detecting that early is absolutely critical to your success, because how we we dismiss it by things by saying like, oh, David's hangry, you know, his blood sugar this and it's affecting his attitude in his moonlight.

00;35;05;12 - 00;35;25;20 Stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. But if somebody's saying it, that means it's already been presented. And now think about the effect some people can write it off as a joke, but now how are you going into a decision where you actually carry that in there? And are you making the right decision based off of the baseline that you should have for that type of decision?

00;35;27;03 - 00;35;43;16 Absolutely. You know, and I think it was like a military versus less formal involvement, like the the Navy's, you know, personal reliability program. We could think about aviation we could think about doctors. Is the under stress. Right? We want people to make the right decisions, right? Be very clinical, are focused. Right. And this is for all types of jobs.

00;35;43;16 - 00;36;03;15 And I think this is where emotional intelligence comes into play and very, very important. But how we can detect it, we can be aware of it and we can actually take actions. And then coming back to an element of I think, you know, I've talked about many times is that, you know, sometimes the workday can get very stressful and we can then say there's so much work, whatever it's like, that's the time you take a break.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;15;23 You know, I go for a run, I go for a five K run, and I say I take that time at 30 minutes out. Right. And then de-stress. So then I can come back to work and make the right decisions because I remove that stress.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;37;26 Yeah, that's. There you go. I'm going to throw it out there. Maybe, maybe we got a couple of things going on here is maybe. Maybe we bring that guest back on or bring bring somebody on or talk about stress and recognize and detect and respond. But the other part of what you just said is another element of me, because we did talk about it in some capacity.

00;36;38;07 - 00;37;04;24 I think we sprinkle it in in past episodes, but making the right decision is probably an element that we should consider talking about because then we can take all of these previous podcasts on nutrition and sleep and rest and body functions and climate work climate and all of the environmental contributors to how it affects our ability to deliver in the role that we're expected, delivering it's a good one.

00;37;05;18 - 00;37;26;07 Well, I think there's been a great episode, I think, and I think it's really excited that of of how we can continue to hear from our community, how we can kind of help everyone. And I want to call out that, hey, we're always looking for feedback, right? You know, certainly as this goes live, you know, ping us on Twitter or X or they call it now, find us on LinkedIn.

00;37;26;29 - 00;37;36;08 So my I'm on Twitter, our X, I'm on Mr. DB Cross, reach out to us. We'd love to know what you think. We'd love to know of what you'd like to hear. And we're here to help the community and that's how we grow.

00;37;37;08 - 00;38;00;18 That's it. That feedback next episode recommendations, anything we haven't gotten feedback lately, so maybe this will kick up some dust in and get us to consider what we can do more of or modify. But the it's a great up. So David, I think I think, you know, again, we started to to pull the layers back a little bit on some of the stuff.

00;38;00;18 - 00;38;14;24 And I think it can warrant maybe getting a little deeper in the future episode. So I think that's probably what we'll maybe tee up for the next season is to get into different layers because we're not so well.

00;38;14;24 - 00;38;34;18 I hope the this season that we finished the season will be, you know, good for not just us but also for the Seahawks this this year, you know, but it's kind of tough going every game. We kind of they just like every episode of their podcast here, it's like we're going to play one by one. But we're we're really going to kind of hit that end goal of reaching the Super Bowl.

00;38;34;18 - 00;38;39;12 So we want to be number one on the veteran podcast in the world. So let's keep trying for it.

00;38;39;27 - 00;38;43;05 We'll keep trying All righty. One keep moving forward.

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How do we know what questions to ask? What happens when you feel like asking but don’t? There is a lot going on in today’s world where we either have too much information or the feeling of not enough time…sometimes both! Where do we begin to understand how we fit into a situation and take away more than what we started with? Asking the right question includes a lot of understanding about yourself, your needs, needs of others, and many more considerations and it’s best to bet on yourself to know how to ask the right question, at the right time. This episode touches on several places to start. Take a listen and continue your discovery journey! We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcription: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;27;27 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS Chief Information Security Officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;03 - 00;00;42;04 How do we know what questions to ask? What happens when you feel like asking but don't? There's a lot going on in today's world where we either have too much information or the feeling of not enough time. Sometimes both. Where do we begin to understand how we fit into a situation and take away more than what we start with?

00;00;42;08 - 00;01;00;09 Asking the right question includes a lot of understanding about yourself. Your needs, the needs of others, and many more considerations. And it's best to bet on yourself to know how to ask the right question at the right time. This episode touches on several places to start, so take a listen and continue your discovery journey. We have all we need to become the person we want to be.

00;01;00;10 - 00;01;19;24 So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn Good morning, David. How's it going?

00;01;20;17 - 00;01;32;22 Great, Chris. You know, I'm always looking forward kicking off Monday morning when we record these. You know, after the weekends, this is a top priority. That's why it's, you know, exciting to be part of this podcast community.

00;01;33;10 - 00;02;16;27 Yeah, no, you're right. It is You know, some some would say that Mondays is probably the most active depending on how you set up your time. But, you know, for everybody out there, we usually kick this off when David and I are speaking early in the week, early in the morning, fresh mindset, clear thinking, and hopefully it just paves the way for the solid 40 something minutes to talk about some things that are either introducing what we had talked about before, but not in too much depth or, you know, we've now just had something transition from something we had mentioned before and you know, we think it's a good idea to dove into some of that

00;02;16;27 - 00;02;49;22 So in the past, we've talked about visibility, you know, making yourself visible to others based off of your performance in your activities. Or others can see it good, bad or indifferent. It all culminates into building and establishing credibility in the things that you're responsible for. But extend your opportunity to network. Of course, now that more people can see what value you provide, you're able to you know, provide the details in a way that they can make it relevant to the needs for whatever they're trying to achieve.

00;02;50;18 - 00;03;20;23 And then we talked about communication, and there's levels to that right? There's the verbal, non-verbal, but being effective and how you communicate these things as as you know, when we're writing certain things down, you know, a misplaced word and context of a structured, you know, you can have a definite different meaning than what was intended. And so we want to make sure that we're able to articulate things in a way that's making it relevant to the perception or the potential perception that one might take on where you stand within their circle.

00;03;20;29 - 00;03;24;23 And so today, we'll talk about asking the right questions.

00;03;25;08 - 00;03;46;22 That's right, Chris. And certainly we're going to ask lots of questions here and kind of push the envelope, you know, and some people may asking, why in the world do we try to target, you know, 45 minutes or so for this podcast, right. Well, the answer is everybody, let's be open, honest, is that because we're all runners, right? And we want to listen to a podcast that takes about 45 minutes because that's how fast we all run our ten ks, isn't it?

00;03;47;21 - 00;03;48;00 Yes.

00;03;49;06 - 00;03;55;24 Yes, yes. I will say until you actually challenge me to where I have to demonstrate whether or not going to do it that way.

00;03;56;06 - 00;04;01;13 Yeah, we're going to roll, Chris, and so we're going to push this year. Let's see if we can do a 25 minute ten K sound good.

00;04;02;02 - 00;04;28;24 Let's do it. I might be limping along there for the last part of it, but that's all right. Don't quit. Yeah. So asking the right questions, I think you would. Situational awareness. You're kind of, you're, you're not kind of you're sitting around in, in a moment and observing and then you're trying to find probably the spots that you can pick to either add value or, you know, obtain more information through some method.

00;04;28;24 - 00;04;41;19 Right. And so asking questions, of course, is is one of the ways to do that. Of course, if you sit and listen more, you probably, you know, learn more than you anticipated. But, you know, finding the right time to ask a question, I think David is probably where we should start. Right?

00;04;42;01 - 00;05;02;02 I absolutely you know, and I think it's like everything that I think is we should always be thinking about like, you know, the book Atomic Habits, right? You actually want to build a habit of always asking questions, you know, is like every day, every hour, maybe not every day, every week. You know, with things like with your managers, your peers, your organization.

00;05;02;02 - 00;05;22;16 Right. You should be thinking about. All right. Have I ask any questions today? And it's not about, you know, to play a game. It's more of that. Hey, am I delivering the right results today? Right. Am I meeting expectations today? Is my focus on the right priorities today? Right. It sounds simple in a sound sometimes not necessary, but it's it's a great mindset.

00;05;22;16 - 00;05;24;20 And so I got to build that habit with everybody.

00;05;25;04 - 00;05;49;24 You know, and this wasn't planned. But you'd mentioned the book and what's funny is this last weekend, I had I had gone away for a couple of days off grid disconnected. No, no cell reception. So it was forced. But also a convenient way to not be tempted because you just even if you wanted to connect, you couldn't. There was a book who's in a cabin there was that book.

00;05;49;26 - 00;06;07;17 It was one of the three books in the house, in the cabin. That was one that was sitting on there. And I didn't pick it up, but my eyes gravitated towards it. And you just mentioned it. So let's let's kick this around a little bit, you know, because you mentioned about asking asking questions at certain times and, you know, the philosophical approach.

00;06;07;17 - 00;06;29;15 And am I doing enough for my doing the right things and things like that? Well, maybe we kick this thing off and say, well, how do you get to that part? Right. And I believe that if you're immersed into a situation where there's intensity, pressure, stress, maybe you're not thinking as clearly as you as you could or should unless you've conditioned yourself to where you introduced it.

00;06;29;15 - 00;06;47;07 And we've talked about it before. You've conditioned yourself to have the right mindset. Right, and you become resilient in that way to know that in in in sometimes high pressure situations, I'm able to think about what's necessary for for me to be valuable in that moment.

00;06;49;10 - 00;07;13;10 That weekend, this last weekend was an opportunity for me to be able to clear, clear the room, if you will, of congestion. Right. Or you know, just high volume or high amount of activity that had me, you know, probably not prioritizing things the right way or following a path that I could make sense of the right questions to be asking at this point, given the situation I'm in.

00;07;14;09 - 00;07;23;19 What are your thoughts on how do you get to the part of understanding whether or not you need to do something different related to questions?

00;07;24;20 - 00;07;49;08 Well, let's go back again to the atomic habits like I could I'll say something that, okay, if you have a family, right, I see a significant other. You know, sometimes you'd ask the question to your significant other, like, am I doing the right things for our our marriage right now? Yes. Your kids and my I am I being a good dad or mom, you know, to the two to you right now, you guys asked your mentors or friends.

00;07;49;08 - 00;08;05;17 It's like, you know, how am I doing right now? What's your perception in sounds like, why in the world would you ask these questions? But if you take a step back right now, you know, I love to hear what your feedback process is like. Would you not want to know exactly what they're thinking when you ask your kids?

00;08;05;17 - 00;08;24;26 Like my being a good dad, your your significant other is like my being a good partner right now or your friends, like, what's your perception of me, you know, and in some ways they may be a really excited or even surprised that you're asking, but when you want to know exactly what they're thinking when you ask that question.

00;08;26;01 - 00;08;42;24 Yeah. And I have jokes in my head, if I'm asking my kids, Am I being a good dad to you? And then be like, No, because you've got to give me money, you know? So yeah, everybody wins on that one. I guess I got my feedback and they maybe get some cash it, you know, you said it the feedback, right?

00;08;42;24 - 00;09;03;07 So another, another scenario which my thoughts will include is, you know, recently if somebody is coming to you that doesn't normally come to you and they're and they're, you know, it could be a manager, somebody, some position of influence authority that matters less. But you're not used to the answering questions in a way that they aren't. So they ask.

00;09;03;11 - 00;09;21;19 So like different levels of questioning right. So, you know, you being a senior vice president, probably high level, you have an enormous amount of knowledge in the details of something wherever in the topic that you have because you've conditioned your mindset to understand that stuff. You know, it it's your it's your thing. Whereas maybe I don't because I'm not I'm not at that level.

00;09;21;19 - 00;09;38;10 I'm not exposed to it on a regular basis to think that way. So I'm a little bit more in the weeds and whatnot. So if you ask me a question that I'm not used to hearing, I may not answer it accurately, especially if it's over Slack or text or something like that written. Then I, I may answer it.

00;09;38;10 - 00;10;10;29 And then you walk away thinking a certain kind of way about my answer where it wasn't wasn't complete. I have learned in that sense to where there's some people out there that hear things and they answer a question, but they don't understand the context or the spirit or the essence of the question to be able to follow up and be mindful of the things that I'm taking the long way around to answer your your or respond to your your statement is the selfless thought that goes into wanting to know, did I answer your question?

00;10;11;05 - 00;10;28;24 Am I serving you in the way that you expect? Am I delivering the things that are of value to you? And I think if we learned to become habitual in responding to people when they ask a question you say something along the lines of and you can make it your own. Does that into your question? Was that helpful?

00;10;29;27 - 00;10;33;28 You know, that way you can kind of calibrate whether or not you did answer it.

00;10;34;17 - 00;10;51;29 I think it's a very important point, Chris, just like is that when you're asking questions, you get an answer, or if you're giving an answer to some ask you questions it's the follow up questions. There's sometimes even more important. Right. I think you just said, is that did that answer what you were looking for is did I provide you in that the right direction?

00;10;51;29 - 00;11;15;21 Getting that clarity right? That's a big part of communication. Likewise, I think when sometimes you let's say you ask your manager or a peer saying, hey, am I doing the right things for the team? No, no, you're wasting everyone's time or you're focused on the wrong things. Now, sometimes people immediately will be defensive, right? And say, oh, hang on, the most important point is saying, oh, I'd like to understand that more.

00;11;15;22 - 00;11;42;17 Speaker 2 Right. You then asked them an additional question to get the more context so you can reflect and internalizing on it. And that's the most important thing because it's there especially you now open up the door that's a positive door, a getting a a wealth of information and feedback loops in and it's a safe place to do so. You know, I know I said a million times, especially on this topic, is that whenever you get feedback you always have one answer.

00;11;43;01 - 00;11;58;06 Thank you for the feedback. You never be defensive on it. If you ever respond, it's more of like can it's about asking more questions to get more feedback in a safe way because then that you never, ever, ever want to close that door because that means you're shutting the door on your career.

00;11;59;18 - 00;12;23;24 Yeah, there's missed opportunities. I mean that there's the can we open it up? So the missed opportunity, I mean, the engagement through dialog I think is kind of a, for me, a simplistic way to approach it, right? If if relationships are key to the things that we are trying to achieve right? Because we never do it alone. We may think that that's not accurate.

00;12;24;18 - 00;12;55;11 If relationships are key to the things that we're trying to achieve, the kind of the base premise right? The the fundamentals of the foundation of that comes through the dialog where we learn more about the types of individuals that we're engaging with. And I think you just nailed it is one, the candor which you've talked about before is all is all most of us need is because if everything's good in our head, then we don't really grow because we're not being challenged.

00;12;55;11 - 00;13;14;25 You know, it's all perceptions virtual virtually, depending upon how you perceive things in the timing of things. But if the dialog isn't occurring where it's it's inconsistent of just facts, right? It's just we're just talking and I'm sharing with you based off of our, our relationship and the value that we provide each other in the roles that we're in.

00;13;15;03 - 00;13;25;00 I'm giving you information so we can together continue this to grow this relationship and then be able to, you know, how do you say drive towards common goals?

00;13;26;10 - 00;13;30;20 Yes. You know, common goals, shared goals, shared outcomes, Absolutely.

00;13;31;18 - 00;13;51;00 Yeah. So it's the you know, like you said, is, you know, taking the information in for what it is, you know, avoiding the temptation to be take it personally. I was going to say not be emotional about it. Maybe you should be emotional about it. Maybe maybe you should be upset that somebody is coming to you and sharing with you.

00;13;51;02 - 00;14;08;24 Now, delivery is also the thing. I want to I want to be clear here, right? So you have to be we learned this in the military, but, you know, anywhere you learn this tact is important, right? How you deliver it. It's not necessarily sometimes what you say, it's how you say it that carries the impact, too. So but even then, we can dissect that and say, well, that's all relative perception.

00;14;08;24 - 00;14;24;09 Based off of the person you're speaking with, how they feel at the moment, maybe the lens they have, maybe they are in a you know, not in a great mood. And then, you know, some you could say the same thing twice and it be interpreted differently each time. But depending on the mood of the individual, you're saying it, too.

00;14;24;09 - 00;14;37;12 But I think I think you're right. It's it's a matter of understanding the timing of everything that we share with each other and the information we share has got to be relevant. And you had to be able to tie it to something that's important to what you're trying to do together.

00;14;38;17 - 00;15;02;03 I think you brought up a really important point, Chris. It's they it's not just about tact. Right. And I think as we learn, it's about IQ right here, the emotional quotient. And I'm going to put that one down me. That's why we have a future podcast, right? Because you may be as factually correct and accurate as possible, but if you don't have your IQ in line, right by the the the communication flow, the result can be very, very negative.

00;15;02;03 - 00;15;04;24 So I'm going to see that on our list here for that for the future.

00;15;05;06 - 00;15;06;05 I wrote it down.

00;15;06;20 - 00;15;26;07 You know, with that said, you know, I think that there's also a little bit of the time and place of when to ask questions, right? So just like, you know, the IQ being in a safe place is that you really want to understand the and think about the context, the situation that you're in, right? Is that asking questions at the wrong time, right?

00;15;26;07 - 00;15;50;13 Can be create the wrong perceptions and things like that. And you always make sure there's a a safe place. Right. It also likewise is that knowing you know, you may get, you know, not the you may get feedback that may be painful. Right. So for example, one of my favorite things I told many mentors is that once a month, you should ask your manager, you know, what's the one thing that you're doing wrong, right?

00;15;50;14 - 00;16;06;06 What's the most painful, you know, failure, right? And you want to do it safe. That your manager gets to emotion that into a position that they're very comfortable sharing with you because you want to know the things that are the back of their mind that they're holding back. They know it's going to be painful they don't want to share it because we're human.

00;16;07;00 - 00;16;23;26 So certainly don't do this on a Friday, you know, because in a Friday, it's like, yeah, the weekend's going to be kind of miserable for you. Right? You know, the idea is like maybe doing a Monday or Tuesday. So that night you're going to go home, not feel so good, but you're going to get through it. Right. Versus dwelling on it.

00;16;23;26 - 00;16;35;07 Over the weekend. But once you get used to it, you also want to do it. You want to continue doing it, but you're going can be ready for it. So it's about planning when you perform things.

00;16;35;28 - 00;16;54;06 Yeah, it's a good point. The you know, this is classic. So time time is is a factor in everything that we're doing, right? I mean, that's I think everybody understands that if you have time for it, you try to bring it up. But here's a common thing that I've noticed. You know, maybe you've you're in a you're in a conversation with somebody like, oh, I have to go like, wait one more question.

00;16;54;06 - 00;17;16;20 And it's it's the big question that probably should have been asked earlier. But you drop it when somebody has already said that they're in a rush, in a hurry, needing to now, you know, leave the leave the conversation and then you give them this this deep question that significant in everything that's happening. And like you on the Friday, what you're saying on a Friday is, you know, sometimes you don't want to do that for whatever reason.

00;17;17;12 - 00;17;48;26 I think it's a matter of that IQ that you're talking about. The the situational awareness and we've experienced this where if under pressure the timing of it is to say, hey, we got we have to go. We have to execute well. If that's the case, then recognize read the room to recognize, you know, is this a question that I need to know the answer based on the severity of the time of where we're in at the moment, or is this something that we just table and we can learn after?

00;17;49;05 - 00;18;13;17 Or I can ask somebody else. And I think that's what it all it's an infinite loop that comes back to the individual and understanding if you're not contributing at the right level where you bring in value that's par with the team that you're in or the group that you're in, then it's probably better safe than sorry to hold the question and take it offline instead of consuming time with everybody else around.

00;18;13;28 - 00;18;27;15 That is probably already on the table. Now we can go back and pass it back to you, but you go back and say, Well, maybe everybody's thinking the same thing and nobody's asking it. And then now that important question doesn't get asked. That's a tough one.

00;18;27;26 - 00;18;40;23 Actually. I think you raise some great points here about is the timing of like in the audience when it's a one on one audience. For a larger audience, there's the times of things that you'd say that now I need to ask a question because there's an elephant in the room and no one's raising it, and that's the right thing to do.

00;18;41;03 - 00;19;05;17 There's other times that they're everyone's maybe afraid to ask the question and you need to step up and lead through that. There's also other times that you need be careful that you may have an issue with one person. You may have an issue with, you know, one thing, that thing of sometimes asking the wrong question at the wrong time can derail everything and be very damaging in saying that you may want to choose to take it offline or go to individual.

00;19;06;09 - 00;19;21;24 And so to be very careful and thinking through that. Right, is that whose impact would be the question, is it everyone in a positive or negative way or is it just one person? And being very strategic and thoughtful on that is equally important yeah.

00;19;22;08 - 00;19;44;26 Yeah. And actually just kind of rolling my eyes, looking for a way to explain it. If you're really dialed in to the room where there's multiple people or maybe it's just one, you know, that you you probably see the right person to ask the question. So maybe it's not necessarily to everybody, but then you've already identified that this person is demonstrated to be skilled in this area.

00;19;45;17 - 00;20;06;02 Let me not consume time from everybody else to ask the question that's probably most relevant to only that one person that I'm able to now be aware of, because historically we've learned that these, you know, these positions that we're in and roles that we're in, you know, we know who to go to. And we can we can target the question specifically being more efficient.

00;20;06;02 - 00;20;21;00 But that's the work that we're talking about, is to be able to share the information, to know who's bringing the value in particular areas. This is what we're talking about. You're developing a group of people around you to know who to go to for very specific things to optimize time.

00;20;21;03 - 00;20;46;09 Yeah, absolutely. Now, let's take it to the next level is thinking about best practices. And sometimes that that there's a topic, whether it's a meeting with others or topic with, you know, with a manager or a peer. And you need to ask a hard question or exploratory. Well, sometimes you want to be do it in advance and saying, hey, for the meeting later in the week, here's the questions I'm going to ask.

00;20;46;13 - 00;21;04;11 Right. Or here's the questions here's the things that I'm looking for feedback on, or here's the things that I'm concerned about, or here's things I need clarity on in how you can do the, you know, the prep work. I love I'm a big fan of pre read, right? When you're helping everybody understand is what's going to come up, they can be ready for it.

00;21;04;12 - 00;21;29;02 They can be they can think through it. They can, you know, be thoughtful about it versus being a surprise right now. We all admit that sometimes that is the right tactic to surprise someone when things are going wrong. But think about it. You know, what is going to be a tactical hit? You know what's going to be a strategic, you know, motion and the timing is is critical planning.

00;21;30;02 - 00;21;47;25 That's another one that we talk about planning, right? So you're if you know, you're going to a conference, it's a mindset you've talked about it. But drilling down into that, if you know you're going somewhere, you know you're going on a trip, you can travel you want on a plane, taking a road trip, going to a conference, you plan you prepare.

00;21;48;10 - 00;22;06;23 That level of preparation is to get you to be more present wherever you're going as much as possible. To know that where you are is what's relevant to what should be on your mind. But you've prepared for it no different in planning a conversation. And I think that's probably what some people I don't know how many I don't know.

00;22;07;10 - 00;22;24;23 Some people don't consider that and they wait until the meeting to introduce something. So they create an agenda or they say, hey, I want to talk to you next week, let me know what's good and then leave it at that with the common question that comes back. But some people just probably have become accustomed to receiving it that way.

00;22;25;01 - 00;22;46;13 There isn't a follow up. Say Hey, great. Yeah, I can try to find time. What is it that we want to talk about? You can fire that question off and help somebody grow around you to be better prepared by planting the information early on what the general topics would include. So we have more meaningful depth and substance in the conversation when we get to that part yeah.

00;22;46;14 - 00;23;01;03 Chris, I can't resist commenting on this one. It's like one of my personal pet peeves is people that as you didn't become a manager, an organization, you know, over time, if you're like, Oh, David, I want to have a one on one with you. And I'm like, all right, what's the agenda? What questions you want to ask, right?

00;23;01;13 - 00;23;18;14 Is like, I don't want to meet unless I know what's upcoming is like, am I the right person? Is can I be prepped on the questions? Are we going to be surprised on it? Right. And I think that is it's a my personal pet peeve. But I also, I think in being a better leader, being a better person is kind of like, all right, here's the agenda.

00;23;18;14 - 00;23;29;27 Here's the questions I'm going to ask so that it can be the most productive, you know, in optimized conversation versus being surprised and then it's like great questions. I need to follow up on that because I got to go look into it.

00;23;30;17 - 00;23;50;26 Right. Which delays. Yeah. And, you know, the selfish thing and I'll say that with love in my heart, the selfish thing is to think that if it happens to you, you won't feel the same way, right? If somebody comes in and drops something last minute on you, you know, it's happened to us before. It was like, why didn't you tell me earlier?

00;23;51;04 - 00;24;18;23 Or Why didn't you let me know? Or I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I mean, we're digging deep on this one because some people probably won't even be able to have our, say, courage or confidence might be a better word. I don't know. To be able to say because it's we're all based. Right. You know, David, senior vice president, you know, chief information security, these titles that might interfere with my ability where David comes to me, ask me a question that I don't really have an answer for.

00;24;18;23 - 00;24;36;24 So instead of saying it's a good question, David, I'm going to need a day to probably go back and try to find some of those answers. Instead, I'll feel compelled to accommodate the question because of the pressure I put on myself on who is in front of me. And it's my own thing. And I'm like, hmm, And now I might be reaching for the answers, right?

00;24;36;24 - 00;25;00;26 So I think I think these things that we're talking about here is, you know, we're scraping the surface on scenarios that should introduce to anybody that's caring to hear it all the opportunities to where you can simply optimize time and be courteous to others by asking questions up front but that takes preparation, which you have to have clarity, which you have to know yourself on.

00;25;01;02 - 00;25;07;06 What will it take for me to have these elements to be optimal, invaluable in other people's goals?

00;25;07;24 - 00;25;25;17 Absolutely. And Chris, it doesn't matter of what the levels are for the people, you know, the hierarchy's things like that. You know, tomorrow, Chris, if you get a you get a message saying, Chris, I want to have a one on one with you tomorrow for some urgent issues. How do you feel about that ambiguity? Right. Am I the right person you know, can I be prepped for this?

00;25;25;17 - 00;25;34;26 Right. You know, and this person would join with me. Who cares, right? You want to be ready for it. And it's really then you say no one on one because I want to know what the questions are.

00;25;35;22 - 00;25;52;24 Yeah, it's not fair. And that goes back to the core asking the right questions. So it's like, okay, great. Got it. Can you give me the top three things just real quick? I know you have to go consider it. Right? I'm acknowledging compassion and empathy. I'm saying, well, the person's probably benefit doubt. Probably too busy to give me the details.

00;25;52;24 - 00;26;17;28 And in their mind, is just doing me. They think they're doing me a favor by saying, hey, it's it's important. But now my mind's especially on Friday, my mind's world wending around the infinite loop of the abyss of what it could be. And to them, again, it's it's relative to perception. To them, it's urgent. To me, it's like, oh, I wish you had told me that in the beginning, because that simple I could slack or text you or simply respond immediately because I know the answer.

00;26;18;25 - 00;26;35;00 Correct? Yeah. Or it's a Friday. A Friday afternoon. Chris, an urgent to talk to you about. And like, I got to wait 8 hours to find out about this. You know, I was going to take off a weekend, right? Yeah. And I think that's sometimes when you play it back to people like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's quite reasonable. I should have offer that to you.

00;26;35;01 - 00;26;35;09 Right?

00;26;35;21 - 00;27;02;21 It's fair, right? To be fair, you know, and that's, that's being inclusive, that's being respectful, that's being mindful, it's being you know, the type of professional that, you know, most people would love to have. Some people don't recognize that it's a possibility because not everybody's doing it because well, a bunch of reasons, but maybe just people aren't aware or they're not cognizant of how they're they're giving the impression to others.

00;27;02;21 - 00;27;27;07 Of what they're doing. Maybe maybe nobody slow them down to say, here's what you said. Here's the one thing that you can improve on. I've noticed this last week. Right. But if you don't ask that now, you've put it on somebody else to to, you know, overflow their tolerance levels, if you will, and then feel compelled to say it through probably a higher level of emotion versus a baseline of just simple conversation.

00;27;27;23 - 00;27;50;27 Absolutely. And I think that the thing is, you know, coming back to the fundamentals here, is is we talked many times of things about, you know, listening. Sometimes, you know, the best listeners, the best leaders are the people that ask questions. Right. And it's not a challenge. Right. It's to understand. And sometimes by asking questions, people can really feel right that you care, that you're understanding.

00;27;50;27 - 00;28;12;00 Right. You're you're that you are listening. Right? Because if you ask questions versus, you know, like, now I'm just talking to you, you're nodding your head like, are you really listening to me, Chris? Right. But like but if you start asking me questions like, oh, you were listening to me, oh, you do care, right? You do understand. It's amazing how powerful just asking a few questions can be in communication.

00;28;12;16 - 00;28;45;07 I'm not my head because immediately said something that had me think of a friend of mine who introduced something that when when he and I talk, he wasn't asking the right questions right. And he'd gone through a pretty significant career and being successful at it. He's humble enough. He probably won't admit that. But when he when somebody in my mind that I hold in high regard says it not asking the right questions, I'm like, how do you how did you achieve everything that you did and not ask the right questions?

00;28;45;19 - 00;29;08;21 But so I was immediately I was listening and listening to talk a little bit because I wanted to share that. But you're right. The you know, the communication, that's another element that you factor in. And what's your what's your observing that should spark if you're in the moment, you should spark that should spark you now to realize something because you're recognizing that it's different than what you had seen in the last couple of minutes.

00;29;08;21 - 00;29;28;23 And it's initiating another desire to learn. And that's the point. I think we all get that you ask questions to learn. Some of the problem is, you know, some of us have some pride and ego or we don't feel like we can or should from the people that we're around at the moment. And so we don't. Right. And that's probably your most vulnerable moment.

00;29;29;12 - 00;29;48;17 Yeah. I'm coming back to the point is, you know, Chris, I think that you think about times that we're doing a review or presentation to one of our leaders, executives, others right. And do you like it the most when they just they nod, they quiet for an hour and they say, all right, thanks, everybody. See you soon. Okay.

00;29;48;17 - 00;30;11;02 Do they get it? Do they really like it? You know, feedback versus throughout the question, you know, throughout the presentation or review, they're like they're asking some questions, some thoughtful question, and they understand it. Oh, yeah. They they clearly we're on the same page. Oh, oh, no. We're we're off track here. We ask just sometimes just asking a few questions, even if it's that they're totally aligned, they're totally on the same page.

00;30;11;02 - 00;30;26;16 They're totally going to approve everything. A few questions gives us that validation, right? And that sometimes is very important to us as leaders. So thinking about or just anyone, right? Is how are you coming, you know, communicating back, ask a few questions. You've conveyed a very clear message back.

00;30;27;09 - 00;30;50;13 Yeah. So let's let's tinker with the. Well, let me go back and I just did what you just said. I teach back in a conversation. It's a classroom setting sometimes that where you've seen it, right? Where the you know, we we show, we tell, we show. And then they demonstrate understanding something that we're familiar with. Right. That's sort of times training and all that stuff.

00;30;50;13 - 00;31;13;06 When we go out there in the field and learn something or not, depending on who you are, but the idea, though, is, you know, you're acknowledging through, you know, repeating what was just discussed like. No, it's a good point, David. You know, it's it's when people don't demonstrate that they've confirmed or, you know, through some method confirm that they've heard what you just said before you move on.

00;31;13;06 - 00;31;32;24 I was just did that. And the intent is to be curious about it enough to where you don't have to think about that. Right. And I think that comes through putting the reps in and rehearsing on how to just a good news you heard all the time he's you know the person she's a great conversationalist. You know, she really listens.

00;31;33;06 - 00;31;57;25 And I really feel like there's substance in the conversations that we're having because before you move on to a subject, you want to make sure that it's complete. Right. And that comes through just the thing that we just talked about. You know, somebody says something and you respond. It's how you respond that kind of motivates or incentivizes somebody wanted to continue because if it's empty and like what you said in your example, you know, they just said, okay, that's great.

00;31;57;25 - 00;32;17;18 And any other questions, everybody? Yeah, you don't feel heard, which probably is another episode, you know, how do you feel heard or how can you you know what? I don't know. Doesn't matter. But yeah, I think I think it's a it's a point to where, you know, reciprocating the the you got to close beginning, middle end the story.

00;32;17;22 - 00;32;25;28 The beginning is what's the question? The middle is the conversation. And the end is the summary of what we just talked about in some brief form, depending on the level of conversation.

00;32;26;26 - 00;32;44;29 Yeah. Spin on. I think that's a great summary, Chris. I think the I think that, you know, the real question, I think at the end here, no, pun intended to. Right. Is like how do we get everyone, you know, to build the habit of asking lots of questions, right. You know, and I'll say if you're having everybody, you know, pick up the book, you know, comic habits, right?

00;32;44;29 - 00;32;52;03 An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. And if you haven't read the book, Chris, have you read that book yet?

00;32;52;21 - 00;33;04;05 No, I don't. I I have I have a lot of books. I read some of them, but rarely do I read all of them all the way through. So but I have it and I've dabbled yes.

00;33;04;22 - 00;33;13;12 Yeah. So, Chris, we we have to we have to build the habit of you reading all the book recommendations we make on this this podcast. Yeah. And that's not a question. It's a statement.

00;33;14;09 - 00;33;51;09 It's a fact. Right. So you're right. Yeah. I mean, it's I think the funny thing is there if I were to kind of pull that as an analogy or kind of metaphorically speaking, I'd probably analogy an example is that's indicative of conversation, right? Where you pick your spots level of interest and then that probably either excites you about asking more questions because it's something that you're connected to and your, your, you know, it's important and so you do that or if it's not that compelling for you, that probably drives your interest level too, where you don't answer the question or you don't read the whole book.

00;33;51;09 - 00;34;14;02 You know, you're looking for something that you want and then you leave, right? So whether it's conversation or relationship or book or what have you and maybe that's the things that we can consider to say it's it's never about you, really. It's always about others. And so what you're wanting to do is a goal is maybe to carry that mindset into, say, how can I serve you better?

00;34;15;14 - 00;34;15;29 Well, what?

00;34;17;11 - 00;34;22;24 All right. Good stuff, David. It's always a pleasure. Any closing comments.

00;34;23;19 - 00;34;43;17 In closing comment is I say to everyone is that starting tomorrow, start asking yourself questions. I start asking your managers questions, start asking your peers questions. Right. And you know, we're looking forward to the next podcast, too. And we're going to ask everybody at the beginning, you know, what questions have you asked yourself today before kicking off the episode?

00;34;44;16 - 00;34;49;12 I love it. Yeah. Questions. Ask them how anybody keep moving forward,

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We don’t need to know what’s going on 100% of the time, but 100% of the time we need to know what’s going on. Why and when do we let others know about what we’re doing? In this episode we talk about VISIBILITY and why this topic is important for many people in advancing their careers, being recognized for great impact and performance and also, quite possibly even more importantly, to ensure you are focusing on the right priorities and initiatives. You should expect that not everyone will be able to recognize or see your value unless you have intentionally put yourself out there to be the one people think of when needing help! We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;28;11 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maiden podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS Chief Information Security Officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;15 - 00;00;58;22 We don't need to know what's going on 100% of the time, but 100% of the time we need to know what's going on. Why and when do we let others know about what we're doing? In this episode, we're talking visibility and why this topic is important for many people in advancing their careers, being recognized for great impact and performance, and also quite possibly even more importantly, to ensure you're focusing on the right priorities and initiatives, you should expect that not everyone will be able to recognize or see your value unless you have intentionally put yourself out there to be the one they think of when they need help.

00;00;58;25 - 00;01;17;23 Listen in as we discuss how to be consistent, lead by example, and drive change with both yourself and your organization. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;17;24 - 00;01;26;28 David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn David, good morning.

00;01;27;20 - 00;01;38;04 Morning, Chris. I am so excited to get talking on this topic. Right. And is really making this stand out to everybody because it's about visibility.

00;01;39;01 - 00;01;56;28 Visibility, how to be seen. How do you want to be seen how do you not want to be seen? That's a good one. So this is coming off the heels of our last one where we were talking about networking, and I think close to that was relationship and this one's visibility. So what do you got, David?

00;01;58;04 - 00;02;19;20 You know, Chris, I think there is a lot of people run into this challenge is that you're working your tail off, you're working 80 hours a week. You know, you're getting all these things done, you're closing all these deals, you're delivering all these results. Yet No one, you're not getting rewarded for it. You're not being recognized for it. You're you feel like you're not being compensated for it.

00;02;20;01 - 00;02;26;09 Well, sometimes the root cause of this is you have no visibility. No one knows what in the world you're doing.

00;02;27;27 - 00;02;51;08 That's a fact. I mean, those are the things that you really need to understand as far as why you're doing. It's one thing. Well, first of all, nobody should be doing 80 hours a week, but you got it. Context extra effort, putting in time. What you need to understand is where you're putting the time and how it's driving impact to the greater good, to the business, to the organization.

00;02;51;08 - 00;03;07;04 To the team or what have you. And then making sure that not only do people know about it for updates and the relevance of how it ties back into those goals, those organizational goals. But more importantly, from an individual perspective, how do you acknowledge your performance and how you're contributing?

00;03;08;06 - 00;03;35;19 Absolutely. You know, I think as you think about how many companies like Oracle or Google and many others be used in OKRs, you know, objective objectives and key results. Right. So you say, okay, it's about results as impact Now, if your results and impact are not visible, if they're not clear, if they're not documented, if they're not evangelized, if they're not shared, then how can it really how can it be a measurable result?

00;03;35;25 - 00;03;50;20 How can it be a major impact? Right. And so I think this is sometimes the kind of art and science of sometimes, you know, having great careers and great performance is thinking about not just about what you do, but also how you share it.

00;03;52;04 - 00;04;18;22 It's good Segway. So how you share it. So it's it's it is, of course, what you're doing. It is, of course, why you're doing it. But if you're not letting people know whether they're on the team or not, depends on the relationship, which we talked about, how you're connecting with others on the relevance So if you're working with a virtual team, things that we already know is the best practices, you're going to work with the team and communicate effectively to be able to give the team updates.

00;04;18;29 - 00;04;44;24 Here's what I'm doing Maybe we're talking a little bit about that. Maybe we're more focused on, again, the the way that you're perceived in others and providing the value. And so you can not necessarily get the credit for credit sake, but be acknowledged for the work that you're putting in that's contributing to these factors that eventually lead to some of the things that we're talking about, contributing to those OKRs, contributing to the goals, contributing to the team.

00;04;45;12 - 00;05;02;00 But then when it comes to performance, it comes to performance management It comes to recognition for that performance and in compensatory reasons or promotion periods and things like that, it's, it's, it's all working together so as necessary.

00;05;02;21 - 00;05;22;09 I agree. 100%. And I think sometimes I get stuck with a basic, you know, and best practice is that everything you do should be documented. Right. So I think it's like, let's go back to our military days, right? Everything you perform, right? You you have checklists, you have tasks, you have missions, right? And everything. There is a result and it's documented.

00;05;22;18 - 00;05;42;26 It's not just kind of, you know, past my mouth, right. Or, you know, kind of tribal songs and things like that. You documented it is documented for a reason, a so that people can actually learn from it, you know, be you can measure and evaluate the results and see how people can be recognized, rewarded, you know, acknowledged for great work.

00;05;43;06 - 00;05;50;13 And sometimes it's not just about what others do. It's about how you initiate it. Right. And it becomes part of your practice.

00;05;51;29 - 00;06;17;12 Right. I think that's a that's another key point here. And as basic basic fundamentals I guess, is the way to kind of illustrate the key components, how do you initiate it? One, probably goes down and do a conversation of this is the beginning of a fiscal year, the beginning of a project or beginning of an idea. Hey, I'm thinking about doing this.

00;06;18;06 - 00;06;37;15 What are your thoughts? And you're pulling people in and now you're beginning to pass the ideas back and forth. You're sharing some pads that can be taken for these types of things, and then you're trying to find and identify, well how many resources are going to be necessary for these types of things, how much work is involved, what are the costs?

00;06;38;03 - 00;07;09;28 What are some of the restrictions and some of the elements that or the the variables that we need to consider before we get into that? Because that also is a way that you're being able to express the depth of your thoughts or your skills and your ability to know how to bring in others to help accomplish the goals, which is a factor like today in today's world where there's a lot of hybrid activities in these certain careers, where many years ago it was very niche, very specific.

00;07;09;28 - 00;07;31;19 Now, you know, the workforce is looking for people that have a diverse skill set that contributes in a much broader way for the team or the organization. So initiating how you initiate is part of that disability. It's saying, Well, this person seems to have a good, deeper understanding of our business needs in our business. Let's talk more.

00;07;32;21 - 00;07;51;21 I think, Chris, you bring up a great point is and maybe sometimes the soft skills, right, to a degree. So I think is that, you know, certainly a high tech sector we see this is you can have great technical skills, but you also need to have a soft skills, things like in a communication presentation. But this is things that fall into visibility, right?

00;07;52;01 - 00;08;09;12 You may be the best developer in the world. You may be the best lessee. Machinist, right. You may be the best engineer. Yet, if you don't know how to communicate to these things, you don't know how to share these things. Right. Those are the soft skills. And this is what holds back a lot of people sometimes in their careers, right?

00;08;09;13 - 00;08;30;05 In their performance, you know, in their recognition of the results. You know, those things and this is something that we really want to, you know, courage to think about you. Now, some ways, I think that, you know, I know we have, you know, probably thousands of non veteran military listeners to our podcast. Some people like are David, I don't I don't want to follow your military methods.

00;08;30;05 - 00;08;52;15 We don't have that in our company. But I say, well, where do you start? So sometimes you start with very simple things. Going back to a topic that we've mentioned a few times here, and our podcast is networking, right? You know, never eat lunch alone. Never have coffee alone, right? Yes. Sometimes build your network and show their network on the results if they're not secret and proprietary, you know, you know, to your company.

00;08;52;15 - 00;09;07;12 But like in your network inside your company and broader issue chair, look what we did. You know, look at the results here. Look at this. And the impact right in sharing it. And eventually you can start to build and grow that network and natural recognition and visibility can come from that.

00;09;09;01 - 00;09;34;06 That's a good point. It it it just goes to show how important networking is through the networking. It builds the connections to be able to establish yourself and your maybe your reputation or your skill set precedes you. But everybody understands better about what you're able to offer. And now I mean, I think this is the we're talking about the very beginning phases of visibility is to say, do people want you working with them?

00;09;34;28 - 00;09;56;12 How are you presenting yourself? And some of those things you just thought you just talked about, right? You introduced how you communicate everything begins with communicating, whether it's the written verbal doesn't matter. There's all of these indicators. You're saying, well, this person is giving me the impression that they know what they're doing. They know how to do it.

00;09;56;27 - 00;10;15;09 And that in itself, the work that you're doing is a form of communication, if you will, because now it's going to be word of mouth. And so I think that reputation that's built off of successful accomplishments to include some failures, I mean, we we know that we want to fail because that's the test I'm saying. Is it going to work or not?

00;10;15;21 - 00;10;43;15 We just need to understand how to fail. You know, I think the one thing that we understand most and you just talked about it was civilians or military veteran affiliated communities matters less. The whole idea is, well, when I have these skills, how do I communicate my skills to make them relevant to the topic or to the others that are looking for these type of skills to be included in that team dynamic or in that team discussion is is somebody that we want to be a part of the team.

00;10;44;07 - 00;10;53;28 So I'll park it here. But the transferable skills, how do I communicate what I've done in order to have the proper visibility of what I'm capable of doing and how I'm going to contribute?

00;10;55;08 - 00;11;25;18 Yeah, Chris, to build on a little bit, thinking about it's you know, I'm a big fan of Crawl, Walk, Run, right? You know, and starting things. I feel like, well, this doesn't, you know, culture does not exist in my company. We do. No one else does this well, sometimes I would say lead by example, right? Many companies, whether using Slack or Microsoft teams or KUDO boards and things like that, even though it's not necessarily given yourself kudos, it's maybe in giving others kudos lead by example, start in building that culture.

00;11;25;18 - 00;11;47;19 Right. And you know, many other people saying that, wow, I saw, you know, Jane, Doe doing some great work. I want to recognize and call it out in encouraging others over time. Right. How becomes part of your team and company culture and then it gets easier, easier for people to be visible, easier for them to kind of share in a results, easier for people to be recognized for that.

00;11;47;19 - 00;11;52;07 So I think that's one thing that we always ask and recommend people lead by example.

00;11;54;15 - 00;12;23;06 No, that's that's a great example and that's a great example of how to be seen without putting the spotlight on you. And sharing credit, advocating for others my personal opinion is the proper way. I think at some point we all need to understand that everybody sees what's happening. I don't think there's a lot of people that are fooled or tricked into thinking that somebody else is doing the work.

00;12;23;27 - 00;12;50;25 And the one that actually did it isn't going to get the credit. I think everybody over time is going to be able to see that the ones that did the work are the ones that are probably the most quiet in a humble way. Right? Not necessarily literally quiet, but it's just a matter of understanding that they're you know, they're silently acknowledging that they contributed, but they're more focused on giving the accolades to the team.

00;12;51;08 - 00;13;18;04 That way, everybody else is getting seen as being able to deliver and so I think that there's another part of the visibility component you have to really understand. You know, there's there's self advocating and then there's self when you how would you say it? Self gratifying, maybe, you know, where there's going to be a time and a place where you're going to have to explain your accomplishments in that setting.

00;13;18;04 - 00;13;32;07 It's because somebody is literally assessing whether or not you're going to be able to meet the expectations before they bring you in to start something with them that's not the same as what we're talking about. It's this is becoming now your footprint.

00;13;33;18 - 00;13;50;24 Yeah. Chris, building up on that right is I think there's always way to start things very easy and early, you know, whether regardless of your role, like with your manager, you know, very simple. I've learned this maybe you know, 15, 20 years ago, right? Is like every week you know is that your manager manager may not want it or not.

00;13;50;24 - 00;14;13;01 Right. You say, hey you write three to five bullets, hey, this is what I got done this week. This is what I'm going to do this week. And whether you're managing replies to it cares about it every single week you say, here's what I got done this week. And over time you'd be surprised everyone that of how addicts give that mail, that sort of accomplishments well will become to your manager and sometimes your skip levels and others.

00;14;13;07 - 00;14;34;04 Right. And then you can build upon that. Right? And I can't recommend this even more, you know, to to anyone. It's amazing is that once you build a rhythm, you know, a music beat, if you will, are drum beat, right? People will very quickly become addicted to it, start marching to it, no pun intended. And I can say also building upon a little bit is I've been writing for many people that know me.

00;14;34;04 - 00;14;52;03 I write what's called the weekly dossier you know, the status mail newsletter. No, because people delete those. But I read the dossier, whether anyone reads it or not, I write it. Every company I've been at. Right. And eventually people start to follow and they want to know what's going on, you know, what they accomplish, what the results, what they said, just go read the dossier.

00;14;52;13 - 00;15;02;29 But people amazingly will start marching to your music and your drumbeat when you start it. It won't happen overnight. It won't happen in one week to week, three weeks. It may not happen for a couple of months.

00;15;03;12 - 00;15;13;19 And that is actually an interesting dynamic so it's a matter of understanding. Well, why why would you do that one? I'm assuming you do that because you love to do it, right?

00;15;14;00 - 00;15;32;21 I do it not so much at first. What, Nick? Actually, I'll be open and honest if I go back many years ago, people. What in the world are you doing, David? What are you getting done? What are your team doing right And so I initially I did to solve a problem, right? But over time, you know, I've managed large organizations.

00;15;32;21 - 00;15;50;25 It's about what is your team doing? And so those of us in a cybersecurity, people know that security is always a black box. Right. And no one knows what in the world you guys are doing. Why we're paying you so much. Why do you have so many people? Well, we start doing some things and making it open. People get to you know, are quite thankful for it.

00;15;50;25 - 00;16;14;02 And they recognized, well, why do we have this team So I think it evolved for me over time. But I realized that just like especially, you know, the other point of distributing organizations around the world, hybrid organizations, you know, people working remotely, you've got to overcommunicate. Otherwise, there is no visibility if we're not in the same office. Chris, how in the world do I know what in the world you're doing?

00;16;14;29 - 00;16;50;16 Yep. And that's that's where it intersects because, you know, to do to do something for a personal preference because it's love it it's what you love to do. And then when it becomes sort of depended on, I guess you can say dependent upon now people expected yeah. I guess the challenge would be now it becomes more laborious and there's a temptation now to to have an expectation to where some people if it's not sincerely or organically something they want to do, that consistency begins to fade because now it's an expectation.

00;16;51;08 - 00;17;00;28 But in your experience, David, when you when you when you do that, what do you think is the number one driver for you to continue to write your dossier?

00;17;02;07 - 00;17;20;18 Well, from myself is the fact that more and more people sign up to read it and receive it every week or so. That's an insight in itself. But I'll give you going back to another element, as you mentioned, about, you know, careers, performance, you know, performance review cycles. I go, oh, what in the world did I do this year?

00;17;21;07 - 00;17;40;14 Should I be exceeded should be outstanding, right? Or whatever. What do I write down? Well, you know, if you had a nice little record of a weekly mail that you wrote every week or a couple of bullets every single week of all your accomplishments for the year, it gets really, really easy to write your performance review for the year because you've already documented everything.

00;17;40;18 - 00;17;43;20 Now just cut and paste. Believe it or not, it can be that simple.

00;17;44;20 - 00;18;18;24 Got it. And that's that's what I was going for because it's there's a duality in it. You're it's self-serving, but it's not self centered, right? You're doing it because it's going to provide value down the line and noting, documenting or updating, you know, in whatever form, whether it's writing it in a notebook and then eventually transposing it into digital format or if you're taking notes digitally, all of those things carry into that as an opportunity for us to understand maybe what you're thinking, you know, anybody out there wondering, well, I want to do it, but what's the point?

00;18;18;25 - 00;18;40;09 Well, the point should begin with you. You're doing it for you. And the whole point is it matters less what other people think. The second is, if you're going to do that and then you're going to share it with others, Then what we talked about is you have to be effective with it and then tailor it to the needs of the audience where it provides a perceived value and that value.

00;18;40;10 - 00;19;09;24 David gave a good example in his area of the industry. It's very specific. Security is no joking matter. So you have to make sure that you're still abiding by the facts or the the common issues that will help others understand it while you're doing it for you. And make it relevant. Even though, you know, like David was saying, there's things that sometimes people will read or won't read, but it's there if they need it.

00;19;10;03 - 00;19;27;22 I think that's the key especially when you're putting in the effort and you're working with others. And there is going to be a need at some point to understand what's going on, to be truthful we don't need to know what's going on 100% of the time, but 100% of the time we need to know what's going on, if that makes sense.

00;19;27;22 - 00;19;31;02 We just have to pick our times. And when we're looking for those updates.

00;19;32;07 - 00;19;58;23 You're spot on. Chris, I'd like to bring up another point on, you know, sometimes being visible, you know, kind of documenting things, sharing it is some some people actually may fear this, but it's actually one of the most important things is if you're not visible and you're not sharing it and being public about it, then you often can miss what you may be doing wrong or that you may be working on the wrong things or you may be focused on the wrong priorities.

00;19;59;10 - 00;20;18;28 And when you're overly visible about things, it's really easy to get feedback in people. We will not say, no pun intended, they'll attack it. Right. Those are things you want to know about can you imagine? We've seen people throughout their careers is that, hey, they're working on something for three or six months and then time comes to review cycle or other things.

00;20;19;15 - 00;20;37;20 Chris, why in the world are you working on that? No one wants that. And it's well, well, why don't you tell me? I had no idea that's what you're doing, wasting your time on that. And those are so important, right? It's just like mistakes. You want to be open about it, you want to learn from it, but you want people that are very quickly saying you're focusing on the wrong things.

00;20;37;27 - 00;20;48;13 These are the wrong priorities. Why is your attention not you know, when you're focused on X, you want that invite in by being visible at this, it can be a major asset to you.

00;20;49;09 - 00;21;23;26 That's it. So I couldn't help myself there habits, right? If you're the habits of what you do and that's what people see in that consistency, then it becomes more transparent. It becomes easier for others to understand what what's missing. And so if they if they see that there's constant if there's information that's constantly being put out there, that's giving the opportunity to assess the activity in any relationship.

00;21;23;26 - 00;21;53;15 I don't care if it's family or professional or in matters less. I mean, I don't know how many types of other relationships there would be, but it has it depends on the ability to to to communicate effectively if the visibility is going to be key and how you're going to be viewed, then I think from your example where I couldn't help, it is be the habit that means do it consistently, do it sincerely, and then you'll be seen, right?

00;21;53;16 - 00;22;08;10 This is visibility. You'll be seen as somebody that has the discipline to continue and the willingness to receive input because you're putting the information out there, it appears that you'd be willing to receive information that can help everybody be better.

00;22;09;22 - 00;22;29;13 Absolutely. You know, I think is like I know Chris, you're probably, you know, followers on a number of people on TikTok and Instagram reels and things like that. Right. Well, you're following the people who are pretty consistent with their content, right? You don't you're not the, you know, following people. They're just one, you know, video hits, right? You're following the people are consistent and things you like and you're continue to follow them at the same time.

00;22;29;13 - 00;22;36;08 Those people know when they go off kilter, right? They're going to know very, very quickly and get that feedback. And this is what it's all about.

00;22;37;17 - 00;23;08;29 The personal algorithms, I guess, is the way to say that. It's with that consistency, people know what to expect and I think that's key, right? It becomes a dependency that because of what you're able to provide and you're demonstrating the consistency that allows people to know who to go to. Right. So ultimately, I think we've lost a number of steps here to key in on because we're we're doing a couple of trajectories on the side, what we can do and how we can do it.

00;23;09;23 - 00;23;41;24 But how you're seeing through that dependency that that consistency allows people to when an opportunity comes up, they're going to think of you. And I think that's what we're talking about here is mostly as you're making we call it networking call making connections, you can be socializing. It matters less. The point is when you're connecting with other people, regardless of the reason, hopefully it's sincere and it's less self-serve thing in the sense of it's always in it for you, more so it's in it for you so you can help the team, which is different.

00;23;42;25 - 00;24;07;09 I think the thing that the consider is as you're going through, people understand who their go to is. If it's in a particular area you've developed over the years, that you've become a very specific you know, subject matter expert in these critical areas you'll be thought of. And so if you're project based in a project comes up because not all the projects are the same, but when one does and they think of you, that's the point.

00;24;07;09 - 00;24;37;03 And the way they think of you is through that consistency of being able to be an effective communicator, it's tailoring your information to somebody or anybody. So they have an ability to piece things together over time because it's not the one hit wonder that we're after. It's over time they're able to see these little nuggets and then piece together a little puzzle that says That's the puzzle of somebody that has these skills, these attributes, these elements that I want to be I want to include as a part of the team to help me accomplish what I need to do.

00;24;37;04 - 00;24;55;24 Now, Chris, I'd like to take it to the next level, right? I think about the consistency of the visibility. And, you know, I think from an element of leadership is when you have the visibility, you have the consistency, you have that audience, right? Then you have the opportunity to drive an agenda, to drive a direction, to drive a strategy, right?

00;24;56;00 - 00;25;17;00 Because now you have a natural followers. You have natural listeners. Right. And very carefully. Right. I'm not saying that from a malicious perspective, but like people like you can actually start driving an agenda in a direction and a strategy now because of that, that voice. And so it's just like, you know, singers or music music, you can slightly kind of take things in a slightly different direction.

00;25;17;08 - 00;25;30;11 You can send a message, right? You can push in certain topics, right? And it's amazingly how powerful that can be when you build that visible, consistent, you know, kind of audience and message.

00;25;32;16 - 00;26;11;12 You hear that that was the can you just opened on driving change. So as we sit here and we talk about things through observation that we experience and we want to now influence a different way of doing things, being driving change, change management or anything to influence different outcomes because you've presented yourself in a way where people trust it, they find you to be a dependable contributor, selfless in the sense of wanting to serve the greater good or the greater team, the organizational goals, having a right construct and value systems, they start to trust you if you're able to.

00;26;11;12 - 00;26;43;25 Now, put together the information and have it point towards something that will help deliver even better results through ideas, sharing now you have a seat at the table. You're right. I think this is one of those things that, you know, you're able to truly understand the depth of its power. As you mentioned, and then leverage that not to exploit it, but you want to actually leverage it to be able to help others rally around your ability to see things differently and then now contribute in in bigger ways.

00;26;44;11 - 00;27;05;08 Absolutely. You know, another element of this I maybe should have mentioned earlier is that let's think about some of the great leaders right? You know, in our work thinking about in life and thinking about in the military. Right. And so I know your favorite historical general in the Army was, you know, patent right. Is that do people love leaders that are just completely opaque?

00;27;05;14 - 00;27;24;08 You have no idea how they make decisions. They have no idea what their principles are. You have no idea on what their agenda is. It's pretty hard to do. But when they're very when they're very open, transparent and clear, right on where they're going, what the goals are, how we're going to do things right. People, it's so much easier to follow is so much more motivating and it's so much more productive.

00;27;24;08 - 00;27;29;10 Right. And that's what because they're visible, they're visible, open and they're transparent.

00;27;30;05 - 00;27;57;11 You know, and relevant. And then there's more we can add on to that. But if you're all of those things and in my mind could be a timing thing, but either way, maybe you don't get looked at the same. So let's briefly cover that. So immediate gratification now that we have these these contributing factors, you know, I'm I'm understanding my dynamic, my my environmental dynamic, right where I am, either in the workplace or in the community, it matters less.

00;27;58;13 - 00;28;23;10 I'm learning how to present myself. We talked about personal branding. That's a form of communication. I'm presenting myself to be a valued member of society, of the team, of the organization. I'm communicating effectively. I'm identifying what the leaders within that community needs to see in order to have what they need to be successful in driving mission and moving things forward.

00;28;24;09 - 00;28;46;00 I'm getting better at that. I'm practicing and I'm more consistent now. I want something in return. What are your thoughts on. Well, David, I want it tomorrow. I want it today. If I'm doing all of these things you told me last week and I'm doing it right, I want to get what I'm deserving today. My thoughts on that.

00;28;46;18 - 00;29;06;17 Yeah, great question. And I always like the answer. Back with the question. Right. So it's just kind of going back to a manager, right? He was saying your manager, your script level, your organization saying that instead of seeing a statement like I'm having this amazing impact on the organization or on customers, I always ask the question, is this the most important thing to our customers?

00;29;06;25 - 00;29;28;07 Is this the most impactful project in our entire organization? You know, question mark at the end about? And then basically because you've asked the question, there has to be an answer or someone will drive an answer. No, David, that is, you are worthless. No, David, you're not working on the right things. No, David, you know that's the wrong priorities or it is it is amazing.

00;29;28;07 - 00;29;50;03 Right? So it's getting a little of that visibility and validation. Right. You know, on that. And sometimes but you never assume like, you know, Seinfeld never assume. We'll leave it at that. But the element is you want to validate and sometimes you validate not my making statements by asking questions. And they will devise some answers. And then you can realize, oh, I am working on something important.

00;29;50;03 - 00;30;01;12 I'm going to keep focused on this or no, maybe I'm working on the wrong things and taking the wrong approach. And that's just as important as, you know, driving. You need to get the communication feedback.

00;30;02;05 - 00;30;24;21 To great Segways and can't say that they're closely aligned to the visibility compartment, but I guess maybe they could be. We'll make it that way. Why? Because you and I are driving the narrative in this conversation, so validation the point of that is to make sure that you're on track. We're confirming, you know, hey, here's what I'm seeing of what you're delivering.

00;30;25;04 - 00;30;50;15 I'm observing or you're intentionally providing me this information in my best in the best of my ability, in my position are my view how I play a role in this particular relationship. Here's what I'm saying needs to happen. Great job here. Needs a little bit of work there or something. Else. And then the second thing you say, well, questions, it's more discovery.

00;30;50;24 - 00;31;14;28 Great. Thanks for giving me that information. Here's my question or here are my questions. I think this is probably a separate podcast in itself. How to ask the right question. But if you think about that dialog that's occurring after that, now you're beginning to understand how the relationship element is supposed to work through the visibility characteristic or that action.

00;31;15;13 - 00;31;38;02 You're providing information, you're providing visibility to others on what you're doing, and it's either delivered in the actions or the written form or through word of mouth. At some point, there's follow ups that need to occur because that's going to now get into the depth of what's really needing to happen for it to continue to move forward. Otherwise it becomes stagnant.

00;31;38;02 - 00;31;45;15 Like most things untouched, it becomes stagnant and then it loses its relevancy. Why? Because it's out of the time of when it was relevant.

00;31;45;26 - 00;32;05;18 Yep. I think we always have to ask the hard questions, and I am excited to, you know, that Will, you know, that's probably our next podcast, right? But you know, they validation is that is this having is this having the same expected results between what I think and you think or the team thinks, right? And in asking people that and be open about that and being ready for that feedback.

00;32;05;18 - 00;32;27;07 Right. And I think that is really helps you to know by being visible, helps you to know are you prioritizing properly, are you investing the right way in a way, those type of things. And I think many people don't understand that that's sometimes the most important task they can in being visible is asking questions.

00;32;28;16 - 00;33;02;02 Yeah, I think I think, you know, and maybe in closing here we're going to want to down with some of these these thoughts if you're not driving your visibility for yourself, of course, learning how to do it effectively like we talked about somebody else to do it for you. Right. That's the thing. If you're if you're sincerely and organically putting in the right work the right way, understanding that we aren't perfect and we make mistakes and we fail and you know, some decisions because they're uninformed or for whatever reason, too risky and doesn't land where we wanted it to.

00;33;02;02 - 00;33;29;10 And, you know, we have to pull back and reassess. If you're not going to advocate for yourself to start with, then you have to invest an enormous amount of trust into somebody who will. But then you become dependent on somebody's ability or willingness to be able to do that. And when it doesn't align with the timelines, don't complain because the factor is, is you're not doing enough on your own to be able to push out what people need to see from you so they can see you.

00;33;29;29 - 00;33;50;21 Increase their spot on. And it comes back to the word, I think, not just visibility, but execution. Right. And, you know, it will lead me to, you know, this podcast, you know, book recommendation. Right. You know, to have solid execution. Right. You need a visibility. Right. And execution is really the discipline of getting things done. So, you know, book by, you know, Larry Cassidy and Ram Sharon.

00;33;50;21 - 00;34;11;17 Right. Is that how can you execute on a strategy? How can it execute and mission if you're not visible and don't communicate? It's a spot. That's exactly what's going on here. Right. And so I think that's part of our our mission as part of our responsibility is to be visible. Right. And it's also our opportunity to lead. Right.

00;34;11;17 - 00;34;13;25 By being visible and encouraging others to do the same.

00;34;14;14 - 00;34;41;13 Right. Yeah. And we can unpack that all day. The type of leadership, the styles of leadership the the the type of leadership, informal, formal, everybody is at some point influencing something. So that can be, by a loose definition, a leader right, wrong or indifferent. It's a fact. You just want to you want to be more you want to be geared more towards the right way to do it than just being reckless in how you're making decisions and including people.

00;34;41;13 - 00;35;04;02 Because just because you want it to be something different than the sincerity, right? The role is you're well, we just talked about your influencing others in a way that has them making decision. So if you're doing it the wrong way, it is the wrong way because you're not doing it for the right reasons. And I know I'm being cryptic in that, but not so much.

00;35;04;02 - 00;35;17;03 I think everybody will understand the context of it is you got to put effort into doing things that carry high moral ground and value systems. So it's bringing people together then then eventually leading people apart.

00;35;18;08 - 00;35;34;06 You know, Chris, I think that's a great summary. At the same time, I think people are going to have lots of questions, you know, on, on this area. And I think that's probably should be our next podcast is really what type of questions to ask and how to ask great questions. And I look forward to meeting up and discussing that next.

00;35;34;22 - 00;35;52;15 Likewise. Yeah. It's great to get on these and do these seemingly quick hits, but this wasn't so quick. I mean, we actually we did ramble for quite some time here and I think it was good. I think we got hopefully covered the ground we wanted to. So, David, it's always a pleasure to have you here talking about these things.

00;35;53;11 - 00;35;59;11 Yeah, thanks, Chris. And I really enjoy, you know, getting the feedback from the community as there as our listener base grows.

00;36;00;04 - 00;36;03;25 Yeah. So give us feedback. All righty. One, keep moving forward.

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Why should I invest my time in it? Who is this person and what is expected of me? Communicating for impact is our topic today and we cover the importance of recognizing the things we should focus on to bring value to others. We all may relate to the challenges we face when we’re trying to influence others. As we mentioned in our previous podcast regarding relationships, one of the most important steps we can take is to prepare. Being mindful of our purpose, what we want from each interaction, and what do others need to commit to our requests. Listen in as we cover the basics on steps to consider for becoming an asset to others through communication. We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. David Cross @MrDBCross on X -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;29;01 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS, chief information security officer within Oracle.

00;00;29;07 - 00;00;47;06 Why should I invest my time in it? Who is this person and what is expected of me? Communicating for impact is our topic today, and we cover the importance of recognizing the things we should focus on to bring value to others. We all may relate to the challenges we face when we're trying to influence others. And as we mentioned before in our previous podcast regarding relationships.

00;00;47;10 - 00;01;04;08 One of the most important steps we can take is to prepare. Being mindful of our purpose and what we want from each interaction is to see what others need to commit to our requests. Listen in as we cover the basics on steps to consider for becoming an asset to others through communication, we have all we need to become the person we want to be.

00;01;04;09 - 00;01;23;11 Let's remember how to connect with others when sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn David, what's happening?

00;01;23;28 - 00;01;30;10 Chris, I've been waiting for you because I've no patience when it comes to doing these podcasts, so here we are.

00;01;30;21 - 00;01;45;18 I appreciate your patience. That's actually a form of what we're going to talk about today to say I'm sorry I'm late. You now say something to the end of thank you for your patience. Communicating for impact. That's what we're talking about today.

00;01;46;10 - 00;02;07;01 It's a big topic is very, very important. Right. And certainly one of the things that I've kind of stressed over the years and been one of my my major attributes is right. Is communication right. And going back to my days at Microsoft. Right. They had to think we program the Bill Gates and I spent spend a lot of time on it.

00;02;07;01 - 00;02;26;28 But I actually Bill Big Gates every year we do these things. We papers. In one year, I was awarded one of the top 30 papers of the year to Bill Gates. And what was it about? It was all about success in a distributed teams and the success that I found after my experience working overseas as an expat was it's all about communication.

00;02;27;05 - 00;02;35;09 That is how you can make a team successful. That's how you can be successful. And it's one of the most important things that people forget about, especially even in the high tech industry.

00;02;36;01 - 00;03;03;18 Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's one of those things taken for granted where we often think that one would assume, you know, what I'm talking about, and that's based off of, again, perception based reality PR or PR. I guess is a nice little acronym, but maybe trademark that I think a lot of what plays into that is there's an assumption right out of the gate and we we draw these conclusions based off of those assumptions from some reference.

00;03;04;03 - 00;03;31;12 Right. Were you recalling an experience that you've had to say, I'm speaking with the senior vice president today? I assume he knows what I'm what I'm talking about. So I'll start with X or I'm I'm guessing she's heard what I've what I've come to talk about. So I'll start with, you know, this. And we and we conclude these things and we approach oftentimes approach the situation with that assumption.

00;03;32;05 - 00;03;57;12 And there's a disconnect. I mean, there's often a disconnect because we also have to, you know, introduce these these phrases of, you know, well, let's take a step back. You know, these trendy phrases that people saying, well, if you're getting to that point, it's probably safe to say that you could have done it differently, probably even say you could have done it better if you stop assuming that people in the roles that they're in know what it is that you're trying to achieve.

00;03;58;27 - 00;04;28;23 I think you're spot on. And certainly I think your favorite character in Seinfeld, Kramer, says, like, you never assume, right? I'm not going to draw it on a board. Y you never assume right? But we remember that. And I think it's actually one of the relevant challenges, especially now that we're operating electronically and virtually right you know, working from home, working remotely, email slack teams, those type of things, is that it's easy to assume that your target of communication has the full context that you do.

00;04;29;06 - 00;04;35;04 But that's actually one of the biggest mistakes and risks yeah.

00;04;35;24 - 00;04;52;23 And there's a process. So in the, in that you've mentioned that you have the 30 papers, you, you had one, but can you maybe walk us through some of the things you did to prepare and through through your experiences to be able to kind of narrow down how do you start to think about communicating for impact?

00;04;53;13 - 00;05;19;16 So one of the things I learned about especially distributed teams, certainly here at Oracle and Google, Microsoft, all the company's been at right is we're very distributed. It's we're not one side Right. And a big part of being successful from a leadership perspective, you know, from an engagement perspective, from, you know, from a good operational perspective is about communication and so I go back to my days of high school drama.

00;05;20;12 - 00;05;56;05 It is that, well, you have to announce CAA, take your word and exaggerate your emotions when on the stage now because otherwise people may miss what you're trying to say. But it applies to business as well is so that you actually need to overcommunicate, especially in a distributed world. What I did and I learned many years ago this may be go back and to be, you know, almost like gosh, almost 15 years ago I write a weekly mail.

00;05;56;23 - 00;06;06;10 It's called that weekly dossier. It's not a newsletter. It's not a status mail because what do people do with newsletters and status matters? Chris, what do you do when you see one.

00;06;07;08 - 00;06;08;25 To that have a.

00;06;08;25 - 00;06;09;13 Tendency.

00;06;09;13 - 00;06;10;06 To ignore it?

00;06;10;06 - 00;06;33;09 Yeah, exactly. That's why it's called the dossier. Now, what I do for all my teams is for my team, for other groups that I work with, you know, stakeholders and things like that. I write a weekly mail, same format, same time every Friday I send it out. It's got news, it's got the information, it's got decisions. What the team is doing, it builds this musical rhythm, the drumbeat with everyone.

00;06;33;10 - 00;06;54;02 So they always know what's going on. And people ask, David, What's going on with X? Or Did you make a decision on why? I always have one answer. Did you read the dossier? And then people almost get addicted to this. And it's very, very important, especially in these distributed environments, and how you can build this rhythm and connection using communication that everyone can rely upon.

00;06;54;07 - 00;07;01;11 And it's amazing of the impact that you can have about how effective you can be. And it's all about communication.

00;07;02;17 - 00;07;27;04 It is and even then, right? So it's kind of breaking it down. So credibility, I think, plays a part in that. Right? And so we joked a little bit about newsletter, but maybe not, but if you're receiving something from somebody, you know, it becomes now a value proposition is what I'm receiving from somebody a from somebody that I find to be a value to me and there's levels to that.

00;07;27;04 - 00;08;03;24 And then it's saying, well, if it is a box check. Yep. And you say, well, what is it? Then again, the content now is, you know, you, you associate it the value and say, well, is this something that I'm going to invest in reading? So we talk to you and I talk. The last episode that you and I got together on was about relationships and we and we blew through a bunch of different scenarios that established now a point to where, you know, you individual with other individuals or a group of people have established a certain level of understanding with each other form relationship, the type of relationship matters.

00;08;03;24 - 00;08;35;22 Well, if the type of relationship is allowing you to now find each other to be credible or bringing some value, then you would invest in that. And I think that's part of this other effect of communication is the investment. Do I want to invest time in what is being delivered? So have you ever experienced in anything that you've done, David, where you thought that you had that level of understanding with the relationship to be able to communicate like that and you found it to be different than what you had expected?

00;08;36;11 - 00;09;02;21 Absolutely. I think this is, you know, coming back to our are a note about assuming things, right? Is if you fire off a communication, whether it's verbal or an email, a slack message, those type of things, is that in sometimes when it's virtual or electronic, you're maybe not you may not be receiving the indicators is how you're communicating when is being received right?

00;09;02;29 - 00;09;28;26 Is it being understood? Is it actually being perceived the wrong way? Are you offending someone and this is one of the challenges as well with communication. It's not just about the sending. It's also the receiving and understanding that and this is important that you need to ask is did did I send makes sense. Did is the information I'm providing of value to you?

00;09;30;09 - 00;10;00;15 Is it do you have any feedback? Right. In communication? And I think it's when we're in person, we have the visual clues and other things. It's much easier to understand oh, it's clearly my communication is a value and being received warmly or no, I'm created a problem. And I think that's one of the things you always have to check are in different types of virtual and electronic communication is you may not have that asynchronous or that, you know, the dual, you know, kind of feedback loop yep.

00;10;00;28 - 00;10;32;14 You touched on it, I think, and thanks for introducing that. It's the reading room. So, you know, assumptions, presumptions, and implications, you know, there's some point where we're going to we're going to create a truth for ourselves for whatever reason, in order to make us feel confident and comfortable or to to convince us that there's something else that's needing to shift or pay attention to how we invest in that thought now comes with, you know, being able to understand why, why, why am I doing this?

00;10;32;14 - 00;11;02;16 Why? Well, first of all, why am I communicating? Second is what's my intention or what am I expecting to get out of that communication? And then the next thing is, well, during that communication or that interaction, whether it's the visual, right, whether you're on video or in person, the body language, the environment, you know, there's subtle hints that you can understand based off of being more skilled at recognizing those those alterations in body language and visual aids.

00;11;02;16 - 00;11;28;28 Right. You know, you have to you have to learn what those could indicate. And then then a verbal component to where now like old school stuff where you're on the phone, you can't see anything. You now be connected to the audible component. And the thing about telephony You know, the the roles in which people have live in live in day to day through the phone where they have hundreds of calls a day.

00;11;29;11 - 00;12;08;04 Those are probably the most skilled at being able to recognize how the call is going from that, those putting those reps in to know how am I seeing or how am I hearing something shift and know what to say next. So when when you go through your examples, there's a clear indicator that something didn't go as expected What are some of the elements that now you can incorporate or the skills that you can understand that you either need or maybe emphasize on how to pivot from an expectation when you made that assumption that there was value on the receiving end, but it doesn't appear that it's being received as intended.

00;12;09;00 - 00;12;39;21 Great question. I think one of the things, Chris, is that you're saying being a great communicator means you're a great listener. And I think coming back to your exact point, especially when we don't have the the visual clue sometimes. Right, in just audio. Now, I'll come back to your question in just a moment here. But first, I want to say that coming back to relationships, like you and I know each other very well and we can detect and you know, when there's a change of voice or tone in our voice, because we know it.

00;12;39;21 - 00;12;59;21 Sure. Because we've got a strong relationship. But it's much harder when you don't have a relationship with someone and you don't have visual clues, your only audio. It can be much more difficult. And this is sometimes why people say doing a zoom call or other things, you really want to encourage doing visuals so that you can get to know each other a little bit better because you don't have as much context now coming back to you.

00;12;59;22 - 00;13;18;18 Your other question is being a great communicator. When I say this, being a great listener and this is where questions come into play is if you're if you're expressing you have an unknown audience or an audience you don't have a strong relationship with, or the full context is that you may share information, but then you ask questions right.

00;13;18;18 - 00;13;39;29 And listen, because sometimes you want to say, did did I make sense in what I just said? Does that fact Is that the same fact to your understanding? And you're asking questions and gives you an opportunity to listen, to understand how is the communication being received? Is it coming around with it coming across correctly and those type of things?

00;13;40;26 - 00;14;09;01 You said something right there, the implied self-awareness. So I feel like maybe there's a subset that before you're able to ask the questions, the self-awareness that plays a part, the emotional intelligence that plays a part in recognizing what you're good at. Let's talk a little bit about that really quickly is when who says you're a good communicator? How do you how do you come to realize whether or not you're a good communicator?

00;14;09;26 - 00;14;34;29 Well, you know, it's very thought provoking. I think we in some ways you're a good communicator saying that is then that is when you have lots of listeners and lots of people asking for you to communicate. In some ways, I could say that. Well, I must be doing something. Okay. If I'm having, you know, lots of people sign up to receive my dossier because it's an opt in if no one is signing up to receive it.

00;14;35;00 - 00;14;48;02 And then I'm like, hmm, my communication, it may be faulty or had zero value or doing something wrong. And then you can ask those type of questions So that's very Thought-Provoking, Chris.

00;14;49;00 - 00;15;18;10 Well, thank you. I think it comes from what what you now just again, you're leading us down the path, right? So it goes maybe as Sekulic comes back to who's invested in listening, who is coming to you for help, who is coming to you to ask this questions? Who's coming to you to engage? And if if you can now do a risk assessment and then realize at some point there's got to be some switch that flip to say no.

00;15;18;12 - 00;15;42;06 Maybe a common reality. Right. Somebody might resonate with this. I do it. I mean, it resonates with me because oftentimes I'll reflect and say, hey, I think I'm underutilized or hey, I think I'm not being X, you know, whatever I'm realizing that there's something that isn't making me as busy as maybe I should be or as I think I should be.

00;15;42;22 - 00;16;06;03 I think that's the catalyst to understand. Well, is it a meeting or is it a something else thing? Because the questions that you're saying once you've know, say, graduated to that point to understand that there's questions needing to be asked. I think you have to ask those to yourself first and then you can now qualify yourself to go out and seek understanding.

00;16;07;03 - 00;16;28;13 You know, what is it exactly that I'm trying to get from the things that exist or don't exist? You know, what's the effect of my communication method? What's the effect of my message? All those types of things. And then asking the right questions. So no sidetrack from from the path you were taking us. But how do you how do you come to learn the right questions to ask?

00;16;28;26 - 00;16;30;05 You know, you gave some examples.

00;16;31;03 - 00;16;58;20 You know, the right questions to ask is I think is really about validating or expressing your you know, what you are communicating in a way that people will answer. Right. So in some ways, if you make a statement, right, it's about asking a question about that fact or that information. Right. And that will that really, I would say is false, but it encourages someone to answer saying that.

00;16;59;08 - 00;17;23;01 Does everyone agree that, you know, this this data is correct and that will it will drive. It's like the art of influence that will drive an answer or, you know, and you want to almost you want to state things in a way in a question that that people will want to answer. You know, it's almost trying to be controversial.

00;17;23;01 - 00;17;31;04 Sometimes, right. In that really helps you to draw out that that that feedback that you're looking for. Got it.

00;17;31;09 - 00;17;59;26 So so finding a way and it's I believe that what you're saying is implying that there's an interest. So there's people that are invested to be around each other in order to have the existence you know, without getting overly philosophical is to say you're here. So there seems to be a willingness to be here. So to make it interesting is the types of questions where they have an interest in answering because they're invested in I guess the outcome is the best the best way to say it.

00;17;59;26 - 00;18;24;10 So I mean, I'm thinking conflict resolution, problem solving, brainstorming. You know, at some point people are interested in getting to the bottom of it to come together, which I think is the ultimately the goal is to bring people together to do something, whether it's to have fun or, you know, you know, read the newsletter or the dossier or to solve problems So what is off the top of your head?

00;18;24;10 - 00;18;30;03 What would be a good book that can help us shine light on a path that we can take to learn?

00;18;30;10 - 00;18;54;26 Well, I mean, back to this this session, you know, one is the art of influence, right? And the art of art of influence really provides all these techniques mainly about communication in that how you can get what we say is reciprocity, right? Is you want to do things in a way that forces someone in a respectful, friendly way to return.

00;18;54;26 - 00;19;19;25 Right. Or to respond. Right. And that's a big part of communication, is that when you get people to respond, you know, that they're understanding it or they're accepting it, they're going to value it. The other book I'd like to recommend is, you know, Jerry Weisman presenting to Win. Right. And it's really about the art of telling a story, because sometimes I think people are, you know, can communicate.

00;19;19;25 - 00;19;31;26 But you need to often tell a story, especially when you're trying to have impact. And there's a lot of art and science in that as well. So those are my two recommended recommendations.

00;19;32;15 - 00;19;53;03 That's good. Those are good ones. I've heard of both of them. I think I dabbled in the first one, but the book, the book that I'm referencing in a lot of times in connecting dots, that comes by way of influence. It's a book, The New Science of Leading Change. And there's I think there's a couple I don't I don't remember there being just one author.

00;19;53;03 - 00;20;13;07 I think there's a couple of them that work together on it. But influence are the new science of leading change and in that is connecting dots. So as we're talking about communicating effectively or communicating for impact. You talked about it being a being a good listener includes a lot of different ways of doing that. How you demonstrate doing that.

00;20;13;08 - 00;20;54;29 I mean, sitting there, you know, some skimming off the top of what some suggestions would include would be to, you know, the eye contact. If you're, you know, in front of somebody, you know, the nodding the body language would interpret or try and be translated and assumed to be, oh, they're engaged, they're paying attention. Are there other methods that will kind of go down a level of depth to where you can be credible in being an active listener is, you know, reciting or summarizing something that, you know, so what you're saying David, is this and then I repeat what it is a summary that I've heard you say in a way that resonates with me.

00;20;55;09 - 00;21;26;11 And then it kind of the things that you're looking for when you set it reciprocity. So now I'm relaying it or volleying it back to you, like, this is what I heard. This is how I interpret it. Did I get that right? That is why I bring up influence because it's connecting dots. And I think that's what we're talking about is in the dance that we do of communication, whether it's written or verbal or visual, whatever it is, we're saying something It's it's being able to now reciprocate the level of effort that goes into what's happening.

00;21;26;26 - 00;21;49;28 And we walk away with something of value. And in my way, what I what I love to do is connect the dots and see how critical thinking plays a part in communicating for impact because now we're talking about one thing, but maybe it's now connecting to other things that we've talked about in the past or we should be talking about as as somebody in your position.

00;21;50;08 - 00;21;51;13 How important is that?

00;21;51;23 - 00;22;14;12 It's very, very important trait is that because of often we say we can say we have a loud voice that needs to have lots of impact. If you don't have the validation, you don't have the adoption and understanding, right. That means things can go wrong and awry very, very quickly and very, very, you know, in a very bad way.

00;22;14;13 - 00;22;42;22 Right. And we can see that throughout the world. Where someone says one thing and intended another. And really, well, now they everything's gone wrong. Right. And the perception the choices, the decisions, you know, can go completely off track. And that's why it's so important, I think, to sometimes even test your communication when it's going to be when it's needed to have major impact.

00;22;43;01 - 00;22;49;02 Major results is sometimes you may need to test it before you deploy it into production, if you will.

00;22;49;16 - 00;23;10;21 I like the flow because as you were talking about that, I was thinking, well, what happens next and the test or the impact or the effect comes in, what happens next? So, you know, we we talk about things. You know, we prepare to talk about things. And then through that, through that action, we learn. We're supposed to learn things, right?

00;23;10;21 - 00;23;30;15 I mean, that's the you know, maybe it's an unwritten expectation that, you know, as you go through things, you have lessons learned, hopefully, or mindful enough to appreciate what it is that's being learned or as a possibility, an opportunity to be learned so you can grow so you can get to know each other better so you can do all of these types of things.

00;23;30;15 - 00;24;06;24 But some of the elements also include outside of that moment. So after the newsletter or the dossier sent, after the engagement, after the Zoom meeting, after the on site meeting, after the face to face interaction, whether it's at a coffee shop, or somewhere else, how important is in this scheme of communicating? How important is what happens next? And when do you think the intervals are that you engage with others as you communicate, as the relationship grows?

00;24;08;08 - 00;24;38;16 Well, in some ways, though, I, as I was hinting at earlier, is I try to keep it a regular rhythm, like saying that part of it just like the newspaper or newscast or other things is you want to have a regular rhythm that's very consistent because then people can bet on it, they can count on it, but also it can give you the opportunity to make corrections, corrections or adjustments or pivots so that, for example, if you're if it's a random communication like oh boy, I made a mistake, like, all right, how are you going to correct that?

00;24;38;17 - 00;25;05;07 You know? And then it becomes very obvious and, you know, sometimes damaging in itself versus no, you can always update every week, like, oh, there's been a slight change, but everyone knows that they'll get those updates and that regular format, regular timing, and it's easy to make the errata or the changes or corrections. And that's one of my recommendations is build the rhythm, build the cadence of the music and people will align with that drumbeat.

00;25;06;03 - 00;25;39;23 That that's that's not only a one of the most relevant statements we've made at the moment, considering this is a podcast where listenership, probably as a result of the rhythm in which we deliver these, is an influence on how much activity we can report through the analytics. How often are people listening? Well, the more consistent you are in delivering the more of a repetition, the more repetition that gets into somebody in an expectation.

00;25;39;23 - 00;25;49;19 And so the randomness, I think, is one of those qualifying words that says if it feels random, they'll perceive it as that and probably take less interest. Would you agree?

00;25;50;27 - 00;26;03;26 100% right. If you can bet on something and that's going to be there, you you embrace it, you, you take it on versus it being random. Like I don't know if it's ever going to come back. Why should invest my time in it?

00;26;04;22 - 00;26;29;15 There it is good. All right. So to to summarize. So, you know, communicating for impact, it involves many things, but much of it has to do with an interest and then withdraws the investment. And that comes by way of oversimplifying. It comes by way of being credible or somebody finding value in it, whatever it may be and whomever it comes from.

00;26;30;06 - 00;26;50;08 And then it has to do with the engagement component of saying you know, are you are you listening to what I'm saying? Are you hearing what I'm not saying? Or is there is there an element of where you seem to demonstrate an understanding of me as a as an individual expressing to you what it is that I think we should be talking about?

00;26;50;08 - 00;27;09;19 And then how do you demonstrate the understanding in that comes in many ways, many forms. But, you know, the frequency in which the engagement occurs, I think is as a is a key point, because if you want to keep the momentum going and be relevant with it to respect the interaction, then you'd want to find that rhythm. And that could be different.

00;27;09;20 - 00;27;26;21 It depends on the whole ideal situation. You know, it could be hours, days, months, weeks. It does matter. It just it's relevant to whatever the situation is. And in closing. David, what do you think we can do for next steps to test it, as you say?

00;27;27;12 - 00;27;48;20 I think one of the things that everyone, you know, needs to think about is what is your rhythm? Right. And because some people will be daily, some people weekly, some people are monthly, but I think is build their rhythm right. And within that rhythm, then you say just like everything is like, okay, what is your development cycle? What is your test cycle?

00;27;48;20 - 00;28;04;15 You know, what is your feedback cycle? You know? You know, your release cycle, right? Beta, traditional project management and communication is exactly that. Even though I'd say it's small. What you mean after project management, if you really think about it, when especially things of impact, you want to have a full cycle.

00;28;05;01 - 00;28;33;09 Got it. Spoken like a true developer. I'll take a different twist and just say how you make them feel. You know, so if the test for me and the challenge from all four meet all of you, myself included. David, do you find somebody today that you haven't reached out to check in on them and try to uplift how they feel, try to be a value to them today and then see how you can collaborate in a way that makes a difference in their lives as well as yours?

00;28;34;00 - 00;28;36;03 Fair to say it is.

00;28;36;25 - 00;28;57;26 I think things for summarize are really well. I hope people get some value from this and I'm thinking for our next episode, you know, we're talking about relationships. We talk about communication. But Chris, you brought up earlier and I think we should have a next episode on this about visibly witty, right? The people. You can be the greatest technical person or the greatest, you know, engineer, the greatest, you know, craftsman.

00;28;58;03 - 00;29;08;18 But if you have no visibility then how can you be successful? And then it comes down to relationships and communication. So I think that should be our next episode.

00;29;10;04 - 00;29;20;10 Time. Stay tuned. Same Bat Channel. No. All right, David. No, I think that's on the docket for next. And on that note, keep moving forward.

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We can’t do it alone. Relationships are important. There isn’t much else one could say that counters that. In this episode David and I touch on the basics of why we should all work towards understanding the considerations of why we need to develop different types of relationships, how we may approach others with compassion, empathy, and purpose, and what we should include in our toolbox to recognize specific feelings that may occur during this process. We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;28;29 You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS, chief information security officer within Oracle.

00;00;29;10 - 00;00;52;01 We can't do it alone, and we know relationships are important. There isn't much else one could say that counters that in this episode. David and I touch on the basics of why we should all work towards understanding the considerations of why we need to develop different types of relationships, how we may approach others with compassion, empathy, and purpose, and what we should include in our toolbox to recognize the specific feelings that may occur during this process.

00;00;52;01 - 00;01;13;18 We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. David's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn David Cross.

00;01;13;18 - 00;01;14;14 How's it going, sir?

00;01;15;09 - 00;01;23;12 It has been too long, Chris, that I've been dying to get us going and our next episode is on the podcast and I know the audience has been waiting for us.

00;01;24;09 - 00;01;26;18 We had to take some time. You did a little bit traveling, did you?

00;01;27;14 - 00;01;49;00 You know, I am David Cross Travelers dot com. I do love my travels. And hey, my last big trip, right, was to France and I went to Normandy in Omaha Beach. So definitely check it out. And I will say, as the veteran, right, it's an amazing experience. And I was even able to conduct the, you know, the ceremony at the cemetery that is there.

00;01;49;00 - 00;02;00;16 It Omaha Beach or the Normandy. Right. It's quite an honor. And it's something if you ever have the opportunity, I think as a veterans, it's kind of a place we must all visit that How long do.

00;02;00;16 - 00;02;10;09 You plan that trip? That sounds like something that you had to spend some time thinking about. How are you going to how are you going to go and how long are you going to spend time? Was it much thought or was it last minute?

00;02;11;11 - 00;02;27;02 No, I thought about it for a year. It's one of those things that I didn't make the deal with my wife that she had to visit Paris for the first time. But that I get to visit Normandy for the first time. So we made the deal. And like I said, you know, it's all about relationships and thinking about that.

00;02;27;02 - 00;02;29;11 And, you know, sometimes there's like little give and take.

00;02;29;25 - 00;02;50;07 A little compromise. That's a good segue way. And don't think that I just let you slide over that shameless plug of David Cross travels. That was a good one. You didn't say your blog one yet, though, so we'll wait for that. Relationships. Yep. So, folks, you know, we've been talking about lately a lot of the things that go on.

00;02;50;07 - 00;03;22;23 Right. And so we can look at it from different perspectives, you know, the importance of relationships. Why do you have. And I think both David and I in our own ways, independent of each other. David just alluded to that here. But, you know, you have you have you have some categories that you're split relationships up in to say, oh, it's a work relationship or it's my, you know, my circle of five where it's my closest friends or my closest The board of directors, you know, there's types of relationships that we're going to we're going to talk through today.

00;03;23;11 - 00;03;42;08 And and maybe just kind of well, we're just going to talk about them because the value is relative to the perception of you and how and how you can understand things for you. Maybe some nuggets, maybe not. But it's just one of those banter podcasts for this episode. So, David, I don't know, where do you want to start?

00;03;43;06 - 00;03;58;21 I don't know, Chris. There's always, you know, as being our veteran podcast or even rights. I trust veterans. But I think an element let's think about the relationship that we've built, you know, from the military. Right. And how that affects our lives, how it affects our relationships and going forward. Why don't we start there?

00;03;59;12 - 00;04;21;28 Yeah, it's a good one. Let's talk about you. Me, right. So you're you're a senior vice president in cybersecurity. Or in security? You and I met a couple of years ago, not through our own doing. We were put together based off of the relationship we had with our passion, which is veteran affiliated focus. And then through MAVEN, military affiliated, better employee network.

00;04;23;10 - 00;04;45;25 We have roles and positions. And so my role to help lead that with a strong team. You were also brought in from an executive sponsor to support us in the in that capacity. And so from that couple of years ago, we drove some some solid initiatives that set a good foundation for others to now continue on with relationship building.

00;04;45;25 - 00;05;07;07 Right. We we've given a good ground for relationship building in the network and then yours in mind evolved into, well, what can you and I can do further to further that which leads to this podcast. And we've randomly, not randomly, but you know, at certain intervals we'll keep in touch and check in and say, what are we doing?

00;05;07;08 - 00;05;23;07 Let's do this. And like today was somewhat spontaneous, you know, but I didn't that start with expectations maybe. You know, clearly we were introduced I didn't have an expectation of meeting you. I had an expectation on the role that you were in that evolved into other things. What about you?

00;05;24;18 - 00;05;40;15 Well, Chris, I think I think that I did have an expectation to a degree is saying here I am joining a veterans related group. Right. In that expectation, what can I expect from you? Right. And so that I said, well, we were not in the service together. We're not in the same unit together. We're not in the same war together yet.

00;05;40;16 - 00;05;59;10 But we're both veterans. Right. And so an expectation of what are your principles right? How are we going to operate? Right. The natural sign, I think, is just like when our active duty, you know, even your Army, Navy, Air Force, we know how to operate in that. You now have this great baseline of how we start and operate.

00;05;59;20 - 00;06;09;27 And that's a major advantage I think sometimes veterans have with each other and others are members of the service and it builds a relationships to the next level and different relationships.

00;06;11;17 - 00;06;31;19 Yeah, because so so it so it comes with the expectations and if you have a significant other a partner or a friend, a close friend or family member, you know, we we hear this often is like no expectations. You know, I'm I'm with you. No expectations. There are some and you talked a little bit about the value systems and things like that.

00;06;31;19 - 00;07;07;19 There's some things that are just assumed and taken for granted. That generally speaking, we don't want to hold somebody to to our perspective. And so we we hopefully allow others to be themselves and that's part of the relationship, the good with the bad, you know, if you're going to use an example. And but when you're brought together unexpectedly, you know, that openness to to have that flow begin of the dialog, the connections, you know, in this case, you mentioned the commonality stripping away the other factors that were less important at the moment.

00;07;07;23 - 00;07;25;26 You said, well, we're veterans. We don't have a lot of these other things in common, but we do have that and that's where we'll start. And I think that's the one of the key elements as we kind of just go through the idea of what a relationship definition could mean to everybody is commonality. What do we have in common?

00;07;27;01 - 00;07;44;00 What do you think some of the challenges are in getting to that part to where you can strip away the other factors of wants and needs from an individual perspective and saying, I want I want to talk to that person because of whatever, or I need to talk to that person for whatever. Or you just bump into somebody and you didn't want to talk to them.

00;07;44;00 - 00;07;47;29 You didn't need to talk to me. Did you expect it? What do you think some of the caveats are?

00;07;49;07 - 00;08;05;19 Great question. You know, I think an element is that sometimes you think about it, it's like what's the icebreaker? How do I get my foot in the door? You know, how do I open up the conversation? And sometimes when you don't know somebody, you don't know actually how to do the opening, right? Sometimes that's what things adventure's like.

00;08;05;23 - 00;08;23;13 Okay, we have some commonalities. I can start with something. I could say, hey, you're in the army. Great. Now, I was like, Oh, what unit were you in? Oh, great. Instantly, you've got a starting point with knowing nothing else, right? Other times you've been meeting that. Well, let's say we're not even we're not veterans like. All right, Chris, what do you do?

00;08;23;13 - 00;08;44;27 Right. Okay, you do you watch movies, you know, it gets awkward, uncomfortable, right? Because you're guessing what to do. And I think part of it as people is, is maybe sometimes just like networking or trying to get a job, do some research. Well, is Chris on LinkedIn? Oh, is he on other social media oh, he's a fan of movies.

00;08;44;27 - 00;08;53;26 Ah. Oh, no, he's a golfer. Oh, great. Now I have an opening to Chris and you go golfing this past weekend. Wow. What an opener. And that's what it's all about.

00;08;55;16 - 00;09;29;05 Yeah. You learn, you learn something about somebody so that the idea that you can, you know, one, be mindful enough to realize that you might have to do put some effort into the beginning. Right. And nothing is easy, I guess it's safe to say is starting a conversation until you practice, right? You have to kind of do it frequently and often in similar scenarios to build the confidence to be able to know that you're going into it unexpected in the outcomes, but just trying something and then going from there.

00;09;29;05 - 00;09;53;29 So fluidity, I think is another factor that weighs into that. So you started it, you had an initiation, now you started the conversation and being fluid on the on the response to now what that is what are some of the things that happen in, in, in your space in doing that? Because you're in your role, in your professional role, it's is it become somewhat of an expectation that you do networking of too often?

00;09;55;04 - 00;10;12;29 Yeah, it's very, very important I think is certainly in the security space. And my role is really to be able to make a connection with customers. I think one of the things I certainly found here at the company is that you need to build a community because especially it comes to security. It's about trust and so how can you trust someone when it's opaque?

00;10;13;09 - 00;10;36;25 You need to have transparency and openness. You need to have a connection. And so part of it is like you may have to start building those connections and building a community, you know, and starting the conversation sometimes can be challenging. But that's how the security community is successful is by building the connections, by sharing information. And I think that's very similar to what you're describing with relationships, right?

00;10;37;06 - 00;10;47;17 I think, of course, you think about recruiting, right? You know, how do you get someone that is maybe not interested in your company to even have a conversation with you? What's your trick?

00;10;48;21 - 00;11;15;17 Yeah, that's that's that's a good one. It's something that's acquired. I pause there because it's a hard it's a hard question, right? It can be you can easily respond to that with something because you have an incentive. And so now your goal. So you're if you're if you're goal minded and you're you orientate to say, well, here's what I'm going to get out of it in that specific capacity, then there's your driver.

00;11;15;17 - 00;11;48;14 And now you know that you have to do something regardless because you can't you can't get what you need to earn unless you do. So I think there's I'm going to answer that in to two ways. One in a recruiting element, right? Or when you're trying to get something from something you have a motive. The thing, though, that I can say with with all honesty is the transparency and the sincerity manifest itself in the things that you do before you even say anything.

00;11;48;23 - 00;12;27;27 Right. Your approach to body language, just your general being, I think. And this it's maybe weird to say, but I think it's just a matter of, you know, some people will see that and immediately just not be interested in beginning the conversation. Let, let, let alone reciprocating anything that you're going to try to do. So I think what wins is realizing that part, which is the second component is getting getting yourself to understand how to be sincere and genuine in what you're trying to do for the right reasons, because I think that's the language that you can't necessarily speak verbally unless you share it.

00;12;28;10 - 00;12;49;17 And then it then it becomes then and then there's a risk there because then it's not it's probably less humble if you say it versus just be it. So I think, you know, the way the way that I think about approaching people to want them to come be a part of something, the tribal component, which I think we all want in some capacity, we want to belong to something.

00;12;49;22 - 00;13;04;28 That's the connection. And I think that's the thing that gets me to understand more about how to do something is because it's going to be that connection that you talked about earlier, what you call it a commonality. But there's a kind of a human connection that allows us to be at least for that moment, interested in the same things.

00;13;05;07 - 00;13;23;07 I have something that I want to share with you because I think it's good for you and we can we can we should talk about it and then that becomes the second component is because now that you have that engagement, you know, you certainly need to hold the conversation to be able to communicate effectively, to share the goodness that you want to share.

00;13;24;12 - 00;13;40;19 Yes. Let me build upon that. Going back to I think our relationship is a we're veterans and ultimately is in the military to say, what's the mission what's the target? And so when I didn't know you, I said, Chris, what's our mission? What are we going to do? Right. Once we know that, like, okay, we have a common goal, we're going to go after it.

00;13;41;05 - 00;13;59;11 Now let's put it aside. We're not the veterans. We're not military saying, all right, what is the person's mission? Might be a little hard or just really figure out what's in it for them when you understand what's in it for them. What are they looking for? And that's the target. That's what you're going after. And understanding that right is really what it's all about.

00;13;59;24 - 00;14;07;08 And when you do that, then you can really align and build a relationship because you may help them achieve that mission, that goal, that target.

00;14;08;18 - 00;14;29;00 Yeah. What's in it for them? That's good. So that's that's a simplified way of sharing the same idea. So that's what that's what David's good about when we have this relationship. So how do you how do you understand that? What's in it for them? You got to be curious. And I think that's the other element is at some point you're going to be more curious than not, whereas before you're probably not looking at it.

00;14;29;00 - 00;14;52;12 The mindfulness is not the thing. It's part of your life because of whatever reason, you just you just focus on different things. I think it's a life stage thing. So when you're curious about that, that interest in seeing what's in it for them, you have to learn what it is, right? And that's the engagement part, right? So what I get excited about is being able to engage with people just for the pure, simple fact of it's an engagement that's it.

00;14;52;12 - 00;15;24;01 I don't I no longer have an ulterior motive unless it's driven towards an observation that screams to me that maybe in this interaction they could benefit from something else. I know I benefit from it. I already accepted the fact that I'm going to walk away better feeling good about talking to somebody else. Because you have to. Right. In order to feel like you're a part of something, you have to it's one of those social animals that you just naturally do.

00;15;24;03 - 00;15;43;29 There's variations can only be careful here, variations of that, the levels of intensity and how you do that. You know, I mean, we can talk about how you're, you know, extroverted, introverted and all these personality types and things like that. There's certain levels to that. I'm just saying for you, how it makes you feel is also just as important because that keeps driving you towards wanting to do it.

00;15;45;04 - 00;15;59;22 So, Chris, this makes me want to ask you a question about is what you're describing. Isn't that just like paying it forward? Right. Is like whether you're trying to help someone connect with someone, are you just really the real the principle of you pay it forward because you never know in the future when you may need something in return?

00;16;01;04 - 00;16;26;03 Yeah. Yes. Yes. Always looking behind you and around you to see if there's something you can do for others. Absolutely. I mean, ultimately, that's that's most of where the joy comes is doing for others. But it's also having the understanding that, you know, when you do that, you're actually doing something for yourself. But the key is to not get caught up in how it benefits you.

00;16;26;03 - 00;16;34;06 I think that's the trick and understanding that paying it forward shouldn't surround and how you feel about it as much as it how it makes others feel.

00;16;35;02 - 00;16;52;20 Absolutely. You know, going back to, you know, what my first job is, I left the military. My first manager is he said, you know, David the most valuable thing you can always do is make other people feel great and other people feel great, make other people great helping them. And because you never know when the time comes, when you need the help, you need the leg up.

00;16;52;20 - 00;17;22;06 Right? You need the army picked up off the ground. Right. And is building up these set of cards over time is is quite enormous. Right. And I think that's what everyone should think about, right? It's not a debt that you're paying. It's actually a credit that you're building. It's quite amazing when the unexpected happens or the unknown happens or an opportunity happens and you realize, oh, my gosh, that person that I helped, you know, five years ago, ten years ago, and I need something there for me.

00;17;22;12 - 00;17;26;29 And they're so willing because they remember what you did for them. And that's what relationships are all about.

00;17;27;27 - 00;17;50;29 Yeah. The people remember how you made them feel. That's certainly an element that that speaks volumes. The you know, the interesting part in all of this I think the underlying factors, everybody needs something from somebody. Right. But if I could say this and have it makes sense, that would be great. You don't have to say it out loud, right?

00;17;50;29 - 00;18;17;16 You don't have to say it. We all need something from somebody. So if we're working and it's a work relationship and I have to go to somebody else, some people will say, you know, don't, don't, don't go to somebody else only when you need something. That's a fair point. Unless that's the type of relationship that you have that it's grown to be that way to where you've already gone through the bumps of building a relationship, forging the relationship in ways that allows that to be the case.

00;18;18;04 - 00;18;52;03 Or you increase the risk of it just being one of those things that now people will avoid. Right? You could be that person that people avoid. You only come to me when you need something and that's it's one of these books that we talk about. That's the taker, right? That's somebody that's a taker. There's giver and taker. So I think there's that that element of humility that goes with that, too, where there's at least a common understanding that how you're going to leverage your relationship with the individual for the type of relationship you have, that it can be that because reality is we all need something from somebody we just don't want to keep.

00;18;52;03 - 00;18;54;14 Like what you're saying, keep taking money out of the bank.

00;18;55;17 - 00;19;26;28 You know, another angle on that is sometimes I think I never want people to fear of being a taker asking for things because I actually one of my observations over many years in the studio space the the high tech space, whatever it is, people are often hesitant to ask for help. They're hesitant to ask a question. And sometimes the I say the weakest person or the people that could could actually be the most successful are the ones that asked for the life ring.

00;19;26;28 - 00;19;41;05 They ask for help. And I think we should encourage that, is that there's the takers that are taking advantage of things. And those are the people that really should be takers because they just need to ask for it, ask for help. And that's how our company can be successful when people help each other.

00;19;41;21 - 00;20;08;12 Yeah, that's a good one. So let's unpack that a little bit. So one mindfulness is key. We've mentioned it a couple of times. Self-awareness from mindfulness, you get the self-awareness of recognizing who those people are and that comes with now a developed skill to be able to recognize how you can help somebody come out of that. Right. And that's what I was kind of inferring earlier, where some people just aren't naturally you know, outgoing.

00;20;08;12 - 00;20;33;09 And so it takes a little nudging. That's, I think, probably built around a lot of what you'd said about trust. Right. And so you know, there's David Brooks had written a book, The Second Mountain, and inside that it's talking about in a relationship and in a related social crisis. And it talks about the loneliness, crisis, distrust, the crisis of meaning and then tribalism.

00;20;33;09 - 00;20;54;02 So there's some elements in here that kind of surround or circle what we're talking about, too, where mental health is a component. You no doubt insecurity or discomfort. You know, there's a lot of folks that that feel like they're going to be in a position when they ask for help. And those are the things. That's why we talk about the circle of trust, right?

00;20;54;02 - 00;21;17;22 The five, five closest individuals that you keep there because it keeps it tight. They know you best. Each one has something that's helping you do something. It's different than the other. It's that kind of a sum of five, if you will, as I've heard some friends call it, that that's a good a good point of saying, you know, how do you recognize when somebody in your relationships is needing something when they're not asking for it?

00;21;19;23 - 00;21;40;29 So kind of building upon the theme here of, you know, our books, because I know our audience love our book recommendations on this month, going to kind of a theme describing here is, you know, people not sure they're you know, maybe not confident in pastor you know, my book of the month recommendation. It was the mastery manual by Robin Sharma.

00;21;41;11 - 00;21;55;00 It's really an amazing book that I highly recommend to everybody in thinking about how do you become to lead? How do you become great right And the mastery manual is is something that I highly recommend to to our audience for this podcast.

00;21;56;20 - 00;22;02;15 Talk a little bit about that. What is that what it's kind of the the Cliff Note version of that.

00;22;04;02 - 00;22;24;07 A big part of it is I think sometimes it's about stepping out. Right. And an element is that you are going to lead, you are going to take charge. Right. You it it's not about being extroverted or introverted, those type of things. It's really about it really kind of everything of setting your goals right is that the element is which I agree with, is like you get up in the morning, right?

00;22;24;07 - 00;22;38;25 Is like, okay, who's the leaders? The people you get up at 5:00 in the morning, and you set your day, you set your schedule. Right. And I think some of the benefits I remember the days of like, yep, when is when is the the roll call wearing and when is the duty section right? 7 a.m. you can't be late.

00;22;39;16 - 00;22;56;05 You're going to get up early. You're going to be prepared for it, giving your uniform all those benefits like David, how how can you be at the top of your game every single day is like, yeah, because I was trained in the military. Right. And it's a big part of it is you have clear goals. You set them down and you go after them, right?

00;22;56;06 - 00;22;59;17 And you build in the structures that you need to achieve that.

00;23;00;24 - 00;23;27;04 Yeah. And so there's some self-actualization that comes inside of that it seems then that, you know, one, you have to figure out what you want to do. There's some of us that still haven't figured out entirely what we want to do. So we're kind of just floating around and then we just, you know, we take opportunities, right? And then we say, well, I don't, I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I'm going to say, yes, and I think that's the other factors.

00;23;27;20 - 00;23;53;01 You know, some of what you're saying is you have to say yes when you're hesitating, when you have doubt. If you've done diligence right. And you're confident enough to say, well, I'm still unsure, but at some point you have to make a move. And so you say yes, and then that would help you be aligned now with outcomes, knowing that that's the self-discovery comes through that exploration after you say yes.

00;23;53;01 - 00;24;18;01 And I think that that's a key element of relationships today. I was having a conversation with one of my friends and she had recommended that I go on LinkedIn and connect with somebody else. And I didn't hesitate. I if you're making the recommendation, I'm going to go do it and I did it. You know, it's, it's a habit that comes, it's formed based off of saying having said yes and the risk assessment, right?

00;24;18;01 - 00;24;35;24 Because you can be risk averse, which is something I learned from David several years ago. On taking you step out of my comfort zone. I consulted with him. I pulled him aside because our relationship was I'm like, hey, you've been doing this, you know, and you have more experience around these areas at this level. What do you think I should do?

00;24;36;11 - 00;24;59;29 And is I the summary is what do it. But we have to remember that sometimes we we need to be risk averse but we don't want to overdo that. So we have to know how we're going to be able to calculate it effectively and then, of course, be ready for what happens after that. And that was one of the greatest advice that I've received from David is, you know, in order to step outside your comfort, you got to say yes.

00;25;00;08 - 00;25;20;09 But you have to understand that the things that happen after that, you're not necessarily going to be able to plan for. So just roll with it enough to be able to understand it and then continue on through it until you're out of it. That way, you can now become more comfortable with making a decision later you're growing.

00;25;21;29 - 00;25;50;07 I think I'm kind of taking this you made me think about it for a minute. That is that we all have relationships and connections, but we also need to nurture them because, you know, over time we never know when's the next time. We may need help, we may need a push, we may need the insights is kind of like we go through phases in our careers or our lives and seeing that of going back and looking at the relationship saying, well, we probably all over time, you know, some of us a little older said 20 years like, oh, I know an expert in this.

00;25;50;07 - 00;26;08;26 I know someone that inspired me in that and when the time comes, you go one, you should nurture and maintain those even if you don't need something yet. But in the future you may. So you also never know. And maybe they need help. They just maybe they're not asking for it. Right? And I think that's a big thing that we should always think about.

00;26;09;02 - 00;26;18;07 Why do you and I, you know, keep our relationship? Right? Because we like we think there's value. We're there. It's great having, you know, your your buddy when the time comes, you've got the backup when you need it.

00;26;19;01 - 00;26;34;08 Yeah, it's a good point. And I like how you said that you never know when somebody else is going to need you. So if you think about that, let's let's ponder this real quick. Do you ever walk in down somewhere, are sitting in your chair? You just you know, doing nothing. You sit in there and then you think of somebody.

00;26;35;14 - 00;26;55;15 I'm always curious as to why that happens. And there's been a time when, you know, I get a phone call and some of us may have had had this happen to you. It's happened to me twice. And I vowed, never have it happen again. And I'm do my best because if it comes up, you answer the phone because you don't know who's on the other end of it.

00;26;55;15 - 00;27;15;17 That's literally a call for help. But the other thing where this intuitiveness for I don't know is called is it instinct or something where you get this feeling that somebody pops into your head or haven't spoken to so and so and so long. I now it's no longer really a question as to what I'm going to do it more often than not because not for everybody.

00;27;15;18 - 00;27;34;01 It's not for everything. More often than not, I even place a value on it, which is limiting. So I'm somewhat of a contradiction, but not I'm saying they popped into my head for a reason. I should reach out. So I do my best to try to do that. It just depends on the mindset I'm in. And sometimes I'm not where I want to be or need to be.

00;27;34;13 - 00;27;54;19 But because of that, that's literally the thing that I'm using similar to that of a phone call saying why I thought of this person. I should I should reach out because I've already told myself I haven't in a while. And I think that's the connection that we can't explain as to how we can check in on people to make sure that we're nurturing the relationships.

00;27;54;19 - 00;28;06;09 Because if you're not physically around them on a constant basis, you don't know when they need you or not because they might not be asking or because they can't. Either way, I like I like what you brought up.

00;28;07;12 - 00;28;30;13 You know, I think in building upon that a little bit is I think there's some challenges that are vague. How many people send holiday cards every year? I think that number is dying or going away, you know, more and more of the years. Right. But at the same time, I still think about well, every year I get a lot of sometimes, whether it's on LinkedIn or other social media or, you know, quick email or a tweet or something that say, hey, David, how's it going?

00;28;30;14 - 00;28;50;24 Hope you as well with you. And you start think if you really think about this, I you know, I'm kind of glad they did that. That means they're maintaining that connection, even though I maybe forgot about it, but I never know when I may need it. Right. So then it makes me think, you know, is maybe I should just do that is kind of having my little things have just keeping that connection warm because you never know.

00;28;51;05 - 00;29;11;17 It may not be tomorrow, I mean, a year from now, maybe ten years from now. But when you keep those warm connections, especially people that it maybe it's ten years ago that you did some great things together. Life changes, right? We've talked about one of our podcast, you the unexpected. You're not aware and you always want to have that whole squad and a whole unit behind you when the time comes.

00;29;12;17 - 00;29;12;27 Yeah.

00;29;13;14 - 00;29;29;13 Now that's that's that's that's the way to think you know it's using the information that you have realizing that you don't have it all. So then you do put some effort into to try to get some more information to say, is it me? What should I be doing? How should I be doing? It? Is that should I do that?

00;29;29;23 - 00;29;54;16 Maybe. I mean, the whole thing is it's in your head. You're thinking about it. What are you going to do about it? And the worst case scenario is you land on saying, I'm going to pick up the phone, I'm going to shoot a text, I'm going to send an email, I'm going to knock on the door. More importantly, with your neighbors, here's the sarcasm with your neighbors, knock on their door, get to know your neighborhood and the community.

00;29;54;16 - 00;30;00;08 I mean, you just redefine what community means and then apply that and get to know everybody around you. I mean, because why not.

00;30;02;03 - 00;30;16;17 Without question, Chris. I mean, things have been quiet for a while, but like the you know, the zombies, we don't know when they're going to show up. And if your neighbors aren't there right now, you know, you can only store so much water, some food and MREs. Chris, I'll leave it at that.

00;30;18;13 - 00;30;20;01 Got it. All right.

00;30;21;12 - 00;30;40;18 So, Chris, you know, I think this has been a really, you know, a great conversation, right? I think is that is we don't know what's going to happen in future. Right. You know, whether it's zombies, you know, whether it's, you know, a climate change, you know, whether it's a change in or jobs. Right. But I think it's about a, you know, thinking about how you build trust in how you build connections.

00;30;40;18 - 00;31;00;21 How you nurture and maintain the bonds that you made over the years. Does as veterans write things about your units in many years ago, you know, reconnect with them, you know, just keep it warm. A very simple, you know, a simple call, a simple email, a message on Facebook, those type of things. But always look at the network.

00;31;01;01 - 00;31;10;23 Paying it forward. Right, is because sometimes the unexpected can happen to us. And it's great having those connections, those relationships, when the time we need them.

00;31;11;24 - 00;31;41;10 Yeah, that's that's sound advice. I mean, that's what it means. Let's let's just say like this, what else are you doing where you can't do that? You know, and I think that's more of a philosophical question. You know, it could be a rhetorical you can use it for whatever else. But ask yourself, if you're not doing anything, you know, at the moment, why not use that that moment to reach out to somebody and think about how they might be feeling and how that could spark something else.

00;31;41;10 - 00;31;59;10 And the motive is to do that. Right? And yeah, you might get something out of it for sure. You're going to feel good. You get that, that's for sure. Or maybe you won't because maybe maybe there's a risk in when you do that that there's some unfinished conversation that hasn't happened and things like that. However, it's still there.

00;31;59;19 - 00;32;17;22 So now you can you can face it, you can work through it, and then, you know, you can have closure of some sort. So that's the other part of it. So I mean, let's be real. There's some that some other relationship activities that components to consider. But I think generally speaking is, you know, we have people around us, we've engaged with people, we've interacted with people.

00;32;17;26 - 00;32;33;27 You know, there's people that have come in and out of your life at some point to where there's value in the immediate minute. Right. And that in that moment, there's there's immediate value. And then there's times when you haven't realized it yet. And that's to what you've been saying is there may be a time when you need each other or one of you needs somebody else.

00;32;33;27 - 00;32;54;24 They know maybe maybe they're even serving as a connection. Right. And I think that's the thing, you know, is people point nice to other people is also part of the path. So yeah. So I guess this is a good touch base. Touch base. I appreciate your time, David. And you know, for anybody out there that wants to connect with us, you know, you got to cross that.

00;32;56;00 - 00;32;56;26 What is it called now?

00;32;57;17 - 00;33;03;21 David Cross Travel Scan Me, my blog that talks about all the zombies around the world. I wonder.

00;33;04;09 - 00;33;09;04 What. Yeah, that one I was talking about, whether it's Twitter, but that and then.

00;33;10;26 - 00;33;13;26 And then Mr. TB Cross ad on Twitter.

00;33;13;26 - 00;33;18;10 So yeah. Yep. And then say one more time.

00;33;19;01 - 00;33;21;18 Mr. DB Cross at Twitter.

00;33;21;27 - 00;33;24;10 And then your your blog, your travel blog.

00;33;24;26 - 00;33;26;22 David Cross travel scam.

00;33;27;05 - 00;33;41;13 Yeah, you should go there. I checked it out. I mean, you know, we, we talk about it. It's funny now because we talk about it, but there's some good stuff there. I mean, you definitely do some traveling. How often do you travel in the air, do you think.

00;33;42;07 - 00;33;55;10 Well, at least I try to go at least, you know, two big trips a year. You know, the comet kind of threw things off a little bit. But, you know, definitely, you know, you know, three to four times a year because it's really my personal passion and things like that. And it's connecting to more people around the world is amazing.

00;33;55;10 - 00;34;07;16 The people I've met around the world that I have friends in Australia that I met on a tour. Right. That will be friends forever. And I never know if I need help. And our flight gets canceled in Melbourne, Australia. I know who to contact.

00;34;08;02 - 00;34;22;06 Yeah. Then there's that. Right? So got it. All right. Well, David, and then you can always find me on LinkedIn. I think we'll say that in opening too. But it's been a pleasure What do you think we should talk about next?

00;34;23;22 - 00;34;45;04 Good question. What should we talk about next? You know, I think it's I think there's an element is I think we're we were mentioned before about challenges is then why don't we talk about moving up, right? You know, how do you strive to the top? Right, right. And let's say what motivates people? How do they get there when there's obstacles and barriers?

00;34;45;04 - 00;34;47;26 Right. You know, let's maybe we can even have a guest join us.

00;34;49;13 - 00;34;59;17 I like that. All right. So maybe our next episode is going to include career trajectory and how you move move to where you want to be. Maybe that's that'll be the episode name.

00;35;00;02 - 00;35;00;14 Love it.

00;35;00;28 - 00;35;04;06 All right, David, appreciate your time as always.

00;35;04;06 - 00;35;05;19 Chris, I'm looking forward to the next one.

00;35;06;10 - 00;35;08;07 All right, everyone, keep moving forward.

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Potentially one of the most overlooked aspects of overall human performance, nutrition is an absolute necessity in anything we do. Mindset, nutrition, movement, and recovery needs to be an integrated part of our efforts to sustain and improve our activity levels. As we consider wanting to do more, think better, and move towards very specific goals, nutrition is key. Listen in as Jana breaks down foundational nutrition, meal timing and composition, and supplementation into digestible, easy-to-consume, tips for us all to use and pass on to those we love. From individuals, athletes, to businesses or military…seek to understand as we continue the mission to serve. - https://teamexos.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/company/exos/ - https://www.teamexos.com/athlete/military - https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-stemmerman-8a29969/ - jmason@teamexos.com - sunderwood@teamexos.com - ahobgood@teamexos.com - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-andrews-institute/ - http://www.andrewsinstitute.com/ - https://andrewsref.org/ - https://andrewsref.org/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;28;09

You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized missions and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the MAVEN podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And in this fifth episode of our XO series, I am joined by our guest, Jana mason, senior performance dietitian at XOs.

00;00;28;12 - 00;00;59;12

Potentially one of the most overlooked aspects of overall human performance. Nutrition is an absolute necessity in anything we do mindset, nutrition, movement and recovery needs to be an integrated part of our efforts to sustain and improve our activity levels. As we consider wanting to do more, think better and move towards very specific goals nutrition is key. Listen in as Jana breaks down foundational nutrition, meal timing and composition supplementation in the digestible easy to consume tips for us all to use and pass on to those we love from individuals, athletes to businesses or military.

00;00;59;12 - 00;01;19;17

Seek to understand as we continue the mission to serve. Jan Contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Good morning Jana. How's it going? Good morning, Chris. How are you? I'm doing great.

00;01;19;20 - 00;01;42;21

Doing well, thanks. And before we got on here, you said. Yeah, it's a sunny day here in Florida and. Right. Yep. It's been. It's been very nice. It's been very hot. So I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks, we'll start the downward trend. So we have some nice cool mornings. The falls great here, but the summer is a little brutal at times.

00;01;42;23 - 00;02;15;24

Oh, I bet. Yeah. The humidity probably going to dial in to how the environment or the external elements affect our nutritional focus here. Yeah, they definitely do. See what I did there? Segway chai try and nutrition to everything. All right, everyone. Today we're talking about nutrition with Jana mason from Exos and running out of Florida. So we've had previous episodes where we've had an introduction with Anthony Hobgood, who's also talked about some other topics like training and daily movement.

00;02;15;24 - 00;02;41;23

And then we've had some information on the model itself, the human performance model with Stephan Underwood and we've also had an episode for this one with About Sleep with John Stemmerman. And so today we're talking about nutrition and how it ties in to the things that we've already discussed and then also introducing some things that we haven't yet probably introduced as something that we should no matter what we do.

00;02;41;23 - 00;03;22;20

And who we are and in one of our jobs or interests or goals are how we need to factor in the realities of what nutrition does or doesn't do for us, depending on what we're trying to achieve. So Jan and I will kick it to you. Yeah, absolutely. I think nutrition is one of those things that when people do set a goal, especially like a weight loss goal or maybe even change in body composition, goal nutrition is kind of like one of the last things people consider, which it really should not be, because you're definitely going to get to your goal faster if you kind of hone in on your nutrition.

00;03;22;23 - 00;03;50;26

And even even Anthony, I was listening to the podcast that you did with him. He talked a lot about nutrition. And when we're working with athletes, our coaches do a great job of telling them like, Hey, you're going to run a faster 40. If you dial in on your nutrition because the other guy who is just as gifted as you are, this is the thing that could put you over him.

00;03;50;27 - 00;04;23;19

So yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize not only like if it's a weight goal or a body composition goal, like how nutrition can affect your, your mindset, your mood, your energy levels, like the tire, the energy you have at work. But also when you get done with work and you have, you know, a family to take care of or kids to play with nutrition and play a very vital role in changing your mindset.

00;04;23;21 - 00;04;49;23

So I know Stephan, when he was he was speaking with you, he talked kind of like a high level overview of our human performance model that we have at Exos. And he did speak about how you do have to have mindset, nutrition movement, recovery seamlessly integrated so that you can meet your your goals efficiently and optimize your overall cognitive and physical performance.

00;04;49;23 - 00;05;15;02

So he did a good job, I think setting the stage there for Anthony and and John. He'll speak about sleep in myself and then the others to follow after myself. So that was great. And then Anthony, he spoke a lot about sustainability and I'm definitely going to talk about that in in this segment because it is really key, he said.

00;05;15;02 - 00;05;42;05

I liked when he said, do the simple things savagely well, but do them consistently because you could do the simple things savagely. Well, but if you only do them for a short period of time, then you're you're going to revert back to your old ways. And that happens all the time with nutrition. I get clients all the time here that, you know, they're like, Hey, I want to do something.

00;05;42;06 - 00;06;04;14

Just fill in the blanks for a restrictive diet. I want to do a keto diet or a very low carb diet or I want to fast whatever, whatever it may be. And I'm like, okay, well, that's that's great. Well, let's talk about what you've done in the past, what your goals are. Has this worked in the past? Is there in barriers?

00;06;04;16 - 00;06;30;04

So just asking a lot of questions, seeking to understand. And sometimes we come to the revelation, Oh, well, this didn't work in the past and actually it was only a short term success. And then I ended up gaining all my weight back or whatever it was that they had said as a goal. And then we come to the conclusion, okay, well, maybe we need to set a different nutrition game plan.

00;06;30;12 - 00;06;59;00

Or it could be like, Oh, well, this has worked for me and it has been sustainable and successful, but now let's figure out how do we optimize it and fine tune it even more. So I'll definitely want to touch on the sustainability of nutrition and just making sure you're doing something that's going to fit your lifestyle and also help you get to whatever or that goal is that you set.

00;06;59;03 - 00;07;19;05

So that being said, I want to start off with three key points. I kind of wanted to break it down, make it easy. I used to have this soccer coach growing up that always said when we try to get like fancy with our our footwork, he always used the terminology kiss, which I'm sure you've heard of. Keep it simple, stupid.

00;07;19;11 - 00;07;56;17

So I always start out with my nutrition talks, keeping it as simple as possible and then we'll dive into a little bit of deeper conversations and I'm sure we'll have some side segments off of these three points. But three points for anybody that's listening, we're going to first talk about foundational nutrition. So what is foundational in nutrition? We're going to hit on sleep and hydration because these really are the things that you have to get right before we even want to consider changing what we're eating.

00;07;56;19 - 00;08;27;11

They're basically the fundamental things that we need to make any type of body composition change or weight change. They affect our mood or energy. They affect everything. So we're going to start with the foundational pieces. The second thing we're going to talk a little bit about meal timing and meal composition. So like what things go in a well-balanced meal or a snack and then maybe even the cadence of the timing of how we eat those meals and snacks.

00;08;27;14 - 00;08;53;10

And then the last thing, which is the most specific, is supplementation. So talking about those things that maybe we need to fill in the gaps because we just can't do it through the food that we're eating. Or maybe we even have like a medical history of a deficiency or we are a high performing athlete and it's really difficult to get all of the nutrients that we need just from the food.

00;08;53;12 - 00;09;15;23

So we're going to kind of start off in that order are foundational. So are most basic fundamental things. Kind of like Anthony spoke about. You have to be able to fundamentally move without pain. That's the most basic thing. So we're going to start with basics and then we'll work our way up to a little bit more specific, if that sounds good.

00;09;15;25 - 00;09;36;16

Sounds good to me. I mean, that's kind of introducing the opportunity to ask a couple of things along the way and then connect dots and things like that. So that's great. But I do like how you all have all of you have consistently used the terms in each of these conversations, which helps with the kind of the mindset of understanding the discipline that goes into the consistency.

00;09;36;16 - 00;10;04;26

You know, and I'm not trying to split hairs on this or being very specific on this meaning, but the trust that's developed through the staff or through the coaches or through anybody that's helping you change how you do what you do, you look for these subtle things, subtleties. That's what I was looking for, is the subtleties. You're looking for it, and the language you're using is the consistency as far as seeking to understand, doing the things savagely.

00;10;04;26 - 00;10;28;02

Well, that is funny because you can say I crushed it on my workout a month ago. I haven't worked out since. Yeah. So it's this memory of of success, right where you're like, Oh yeah. And then you don't do it again. So yeah, I'm curious and, you know, I'll do my best to try to not interject before you make your point, but let's go.

00;10;28;05 - 00;11;20;16

I feel feel free to interject. I can definitely get off on some tangents so I'll try to stay on track a little bit here. So Foundation, we're going to start there. Sleep and hydration. I tell my clients, my athletes, these are the two most important things that we need to do and have right before you even come to me wanting to change you up your your meal plan or your game plan for your nutrition, people don't realize how much impact that these two things actually have on the nutrition choices we make and then also on our recovery from whatever the demands of the day are our movement and then also trying to change body composition.

00;11;20;17 - 00;11;42;07

If that's one of our goals or change our weight, because there are a lot of physiological and metabolic responses that happen when we are getting enough sleep or and we are hydrating well or vice versa if we're if we're not getting enough sleep and recovering as well or drinking enough water. So I'm going to start with the sleep.

00;11;42;07 - 00;12;14;23

I knew there's going to be a whole segment with someone that's a lot more intelligent than I am on sleep, so I'm going to keep it kind of a high level and trying to mostly focus on the nutrition piece of sleep. So generally speaking, recommendation for sleep all of these recommendations to that, I'm going to say during this segment are and I would say General recommendations like this is a starting point.

00;12;14;23 - 00;12;53;14

So I want people to know that not everybody is going to fit within these general recommendations because everybody's different. So sleep requirements, 7 to 9 hours approximately a night. Why do we need to sleep? Obviously, this is the time that our body and our mind are going to repair and rebuild themselves. We can go out and Anthony can take somebody through an intense workout, maybe they do in two days, but if they're not getting adequate sleep, then they're not going to reap the benefits from the repair, the muscle building that Anthony just took them to go through that workout.

00;12;53;17 - 00;13;21;16

From a cognitive standpoint, stresses illnesses like sleep is where we're going, going to come back. Those things. So from the nutrition standpoint, let's let's get to that. A lot of things are going on when you are getting adequate sleep. So growth hormone, this is a hormone that's going to be released when we are getting enough sleep. So this is needed for every tissue in your body.

00;13;21;16 - 00;13;42;12

So if you're trying to make any type of, I guess, quote unquote gain, you want to make sure you're getting adequate sleep. So this hormone is releasing properly cortisol, which I'm sure John talks about a lot in his sleep section. This is one of our stress hormones, and it's a catabolic hormone, meaning that it's going to tear you down.

00;13;42;14 - 00;14;09;02

So if this is staying chronically elevated while because we're not getting enough sleep. So it's chronically elevated mostly through the day because probably the demands of life outside of sleep are going to increase our cortisol levels as well. Then we're not going to be able to rebuild or repair as optimally as we would if we were getting that adequate sleep.

00;14;09;05 - 00;14;39;26

A couple other hormones that I wanted to throw out there, which are more thyroid and hunger regulation hormones, there's two in particular ghrelin and leptin ghrelin is our hunger hormones. So basically this tells us we we need to eat, eat more. This is actually going to be increased when we're not getting adequate sleep. Leptin, which is our satiety hormone, telling us like, okay, you've had enough, let's stop eating.

00;14;40;03 - 00;15;11;07

This is decreased when we're not getting adequate sleep. So if you have these two hunger regulation hormones that are kind of out of whack telling you to eat more, but not giving you the signal that you've had enough, then you are more apt to overeat and eat more calories than maybe you need for the day. So all of that is kind of something that you can't see physically but is internally happening.

00;15;11;09 - 00;15;41;18

So you can see how this would lead to not making body composition changes, which by what I mean by that is losing body fat. If that's your goal and or building muscle or weight loss in general, you're just not going to get there as fast if you're not getting that adequate sleep. Got it. So real quick on that one, since we're there and think about that because I'm thinking about myself as always, a little vain.

00;15;41;21 - 00;16;08;21

Just kidding. But if I'm thinking about the types of fat now when we're talking about sleep and we're talking about nutrition, the combination of those things to allow, you know, not to have as much cortisol and these other things, your body recovers and so on and so forth, the differences between fat. So when we're talking from here, I don't know if you're going to cover it or not, so we can understand the different types of fat so that you have the the rolls on the side and whatnot.

00;16;08;27 - 00;16;32;23

And then you have the I think it's visceral stuff inside. I don't know how the other way to say around your organs, you run to organs, different things, different way to lose that and different way to focus on how we can manage that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And actually chronically elevated cortisol levels are associated with higher like abdominal fat.

00;16;32;23 - 00;17;05;11

So that fat that for men, for example, is predominantly where your fat goes, which is more associated like cardiovascular disease and things like that. So like high blood pressure, cholesterol, all of that can be affected by the cortisol levels. So yes, losing the fat, that is not necessarily. And in indicative of a healthy, I guess, lifestyle or healthy biomarkers.

00;17;05;14 - 00;17;40;03

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. Yeah. Another thing I wanted to touch on here, a couple things actually. So what is asleep Disrupter? The biggest one, and I think pretty much everybody knows what it is. Stephan touched on it in his segment to alcohol. So if we are drinking alcohol consistently before bed, the alcohol basically it's going to wake you up when it starts metabolizing.

00;17;40;06 - 00;18;15;02

So if you're you know that you have to be like game ready the next morning, whether it's maybe a sporting event or you have some type of like physical activity you have to be prepped for, or it could be more or if you need to be sharp in on your game for some type of conference that you have to speak out or whatever it may be, a meeting, the alcohol may be one of those things you just want to consider limiting that night before you have to be kind of game ready.

00;18;15;05 - 00;18;40;22

That's the biggest one there. I do want to talk a little bit about what can what things because I don't want to get too far into all of the other things that you can do to to get better sleep, because I know John will talk about that. But from a nutrition standpoint, because I get asked a lot like what things can I eat or drink before I go to bed to maybe get a little bit of better sleep.

00;18;40;24 - 00;19;01;29

So there is three things I'll touch on here. One is pretty, I would say pretty obvious, although I say pretty obvious in that I realize a lot of people don't know some of these things that I'm saying, but like a herbal tea. So like camomile that's relaxing. Tart, cherry juice, concentrate. So this'll help tart cherry juice in general.

00;19;01;29 - 00;19;41;03

Or you can take pills. There are supplements for it, but if you want to go the cheaper route, I would recommend the tart cherry juice concentrate. This helps with recovery, but also helps with natural melatonin production so that you can get into more of a restful sleep. You only need about two ounces of the concentrate. I usually tell people to go that route if you're going to do it, because if you do just the 100% tart cherry juice, then you would have to drink about 16 ounces equivalent to the two ounce concentrate, which is a lot of juice and may not fit into your overall calorie or carbohydrate needs.

00;19;41;05 - 00;20;04;05

And then the last thing is magnesium. So magnesium helps with muscle relaxation. You can get this again, you can get this from a supplement. But if you want to go the food route, which I would always recommend food first, nut seeds, legumes, dark chocolate, even, which is kind of a nice dessert. They all are good sources of magnesium.

00;20;04;05 - 00;20;32;03

So you could have something in your dinner or if you're doing a nice snack, maybe that's high magnesium containing food. So those are three. There's more things that you can do. But I thought I'd point out by just a few of people want to want to try that if they're having some difficulty sleeping, maybe try that before going the route of more, I guess, extreme ways of getting to sleep, whether that's medication or whatever it may be.

00;20;32;05 - 00;20;51;01

Yeah. Now that's good. And and because it's the flow of thought that I'm having, I'm like because you said concentrate. And I was like, where would I immediately and where would I get that? How much trouble is it worth? How much is that going to impact my ability to go find it and then and then be consistent And then you said versus the juice, which is 16 ounces.

00;20;51;01 - 00;21;14;10

And immediately I was thinking that what you said impacting the other areas of concerns of calories and sugars and things like that. So I like where we're going, That's all. Okay, Awesome. Yeah. And and with any of these little, like tips that I'm giving out, just I would say just experiment because you never know what's going to work for you.

00;21;14;10 - 00;21;39;07

Some people love taking tart cherry. Do some people just prefer taking magnesium before bed? So you kind of have to play around, see what works for you. Maybe it's nothing nutrition related. It could be something else. Like in your environment that's disturbing your sleep. So I'm trying not to get into that as well because I know there'll be a more in-depth segment on that.

00;21;39;09 - 00;22;07;13

Okay, So we have sleep. That's number one, hydration. Number two, which is tied with sleep, is our foundation is the hydration piece. And so I want to touch a little bit on that before we move on to the actually talking about food. So general recommendations, again, this is a starting place. We can go above it if needed, but a half an ounce to one ounce per pound of body weight.

00;22;07;14 - 00;22;32;01

So that's typical recommendation. So if you're a £200 person, you want to drink at least 100 ounces of water a day as your minimum. Now, if you are in a hot, humid environment like Florida, your needs may go a little bit higher than that. If you're training twice a day or maybe you're training for Ironman or whatever it is, you also may need a little bit more.

00;22;32;02 - 00;23;00;04

Maybe you're at elevation, you're going to need a little bit more. So you do have to consider the external factors. But if you use the half an ounce to an ounce, that's a pretty good, I would say, place to start. And honestly, a lot of people struggle with this. And I think it's just because people don't think about drinking water and they get busy or they're like, Oh, it's a hassle because now I have to go pee and I have meetings all day.

00;23;00;06 - 00;23;33;10

But honestly, it's one of the easiest upgrades we can make with probably the most significant health impact. I mean, you think about your body and how much of your body is water like it's a large percentage of your body like up to 70%. So it's got to be important, right? We need it for our cognitive function. So like making sure being focused, being productive, we need it for transporting oxygen and nutrients to our working muscles, our sales.

00;23;33;15 - 00;24;00;03

If we have an injury, obviously we need water to get those nutrients to the injury site so that we're healing faster. So we need it for everything. We need it for absorbing our nutrients in our organs. It's so important and people just don't think about doing it. So I have to want to have to reinforce it and then to I have to come up or we have to come up with like, well, how can we increase water?

00;24;00;03 - 00;24;29;08

Like what are some practical tips? So we'll kind of talk about those things. And I will say like we can also include any naturally zero calorie beverages in that in that as well. So we can include like unsweetened teas, sparkling waters, we can include some coffee. Even So if you're drinking black coffee, I tell people that's perfectly fine, you know, maybe two, 300 milligrams, which is probably 2 to 3 cups, depending on the brew.

00;24;29;11 - 00;25;15;00

Like you can count that towards your overall hydration. But I would recommend like, let's try to make most of that water and then everything else is just kind of like a cherry on top. So yeah, so cognitively we're going to be better off. I always show, especially if I'm given a PowerPoint presentation to like a corporate setting, I will show these images, these MRI images of two different brains and on one side is a hydrating brain and all the other side's a dehydrated brain and there are blatantly like significantly more black divots in the dehydrated brain, which is indicative of brain activity.

00;25;15;05 - 00;25;43;28

So you can see like from an actual image of a brain when you're dehydrated, how unproductive or uncreative or focused that you're you're probably going to be if you're dehydrated. I do think people get very used to being in a dehydrated state, and that's kind of like their norm. And they are like, Well, I feel fine and I'm drinking 20 ounces of water, so why should I increase my water intake?

00;25;44;00 - 00;26;18;22

But I will tell you, like when I do come across clients that are very low in water intake, which is most of them, when they start slowly increasing water in their day, they will feel a difference whether that's mood energy, like mental clarity, physical performance too. So if we're talking about an athlete or even like a weekend warrior, someone just working out daily and that sweating from a physical standpoint, you are going to be faster and sharp or you're going to be less prone to injury.

00;26;18;22 - 00;26;48;19

If you're well-hydrated as well. I always tell people try to keep it under that 1% loss of body weight. When you are training. So I'll actually have I'm not a huge fan of like weighing every day, but I will have athletes especially maybe the first week they're here and say it is summer because it's super hot here. I'll have them weigh in before and after a training session just to see how much water weight they're losing.

00;26;48;22 - 00;27;12;18

And then we'll kind of do the calculation if they're losing too much waterway. So say again, £200. If they're losing more than £4 of of water weight, they're losing too much because they're already at that 2% dehydrated stage where they're going to start being more prone to injury and having a negative effects on their performance. So you can kind of do that yourself.

00;27;12;20 - 00;27;37;09

Just weigh in before and after your activity, see if you're drinking enough. Maybe maybe it's easier because you weren't drinking any and you need to just start sipping water throughout your workout or your competition. Maybe you were sipping on water all throughout your training competition and you're like, I can't drink anymore. Then then that's when you're probably going to want to consider adding in maybe electrolytes to help retain some of that.

00;27;37;11 - 00;28;07;28

The fluid that you're taking in. And there is all kinds of electrolytes ranging in sodium. So again, you have to kind of experiment nutrition, nutrition can be really frustrating because it's not always like black and white, but everybody's different. So it is a bit of an experiment at times. But yeah, water, water, drink enough water. Staying hydrated is going to be super beneficial to physical and cognitive performance.

00;28;08;00 - 00;28;43;17

I know I mentioned that to be in that big marker, but even at 1% dehydrated, you're not necessarily going to have a physical performance decline, but you will have more of a cardiovascular strain. So your perceived effort seems harder. So we don't we don't want that, especially if you're an endurance athlete or a triathlon or you're running a marathon and you feel like, okay, I'm in mile ten, and now I feel like this is a lot harder than it was, I probably can slow down.

00;28;43;17 - 00;29;09;16

So ultimately it is going to affect your physical performance. And I have to reinforce this with our military population all the time, like drink water because it does affect you. They have to be like mentally and physically sharp at all times. And it's really hard for them to to to stay super hydrated, even if they're trying. So get at it.

00;29;09;16 - 00;29;31;11

So the summary is you don't feel like drinking. It is probably the the awareness s of you should because the minute you say I don't feel like it is probably an indicator that you should and if the environment in the elements you understand where you're going to be, if you're going to change from where you normally stay in your house, you can go somewhere else.

00;29;31;14 - 00;30;05;07

Consider that movement itself with stress and other activities where your body's now responding to different places and different elevations and different atmosphere and all that stuff Drink, drink, water, fluids. Right. And and actually being inadequately hydrated can also affect your, again, cortisol level. So adding more stress is not good, right? Yeah. Got it. All right, cool. Dehydrator, quick note on this.

00;30;05;09 - 00;30;35;01

Again, alcohol. I know alcohol is falling in everywhere here, but I have to talk about it. Alcohol is anti diuretic hormone. So you're going to be losing more water and then added sugar. Actually, a lot of people think it's coffee when I always quiz people, they always think it's coffee, caffeine in and of itself. If you're drinking it at a moderate amount, say 3 to 400 milligrams a day, you should not be dehydrating yourself.

00;30;35;06 - 00;31;00;20

It's when people add added sugars or you're getting that like pumpkin spice latte. It's almost a fall season. So those things are going to dehydrate you because sugar is going to rob your cells of water. So just keep that in mind when you are hydrating, making sure that you're intentional about getting at least half your body weight in ounces of water.

00;31;00;20 - 00;31;25;17

And then you can add in other things as well. Got it. Yeah. Didn't think about that. And I'm glad you said that because I like my coffee and yeah, I don't know people. It's okay to have it. Yeah. And put stuff in it so. Okay perfect. So alcohol, water. Well alcohol, I mean it comes back to double down on the things that disrupt your sleep and then disrupts your.

00;31;25;17 - 00;32;00;24

Yeah. Okay. So it disrupts your sleep, disrupts your hydration which are your foundational things and we'll talk a second actually in the next piece about well, where does that fit in? So those are foundational sleep and hydration. And so now we're moving on to a little bit more specifics. It is probably what most people are interested in an end to talking about the mill composite in our macronutrients and micronutrients and then maybe the timing of that as well.

00;32;00;26 - 00;32;38;25

So before I dive into the different macros, macros, I do want to stress the under fueling problem. I would say 80% of the clients I see the tactical athletes, I see they chronically under fuel, which is actually a big problem if you're wanting to lose weight or again, if you're wanting to make those body composition changes. So building up muscle or reducing some of that body fat.

00;32;38;28 - 00;33;20;19

And I know I say that and I and I talk about the tactical population a bit because a lot of those at Oracle probably have been in the military at some point in their career. But I feel like that's something that a habit that you pick up when you're in that lifestyle, that sometimes you carry over and you continue to undo your fuel after you're out of the military, and especially because you're less active for the most part, then you feel like, Oh, I need to continue to cut calories, but that's not necessarily going to help you get to the weight goal or the body composition goal that you want to get to.

00;33;20;21 - 00;33;49;14

I've seen plenty of people that there will go over, say, like a 24 hour recall. And I don't I'll notice that they're barely eating, you know, 12, 1400 calories. And I'm like, hey, this is probably not enough fuel to optimize your physical performance, your energy, your cognitive performance. So let's try to actually up your calorie. Even though I know you want to lose weight.

00;33;49;14 - 00;34;21;05

Let's just see what happens and we'll up the calories and then people start losing weight so that I just want people to be mindful of like restricting calories to a certain extent does not always equal weight loss. So it's trying to fuel your body with the things that are going to optimize your cognitive and physical performance. So we're going to we're going to kind of roll through those macronutrients and some micro nutrients.

00;34;21;07 - 00;34;57;22

Whenever I'm talking about this section, I always start out with my favorite rule, which is the 8020 rule. And I think this brings us back to the sustainability that has been woven through all of these segments, because I have found that when we take an approach that, okay, 80% of the time we're going to fuel our bodies with what it needs to reach our goal, what it needs to be like, peak physically, mentally, but then we're intentionally going to allow for that 20% of time where we just have foods, say, nourish our souls and not necessarily our body.

00;34;57;25 - 00;35;28;12

We just enjoy eating them or drinking them if it's alcohol. So I do find that that's a more sustainable approach when we are not so strict and we do allow ourselves some of that, some of those foods in the flexibility to intentionally put those into our diet. So kind of keep that rule in mind as I go through some of these different macronutrients.

00;35;28;15 - 00;35;57;16

All right. So We're going to start with carbohydrates, everybody's favorite carbohydrates. When I speak about foods, I like to speak about them in a way that shows like how this food is going to benefit from a cognitive standpoint, a health standpoint, a physical performance standpoint. I don't like to say this food's good, this foods bad, because we know that all foods can fit into a sustainable diet.

00;35;57;16 - 00;36;23;04

You just want to be intentional about it. So carbohydrates, these are the foods that are going to be our preferred fuel source for our brain. So if we need to be cognitively sharp, incorporating carbs into our diet, it's a good thing. And then also it's our preferred fuel source for any high intensity activities or long duration activities. So from a physical performance standpoint, also carbs are our friends.

00;36;23;10 - 00;36;59;07

We want carbs in our diet. So what is a carbohydrate? It could be anything from a fruit, a grain, it could be beans, legumes. The key is to focus on unprocessed or minimally processed carbohydrates. So like our starchy veggies, the sweet potatoes, peas, corn, things like that would fall under unprocessed, more minimally processed would be more of like whole grain breads, pastas, brown rice, wild rice, black rice like that.

00;36;59;09 - 00;37;28;11

Those are going to be higher in fiber, which helps with cholesterol. It helps with satiety. So if we're trying to watch, you know, the calories that we eat, it helps us go for longer, helps with digestion. So lots of good things about fiber. And then also if you are eating minimally processed or unprocessed foods, you typically are eating things that are lower in added sugar, which the added sugar, as we know, is a dehydrator.

00;37;28;15 - 00;37;56;03

And also it's an inflammatory. So inflammation is connected to like every disease that we could have. So we want to keep that under control. And then if we have an injury, especially, we want to make sure we're just limited in those added sugars. My rule of thumb is typically let's try to keep the added sugar to under five grams per serving and the fiber let's try to shoot for at least three grams of fiber per serving.

00;37;56;03 - 00;38;29;07

So we're looking at a nutrition label. You should have fiber and added sugar under the carb section on the label. Got it. Makes sense. Perfect. Okay, so let's roll on 3 to 2 proteins. Protein is important for building muscle mass, but also it helps with the integrity of our immune system. So the key here, make sure we have a quality protein source at every meal and even our snacks if we can.

00;38;29;10 - 00;38;53;27

It seems like a simple thing to do, but honestly, it can be hard because what are the most convenient things? Like when we're in a hurry, we're probably grabbing a car or a car mixed with a fat, not necessarily a quality protein source. So sometimes this can actually be one of the biggest struggles for people to get adequate protein in at breakfast or lunch or dinner or whatever it may be.

00;38;54;00 - 00;39;20;14

You only need about 20 grams of protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. So typically, I tell people, let's try to shoot depending on your whole nutrition plan, if you can shoot for at least 20 to 40 grams of protein in a meal, then that's great. You're doing pretty good there. Protein. We used to have this old tagline, the the left legs, the better a plant proteins.

00;39;20;16 - 00;39;43;22

Then we have our seafood or no leg and I guess animals. Then we have our two legged animal. So poultry, so chicken, turkey and then are four legged animals. So if we kind of try to include all of those, the four legged animals are red meats. Okay to have, but maybe we have them a little bit less than our seafood or our chicken and turkey.

00;39;43;24 - 00;40;11;02

So we can kind of look at it like that. And and the reason for that is because of what so Well, you definitely want to, I guess with the bears that can be multifaceted and you want a variety of everything the plant proteins are going to have a lot of fiber. So that's adding something different that like your chicken and your turkey and a red meats aren't going to have.

00;40;11;02 - 00;40;36;01

So that's an extra nutrient. They're also going to be filled with, you know, different vitamins, minerals, maybe more micro nutrients. And then as you kind of work your way up, we have our fish. So like if we're focusing on fatty fish, which are like salmon, tuna, herring, mackerel, these are going to provide those heart healthy omega three fat.

00;40;36;01 - 00;41;14;06

So they have a little bit more benefits, different benefits in certain ways. Again, if you just don't like plant proteins, it's okay to have chicken and turkey maybe try to get in some seafood if you can. So some salmon each week, it's okay to have that most of the days. But it's really important to with anything and any of the macronutrients to make sure that you're having variety because variety equals different nutrients that your body good giving and getting so balancing it out so everything offers something different.

00;41;14;06 - 00;41;42;24

And if you're looking at at what the other things you're eating contain, you can do your own supplementation of you or what you're doing, the activity levels and things like that. Exactly. And then like I said, right. Me there's still is still okay to have you know, as long as there's no religious or restrictions that are placed on you, maybe by a physician but that's still going to offer you something.

00;41;42;24 - 00;42;16;27

It has this great iron, so good protein source. So yeah, variety is key with the proteins as well. Got it. Okay. Moving on to fats are our last two macronutrient that I also, I guess kind of like carbs can get villainized a little bit, but fats are great for you if you're looking at the molecular level. So like if you're looking at your cell, your cell membrane has made up of fat, so you need that.

00;42;17;00 - 00;42;41;01

You need fat for every cell in your body. And certain fats I mentioned in the protein section are going to give you a little bit more than other fat. So like our omega three fats, which are anti-inflammatory fats, they're going to give us a little something extra than maybe things that are higher in, say, saturated fats, for example.

00;42;41;01 - 00;43;08;19

So those are things like they're found in nuts and seeds a lot, too, like chia seeds, flax seeds, walnuts, avocado. Again, our fatty fish that I mentioned earlier, olives, olive oil, things like that are going to have those good omega three heart healthy fats. But also a big thing about the omega threes, too, is the cognitive benefit that has as well.

00;43;08;19 - 00;43;36;07

There's lots of research on that. So it helps our brain, our heart and then our cells. So we want to make sure that we're trying to diligently incorporate some of those omega threes in there. But again, we still want a variety of fats because nuts, seeds, all the different fats are going to offer us different micronutrients and things that we need to optimize our overall health.

00;43;36;09 - 00;44;03;08

The last food group R is our color section, so I always include fruits in here too and in our carb section. But veggies and fruits are going to fall into here and these are what we need to help support our immune system. So vitamins, minerals, micro, all the micronutrients, phytonutrients, antioxidants, all of that fiber or green fiber all fall into there.

00;44;03;10 - 00;44;27;24

But we try to encourage at least three colors or more on each plate. This can be really hard to do. So I usually tell people like, okay, well, let's just take an assessment of what we're doing currently. Is there one meal in your day that you're not getting any color on? And if there if you can identify a meal, then maybe we'll just start there.

00;44;27;24 - 00;44;54;16

Maybe there's multiple meals, but we'll just pick one. We'll start with one meal and then try to add one color on there and then maybe we try to move that to two or maybe we move to another meal so that we can get a color on every plate. Sometimes I'll even tell people like, Well, let's just pick one color and we'll focus on incorporating as many veggies and fruits from that one color into our week.

00;44;54;16 - 00;45;24;27

And then we'll change colors the next week because each color is actually indicative of something that get like a vitamin or a mineral that's given your body to function optimally. So like red foods are associated with cardiovascular health and white foods with immune health. So they all are going to play a different role. And if you're missing out on color, if you're missing all variety, you're probably missing out on some nutrient that your body needs to maximize your performance.

00;45;25;00 - 00;45;48;15

So in summarizing all of this to me have it makes sense. The key word here is balance through understanding. I'm just going to throw my little phrase in there because if you're deficient in one thing and you double down on the, say, the proteins, right, the leafy proteins, then it's also in the vegetation and area. So you have to be considered what else you're getting when you combine things on your plate.

00;45;48;15 - 00;46;07;20

Is that safe to say? Yeah, it's all about variety and balance at the end of the day. Yep. Got it. Yes, because keep it varied, right. And understanding what each of these are. I would imagine just the layman, somebody like me is going in there and this is what I like. And you led with this, you know. What did you use?

00;46;07;20 - 00;46;31;22

What have you done in the past and what's worked and what hasn't? So you can identify what you want for your habits that you don't want to let go of so you can have that compromised to help with the consistency you feel like you're getting what you want while you're offering what you need. Slowly shift into a more disciplined routine where you now are acclimated to selection of what you're going to do in that balanced diet, right?

00;46;31;28 - 00;46;53;28

Yeah. And exactly. Have you I guess from your your personal experience, like, have you ever tried to do a very restrictive diet or nutrition plan and you were able to stick with it for a little bit, But at one point you just kind of like fall off the bandwagon and then you just go crazy and just binge on whatever you weren't having.

00;46;54;00 - 00;47;13;18

Yeah, I did the keto, but I was also at that stage I was doing trying to train for a long distance running. Oh, okay. Good combo. Great. Yeah, it's perfect. If you don't want to do what you want to do, let me just feed myself all the proteins, no carbs, and then go run 15 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;47;13;18 - 00;47;35;05

That sounds like pretty miserable. So, yeah, don't self-diagnose. Sometimes you're going to need to ask for help and get somebody to help you understand what it is that you're doing. First day, second day, second week might feel good. After that, something's missing and you don't realize it's. It's the things that you've chosen to do over the most recent days or weeks, right?

00;47;35;08 - 00;47;52;26

That you forget like. Mm. And then you don't want to do it because you're not thinking about the things that are affecting your, your decision. I don't want to do that. I don't feel like doing that. Well, that's because it's cyclic. You're you don't feel like you want to do it because you're not doing it. So. Yeah. Yeah.

00;47;52;28 - 00;48;16;00

Okay. And a lot of these things either. Yeah, we don't know that we should be doing it because there is a lot of conflicting information out there, especially on nutrition or we just have forgotten because we've gotten busy. We have families and kids and work and all that. So it's really it comes down to being intentional with everything.

00;48;16;00 - 00;48;38;27

And food is something that you want to be intentional about. It's not something that you want to add is another stressor on your life. But if you just kind of sit down and maybe it is seeking out a health professional, a dietitian to help you with it, but if you just do it and kind of make out a game plan, yes, you will have to go back and refined it and refine it.

00;48;38;27 - 00;49;00;09

Like Stephan mentioned, learn, design, deliver and refine. You do have to check back in and make some adjustments. But once you sit down and do that, it will take out a lot of stress moving forward because you get in the habit of doing certain things. So yeah, so we're we've got our foundation, we've got our meal timing and composition.

00;49;00;11 - 00;49;27;22

The last thing that I kind of had that I wanted to talk about was the most specific, which is a supplementation of this is the last thing that we should consider you shouldn't be thinking about adding in all these things like ashwagandha or b-complex or whatever it is, whatever the newest supplement is out there, there is always something they all get asked about something new probably every week.

00;49;27;22 - 00;49;50;21

And I'm like, Hold up. I'm like, I got to go research because I don't even know what you're talking about right now. We got to have the sleep in the hydration and then the food dialed in and then, okay, then maybe we consider like, okay, we're still missing something that how do we fill in the gaps? And that's where, like supplementation may come into play.

00;49;50;24 - 00;50;15;13

This can come into play if we do have a know like medical history of being deficient in something, or maybe we are a high performing athlete and we just have more demands than I guess the average person from. It also can come into play though, just based on our lifestyle. I would always recommend food first, but sometimes we are.

00;50;15;14 - 00;50;49;26

We are very busy and it's better to get something in than nothing. So we might have to do like a whey protein supplement in our breakfast oatmeal because we we don't have time to make prepare an actual like hot breakfast. So lifestyle can always Yeah. Also kind of like dictate if we need supplementation or not. I guess I'll start with some every day supplementation and then we'll get into kind of Perry activity.

00;50;49;26 - 00;51;25;01

What what can we maybe do if you are active around a workout every day supplementation again, I mentioned plant or whey based protein here because I think this is a great thing that you can have on hand if you are very busy or you don't have time to prepare, say, like a breakfast. I use breakfast as an example because this is where I struggle the most, because I do have a 17 month old that I am getting ready in the morning, I'm dropping off at daycare, then I'm coming to work all day and also trying to fit some type of movement or exercise.

00;51;25;01 - 00;52;02;12

And so I stay relatively busy and I'm just on the go in the morning. So fitting in a breakfast where it's fast and maybe I can take it in the car with me or maybe I can eat it right when I get to work and I'm checking my emails in the morning. I think that having like a quality protein source on hand is not a bad thing, and that can be used as a meal replacement if you are getting all the macronutrients in there and the color, or it can be used as kind of like an accompanying thing or even a snack too.

00;52;02;15 - 00;52;29;11

So that could be an everyday supplementation. For me, Vitamin D is an important one, but the fat soluble vitamins. So it is one of those that you do want to go get blood work before you just start taking a lot of vitamin D. But I will say that most of the people that I see, if you are indoors most of the day or you live maybe in the northern hemisphere, most of us are a little bit low in vitamin D.

00;52;29;13 - 00;53;07;00

Also, the darker the your skin, you actually are more prone to be lower in vitamin D as well. So there's different considerations there. So that's a bit you might want to get checked out because that's going to play a huge role in your hormones, your mood, your energy, testosterone if you're male. So the very important vitamin A quality multivitamin, this this is basically if you struggle to get color in your diet, you're like, I just know I don't a lot of diversity in my veggies and fruits.

00;53;07;02 - 00;53;45;27

Maybe we need to fill in the gaps with vitamins, minerals and a quality multivitamin helps support our immune system as well. Especially, you know, it's this thick season that is like ramping up. So omega threes or some type of quality fish oil. Again, this is probably one of my foundational ones, just because there's so much benefit from a brain and a cognitive standpoint to just the information Harthill So trying to get a quality fish oil, omega 312, three grams a day is usually good enough of omega three.

00;53;45;27 - 00;54;20;08

So I would say those are pretty foundational. Now there's a million other supplements out there and some people may require probiotics or prebiotics, but those are usually a little bit more, I would say felt fine tuned if you need that based on, you know, your medical history, your digestion and things like that. Perry Perry Activity supplementation. I'm going to talk a little bit about, I guess, what we do here, the facility in Florida.

00;54;20;10 - 00;54;48;18

But honestly, I think the average, quote unquote, average Joe could also do this and benefit from it. But each morning I will set out a nitric oxide supplementation. So like a beet juice. So you can you can juice your own beets, you can find a quality beet juice supplement. But this is a vasodilator. So it's going to help increase your blood flow to get oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles.

00;54;48;18 - 00;55;14;18

So it's a great pre-workout to have, especially if maybe you're going out for a run or you're training for some long endurance activity. This would be a great pre-workout supplement to take. We also give beta alanine. So if you've ever taken a pre-workout that makes you feel a little tingly or itchy, it's probably the beta alanine in it, but we'll just give it straight up.

00;55;14;18 - 00;55;41;28

So I'm not adding in other things to that pre-workout. And this basically this will help with buffering the acidity build up in you, so it helps delay fatigue. So essentially, you can go longer or get more reps in and then caffeine. How do you want to touch on that a little bit? I do not give a stimulant when I'm giving out pre workouts to clients or athletes here.

00;55;42;00 - 00;56;20;25

Everybody reacts different to caffeine. It can act as a ergo genic aid. It has been shown to improve cognitive function like alertness, focus, also endurance activity. So that could be a consideration to do on the I would say recommendation because people are probably like how how much caffeine should I drink? 3 to 6 milligrams per EKG. So just to put that in more, I guess terms you can wrap your head around if you're a £150 person, that's probably going to be about 200 milligrams of caffeine.

00;56;20;25 - 00;56;52;23

So about two cups of coffee. And this is if you're using it as a ergo genic aid. So something that's going to help your performance. I will say some people don't respond to caffeine at all or don't respond well. It also can affect people sleep again. So I would not recommend doing like a massive amount or 200 plus milligrams of caffeine before like at nighttime or maybe even mid-afternoon.

00;56;52;23 - 00;57;26;27

Like I have to cut my coffee off about 12. So that doesn't disrupt my sleep. So that would be the only caveat there. But if it's in the morning that you're getting your training done, that could be something you consider to add your pre-workout. Post-workout Again, you do need do you need three things for Post-workout recovery? I say you want to rebuild a protein, refuel with carbs and rehydrate with water protein specifically again at quality whey or plant based protein.

00;57;27;04 - 00;57;34;22

You only need 20 grams of protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. So try to shoot for at least that.

00;57;34;25 - 00;58;01;02

There is some smaller amino acids. I'm not going to get into everything, but particularly leucine, which is in most quality whey proteins. You're going to see a leucine amount in there. And this is the this is the actual amino acid that you need to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. So it goes through the entire process. So you want to make sure that's in there.

00;58;01;04 - 00;58;21;19

And then carbs again, the carbohydrates are going to be dependent on one. What was what's your goal? Do you want to lose weight, gain weight, maintain way? If you're wanting to gain weight, you're probably going to have higher carbs in somebody want to lose weight in your post-workout How does it fit into your overall nutrition plan for the day?

00;58;21;19 - 00;58;59;02

So if you ate breakfast before you worked out and it's hitting post-workout hitting about the time you'd have a snack, maybe do have a carb in there. It might just be your next scheduled snack or meal. It doesn't have to be a supplement as a post-workout recovery. But yeah, if you're doing something that's very long duration, say you're training for something over 90 minutes or a couple hours, then you probably are going to want to be intentional with refueling with carbohydrates to replace some of those glycogen stores that you kind of burn through.

00;58;59;04 - 00;59;22;29

Yeah, those those would be my top ones. There's there's definitely a couple other things that I'll add into shakes here. But those I don't want to give too many recommendations because some things could be affected by, you know, if somebody is on medication and things like that. So those have to be considered when you're looking at supplements because there are interactions with a lot of medications.

00;59;22;29 - 00;59;55;23

So. Got it. Yep. So I mean, it's a good flow and I like how you organize it all. It's basically it's understanding, you know, the plants, the plants, the food, whatever food stuffs you're going to have as long as you're again, sending it to where it needs to go through the hydration component. That last part of the supplementation, when you start to get into manufactured supplementing, there's your role in and I'm going to say this with caution, you're rolling some sort of dice because you got to know how much you're having in these other areas.

00;59;55;24 - 01;00;31;20

And you can go down that Costco aisle and see that whole row of stuff to choose from. And you're thinking, maybe I want this because I'm not feeling a certain way. And then you can double down on that and have too much of it. Safe to say. Right. And you got to know where it's coming from. Right. And yeah, I do the the supplement Haitian conversation in a in a general sense, I have to be cautious about it because you don't know what someone's medical history looks like or their current nutrition intake.

01;00;31;23 - 01;00;58;19

But yeah, for the most part you do, you do excrete or you don't utilize anything that you're taking in excess. But there are certain things you can take in excess that can become toxic. So you do have to be careful with that. You did bring up a good point that I meant to mention is when we are picking out a supplement because it's not closely regulated by the FDA, I mean, you could find a supplement that looks great.

01;00;58;19 - 01;01;36;29

They try to sell it to you. It looks great. And what's on the label may not actually be in the supplement container, which is kind of scary. So I always tell people you want to make sure that the supplement is third party tested. So basically an unbiased company has come in. They have checked to make sure, okay, the labels aligning with what's in these containers and they check for banned substances, which I know most people, I mean, maybe they care about, but we probably don't it's not going to affect us as much because we're not getting drug tested like an athlete.

01;01;37;01 - 01;02;13;27

But they also check for like heavy metals and things like that, which I don't want a bunch of heavy metals added to my body. More so than they already are. So I would say like always check for a third party tester. There's a lot of there's NSF is a big one and form choice. USP there is being controlled substance group so there's quite a few typically when they do have a third party tester, the company will have that on the label because they pay a lot of money to get somebody else to come in and check their supplements.

01;02;13;29 - 01;02;34;12

If you don't see it on the label and you're curious, all you have to do and I keep tabs on my computer of this, but you just go to the third party testing company like I know NSF, for example. I can just type in like a supplement I'm looking for, say like a quality whey protein and it'll pop up with all the supplements that they've approved.

01;02;34;12 - 01;03;01;12

So that that makes it a little easier to identify what's actually been tested and what's what hasn't got it. Yeah, and I think that's the the the final thing that I'll comment on outside of the summary is the trust. I mentioned it earlier. Right. So and you about it any and I'm not going to name any particular brand or franchise or whatever I'm to say you trust right.

01;03;01;12 - 01;03;18;22

So you go into a place and you've got to you got to consider the people who are working in certain places, whether their level of knowledge to where they're advising and why they're advising it. Right. So you talked about selling, talked about you talked about some of these things where it's going to be marketed in some capacity to influence the outcome, the purchase.

01;03;18;25 - 01;03;45;21

Right. Right. The motive there is probably more driven to the individual's ability or incentive to direct you towards a particular product. And we have to understand that that it's we're talking about you. We're talking about your family, we're talking about your safety, we're talking about your health. So let's make sure that first things first, the basics are to introduce what you can have access to.

01;03;45;21 - 01;04;09;14

That is, for context, less harmful rights of water, hydration, food stuffs and all that stuff. It's when you get into the to the last component to where you start to add things to it, know who you're talking to, trust them through verifying. All right. And so you're talking about what you said is for those organizations, third party inspectors and things that.

01;04;09;16 - 01;04;28;25

But where are you going? Trust, too. You're speaking with the same way that you would feel like you can trust the family member, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'll do this right out of work for me. Okay. Maybe now I'll take that into consideration, and I'm going to go check with somebody that knows for sure. Because for me, I want to make sure that it's not going to put myself into harm's.

01;04;28;27 - 01;05;02;14

Right? Exactly. Yeah. Speak to a dietitian, your physician, even I would recommend a dietitian if you can. But physicians would be someone who I would seek for, like deficiencies and things. And then maybe you could work with a dietitian as well to help see what would be a quality supplement. But again, like supplementation is the last consideration. So we don't we don't really need to think about this if our diet is crap, Right.

01;05;02;14 - 01;05;20;14

Well, that's the thing. And and you don't realize it is because you didn't do you didn't do the little bit of effort that goes up front to understand what the basic foundations can include. And you now become more aware of the values and the benefits which hopefully this conversation introduced. Couple of nuggets for people to realize. It's pretty simple.

01;05;20;14 - 01;05;41;14

If you just take if you know what to look for and what to ask and who to speak with. But I think finally, if you think about it, the easy, the easy consumerism element is to say, Oh yeah, I feel that way. Go get an energy drink that'll pump you up and you'll be good to go right? Well, everything that we just talked about, you could be undermining all of those things because now it could.

01;05;41;21 - 01;06;14;27

Like anything else, you've food yourself or you've convinced on, say for yourself, you convinced yourself to believe that that's an element that you can incorporate in your habit, which is taking you away from the core of what you need to do for your body at your age, in your environment and all these types of things. So exactly. And like if you are meeting like an energy drink or coffee because you're you're sluggish or your drag and by the afternoon, like, I think that's a great time to be like, let me reflect on what I've been doing.

01;06;14;29 - 01;06;37;21

Something's probably missing. Yeah, why am I feeling that way? So, yeah, on the go influences decision making, which is also influenced by a lack of nutrition. So again, you know, you got to think about why you're thinking about it, which is this redundant, cyclic approach to knowing yourself better so you don't do easy. Easy is not all the time the choice that you want to make.

01;06;37;24 - 01;07;21;16

Mm hmm. Okay, great. Anything else? There's a lot of things, but yeah, these. I think this is a good, like, foundational, high level overview. Like these. These are good places to start hydration and then looking at your meal and stack composition, I think those are good places to start and everything else is fine tuning. Yep. Gotcha. So it's it's the three, three simple areas to focus on the foundations and then some of the other areas you can consider on you know, so the sleep and the rest making sure you're getting that because it has an, an impact, it affects you avoid the things that prevent that.

01;07;21;22 - 01;07;44;22

So whatever it is, you know, alcohol or stress or, you know, other factors that we did talk about with John, you know, the TV and these distract these mental can have you thinking about things too much before you go to bed and things like that. You want you want rest and recovery and then the hydration assists with that along with getting the nutrients to the body.

01;07;44;29 - 01;08;07;10

Right. And I'm saying that at a high level because I'm not you. Right. But you know, you got to send it. So drink, drink fluids and then the macros, the carbs, the proteins, the fats, the fruits and veggies, coloring matters, the balance matters. Knowing what's in each of these things at certain times based off your activity level, which is going back to the other conversations of the goals and the planning.

01;08;07;12 - 01;08;26;19

And when you understand what you're trying to achieve, you know how to split it up and you know when you're going to become familiar and then you dial it in, the more that you do it, the repetitions that you put into it, the better the habit forming situation you find yourself in. So you can now look at it holistically and say, Is it working or not?

01;08;26;19 - 01;08;41;05

In these scenarios, I know my base, I've increase my baseline based off my activity levels, which is increase because now I understand what I'm putting in my body. I know what the output is going to come to. I know how to make sure I'm putting things back where they need to be when, when they need to be there.

01;08;41;07 - 01;09;31;18

And then finally the supplementation. It's an option, but be specific, be intentional, educate yourself, find the right source of information. You make a choice. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Nutrition. Nutrition is key and being consistent is key. And being intentional is key. So be intentional about fueling your body with the foods and the liquids that it needs to optimize your performance and be intentional about the foods or the liquids that you don't necessarily fuel your goal or fuel your performance, but the things that you truly enjoy because that for me helps my mindset too, which wraps into all the other three pillars.

01;09;31;20 - 01;10;03;01

Yeah, no, it's it's easy to connect. I mean, all of you that have spoken to this with Exos, all of you within Exos, we've spoken to these things. It makes sense and the logical order plus the consistency in the terms you're using. It demonstrates the discipline that you all have towards understanding what it is that somebody like me would come into this situation and talking to somebody like you and not know you're helping that you're speaking at our level, you're coming to our level to be able to help us understand where we're at.

01;10;03;03 - 01;10;30;20

And and you're right, I'm sure there's tons more that you could get into, but I will say that. And so any any closing remarks? No, thank you. Thank you for having me. This was awesome. And I'm looking forward to hearing all the other intelligent Exos employees because you've already had some very smart people on this podcast. So I learned just from listening to them.

01;10;30;20 - 01;11;03;07

So it's been great. Thank you for letting me share a little bit of the cable. Keep it simple. Stupid information that I have now. You're solid and you are in that class, so I appreciate you your time, the knowledge you shared, or the information you shared, hopefully to build knowledge for anybody listening, as always. Well, how would if anybody if you're if you're open to it, if anybody was interested in connecting, what are the main methods that one could use?

01;11;03;10 - 01;11;28;23

Yeah. LinkedIn's are always an option. I'm happy receive emails. So it's just J. Mason J ASU in Team Access WSJ.com. So feel free to shoot me an email if you have a question or a follow up. Or maybe there's some research. You found that conflict. Something that I said. I love to see it. Send it to me. Got it.

01;11;28;27 - 01;11;32;17

Thank you so much, Jana. All right, everyone, keep moving forward.

View Details

Did you know…about 50-70 million Americans suffer from some sort of sleep disorder? If you average less than 6 hours of sleep per day you are 7.5 times to have a higher BMI. Yes, sleep is important for a variety of reasons. Ever wonder how you may find ways to connect what you do and how it affects sleep and how sleep affects what you do? We have it here. This one is for all levels and is essentially an above-average explanation of how sleep works by walking us through layers of details to explain cause and effect, motor control, memory, focus, immune system…any kind of cognitive function and sets it up with actionable items to connect how to optimize sleep and performance. From individuals, athletes, to businesses or military…seek to understand as we continue the mission to serve. - https://teamexos.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/company/exos/ - https://www.teamexos.com/athlete/military - https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-stemmerman-8a29969/ - sunderwood@teamexos.com - ahobgood@teamexos.com - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-andrews-institute/ - http://www.andrewsinstitute.com/ - https://andrewsref.org/ - https://andrewsref.org/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;08;00 - 00;00;28;16

You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized missions and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the MAVEN podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And in this fourth episode of our XO series, I'm joined by our guest, John STEMMER Min, senior vice president of Performance at Exos.

00;00;28;18 - 00;00;46;26

Did you know about 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from some sort of sleep disorder? Or how about if you have less than 6 hours of sleep, you are seven times more likely to have a higher BMI? Yep. Sleep is important for a variety of reasons. Ever wonder how you may find ways to connect what you do and how it affects sleep and how sleep affects what you do?

00;00;46;27 - 00;01;07;11

We have it here. This one is for all levels and is essentially an above average explanation of how sleep works. By walking us through layers of details to explain cause and effect, motor control, memory focused immune system and any cognitive functions, and sets it up with actionable items to connect how to optimize sleep and performance from individuals, athletes to businesses or military.

00;01;07;12 - 00;01;23;25

Seek to understand as we continue the mission to serve. John's contact details are in the podcast description, and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. John How's it going?

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Speaker 2

Chris It's it's great to be here. Thank you for having me. Excited to dive into this topic.

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Oh, you bet. No, it's pleasure and I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to come in here and share with us what we're talking about today is sleep. So, John Steadman, SVP of Performance from Exos, coming here to share not only a little bit about himself, how he came to be, where he where he is, like we had with Anthony and Stephan from our previous episodes and how it correlates to the, I assume, the purpose and the passion of the role that he's in and the desire to be able to extend it beyond the small circles.

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And as far as the reach can be within Exos through clients and brand that's being built off the expertise of everybody that works there. So, John, if you wouldn't mind, take some time and let us know more about you.

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Speaker 2

Appreciate that.

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So I.

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Speaker 2

Come from a Navy family, so I was actually born.

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In Puerto Rico on a.

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Speaker 2

Navy installation there. My dad had recently retired. I was stationed there. Both my parents were in the Navy.

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Ended up moving to.

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Speaker 2

Tampa, which I say I'm from in most conversations. Everybody asked me where I'm from in Tampa, Florida, and so.

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I grew up doing a lot of things that probably a lot of.

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Speaker 2

Your listeners.

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Are doing. But I was very average in athletics. I played football player, did wrestling, did a lot of outdoor time.

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Speaker 2

With my father. So hunting and fishing.

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And that was probably the bulk of what I did growing up. I also loved working out and it was probably more for what?

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Speaker 2

Because I think we're probably close to the same.

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Age, but probably more.

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Speaker 2

For the esthetic purposes and probably some of the sports performances versus where we are today in a.

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Very.

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Speaker 2

Kind of advanced CIMA performance optimization world.

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Now. And you.

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Speaker 2

May remember some of the.

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Stuff, you know, the reader entering.

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Speaker 2

£10 weight said.

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That.

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Speaker 2

Was in the porch of the garage and the bench.

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That, you know, would normally fall apart.

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And some of some of the weights with the sand inside the place, Right?

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Speaker 2

Yeah, that's exactly right.

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And had my.

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Speaker 2

Muscle and fitness I would pick up at the grocery store every.

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Day and you know.

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Speaker 2

Joe readers ultimate bodybuilding.

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So that was probably.

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Speaker 2

The genesis of.

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How I got into human.

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Speaker 2

Performance. And at that point, it wasn't it wasn't the catalyst. It's I wanted to look decent with my shirt off.

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And do a little bit.

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Speaker 2

Better the sports.

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That I was into.

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Speaker 2

And as I was.

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Kind of growing up and.

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Speaker 2

Graduated high school, went to college, started kind of just getting my prerequisites underneath my belt, went to a community college, actually.

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Before figuring out what I really wanted to.

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Speaker 2

Do, was working full time.

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Around that and.

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Speaker 2

Finally realized that there's this.

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Actually kind of growing job field where working.

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Speaker 2

Out can be your job. And so.

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I.

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Speaker 2

Went to school for Physical education, got my degree from the University of South Florida. One of my internships.

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Out of there landed me.

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Speaker 2

And a location Sarasota, this small private gym, but it was also international coach.

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For Olympic weightlifting.

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Speaker 2

And his name's Rick Lansky, so he'd be one of my mentors.

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Growing up.

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Speaker 2

My internship turned into a job, which also turned into an introduction to another one of my mentors. His name's Jeff Stone, and that was with the Lassie Sports Performance, which was mostly at youth focused franchise model.

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For for.

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Speaker 2

Performance. It's been quite a few years there.

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And some really other great.

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Speaker 2

Mentors Corey.

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Goodwin, Nathan Hoyt, and then.

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Speaker 2

Just his own.

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New.

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Speaker 2

Mark Verstegen, Mark Steyn is the founder of Exos. So I started as Athletes performance in 1999.

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And.

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Speaker 2

Basically Jeff and Mark got the band back together and Jeff brought.

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Me along.

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Speaker 2

And kind of this inflection.

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Point of kind of growth trajectory.

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Speaker 2

For access at the time.

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So that's kind of how I landed where I am.

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Speaker 2

I've been there 17 years now, so I started with the organization in 26, pretty much a lowly strength coach performance specialist at the time.

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And worked my way through.

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Speaker 2

Various leadership positions.

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And you know, where I am.

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Speaker 2

Today is.

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A very passionate role with a company that.

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Speaker 2

Puts people first but humans first and.

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Really is.

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Speaker 2

You know, as Anthony realized before, seeking to understand.

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How can we help.

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Speaker 2

The person that shows up in front of us as well to.

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In there. I've done a fair amount of work with kind of our.

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Speaker 2

Tactical populations, whether that's through or some of our education.

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That we've delivered.

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Speaker 2

I spent a fair amount of time managing one of our first human performance contracts, which was part of the preservation of force and family, which was a so-called wide initiative.

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We were one of the.

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Speaker 2

Companies that supported. So basically.

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Hiring.

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Speaker 2

Practitioners across all domains to support that.

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As well too. And I really do have a.

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Speaker 2

Passion for the tactical space.

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Coming from a military family and.

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Speaker 2

Never had a chance to serve myself.

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But have a really.

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Speaker 2

Deep appreciation for.

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People who are willing to put it.

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Speaker 2

On the line as well as the family members that support them. And then even down to some events, we've run for Gold Star families in launching other kind of smaller contracts in.

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Kind of.

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Speaker 2

Backwoods European countries in support of DOD initiatives.

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Where you're washing out a old garage.

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Speaker 2

With fire hoses to set up.

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Kind of.

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Speaker 2

A austere training.

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Environment and kind of.

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Speaker 2

You know, those are some of the.

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More.

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Speaker 2

Interesting and.

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Fun.

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Speaker 2

Or times that I think.

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I've had in my career.

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You're setting it up. Those are a lot of the areas to where our people believe training used to be. So let's go back to what you started to talk about, because back in those days, people say eighties, nineties, the mindset was always trained. You never really you never really heard about sleep. I mean, you heard maybe about nutrition and that's when that nutrition, fad, fad, it's probably not a fad, but it's, you know back then it was, it was the saying, you know, all these nutrition supplement stores were coming and opening up and things like that.

00;07;39;10 - 00;08;07;28

Flex Magazine, Muscle and Fitness, you know, your magazine, all of those all of those sources of information obviously had to say pay for themselves. But they would have now the marketing and those elements to where there was a push to understand there was more along the lines of working out and how the supplements would work. But not a lot of information surrounding how you can sleep, how rest played, a factor in even between sets and things like that, because you had a bunch of different styles.

00;08;07;28 - 00;08;26;14

So the evolution of it all, we've heard from Steph and Anthony and now we'll hear from you how it all connects. So setting up between the plan, the nutrition element, let's let's get into it. So sleep, how do you how do you incorporate that?

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Yeah.

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Speaker 2

Let's, let's kind of.

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Paint a real.

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Speaker 2

Good picture just to have some context. So we've got to kind of the movement side that Anthony talked about. We're going to hit sleep, which is going to be a key.

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Probably the number one recovery strategy.

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Speaker 2

And I'm going to get into some of the details around.

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That.

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Speaker 2

Nutrition is a key one like we've already talked about. There's all this also is.

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Idea that will be in.

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Speaker 2

In some of our future episodes of reflection and basically values, motivators goals.

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And you be aware of what's happening and in the.

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Speaker 2

Real time awareness, how can you proactively set your up for success and reactively? Think about things like an air show as the completion of your day. Do you do.

00;09;03;08 - 00;09;04;23

An air of What did I do.

00;09;04;23 - 00;09;21;09

Speaker 2

Well today? What did I do? What today? What can I do better tomorrow? And then regulation, which I'll touch on a little bit in this probably just because it's a great strategy to support sleep. But how can you actually utilizing different strategies, leverage your nervous system to either Upregulate or Downregulate? So those are some key areas I would talk about.

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So we're going.

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Speaker 2

To dive into sleep, but those are kind of the main components that our team thinks about when.

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We're putting.

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Speaker 2

Things together as well too.

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But yeah.

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Speaker 2

We get into it in just, just for the audience. I'm not a sleep scientists.

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I'm not a doctor or anything like that.

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Speaker 2

Kind of the main sources that I've gotten this from and I'd recommend you checking this out.

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Now.

00;09;42;11 - 00;09;42;27

Speaker 2

Walker is.

00;09;42;27 - 00;09;45;15

A really well known.

00;09;45;17 - 00;09;46;28

Speaker 2

Voice out there on sleep.

00;09;46;28 - 00;09;49;12

Probably the the eminent.

00;09;49;14 - 00;09;50;03

Speaker 2

Voice out there.

00;09;50;03 - 00;09;55;21

Currently, he's got a book out there called Why Why We Sleep. And he's.

00;09;55;21 - 00;09;57;13

Speaker 2

A professor of neuroscience and psychology.

00;09;57;18 - 00;09;58;00

Founder.

00;09;58;01 - 00;10;02;03

Speaker 2

Director of Center for Human Sleep Science. We've also got some information from the National Institute for.

00;10;02;03 - 00;10;02;16

Health.

00;10;02;17 - 00;10;05;17

Speaker 2

And the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. So those are kind of.

00;10;05;17 - 00;10;06;18

Three of our.

00;10;06;20 - 00;10;11;01

Speaker 2

Kind of main sources of the information. But essentially we.

00;10;11;01 - 00;10;11;26

Pulled and kind of.

00;10;12;01 - 00;10;14;16

Speaker 2

Brought this into a place where we can use that information and then.

00;10;14;16 - 00;10;16;20

Go forward and help somebody in.

00;10;16;20 - 00;10;18;29

Speaker 2

Front of us. Almost out of some questions.

00;10;18;29 - 00;10;22;12

And I know I know a little bit of your background and not a lot.

00;10;22;15 - 00;10;23;16

Speaker 2

How many hours of sleep do you.

00;10;23;16 - 00;10;25;24

Get per night on average.

00;10;25;26 - 00;10;26;26

Of.

00;10;26;28 - 00;10;36;04

Speaker 2

5 hours. So that doesn't surprise me a whole bunch when I get some stats here in a second. The intention is not to raise any fire alarms or anything like that, but just knowing you.

00;10;36;04 - 00;10;39;01

Have a bit of background in in the.

00;10;39;01 - 00;10;41;01

Speaker 2

Armed forces, it doesn't surprise me.

00;10;41;01 - 00;10;43;02

Either as that of like a.

00;10;43;02 - 00;10;43;11

Speaker 2

Nurture.

00;10;43;11 - 00;10;44;16

Standpoint or maybe a.

00;10;44;16 - 00;10;47;15

Speaker 2

Nature standpoint, like a genetic predisposition.

00;10;47;17 - 00;10;48;01

Do you know.

00;10;48;01 - 00;10;54;04

Speaker 2

Of any strategies to optimize sleep personally? Like if you're trying to get to sleep, do you have anything that you know that you can do, you can.

00;10;54;04 - 00;10;55;19

Pull out of your pocket that.

00;10;55;19 - 00;10;56;04

Speaker 2

You can try to.

00;10;56;04 - 00;10;57;02

Implement?

00;10;57;04 - 00;11;10;20

Yeah. So dark cover my eyes, obviously. Silence. Staying away from the light, either TV or phone within the time frame about an hour.

00;11;10;22 - 00;11;12;10

Speaker 2

So that's that's a lot of keep on zoom.

00;11;12;10 - 00;11;13;17

So my.

00;11;13;17 - 00;11;16;16

Speaker 2

Hope is we're going to go through this is what is sleep so.

00;11;16;16 - 00;11;18;01

Give a bit of a framework of what.

00;11;18;08 - 00;11;20;04

Speaker 2

Sleep actually is.

00;11;20;07 - 00;11;21;22

I think people intuitively know.

00;11;21;22 - 00;11;22;10

Speaker 2

What it is.

00;11;22;10 - 00;11;23;09

But give a little.

00;11;23;09 - 00;11;33;24

Speaker 2

Bit more details around it, why it's important that we sleep, and then some optimization strategies or concepts as well too. So that's kind of the journey I hope to take us on is what is it, why is it.

00;11;33;24 - 00;11;37;23

Important and how do you optimize it?

00;11;37;25 - 00;11;40;02

Speaker 2

Would you consider yourself you're probably turning into this.

00;11;40;04 - 00;11;43;16

A morning lark or a night owl?

00;11;43;19 - 00;11;45;00

Morning.

00;11;45;03 - 00;11;46;02

Speaker 2

So you're a person. I get so.

00;11;46;03 - 00;11;46;28

Probably early in the.

00;11;46;28 - 00;11;48;03

Speaker 2

Morning, just probably.

00;11;48;03 - 00;11;49;17

Without an alarm clock or anything like.

00;11;49;17 - 00;11;52;10

Speaker 2

That is is probably the situation.

00;11;52;10 - 00;11;54;12

For you. That is So we'll.

00;11;54;12 - 00;11;58;05

Speaker 2

Talk about that too. There's a genetic predisposition towards is people like yourself who.

00;11;58;05 - 00;12;00;16

Get up earlier in the morning naturally.

00;12;00;18 - 00;12;11;28

Speaker 2

Night owls which everybody's probably heard of people that tend to stay up later and sleep in later. And then there's kind of a blended between and it's kind of relatively evenly across thirds across population.

00;12;12;00 - 00;12;13;14

There'll be some evolutionary.

00;12;13;17 - 00;12;15;09

Speaker 2

Things around that. So if you imagine back.

00;12;15;09 - 00;12;17;08

In the cave, you got people I wake up.

00;12;17;08 - 00;12;18;28

Speaker 2

Early so they can keep an eye out on the rest of.

00;12;18;28 - 00;12;21;06

The clan or the tribe. You got.

00;12;21;06 - 00;12;24;08

Speaker 2

People that stay up late to kind of keep an eye on the rest of the tribe.

00;12;24;08 - 00;12;25;05

And then they kind of people in the.

00;12;25;05 - 00;12;27;14

Speaker 2

Middle. So sleep is.

00;12;27;14 - 00;12;28;26

Very.

00;12;28;28 - 00;12;30;16

Speaker 2

Precarious position.

00;12;30;18 - 00;12;33;20

Back in history of laying down for 8 hours.

00;12;33;22 - 00;12;35;09

Speaker 2

5 to 8 hours and sleeping.

00;12;35;09 - 00;12;36;08

In.

00;12;36;11 - 00;12;38;26

Speaker 2

A forest or environment where saber tooth cats.

00;12;38;26 - 00;12;41;12

And other tribe members are.

00;12;41;13 - 00;12;44;09

Speaker 2

Walking around. So some of the things are interesting.

00;12;44;09 - 00;12;44;27

Of kind of.

00;12;44;27 - 00;12;46;10

Speaker 2

Those differentials in waking.

00;12;46;10 - 00;12;48;10

Time and sleep and.

00;12;48;12 - 00;12;58;28

Speaker 2

Going to sleep times actually kind of have some evolutionary backgrounds to it. But here's some stats. Again, they're probably going to sound negative across the board is not intended to kind.

00;12;58;28 - 00;13;00;16

Of be a.

00;13;00;18 - 00;13;02;11

Speaker 2

Doomsday situation, but.

00;13;02;14 - 00;13;03;12

About 5070.

00;13;03;12 - 00;13;04;26

Speaker 2

Million Americans suffer from disordered.

00;13;04;26 - 00;13;07;00

Sleep. If you look at Three Mile Island.

00;13;07;00 - 00;13;23;14

Speaker 2

Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, Space Shuttle Challenger, most of them have been found to have some sort of impact of sleep deficiency around those environments or situations. Since the industrial revolution, we've had about a 20% decrease in sleep.

00;13;23;15 - 00;13;24;10

Time.

00;13;24;12 - 00;13;27;18

Speaker 2

As a population for the most part.

00;13;27;20 - 00;13;28;18

If you think about one.

00;13;28;18 - 00;13;31;10

Speaker 2

Third of our lives are spent sleeping.

00;13;31;12 - 00;13;33;03

Which might be.

00;13;33;05 - 00;13;38;26

Speaker 2

Kind of like, Hey, this is a waste of time. But when we talk about the benefits, I think people will maybe change your mind.

00;13;38;28 - 00;13;39;20

If you have less.

00;13;39;20 - 00;14;03;08

Speaker 2

Than 6 hours of sleep, seven and a half times more likely to have a higher BMI as body mass index and also a three time greater risk of a coronary event, less than 5 hours of sleep increase of about 15% for all cause mortality, 20% increase in motor vehicle injuries, mostly around this kind of ideas of shift workers.

00;14;03;16 - 00;14;04;06

Or.

00;14;04;07 - 00;14;05;16

Speaker 2

Declining sleep.

00;14;05;18 - 00;14;06;17

And probably a lot of.

00;14;06;17 - 00;14;07;25

Speaker 2

Individuals from.

00;14;07;25 - 00;14;08;14

Your world or your.

00;14;08;14 - 00;14;12;04

Speaker 2

Population that have had to do their sleep patterns based off.

00;14;12;04 - 00;14;12;19

Of, you.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;14;15

Speaker 2

Know, operational requirements or.

00;14;14;23 - 00;14;17;05

Shift work or whatever it might be.

00;14;17;07 - 00;14;24;20

Speaker 2

But about a 20% increase in motor vehicle injuries around daylight savings time. And that is just like in one hour shifts in that kind of sleep. And you see this kind of uptick.

00;14;24;20 - 00;14;26;16

In motor vehicle.

00;14;26;16 - 00;14;34;03

Speaker 2

Injuries. So indirect costs of this 1995 direct cost of a kind of sleep deficiency was around 13.

00;14;34;03 - 00;14;34;28

Point 9 billion.

00;14;34;28 - 00;14;38;25

Speaker 2

Dollars. In the US, indirect costs.

00;14;38;26 - 00;14;39;14

Around 100.

00;14;39;14 - 00;14;39;29

Speaker 2

And 50.

00;14;39;29 - 00;14;41;26

Billion per year.

00;14;41;28 - 00;14;59;15

Speaker 2

So this is medical costs around certain things. So kind of there's a direct financial impacts around sleep as well too. So just kind of some some stats to to put forward why we think sleep is so important. The inverse of all this is obviously you have better health outcomes.

00;14;59;15 - 00;14;59;29

Better.

00;15;00;09 - 00;15;01;03

Speaker 2

Down into function.

00;15;01;03 - 00;15;02;06

Better.

00;15;02;08 - 00;15;03;06

Speaker 2

Performance.

00;15;03;06 - 00;15;04;07

Better many.

00;15;04;07 - 00;15;04;15

Speaker 2

Things.

00;15;04;15 - 00;15;06;26

So yeah.

00;15;06;28 - 00;15;16;14

Speaker 2

So probably this kind of idea of what sleep is. So there's basically this idea of a circadian rhythm. I'm sure everybody sort of circadian rhythm is this natural.

00;15;16;14 - 00;15;19;06

Biological clock that the body.

00;15;19;06 - 00;15;43;21

Speaker 2

Has that is regulated by a few different functions. It's roughly 24 hours. It's just happenstance that the Earth's rotation is also 24 hours. And the sunrises and sunsets, you know, kind of those 12 to 16 hour marks outside of being in extreme latitudes and everything like that. So daylight or sunlight is kind of one of these.

00;15;43;21 - 00;15;44;27

Key.

00;15;44;29 - 00;15;47;09

Speaker 2

Triggers for sleep.

00;15;47;11 - 00;15;48;03

And you're probably like, well.

00;15;48;03 - 00;15;53;00

Speaker 2

Why should we sleep? So essentially this idea of maintaining homeostasis homeostasis is.

00;15;53;00 - 00;15;54;20

Abundant and all living.

00;15;54;20 - 00;15;58;09

Speaker 2

Things of when you get too hot, your body sweats to try to cool.

00;15;58;09 - 00;16;00;05

You down.

00;16;00;07 - 00;16;02;25

Speaker 2

So being able to balance things out.

00;16;02;27 - 00;16;03;10

We want to be.

00;16;03;10 - 00;16;14;06

Speaker 2

Able to kind of get to both ends of those things depending on the situation. But the body's always trying to find its balance on things. So sleep is one of those ways to balance out all the things that we go.

00;16;14;06 - 00;16;16;19

Through when we're awake.

00;16;16;22 - 00;16;34;16

Speaker 2

So sunlight, sunrises, as it basically starts to hit this little bundle of nerves in the hypothalamus suprachiasmatic nucleus, it's basically sampling light as it comes into your eyes and it basically starts to kick off all these processes and keeps your clock on time, essentially. So your circadian.

00;16;34;16 - 00;16;34;26

Rhythm.

00;16;34;26 - 00;16;36;26

Speaker 2

Or your clock is basically reset.

00;16;36;26 - 00;16;38;09

Every day with.

00;16;38;12 - 00;16;47;14

Speaker 2

This light stimulus coming in to the eye. And I kind of talked about the morning larks and the night owls. So we have different circadian rhythms for different people, right? So it's not an absolute there's very.

00;16;47;14 - 00;16;47;29

Rarely any.

00;16;47;29 - 00;16;50;03

Speaker 2

Absolutes in.

00;16;50;05 - 00;16;51;21

In human.

00;16;51;23 - 00;16;56;17

Speaker 2

Physiology or human performance, but outside of those.

00;16;56;17 - 00;16;57;02

Genetic.

00;16;57;02 - 00;16;59;15

Speaker 2

Waking and sleeping times, there's also.

00;16;59;22 - 00;17;00;13

Variable work.

00;17;00;13 - 00;17;07;12

Speaker 2

Schedules like shift work or military population. You have certain people that have to be all through the night. Some people are.

00;17;07;15 - 00;17;08;11

All through the day.

00;17;08;16 - 00;17;12;21

Speaker 2

And then also changing schedules, especially for like firefighters, etc., where they're like, oh 40.

00;17;12;21 - 00;17;13;22

Eight on.

00;17;13;25 - 00;17;14;20

Speaker 2

72 off.

00;17;14;20 - 00;17;16;07

Or whatever it might be.

00;17;16;09 - 00;17;22;11

Speaker 2

They're basically having to change through these schedules and they're trying to counterbalance this natural clock.

00;17;22;13 - 00;17;23;05

With a.

00;17;23;05 - 00;17;35;00

Speaker 2

Artificial clock that they're trying to impose upon their system that has a really strong influences on physiological processes that are going to make it challenging potentially for people to.

00;17;35;02 - 00;17;37;05

Not follow that kind of normal clock.

00;17;37;07 - 00;17;38;09

Speaker 2

On things as well, too.

00;17;38;09 - 00;17;39;03

So if we.

00;17;39;03 - 00;17;39;25

Speaker 2

Think of sleep.

00;17;39;26 - 00;17;40;08

We've got.

00;17;40;08 - 00;17;41;26

Speaker 2

Two things. We've got arousal.

00;17;41;29 - 00;17;43;17

And we've got.

00;17;43;19 - 00;17;52;20

Speaker 2

Sleepiness, and it's really a dance between multiple processes and hormones in the system. So if we just kind of take it.

00;17;52;20 - 00;17;54;08

To, you know, we're getting ready.

00;17;54;08 - 00;18;07;26

Speaker 2

For me, it's 7 p.m. on the East Coast for you, it's 5 p.m. ish on the West Coast. And so there's going to be a few things that will kind of start with sleepiness. And then I'll talk about wakefulness on the other side of it, since we're kind of on the back end of the day.

00;18;07;26 - 00;18;11;01

So throughout the course of the day.

00;18;11;03 - 00;18;19;19

Speaker 2

As you wake up, there's this hormone is dropped in. Our system is called adenosine. So. DAVIES And starts to accumulate throughout the course of the day.

00;18;19;22 - 00;18;20;29

Is going to be one of the main.

00;18;20;29 - 00;18;21;21

Speaker 2

Drivers.

00;18;21;21 - 00;18;23;20

Of.

00;18;23;22 - 00;18;26;28

Speaker 2

Making somebody sleepy. So as you kind of get through the course of the day.

00;18;27;00 - 00;18;27;26

You're having more and more.

00;18;27;26 - 00;18;32;00

Speaker 2

Adenosine get into the system and it basically turns down stimulus.

00;18;32;00 - 00;18;33;17

Within the body.

00;18;33;19 - 00;18;37;11

Speaker 2

And starts to turn on drowsiness.

00;18;37;13 - 00;18;39;03

What do you think might be.

00;18;39;04 - 00;18;40;17

Speaker 2

Something that a lot of people partake.

00;18;40;17 - 00;18;41;10

Of that might.

00;18;41;17 - 00;18;47;29

Speaker 2

Have some sort of relation to adenosine a relationship to it? And so when there's really something that you.

00;18;47;29 - 00;18;49;28

Might drink or eat.

00;18;50;01 - 00;18;52;14

Right out of the gate, alcohol.

00;18;52;16 - 00;18;53;22

Speaker 2

So alcohol we'll talk about.

00;18;53;22 - 00;18;54;24

Later, but caffeine.

00;18;55;00 - 00;18;55;18

Caffeine.

00;18;55;20 - 00;18;57;23

Okay. So kind of caffeine.

00;18;57;23 - 00;19;17;03

Speaker 2

Is something the reason caffeine kind of is one of those things that we go to on a regular basis is it basically blocks the receptors for adenosine. So that's what kind of caffeine does in order to kind of keep us awake, is it puts this block on the receptors in the system that pick up the adenosine, which is kind of getting this sleep urge.

00;19;17;03 - 00;19;19;24

Speaker 2

So it's basically this.

00;19;19;27 - 00;19;21;10

Increasing.

00;19;21;12 - 00;19;39;15

Speaker 2

Load of this hormone that's going to drive you to want to sleep. So caffeine puts a block on those. So adenosine doesn't just stop because you put some caffeine to your system. And as many people know and everybody's different, caffeine has this kind of half life of about 5 to 7 hours. So it kind of over the course of the afternoon, let's say you have a.

00;19;39;19 - 00;19;40;28

3 p.m. coffee.

00;19;41;00 - 00;19;46;23

Speaker 2

Basically, it's in your system all the way until 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 at night.

00;19;46;26 - 00;19;49;03

So you have coffee later than that.

00;19;49;05 - 00;20;01;22

Speaker 2

But essentially, adenosine is still accumulating in the system. And once that half life of caffeine wears off, you get hit with this huge surge of headiness in your system. And that kind of brings on this kind of caffeine crash for a lot of people. But that's this is one.

00;20;01;22 - 00;20;02;27

Of the main hormones.

00;20;02;27 - 00;20;10;12

Speaker 2

That's going to kind of put this sleep or sleep impetus or sleep pressure into our system.

00;20;10;14 - 00;20;11;28

You may have heard of melatonin.

00;20;12;00 - 00;20;13;15

Speaker 2

So melatonin is a supplement that a lot of.

00;20;13;15 - 00;20;13;29

People might.

00;20;13;29 - 00;20;15;25

Speaker 2

Use.

00;20;15;28 - 00;20;16;07

It's a.

00;20;16;07 - 00;20;19;27

Speaker 2

Messenger basically to tell the body sun is.

00;20;19;27 - 00;20;20;28

Going down.

00;20;21;01 - 00;20;28;09

Speaker 2

So, you know, within the first kind of couple of hours after the sun goes down, melatonin starts to kick in. It peaks after you go to sleep.

00;20;28;12 - 00;20;28;17

And.

00;20;28;17 - 00;20;31;22

Speaker 2

It doesn't create sleep. It basically is like.

00;20;31;26 - 00;20;33;13

The gun.

00;20;33;13 - 00;20;35;07

Speaker 2

Going off and it triggers. So it's basically the.

00;20;35;07 - 00;20;35;26

Gun.

00;20;35;26 - 00;20;45;25

Speaker 2

Is melatonin. So it doesn't have a direct impact to your sleep. It basically starts to kick off the processes through the system of sleep.

00;20;45;28 - 00;20;46;25

So sunlight.

00;20;46;28 - 00;20;49;22

Speaker 2

Is kind of direct counter to.

00;20;49;22 - 00;20;50;15

That or.

00;20;50;15 - 00;21;01;09

Speaker 2

As you kind of mentioned in some of your strategies, Blue light, which basically replicates sunlight, is something that will directly impact melatonin release. So that's what we're going to talk about when we talk about optimization is.

00;21;01;11 - 00;21;04;16

The role of blue light, not only natural.

00;21;04;16 - 00;21;21;11

Speaker 2

Blue light, so in morning or midday sun, but blue light from devices as well to but melatonin gets released, it starts to tell the rest of the systems in the body, okay, we're going to be going to sleep soon. So start to kind of ramp these things down as we go along. And then this idea of Java sort of it's.

00;21;21;16 - 00;21;22;09

Duba.

00;21;22;11 - 00;21;30;21

Speaker 2

It's another neuro transmitter that basically switches off our wakefulness systems in the body. So those are kind of the three main things as we get at sundown.

00;21;30;23 - 00;21;32;02

Through the course of the evening.

00;21;32;09 - 00;21;35;10

Speaker 2

Into after we lay our head down on the pillow is.

00;21;35;12 - 00;21;37;06

Kind of the three main.

00;21;37;08 - 00;21;38;12

Speaker 2

Hormones that.

00;21;38;12 - 00;21;38;23

Are going to.

00;21;38;29 - 00;21;44;13

Speaker 2

Start to get us into position and fall asleep. One thing's.

00;21;44;16 - 00;21;45;02

And then on the.

00;21;45;02 - 00;22;00;04

Speaker 2

Opposite side of that, we have the system that wakes up and it's important to talk about those because those are some things that people probably hear about too. So there's really that difference between all these hormonal processes, incremental increases in certain things, shutting off of other things as we kind of go.

00;22;00;04 - 00;22;03;04

Through the day.

00;22;03;06 - 00;22;07;20

Speaker 2

So some of the things for waking sunlight is for you waking up. This is called.

00;22;07;20 - 00;22;08;08

Five.

00;22;08;11 - 00;22;09;06

Speaker 2

Or 6 a.m. when.

00;22;09;06 - 00;22;11;07

You normally wake up.

00;22;11;10 - 00;22;19;11

Speaker 2

So histamine, which probably lot of people take around allergies or anything like that, but this starts to activate neurons in the brain that drive arousal and inhibit the neurons that.

00;22;19;11 - 00;22;19;23

Kind of.

00;22;20;01 - 00;22;23;18

Speaker 2

Promote sleep. So that's one thing that starts to get released kind of.

00;22;23;20 - 00;22;24;21

Early morning.

00;22;24;21 - 00;22;30;25

Speaker 2

As we start to get closer to sunrise. Dopamine, which a lot of people have heard about as far as kind of like that pleasure chemical.

00;22;30;25 - 00;22;31;26

That a lot of people.

00;22;31;26 - 00;22;52;26

Speaker 2

Get from various things. And we'll talk about that, too. It starts to turn off melatonin secretion. So basically it is a counter to melatonin. This idea of our Rex in hypo cream. So these are two hormones that get released that stimulate other neurons to release theirs and start to kick on this alertness. Fun facts. Somebody has narcolepsy.

00;22;52;29 - 00;22;55;23

They likely don't have more.

00;22;55;23 - 00;23;03;11

Speaker 2

Than like 10% of those two hormones in their system. So that's like a direct relation to narcolepsy, which is this kind of uncontrollable urge to sleep.

00;23;03;14 - 00;23;03;27

They don't have.

00;23;03;27 - 00;23;14;21

Speaker 2

Enough erection or have a clean English system. So that's kind of what's been attributed to narcolepsy. Serotonin helps regulate body temperature, which body temperature is one of the other key.

00;23;14;21 - 00;23;17;21

Circadian rhythm markers.

00;23;17;23 - 00;23;19;14

Speaker 2

Body temperature rises in the morning.

00;23;19;15 - 00;23;21;25

That tells your body to wake up.

00;23;21;27 - 00;23;28;19

Speaker 2

Body temperature goes down in the evening, tells your body to go to sleep. We're going to talk about temperature as well, too, is kind of one of.

00;23;28;20 - 00;23;30;15

The.

00;23;30;17 - 00;23;44;07

Speaker 2

Optimization strategies, norepinephrine, epinephrine, which are kind of your adrenaline cortisol, which a lot of people probably read, which is a stress hormone. But in this case, it's not stressful to have causal, it's stressful to have cortisol throughout the course of the day because it has a peak in the.

00;23;44;07 - 00;23;44;29

Morning.

00;23;45;01 - 00;24;17;03

Speaker 2

And then it tails off through the course of the day as well too. And then there's a pseudo choline, which we'll also talk about REM sleep, but it's kind of one of the key things around wakefulness as well too. So there's a major dance between homeostatic maintenance, circadian rhythm or a bunch of hormones that are interacting with each other and turning on and turning off certain buttons and levers to basically get us through this sequence of waking, going through the course of the day, getting to the evening, falling asleep, giving our sleep cycle, which I'll talk about.

00;24;17;03 - 00;24;18;00

Here in a couple.

00;24;18;01 - 00;24;23;07

Speaker 2

Minutes, and then going through that process over and over again as we go through our lives.

00;24;23;09 - 00;24;41;25

A huge chunk. So I mean, and I've said so thanks for breaking it down like that, because it does it walks you through all all the all the words, you know, depends on what your focus has been and what you've tried in the trial and error or trying to find a remedy and try to oh, I'm not doing this.

00;24;41;25 - 00;25;14;23

So let me get that. And then you research it and you come up with, you know, the melatonin, you know, the cortisol element, the stress, these factors, I'm connecting dots. Some of the things that immediately came up as you were talking through those things that you don't have addressed now. But because might get to them is, you know, if you're having trouble sleeping, how hard do we look at what's happening in the day or are we needing to look deeper into us as individuals from how our composition is in some of those things?

00;25;14;23 - 00;25;16;00

And obviously the nutrition.

00;25;16;00 - 00;25;16;29

Speaker 2

Factor in some of those.

00;25;16;29 - 00;25;18;14

Elements, it'll be both.

00;25;18;15 - 00;25;20;24

Speaker 2

So that stuff is going to be personal, but it also.

00;25;20;24 - 00;25;21;09

Be.

00;25;21;09 - 00;25;22;23

Speaker 2

Environmental as well.

00;25;22;26 - 00;25;41;07

Yeah, you know, the lights, the light just dawned on me a couple of things of, you know, lights on, lights off and how often you could be disrupted, you know, sleeping in the living room. You know, you have folks with family around, kids around. They're in and out and things like that. So the disruption on that and how you feel tired.

00;25;41;10 - 00;26;10;15

We can look we have a tendency to look at comfort as the cause of it. Oh, the couch is not comfortable, but it actually is all these other factors that way into that. Then it's the workouts. Just trying to trim this down a little bit. Then then it comes to workouts where if all of these things are going on the way they do, then one would be, you know, the best time to work out based off of what's starting to happen in the morning and then dissipates throughout the day and then turns back on in the evening.

00;26;10;18 - 00;26;21;06

You know, when when do we think about what we have to consider on optimizing the time of day based off of ourself when we can actually exert ourselves?

00;26;21;08 - 00;26;22;10

Speaker 2

You know, there's there's a.

00;26;22;10 - 00;26;24;11

Lot of a lot of pieces there that we don't need.

00;26;24;11 - 00;26;26;00

Speaker 2

To dissect a whole bunch.

00;26;26;02 - 00;26;26;20

I think one.

00;26;26;20 - 00;26;29;06

Speaker 2

Of the things that I came across is if you look at most world records that.

00;26;29;06 - 00;26;32;11

Are broken and, you know, athletic.

00;26;32;11 - 00;26;34;01

Speaker 2

Events, most of them were done in this early.

00;26;34;01 - 00;26;35;07

Afternoon.

00;26;35;09 - 00;26;36;28

Speaker 2

Point where essentially you've gone through training.

00;26;36;28 - 00;26;38;00

That morning, you probably.

00;26;38;00 - 00;26;39;13

Speaker 2

Hit this midday.

00;26;39;16 - 00;26;40;00

Wall.

00;26;40;00 - 00;26;43;05

Speaker 2

Which everybody kind of runs into, and they kind of this kicked back.

00;26;43;05 - 00;26;45;07

Up of, you know.

00;26;45;12 - 00;26;47;09

Speaker 2

Performance capacity.

00;26;47;11 - 00;26;49;10

That is usually.

00;26;49;10 - 00;26;50;27

Speaker 2

Maximized during that period of.

00;26;50;27 - 00;26;51;21

Time.

00;26;51;23 - 00;26;52;09

Speaker 2

That to your.

00;26;52;09 - 00;26;57;08

Workout is because it's all they're all integrated. They're all they're all.

00;26;57;08 - 00;27;07;15

Speaker 2

Part of a system. Right? So you can't exclude one to the other. And a lot of times they're best as influencers of of other things. But my first recommendation of working.

00;27;07;15 - 00;27;14;13

Out would be work out when you can work out as number one solution.

00;27;14;16 - 00;27;16;09

Speaker 2

I've talked to a lot of military personnel that.

00;27;16;09 - 00;27;16;24

Need a.

00;27;16;24 - 00;27;22;18

Speaker 2

Higher intensity training session to be able to mitigate stress in their system, to then allow.

00;27;22;18 - 00;27;24;13

Them to kind of be more calm.

00;27;24;13 - 00;27;25;26

Speaker 2

And relaxed. So it's actually a.

00;27;25;26 - 00;27;29;28

Key catalyst for them to.

00;27;29;28 - 00;27;30;26

Speaker 2

Be able to.

00;27;30;28 - 00;27;31;22

Be in a.

00;27;31;27 - 00;27;32;24

Speaker 2

Relaxed state.

00;27;32;26 - 00;27;33;23

To kind of get into a.

00;27;33;23 - 00;27;35;12

Speaker 2

Homeostasis versus being.

00;27;35;12 - 00;27;36;00

Pegged up.

00;27;36;00 - 00;27;37;17

Speaker 2

At a ten on a stress level.

00;27;37;17 - 00;27;45;04

Or, you know, a cognitive load level or whatever it might be for a lot of people, if you work out.

00;27;45;06 - 00;27;54;29

Speaker 2

Too intensely, too late at night, it still has a stimulus to your system that may impact your sleep as well, too. So, yeah, it's balancing the optimization of those, but also.

00;27;54;29 - 00;27;59;11

The reality of the world and and who we are and what we have to deal with on a day.

00;27;59;11 - 00;28;00;02

Speaker 2

To day basis.

00;28;00;02 - 00;28;03;14

So yeah, it is definitely a.

00;28;03;14 - 00;28;09;09

Speaker 2

Balancing act that hopefully we can help provide resources for through these conversations.

00;28;09;12 - 00;28;09;25

But yeah.

00;28;10;01 - 00;28;12;12

Speaker 2

It's, it's it's, it's up in everybody's individual.

00;28;12;12 - 00;28;14;19

So we got to help kind of find.

00;28;14;22 - 00;28;18;04

Speaker 2

A solution for each individual person.

00;28;18;06 - 00;28;21;03

Got it. Okay.

00;28;21;05 - 00;28;21;22

Cool.

00;28;21;25 - 00;28;25;00

Speaker 2

Be ready to talk around sleep cycles.

00;28;25;03 - 00;28;26;14

Let's go.

00;28;26;17 - 00;28;29;05

So kind of general.

00;28;29;08 - 00;28;31;14

Speaker 2

Term for this would be sleep architecture, right?

00;28;31;14 - 00;28;32;27

So we have.

00;28;32;27 - 00;28;38;06

Speaker 2

Wakefulness. Not to get too crazy into this, but wakefulness is kind of characterized by alpha waves. Alpha waves are.

00;28;38;06 - 00;28;39;24

Very high.

00;28;39;24 - 00;28;41;14

Speaker 2

Frequency, so lots of stuff going.

00;28;41;14 - 00;28;42;01

On.

00;28;42;03 - 00;28;44;10

Speaker 2

Low amplitude. So a lot of kind of it's just like.

00;28;44;10 - 00;28;45;27

A.

00;28;45;29 - 00;28;46;24

Speaker 2

Kind of scratch.

00;28;46;24 - 00;28;47;10

Mark going.

00;28;47;10 - 00;28;51;09

Speaker 2

Across a piece of paper. If you had a pencil in your hands as we get into.

00;28;51;09 - 00;28;54;07

Sleep and to kind of get the recommended.

00;28;54;07 - 00;28;57;15

Speaker 2

Amount of sleep is 79 hours.

00;28;57;17 - 00;29;03;21

So you're kind of in that five hour mark. A lot of people that you work with or come from your you're kind of.

00;29;03;21 - 00;29;06;10

Speaker 2

Worlds probably 5 to 6 is their.

00;29;06;10 - 00;29;09;13

Norm. Seven to.

00;29;09;13 - 00;29;10;05

Speaker 2

Nine is kind of the.

00;29;10;05 - 00;29;11;03

Recommended.

00;29;11;05 - 00;29;17;00

Speaker 2

Most of time. If I walk in a room, we talk about sleep is okay, raise your hand if you get more than 7 hours is less than 50% of people, regardless of.

00;29;17;03 - 00;29;20;10

Oh, we were talking to.

00;29;20;13 - 00;29;22;21

Speaker 2

So 7 to 9 hours is recommended.

00;29;22;24 - 00;29;24;05

There's reality in the world.

00;29;24;05 - 00;29;30;09

Speaker 2

But as we get into the architecture house that goes, it really kind of goes into this sequence of.

00;29;30;09 - 00;29;31;07

About 90 to.

00;29;31;07 - 00;29;37;22

Speaker 2

120 minute phases or stages. As we go through things, we have two main categories of sleep.

00;29;37;22 - 00;29;39;06

We have non rapid.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;39;29

Speaker 2

Eye movement sleep.

00;29;40;04 - 00;29;42;06

So and REM and we have.

00;29;42;06 - 00;29;43;25

Speaker 2

REM sleep rapid. I haven't sleep.

00;29;43;25 - 00;29;45;29

A lot of people have probably heard about REM.

00;29;46;01 - 00;29;51;24

Speaker 2

Probably said, okay, that's it. My eyes are darting back and forth and that's usually when I'm dreaming, which those things are all true.

00;29;51;27 - 00;29;52;04

But we're.

00;29;52;04 - 00;29;53;18

Speaker 2

Going to kind of talk about each one of these just.

00;29;53;18 - 00;29;54;17

Quickly.

00;29;54;20 - 00;29;55;27

Speaker 2

As we kind of go into it.

00;29;55;28 - 00;29;59;29

It's kind of imagine like longitudinally.

00;30;00;01 - 00;30;01;26

Speaker 2

You know, a seven hour period and this is call it.

00;30;01;26 - 00;30;03;13

From 11.

00;30;03;13 - 00;30;07;06

Speaker 2

Pm to 7 a.m.. So 7 to 9 hours.

00;30;07;08 - 00;30;10;05

We're going to kind of go through and I want to kind of take.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;13;16

Speaker 2

Visualize these kind of 90 minute segments as we go through.

00;30;13;18 - 00;30;14;26

So go to bed at 11.

00;30;14;26 - 00;30;15;25

Speaker 2

It starts a 90 minute.

00;30;15;25 - 00;30;17;21

Window in at around.

00;30;17;21 - 00;30;19;04

Speaker 2

1230, it starts another.

00;30;19;04 - 00;30;20;12

90 minute window.

00;30;20;15 - 00;30;22;05

Speaker 2

And then around 2 a.m. it starts another.

00;30;22;05 - 00;30;22;19

90 minute.

00;30;22;19 - 00;30;27;19

Speaker 2

Window. So that's kind of a good kind of visualization as we think about this.

00;30;27;21 - 00;30;30;27

You lay your head on the pillow, you know, as you go.

00;30;30;27 - 00;30;31;13

Speaker 2

Into sleep.

00;30;31;14 - 00;30;33;13

Immediately kind of run through.

00;30;33;13 - 00;30;39;16

Speaker 2

REM sleep and then into non-REM sleep. And there's four stages of non-REM sleep.

00;30;39;18 - 00;30;47;06

You have light non-REM one, and then late non-REM two. So late night light.

00;30;47;07 - 00;31;05;26

Speaker 2

non-REM one is around 1 to 7 minutes. So you set your head on a pillow, you get into stage one sleep and it's around 1 to 7 minutes, and then you transition down into non-REM sleep. Two more Stage two. You might spend about 10 to 25 minutes in that stage of sleep. There's a lot of things going on.

00;31;05;26 - 00;31;11;03

Speaker 2

You're transitioning out of these alpha waves in a kind of more fade away. So basically what's happening is the amplitude is getting.

00;31;11;03 - 00;31;11;29

Higher.

00;31;12;01 - 00;31;13;05

Speaker 2

And the frequency is getting a.

00;31;13;05 - 00;31;14;07

Little bit longer, but.

00;31;14;07 - 00;31;16;04

Speaker 2

It's kind of like interspersed.

00;31;16;06 - 00;31;19;00

Through here and then.

00;31;19;00 - 00;31;25;14

Speaker 2

We get into slow wave sleep. So there's stage three and stage four. So this is one of the kind of key things that.

00;31;25;14 - 00;31;29;14

Are one of the more important regions of sleep that a lot of things.

00;31;29;14 - 00;31;30;28

Speaker 2

Might impact.

00;31;31;00 - 00;31;32;20

And that we'll talk about a little bit later.

00;31;32;20 - 00;31;44;00

Speaker 2

But stage three sleep is kind of the first stage of slow wave sleep. Generally, Delta waves, which are basically these big synchronized waves of sleep that kind of look like a normal wave patterns. If there's any surfers that.

00;31;44;00 - 00;31;44;25

Are in the group.

00;31;44;28 - 00;31;45;28

Speaker 2

Kind of like a great swell.

00;31;45;28 - 00;31;46;21

Coming in.

00;31;46;23 - 00;31;57;06

Speaker 2

Essentially to be kind of be like these delta waves. So stage four is kind of the money stage in regards to non-REM sleep. So it's about 20 to 40 minutes.

00;31;57;09 - 00;31;57;25

And then what will.

00;31;57;25 - 00;32;05;27

Speaker 2

Happen is we'll start to kind of cycle up into stage three, back to stage two, and then we'll get to Ran. So we'll come back up during it, spend a little bit of time in.

00;32;05;27 - 00;32;07;09

REM and then we'll go.

00;32;07;09 - 00;32;12;11

Speaker 2

Right back down through stage 1 to 3 and four, spend some time on stage four, come back up to.

00;32;12;11 - 00;32;13;08

REM over that 90.

00;32;13;08 - 00;32;14;01

Speaker 2

Minutes.

00;32;14;03 - 00;32;16;11

Spend a little bit more time in REM.

00;32;16;14 - 00;32;24;01

Speaker 2

And as we get into the third, fourth, this, you start to see this kind of inverse relationship with slow wave sleep in REM sleep so.

00;32;24;01 - 00;32;25;01

Early in your.

00;32;25;02 - 00;32;27;26

Speaker 2

Night of sleep, you're prioritizing non-REM sleep, slow wave.

00;32;27;26 - 00;32;29;25

Sleep later in the.

00;32;30;00 - 00;32;36;23

Speaker 2

Sleep cycles or sleep architecture, you're starting to prioritize REM sleep. So it's kind of this body's.

00;32;36;25 - 00;32;37;07

Idea of.

00;32;37;07 - 00;32;38;25

Speaker 2

Going through this. And a good visual.

00;32;38;25 - 00;32;40;26

Might be you have anybody.

00;32;40;26 - 00;32;41;03

Speaker 2

That's.

00;32;41;03 - 00;32;42;24

Done like Woodcarving.

00;32;42;25 - 00;32;54;06

Speaker 2

You have a chunk of wood and you see something inside of it, you're going to start to hack away a bunch of that kind of big stuff. So that's really the non-REM sleep is basically memory consolidation, taking things out of short term memory, putting it into long term.

00;32;54;06 - 00;32;58;09

Memory and trying to clean everything up like drag a hard drive.

00;32;58;10 - 00;33;04;20

Speaker 2

Essentially. And then as you start to see it come through more, you start to do more finer detail word. That's kind of the REM sleep. So as you.

00;33;04;20 - 00;33;06;06

Kind of get through that later.

00;33;06;06 - 00;33;16;14

Speaker 2

On in that sleep cycle, you're doing more of the finer detail work as you've already taken away a lot of the other materials earlier in that cycle. So those are kind of the key sleep cycles.

00;33;16;16 - 00;33;18;03

That we kind of go go through in.

00;33;18;03 - 00;33;19;26

Speaker 2

Regards to sleep.

00;33;19;26 - 00;33;20;26

So non-REM.

00;33;20;26 - 00;33;24;20

Speaker 2

Sleep, REM sleep, the big buckets, four stages of non REM sleep.

00;33;24;20 - 00;33;25;08

All varying.

00;33;25;08 - 00;33;25;21

Speaker 2

Levels of.

00;33;25;21 - 00;33;27;04

Time.

00;33;27;07 - 00;33;40;00

Speaker 2

Slow wave sleep, which are stage three and stage four, really kind of what we want to make sure we're getting into. And then you have REM sleep as well too. So that's kind of how we run do that. If we kind of finish off.

00;33;40;00 - 00;33;40;09

REM.

00;33;40;14 - 00;33;49;24

Speaker 2

Anonymously, it's really kind of taking information, building them in a new skills, in fact. So that's really going to come into place of motor control or motor skills which are.

00;33;49;24 - 00;33;52;17

Learning memory.

00;33;52;20 - 00;33;54;27

Speaker 2

Focus, attention.

00;33;54;29 - 00;33;55;27

Any kind of cognitive.

00;33;55;27 - 00;33;56;20

Speaker 2

Functions are going to.

00;33;56;20 - 00;33;59;09

Really be important around that.

00;33;59;11 - 00;34;07;01

Speaker 2

REM sleep is very interesting because it's wavelengths like very much like wakefulness. So in REM sleep.

00;34;07;03 - 00;34;08;21

While we're dreaming.

00;34;08;23 - 00;34;12;20

Speaker 2

It's very interesting. We kind of get into this more wakefulness state in the brain.

00;34;12;20 - 00;34;13;16

But our body.

00;34;13;16 - 00;34;14;07

Speaker 2

Actually shuts.

00;34;14;07 - 00;34;15;16

Off our motor.

00;34;15;16 - 00;34;25;00

Speaker 2

Control outside of kind of like the unconscious respiratory things so that you're not acting out what you're actually seeing in your dreams. So it's kind of an interesting.

00;34;25;02 - 00;34;26;22

Dichotomy of.

00;34;26;24 - 00;34;30;09

Speaker 2

If you could just imagine if we always had our motor control while we were sleeping.

00;34;30;09 - 00;34;32;19

You never know what we would be doing.

00;34;32;21 - 00;34;47;03

Speaker 2

As well too. So REM sleep is very much around integration. So if non-REM sleep is this idea of reflection, taking information and building your skills, in fact, REM sleep is being able to kind of take that.

00;34;47;06 - 00;34;47;24

Integrated with.

00;34;47;24 - 00;34;52;05

Speaker 2

Past experiences, innovative insights, problem solving, and start to kind of.

00;34;52;05 - 00;34;54;18

Really create how you may go forward.

00;34;54;20 - 00;35;01;19

Speaker 2

And think about things, which is why a lot of times when I say sleep on it and come back and have a decision tomorrow.

00;35;01;21 - 00;35;02;12

Or you may.

00;35;02;12 - 00;35;03;10

Speaker 2

Have this kind of.

00;35;03;10 - 00;35;04;24

Lightbulb moment when you wake up in the.

00;35;04;24 - 00;35;08;26

Speaker 2

Morning is because as you were trying to solve a problem on the day prior.

00;35;08;28 - 00;35;10;04

You went to sleep, gone through.

00;35;10;04 - 00;35;14;00

Speaker 2

All your sleep cycles. During REM sleep, it actually started to connect to other things that were.

00;35;14;00 - 00;35;15;08

Already in your.

00;35;15;08 - 00;35;17;22

Speaker 2

System as far as these past memories.

00;35;17;25 - 00;35;18;17

And other.

00;35;18;17 - 00;35;20;28

Speaker 2

Insights. And then all of a sudden you had this kind of.

00;35;20;28 - 00;35;21;26

Unusual.

00;35;22;00 - 00;35;24;02

Speaker 2

Connection that allows you to kind of think of something in.

00;35;24;02 - 00;35;27;05

A new way and kind of realize that when you wake up.

00;35;27;08 - 00;35;52;28

So if I pause there for a second so there's just a grasp on maybe some to main common concepts or curiosities, I guess is the best way to say it. So non-REM time, memory and things like that, right? So if somebody is walking around on a daily activity and then the short term. Right. And assuming that there's nothing neurological affecting the individual, things like that.

00;35;52;28 - 00;36;10;12

But if it just seems to be noticeable on a regular basis that you're, you know, a name or, you know, what I do earlier today or yesterday, the busy week is that an indication of being affected by in the non non-REM phase?

00;36;10;12 - 00;36;13;07

Could be, It could be. And probably the way that I would try to.

00;36;13;07 - 00;36;14;06

Speaker 2

Validate something like.

00;36;14;06 - 00;36;15;23

That.

00;36;15;25 - 00;36;17;29

Speaker 2

You can just do simple questionnaires and a lot of.

00;36;17;29 - 00;36;19;14

People now then you might even have.

00;36;19;14 - 00;36;22;07

Speaker 2

One have some sort of I'll just call it Fitbit as a general.

00;36;22;07 - 00;36;23;17

Category like.

00;36;23;17 - 00;36;24;29

Speaker 2

Whether it's, you know, a strap they.

00;36;24;29 - 00;36;26;14

Wear or a ring they wear.

00;36;26;14 - 00;36;30;29

Speaker 2

And that's giving them sleep data, which we can have a quick conversation around.

00;36;31;01 - 00;36;31;26

Kind of the validity.

00;36;31;26 - 00;36;36;25

Speaker 2

Of those things. But usually some of the key things is do you wake up.

00;36;36;29 - 00;36;39;19

A lot of buck if you are if you need an.

00;36;39;19 - 00;36;42;21

Speaker 2

Alarm clock and you hit snooze four or five times.

00;36;42;24 - 00;36;43;08

That's probably.

00;36;43;08 - 00;36;44;08

Speaker 2

An indicator that you may not be.

00;36;44;08 - 00;36;45;09

Getting enough.

00;36;45;09 - 00;36;50;04

Speaker 2

Sleep. It's not an absolutely. Because again, everybody's different.

00;36;50;07 - 00;36;53;26

Quality of sleep like even one of the before all the Fitbit and.

00;36;53;26 - 00;36;59;04

Speaker 2

Things one of our key questions we had with our athletes was how long did you sleep last night?

00;36;59;06 - 00;37;01;14

What was the quality of your sleep? Do you feel.

00;37;01;14 - 00;37;06;06

Speaker 2

Rested? So if I took those three and kind of framed it against that.

00;37;06;09 - 00;37;07;17

And I feel like I might be dropping.

00;37;07;17 - 00;37;09;02

Speaker 2

Something here and there as far as remembering.

00;37;09;02 - 00;37;09;19

A name.

00;37;09;19 - 00;37;11;15

Speaker 2

Or I forgot that project, or I forgot.

00;37;11;15 - 00;37;11;28

That meeting.

00;37;11;28 - 00;37;16;04

Speaker 2

That I was supposed to go to is go back and look at sleep and say.

00;37;16;06 - 00;37;18;21

You know, am I getting enough sleep again?

00;37;18;23 - 00;37;21;25

Speaker 2

There's no absolutes. Do you sleep bar hours a night?

00;37;21;27 - 00;37;23;13

Many of the people in the.

00;37;23;13 - 00;37;28;28

Speaker 2

Audience sleep 6 hours a night. 70 known as the recommended.

00;37;29;00 - 00;37;32;11

But for you, are you waking up without alarm clocks?

00;37;32;14 - 00;37;34;05

Speaker 2

Do you feel rested?

00;37;34;08 - 00;37;35;20

And you know.

00;37;35;23 - 00;37;39;01

Speaker 2

What was the quality of your sleep? Did you get up a whole bunch of times or did you sleep all the way.

00;37;39;01 - 00;37;39;24

Through the night?

00;37;39;27 - 00;37;41;22

Speaker 2

If you said.

00;37;41;24 - 00;37;42;02

I.

00;37;42;02 - 00;37;49;13

Speaker 2

Said this news about three times and I woke up five times and I'm pretty tired, I would say we probably should talk about your sleep and let's see if we.

00;37;49;13 - 00;37;50;13

Can help you.

00;37;50;15 - 00;37;56;17

Speaker 2

Optimize that. But I wouldn't say it's like a direct that is the answer, but it was worth a conversation.

00;37;56;19 - 00;37;57;16

Game at that point.

00;37;57;23 - 00;38;28;22

Yeah, I mean, there's obvious disclaimers on here. It's it's having to assess a whole bunch of variables. But this is, this is to those who know themselves well and pay attention to their to their individual scenarios. So the second one is the REM. The rest, this is where is this the part where you feel rested? If you hit REM for any amount of time and you've allowed your body to stop and disable the things so you can relax?

00;38;28;24 - 00;38;30;11

Speaker 2

Yeah. So it's interesting.

00;38;30;11 - 00;38;31;25

If you and this is what a.

00;38;31;25 - 00;38;36;23

Speaker 2

Lot of the studies will do, is they'll let's say somebody say, listen, we're going to we're not going to let you sleep for.

00;38;36;23 - 00;38;37;12

A night.

00;38;37;14 - 00;38;49;25

Speaker 2

Or two nights or we're going to only let you sleep 2 hours a night with a body will preferentially do kind of that catch up. Sleep is their prioritized non REM sleep. So non REM sleep is kind.

00;38;49;25 - 00;38;53;01

Of the brain's.

00;38;53;01 - 00;38;55;07

Speaker 2

Prioritization when it does get a chance to.

00;38;55;07 - 00;38;56;11

Sleep.

00;38;56;13 - 00;38;59;29

Speaker 2

Things. So the REM sleep.

00;39;00;03 - 00;39;03;08

I don't think is a direct or like it's because.

00;39;03;08 - 00;39;15;00

Speaker 2

You got into REM sleep this you're more rested I would probably say because you got into REM sleep. You were sleeping through a long enough cycle to go through that inverse kind of relationship of more non-REM at the beginning of your sleep.

00;39;15;00 - 00;39;17;25

And more REM later that you.

00;39;17;25 - 00;39;18;23

Speaker 2

Were sleep.

00;39;18;23 - 00;39;20;04

Longer.

00;39;20;06 - 00;39;21;14

Speaker 2

And again, I'm assuming later head down.

00;39;21;14 - 00;39;22;11

On the pillow.

00;39;22;13 - 00;39;25;07

Speaker 2

For 79 hours, not sleeping for 79 hours.

00;39;25;09 - 00;39;26;21

There only be getting.

00;39;26;25 - 00;39;31;10

Speaker 2

6 hours of sleep or six and a half hours of actual sleep. So I would say if we're.

00;39;31;10 - 00;39;33;28

Getting enough REM rapid eye movement.

00;39;33;28 - 00;39;37;16

Speaker 2

So that's kind of what REM stands for, is the concept of time.

00;39;37;17 - 00;39;37;25

It would be.

00;39;37;25 - 00;39;41;00

Speaker 2

Related to that particular brain state.

00;39;41;02 - 00;39;42;09

And dreaming.

00;39;42;12 - 00;39;46;26

Speaker 2

State. That means you got enough sleep in general, which hopefully means that you're feeling more rested.

00;39;46;28 - 00;39;47;25

Got it.

00;39;47;27 - 00;39;49;17

Okay.

00;39;49;19 - 00;39;50;10

Yeah, Hopefully.

00;39;50;10 - 00;39;51;25

Speaker 2

I'm not getting to.

00;39;51;28 - 00;39;53;05

Too in the in.

00;39;53;05 - 00;40;00;12

Speaker 2

The weeds here on anything. I hope to kind of bring it to a more actionable how do I use this personally for people?

00;40;00;14 - 00;40;06;01

Yeah, I feel like you're setting it up. I mean, for me. Oh yeah. No, no. Well, we'll find out. Are we.

00;40;06;04 - 00;40;09;14

We are. We are going to find out.

00;40;09;16 - 00;40;14;10

Speaker 2

So why sleep important, right? So we're putting ourselves in this very vulnerable position.

00;40;14;14 - 00;40;15;17

Of we are.

00;40;15;17 - 00;40;16;24

Speaker 2

Basically.

00;40;16;27 - 00;40;17;13

Unaware of.

00;40;17;13 - 00;40;21;14

Speaker 2

What's happening around us for 5 to 8 hours a day and any.

00;40;21;14 - 00;40;21;26

Myriad.

00;40;21;26 - 00;40;22;24

Speaker 2

Number of things could be.

00;40;22;24 - 00;40;24;11

Happening during that.

00;40;24;11 - 00;40;25;19

Speaker 2

Period of time.

00;40;25;21 - 00;40;27;15

So the fact that our body.

00;40;27;15 - 00;40;28;15

Speaker 2

Has its due, that.

00;40;28;17 - 00;40;29;03

Probably.

00;40;29;05 - 00;40;30;23

Speaker 2

To it's valuable, there's a need.

00;40;30;23 - 00;40;32;18

For it.

00;40;32;20 - 00;40;34;26

Speaker 2

We've kind of started to tap into some of these things.

00;40;34;26 - 00;40;37;05

But we're.

00;40;37;05 - 00;40;37;21

Speaker 2

Going to just start.

00;40;37;21 - 00;40;38;22

With brain.

00;40;38;25 - 00;40;39;21

Speaker 2

Capabilities.

00;40;39;21 - 00;40;42;05

So cognitive.

00;40;42;07 - 00;40;45;05

Speaker 2

Capabilities. So kind of this idea.

00;40;45;05 - 00;40;45;22

Of being able to.

00;40;45;22 - 00;40;58;26

Speaker 2

Be more focused, to have better decision making skills, more accuracy of things, which may be important to certain people on accuracy of numbers or accuracy at the range or accuracy on controls and helicopter.

00;40;58;26 - 00;41;01;05

Whatever it might be.

00;41;01;08 - 00;41;09;16

Speaker 2

So there's kind of timing. And time and time again, sleep deprivation has impacts to all of those kind of.

00;41;09;16 - 00;41;12;23

Cognitive capabilities and.

00;41;12;28 - 00;41;14;13

Speaker 2

Motor skills. So somebody learning.

00;41;14;13 - 00;41;14;28

A new.

00;41;14;28 - 00;41;16;21

Speaker 2

Physical task so.

00;41;16;23 - 00;41;17;16

That non-REM.

00;41;17;16 - 00;41;23;09

Speaker 2

Sleep where that is actually being cemented in there. So it's basically kind of taking a new skill or taking out a short term.

00;41;23;09 - 00;41;23;23

Memory and.

00;41;23;23 - 00;41;25;22

Speaker 2

Putting you into a hard term memory and kind of.

00;41;25;22 - 00;41;26;10

Cleaning out.

00;41;26;10 - 00;41;27;12

Speaker 2

All that extra stuff around.

00;41;27;12 - 00;41;29;11

It. So for.

00;41;29;11 - 00;41;31;08

Speaker 2

Athletes.

00;41;31;10 - 00;41;32;01

You know.

00;41;32;04 - 00;41;49;00

Speaker 2

Take a basketball player free, throw percentage improvements, accuracy in passing improvements, reduce injury actually around athletes, which is one of the vestiges of a generation, a higher incidence of injuries for them. Somebody in this audience listening to this.

00;41;49;03 - 00;41;50;19

Might need to be real creative in what they.

00;41;50;19 - 00;41;51;23

Speaker 2

Do. So they're trying to figure.

00;41;51;23 - 00;41;56;14

Out either a creative marketing plan or a creative coding.

00;41;56;14 - 00;41;58;00

Speaker 2

Or, you know, they're trying to figure.

00;41;58;00 - 00;41;59;14

Out a way to be a better leader within.

00;41;59;19 - 00;42;03;22

Speaker 2

Their team, whatever it might be. So REM sleep is kind of.

00;42;03;22 - 00;42;04;11

Where you're.

00;42;04;11 - 00;42;07;04

Speaker 2

Able to play in different sandboxes that you might.

00;42;07;07 - 00;42;09;09

Not normally think of when you're awake.

00;42;09;11 - 00;42;14;14

Speaker 2

To maybe play with some things in those playgrounds or those sandboxes that then.

00;42;14;14 - 00;42;16;22

When you are awake again.

00;42;16;24 - 00;42;21;12

Speaker 2

You can start to look at things through these kind of different eyes. And so that's kind of where we are. We talked about the REM sleep is kind.

00;42;21;12 - 00;42;22;13

Of really around that kind of.

00;42;22;13 - 00;42;28;13

Speaker 2

Creativity, being able to take new concepts and apply them in different ways in this kind of domain of sleep.

00;42;28;13 - 00;42;29;08

And then.

00;42;29;10 - 00;42;32;10

Speaker 2

Maybe realize something and then bring it to life.

00;42;32;12 - 00;42;36;06

In in real life or in awake.

00;42;36;09 - 00;42;39;18

Speaker 2

Memory. So back to kind of what we're talking about.

00;42;39;20 - 00;42;41;10

Improving sleep before learning.

00;42;41;10 - 00;42;50;01

Speaker 2

A new skill. So let's just say there's somebody on your team or somebody in the organization is getting ready to go to a class or a course, some sort of educational seminar or.

00;42;50;01 - 00;42;53;04

Whatever it might be, but you want to be able to prepare the brain.

00;42;53;04 - 00;42;54;02

Speaker 2

Proactively ahead.

00;42;54;02 - 00;42;55;03

Of that, whether through.

00;42;55;03 - 00;43;03;06

Speaker 2

Sleep, because that's essentially going to set it up for success. After learning that, saying you're basically hitting the save button on those memories. So again, we're going to talk.

00;43;03;06 - 00;43;03;28

About that a lot.

00;43;03;28 - 00;43;06;29

Speaker 2

But short term memory is kind of.

00;43;06;29 - 00;43;07;29

In that.

00;43;08;01 - 00;43;12;03

Speaker 2

non-REM sleep transfer to kind of the cortex, the brain during deep sleep.

00;43;12;03 - 00;43;13;05

And then integrated.

00;43;13;05 - 00;43;16;06

Speaker 2

During REM sleep. So I think that's kind of circling around what you said about, hey.

00;43;16;06 - 00;43;16;22

If I get around.

00;43;16;22 - 00;43;23;27

Speaker 2

Does that mean arrested? I think is really the combination of those two interplays between REM sleep and REM sleep.

00;43;23;29 - 00;43;41;19

So if I, if I could insert sorry, insert real quick in there because now if you're going to if you're going to you get tired. A nap. We talk about these catnaps, 15 minute, 30, 30 minute. You know the value does that now is that is that part of the plan that you can supplement with some of these things?

00;43;41;19 - 00;43;43;22

Speaker 2

That definitely can be part of the plan. And I.

00;43;43;22 - 00;43;45;03

Think more and more.

00;43;45;03 - 00;43;46;09

Speaker 2

There is less taboo.

00;43;46;09 - 00;43;47;15

Now.

00;43;47;18 - 00;43;52;17

Speaker 2

To nap in organizations. So that is kind of one of your key strategies.

00;43;52;17 - 00;43;53;07

Around that.

00;43;53;07 - 00;43;54;21

Speaker 2

Is 20 to 30.

00;43;54;21 - 00;43;56;26

Minute NAP usually don't want.

00;43;56;26 - 00;44;02;10

Speaker 2

To get too much longer than that because what happens is you start to slide down into those deeper sleep wave cycles and if you get kind of.

00;44;02;10 - 00;44;03;19

Woken up in.

00;44;03;22 - 00;44;04;24

Speaker 2

One of those, that's usually where.

00;44;04;24 - 00;44;07;07

You're a bit more groggy, kind of maybe waking up not.

00;44;07;07 - 00;44;08;25

Speaker 2

Knowing exactly kind of what's going on at.

00;44;08;25 - 00;44;10;13

The moment.

00;44;10;15 - 00;44;24;23

Speaker 2

Those types of things. So naps are definitely a key piece they've done a lot of studies with, and it's kind of where the Industrial Revolution has made have been impacts reduction of about 20% in our sleep as a population over that time. You go to a lot.

00;44;24;23 - 00;44;26;03

Of.

00;44;26;05 - 00;44;30;18

Speaker 2

The historical things. They've done some studies in Greece where you had two populations.

00;44;30;20 - 00;44;32;25

You know, where the older.

00;44;32;25 - 00;44;47;07

Speaker 2

Individuals are still taking naps these days and then you have the group that don't take naps. You have higher incidences of these kind of mortality factors for the ones that are not taking naps, but in specifically to like even just cognitive function.

00;44;47;09 - 00;44;48;14

Usain Bolt.

00;44;48;16 - 00;44;50;19

Speaker 2

Often will take naps prior to his kind.

00;44;50;19 - 00;44;51;01

Of.

00;44;51;01 - 00;45;00;19

Speaker 2

Record breaking sprint. So naps definitely have a place. Hopefully the taboo or stigma kind of is going away from those probably is probably.

00;45;00;19 - 00;45;01;16

Thrown in a little bit.

00;45;01;16 - 00;45;06;01

Speaker 2

More of an opportunity for some people to be able to catch a nap inside of their work days because maybe their work.

00;45;06;01 - 00;45;09;08

In remote or hybrid.

00;45;09;10 - 00;45;11;12

Speaker 2

But yes, that is a strategy that you want to kind.

00;45;11;12 - 00;45;14;09

Of have in your pocket should align up with how you might want to.

00;45;14;09 - 00;45;15;15

Speaker 2

Do things.

00;45;15;17 - 00;45;16;28

In kind of.

00;45;17;00 - 00;45;20;02

Speaker 2

The realities of doing that based off of work, culture.

00;45;20;04 - 00;45;21;11

Or family.

00;45;21;11 - 00;45;23;18

Speaker 2

Dynamics at home as well too.

00;45;23;20 - 00;45;26;19

Yeah, and you might be getting to this and I don't want to jump the gun on here, but.

00;45;26;20 - 00;45;28;09

You're good.

00;45;28;11 - 00;45;50;11

Pun for U.S. Bolt but you know it if there's people I mean maybe it's bravado. Maybe it's these other types of pride and factors that say, you know, I'm pushing through, I'm pushing through, I'm pushing through. But, you know, if your performance is going to decline and you measure time, you can say that something that you were trying to achieve within a certain amount of time was did took you longer to do that.

00;45;50;11 - 00;45;57;01

But if you if you'd taken the 15 to 20 minute nap without disrupting the sleep cycle, then maybe you would have a timer.

00;45;57;03 - 00;46;04;08

Speaker 2

That's 100% right. So if you're basing on outcomes versus how hard you ground yourself through something, your outcomes will likely be.

00;46;04;08 - 00;46;04;24

Better.

00;46;04;24 - 00;46;06;26

Speaker 2

When you're optimized. And that optimization may.

00;46;06;26 - 00;46;07;07

Include.

00;46;07;07 - 00;46;09;13

Speaker 2

Naps or other strategies.

00;46;09;15 - 00;46;10;20

There it is. All right.

00;46;10;20 - 00;46;14;19

Yeah. Emotional kind of.

00;46;14;19 - 00;46;21;06

Speaker 2

Reactions. So the middle is kind of the seat of all emotions as we get sleep deprived.

00;46;21;08 - 00;46;23;00

Deprived.

00;46;23;02 - 00;46;30;23

Speaker 2

Essentially what happens is it starts to become a bit more tuned to negative emotions and it's a bit more hyperactive. And so essentially you may be quicker to react to something in.

00;46;30;23 - 00;46;35;28

A more negative manner. It may lead to do at home.

00;46;36;01 - 00;46;42;06

Speaker 2

Arguments with a spouse or kids or whatever it might be. So it's kind of this.

00;46;42;09 - 00;46;43;27

Thing that if we don't have.

00;46;43;27 - 00;46;45;28

Speaker 2

That sleep, we're putting ourselves in more kind.

00;46;45;28 - 00;46;47;06

Of a.

00;46;47;08 - 00;46;49;26

Speaker 2

Situation where we might snap a bit easier or.

00;46;49;26 - 00;46;51;06

Quicker around.

00;46;51;07 - 00;46;52;05

Speaker 2

Certain things we need to react.

00;46;52;05 - 00;46;53;13

To and not give.

00;46;53;13 - 00;47;01;19

Speaker 2

Ourselves the time or space to maybe take a piece of information in or the way somebody said something or looked at us and be able to take a moment.

00;47;01;21 - 00;47;04;25

Reflect on it, how am I feeling about it? How can I react.

00;47;04;25 - 00;47;05;18

Speaker 2

To this and kind of.

00;47;05;18 - 00;47;06;01

Provide a.

00;47;06;01 - 00;47;10;27

Speaker 2

More reasonable reaction versus just kind of a snap judgment?

00;47;10;29 - 00;47;12;01

What goes along with that.

00;47;12;01 - 00;47;14;17

Speaker 2

Is your prefrontal cortex, which is really kind of like the CEO.

00;47;14;17 - 00;47;15;25

Of the brain.

00;47;15;28 - 00;47;19;04

Speaker 2

As you become sleep deprived, it diminishes the communication between.

00;47;19;05 - 00;47;20;29

The CEO and your.

00;47;20;29 - 00;47;26;27

Speaker 2

Emotional center. So that can override that kind of snap judgment or snap reaction. So essentially, you have.

00;47;26;27 - 00;47;28;08

Heightened emotional.

00;47;28;11 - 00;47;36;05

Speaker 2

With a slant towards the negative side without something in place to kind of use as a gate for that to go through. So those two things together.

00;47;36;07 - 00;47;36;23

Put.

00;47;36;25 - 00;47;38;22

Speaker 2

People in a situation where they may react in a more.

00;47;38;22 - 00;47;39;23

Negative manner.

00;47;39;26 - 00;47;42;10

Speaker 2

From an emotional standpoint.

00;47;42;12 - 00;47;43;00

I won't go into.

00;47;43;00 - 00;48;02;12

Speaker 2

All the details of the next one, but just kind of a new system and illness. So sleep as far as just like your normal general function, improving your sleep will optimize your cytokines, your T cells, natural killer cells. So these are all things that basically are there to react to.

00;48;02;14 - 00;48;03;16

Incoming.

00;48;03;18 - 00;48;05;04

Speaker 2

Pathogens.

00;48;05;07 - 00;48;09;04

Cold. So whatever it might be.

00;48;09;06 - 00;48;16;06

Speaker 2

So just general immune function, multiple studies around cardiovascular health, mostly due to our blood pressure.

00;48;16;06 - 00;48;18;08

So if you're.

00;48;18;08 - 00;48;28;22

Speaker 2

Not getting as much sleep, it starts to have a rise. Cortisol, which has a direct impact to blood pressure. So hypertension, heart attack, stroke.

00;48;28;24 - 00;48;29;03

Kind of all.

00;48;29;03 - 00;48;36;29

Speaker 2

Of the more interesting things arose around Alzheimer's. So this idea of being able to get enough sleep, especially this slow wave sleep, so that non-REM sleep that I was talking.

00;48;36;29 - 00;48;37;29

About.

00;48;38;01 - 00;48;56;18

Speaker 2

Allows the brain to kind of go through this cleaning function of this emphatic cleansing. So Alzheimer's, most of these amyloid proteins that get laid down and kind of congregate and that's kind of what is around Alzheimer's. And it might be a chicken or the egg thing in some situations of Alzheimer's creates worse sleep.

00;48;56;20 - 00;48;58;08

Hygiene or.

00;48;58;10 - 00;49;18;13

Speaker 2

Poor sleep hygiene. Maybe having an influence on Alzheimer's, but essentially more slow wave sleep. It allows this kind of cleansing process in the brain that pulls those amyloid proteins as well as other things out of the out of the brain tissue and allows the neurons to be a little bit more free of that stuff. So that's kind of an interesting thing that I found as well, too.

00;49;18;15 - 00;49;19;07

I imagine.

00;49;19;07 - 00;49;21;03

Speaker 2

A fair amount of people listening.

00;49;21;05 - 00;49;21;19

Might.

00;49;21;19 - 00;49;24;02

Speaker 2

Want to have a better body composition.

00;49;24;04 - 00;49;25;24

So maybe they want.

00;49;25;26 - 00;49;37;01

Speaker 2

To lose £5 or maybe they've gained £100 on different things. And there's a lot of factors in this one. The team talks about nutrition. It'll be a kind of nice.

00;49;37;04 - 00;49;37;21

Pull through on.

00;49;37;21 - 00;49;38;03

Speaker 2

That as well.

00;49;38;04 - 00;49;38;14

Too.

00;49;38;14 - 00;50;00;23

Speaker 2

But increased insulin resistance due to poor sleep. So essentially your insulin receptors on your cells kind of get closed off with this lack of sleep. So as the glucose in the system, the insulin is not able to pull that into the cells. So then you start to get into this pre-diabetic state. There's two specific hormones that are released.

00;50;00;26 - 00;50;02;08

If you are.

00;50;02;11 - 00;50;09;13

Speaker 2

Sleep deprived. So this green line, which basically stimulates appetite. So as you start to kind of get.

00;50;09;13 - 00;50;10;09

Pulled back on.

00;50;10;11 - 00;50;11;24

Speaker 2

Normalcy by a gene.

00;50;11;27 - 00;50;12;15

When you're.

00;50;12;15 - 00;50;13;09

Speaker 2

Awake, you're more.

00;50;13;09 - 00;50;16;20

Hungry, which means you're going to eat more often probably.

00;50;16;22 - 00;50;29;13

Speaker 2

And then leptin, which suppresses hunger. So you have these kind of two counterbalances to each other, breathing, which basically stimulates your appetite and leptin, which suppresses hunger. Your appetite stimulus goes up with decreased sleep.

00;50;29;13 - 00;50;30;13

And your.

00;50;30;16 - 00;50;38;08

Speaker 2

Suppression of hunger goes down. So basically that's an appetite or a recipe pun intended for. If we're.

00;50;38;08 - 00;50;40;02

Trying to do, I'd have.

00;50;40;04 - 00;50;47;25

Speaker 2

To burn more calories per day on things, which is probably going to be a challenge if you are trying to.

00;50;47;27 - 00;50;49;10

Maybe get a more.

00;50;49;10 - 00;50;53;24

Speaker 2

Optimized body composition, lose a few pounds or lose a lot of pounds depending on what you're having.

00;50;53;24 - 00;50;54;10

Or eating.

00;50;54;10 - 00;50;56;17

Speaker 2

Better for performance as well.

00;50;56;17 - 00;50;58;29

To growth hormone.

00;50;58;29 - 00;51;17;07

Speaker 2

Testosterone, those are two other hormones that are put into the system. So growth hormones usually release during that wave sleep so that non-REM sleep so early in the sleep cycle and testosterone testosterone during REM sleep. So for people, you know, let's just say the 40 to 50 year old males, as we kind of get.

00;51;17;07 - 00;51;18;20

Into that and I'm in that I mean.

00;51;18;20 - 00;51;26;08

Speaker 2

In that age bracket, testosterone is usually on the decline for trying to optimize testosterone, being able to get to that duration. So so we get REM is going to.

00;51;26;08 - 00;51;28;28

Be probably beneficial in maintaining.

00;51;28;28 - 00;51;32;23

Speaker 2

What you have from a total stress free testosterone capability as well.

00;51;32;23 - 00;51;34;09

Too. But you put all those.

00;51;34;09 - 00;51;36;05

Speaker 2

Together as far as.

00;51;36;08 - 00;51;37;12

Lethargy.

00;51;37;15 - 00;51;42;24

Speaker 2

Being lethargic, when you don't have that testosterone in the system, not having enough testosterone, testosterone and growth hormone in the system.

00;51;42;24 - 00;51;43;24

Paired with kind of an.

00;51;43;24 - 00;51;48;26

Speaker 2

Increased appetite, that's kind of a recipe for taking more calories in in.

00;51;48;26 - 00;51;49;13

You're burning.

00;51;49;13 - 00;51;53;09

Speaker 2

And that's going to have kind of some challenges for people that may be trying to lose weight.

00;51;53;11 - 00;51;55;03

So kind of just thinking about all.

00;51;55;03 - 00;51;56;11

Speaker 2

The different reasons why sleep is.

00;51;56;11 - 00;51;57;25

Important, cognitive.

00;51;58;02 - 00;52;01;04

Speaker 2

Immune system, basically hormonal profile in.

00;52;01;04 - 00;52;02;14

General body.

00;52;02;14 - 00;52;03;22

Speaker 2

Composition, most.

00;52;03;22 - 00;52;05;13

People are probably thinking.

00;52;05;13 - 00;52;06;20

Speaker 2

That those are important things to.

00;52;06;20 - 00;52;07;14

Them.

00;52;07;17 - 00;52;11;08

Speaker 2

For whatever reason. So sleep is definitely beneficial.

00;52;11;08 - 00;52;12;15

In.

00;52;12;18 - 00;52;13;28

Speaker 2

Creating the best.

00;52;14;01 - 00;52;16;00

Environment for you to be.

00;52;16;03 - 00;52;19;27

Speaker 2

At your best across all those areas.

00;52;19;29 - 00;52;44;28

How to. Yeah, so that's the interesting part also is the fact that the physical component, aside from the feeling of energy, it's the band I'm glad you brought it up the the ripple effect of now the diet, how your body's absorbing all the nutrients coming in there. Is it safe to say that with lack of sleep because of that, why it does that it's trying to preserve itself?

00;52;45;00 - 00;52;46;09

Speaker 2

I think just basically.

00;52;46;13 - 00;52;47;15

Decreased sleep.

00;52;47;18 - 00;52;49;02

Speaker 2

Basically is is.

00;52;49;02 - 00;52;49;17

Putting our.

00;52;49;17 - 00;53;00;06

Speaker 2

Hormones in our homeostasis homeostatic systems in a position where they just don't know how to deal with some of those things. So essentially they are just you know, go into these things are basically.

00;53;00;08 - 00;53;00;23

You might.

00;53;00;23 - 00;53;02;05

Speaker 2

Create energy.

00;53;02;08 - 00;53;03;04

For you to.

00;53;03;04 - 00;53;10;13

Speaker 2

Give you more caffeine through the course of the day. All of these things are basically trying to manage that homeostasis.

00;53;10;16 - 00;53;10;24

And.

00;53;10;24 - 00;53;11;21

Speaker 2

Try to keep up with your.

00;53;11;21 - 00;53;13;26

Circadian rhythm and depending on where you're at in.

00;53;13;26 - 00;53;17;06

Speaker 2

Relation to that, because that's really what steering.

00;53;17;08 - 00;53;18;07

Kind of where you're at in.

00;53;18;07 - 00;53;21;03

Speaker 2

Regards to to how long your sleep.

00;53;21;05 - 00;53;22;23

Got it.

00;53;22;25 - 00;53;28;05

Speaker 2

All right. You're ready to talk about how we can optimize to sleep. We started to kind of touch on a few of those.

00;53;28;13 - 00;53;32;18

Let's go. Probably number one is consistency.

00;53;32;20 - 00;53;40;09

Speaker 2

So trying to maintain the same time to go to bed in the same time that you wake up, even on the weekends. So a lot of people.

00;53;40;09 - 00;53;41;03

Were like, Man.

00;53;41;06 - 00;53;56;04

Speaker 2

I didn't get enough sleep through the course of the week. I'm going to catch up over the weekend. Not a bad strategy, but you don't want to try to be sleep in two or 3 hours. Passion, normal waking times. My assumption is you probably get up at the same time, whether it's a monday or it's a Sunday on things.

00;53;56;06 - 00;54;07;01

Speaker 2

So consistency is number one. It basically helps keep our circadian rhythm stable because there's a lot of kind of stimulants that go into that. And when I say stimulants light, which is the next thing we talk.

00;54;07;01 - 00;54;07;23

About.

00;54;07;25 - 00;54;09;12

Speaker 2

Body temperature.

00;54;09;15 - 00;54;09;28

Feeding.

00;54;09;28 - 00;54;19;00

Speaker 2

Windows, activity windows, those types of things. So light exposure is probably one of the biggest levers to pull on maintaining circadian rhythm.

00;54;19;02 - 00;54;19;12

I played.

00;54;19;12 - 00;54;20;00

Speaker 2

Around with this from.

00;54;20;00 - 00;54;23;13

My mother in law who was 84.

00;54;23;16 - 00;54;32;05

Speaker 2

Know she was in her apartment and she was basically staying in there all day long. She wouldn't get out of there and go do anything and she doesn't sleep very well. Cigna has a CPAP.

00;54;32;08 - 00;54;34;07

You know, sleeps till 11 and.

00;54;34;13 - 00;54;38;17

Speaker 2

Falls asleep frequently throughout the course of the day. That's relatively normal for kind.

00;54;38;17 - 00;54;41;02

Of our more elderly.

00;54;41;05 - 00;54;41;28

Speaker 2

Populations.

00;54;41;28 - 00;54;42;23

But we.

00;54;42;23 - 00;54;48;00

Speaker 2

Had a period of time where she was actually staying with us that we said, okay, we're going to go outside and spend 10 minutes on the sun.

00;54;48;03 - 00;54;49;18

Every morning.

00;54;49;20 - 00;54;51;04

Speaker 2

And basically it was interesting.

00;54;51;04 - 00;54;52;17

That we even with a couple of.

00;54;52;17 - 00;54;56;05

Speaker 2

Days, we started to notice some differences in her going to bed, sleeping.

00;54;56;05 - 00;54;56;20

Longer.

00;54;56;20 - 00;54;58;07

Speaker 2

And then also up.

00;54;58;07 - 00;54;59;19

A little bit earlier throughout the.

00;54;59;19 - 00;55;01;00

Speaker 2

Course of the day.

00;55;01;02 - 00;55;02;06

But if you can get out and.

00;55;02;06 - 00;55;08;27

Speaker 2

Everybody lives in different places, so if you're in Seattle, it might be a little bit more challenging than in Austin, Texas, or Florida or California.

00;55;08;27 - 00;55;12;04

Or wherever it might be. But morning light within about an.

00;55;12;04 - 00;55;14;08

Speaker 2

Hour of waking up is basically going.

00;55;14;08 - 00;55;16;01

To run that way through that.

00;55;16;03 - 00;55;30;21

Speaker 2

Super charismatic nucleus. And I talked about it's kind of like this light sensor that essentially is looking for that, that reset your circadian clock can get out for 5 to 10 minutes. You don't have to stare directly into the sun, but that's going to be one of the key low risk to pool. So seeing that.

00;55;30;21 - 00;55;31;21

And then on the other end of the.

00;55;31;21 - 00;55;32;18

Speaker 2

Day, so that's blue.

00;55;32;18 - 00;55;33;05

Light.

00;55;33;08 - 00;55;33;18

Speaker 2

So in the.

00;55;33;18 - 00;55;34;05

Morning and.

00;55;34;05 - 00;55;43;27

Speaker 2

Midday it's blue light, it's way, but it's basically the same wavelength as blue light, which is coming out of our devices, which we're inside one second by getting some.

00;55;44;00 - 00;55;44;09

Light.

00;55;44;09 - 00;55;47;14

Speaker 2

Exposure at the end of the day, which is going to be some of these more redder.

00;55;47;14 - 00;55;48;18

Wavelengths.

00;55;48;21 - 00;55;50;05

Speaker 2

Which basically start to kind of do a.

00;55;50;05 - 00;55;51;16

Little bit of melatonin.

00;55;51;16 - 00;55;55;22

Speaker 2

Stimulus in the system as well, too. So we want to reset the clock in the morning.

00;55;55;22 - 00;55;57;09

With light.

00;55;57;11 - 00;56;05;01

Speaker 2

As much as possible. And trying to be outside is probably as frequently as possible for people as as they can in their work environments.

00;56;05;04 - 00;56;05;07

And.

00;56;05;07 - 00;56;09;18

Speaker 2

Then trying to get a little bit of exposure to the sun as it goes down, if possible as well.

00;56;09;18 - 00;56;13;04

To blue light we're talking.

00;56;13;04 - 00;56;23;10

Speaker 2

About here in the second shows. I'm going to talk about essentially your disruptors and we're going to kind of we're going to paint a picture of probably one of the worst mixes of things in regards to sleep here, a couple of seconds.

00;56;23;12 - 00;56;24;02

Environment.

00;56;24;02 - 00;56;27;17

Speaker 2

You talked about some of these 60 degrees is kind of.

00;56;27;20 - 00;56;27;27

The.

00;56;28;02 - 00;56;28;19

Speaker 2

Temperature.

00;56;28;19 - 00;56;32;12

Of your environment. Ideally, we all know.

00;56;32;12 - 00;56;33;21

Speaker 2

That might be a challenge for certain.

00;56;33;21 - 00;56;35;04

People within their.

00;56;35;06 - 00;56;36;28

Speaker 2

Their homes.

00;56;37;00 - 00;56;37;14

But one of the.

00;56;37;14 - 00;56;44;10

Speaker 2

Key triggers to body to sleep is this drop in body temperature. And so it kind of interesting way to do this.

00;56;44;12 - 00;56;45;03

A lot of people might be.

00;56;45;03 - 00;56;48;17

Speaker 2

Playing with hot tubs or saunas or anything like that has to become a little bit more.

00;56;48;17 - 00;56;49;11

Prevalent.

00;56;49;13 - 00;56;50;16

Speaker 2

Getting a sauna.

00;56;50;16 - 00;56;52;03

Kind of later in the day might be like, well.

00;56;52;03 - 00;57;04;05

Speaker 2

Wait a second, you're raising my body temperature. But what your body's reaction is to that, this homeostasis that I talked about is is basically a little bit of an accelerator. On dropping your body temperature. So hot shower, hot bath, sauna.

00;57;04;08 - 00;57;06;17

Kind of in the evening time.

00;57;06;20 - 00;57;09;26

Speaker 2

Can actually be a nice trigger to kind of get your body temperature to start.

00;57;10;03 - 00;57;11;05

Dropping off quicker.

00;57;11;12 - 00;57;13;04

Speaker 2

Which will be a stimulant for you to start to go to.

00;57;13;04 - 00;57;15;21

Sleep in the room.

00;57;15;21 - 00;57;16;18

Speaker 2

Dark as possible.

00;57;16;25 - 00;57;17;20

So no.

00;57;17;20 - 00;57;20;19

Speaker 2

Lights if you need to blackout out shades.

00;57;20;21 - 00;57;21;27

Whatever it might be.

00;57;21;29 - 00;57;34;17

Speaker 2

Sound wise, there's probably a mix here, but quiet. Or if there is sound like a white noise machine or something stable. So where it's not changing noises, whereas basically trying to get through kind of like, hey, there's something.

00;57;34;17 - 00;57;36;01

Going on in the room.

00;57;36;04 - 00;57;38;26

Speaker 2

So your brain doesn't detect. It is.

00;57;38;28 - 00;57;40;19

Kind of like, Hey, you need to wake up now.

00;57;40;19 - 00;57;43;13

Speaker 2

Because there's something going on. It's like a stable sounds.

00;57;43;16 - 00;57;44;02

Like you're like.

00;57;44;03 - 00;57;53;03

Speaker 2

Have air conditioners or fans running, which are basically like white noise machines. So for me, it's kind of environmental standpoint. Temperature, light and sounds are going to be the.

00;57;53;03 - 00;57;54;01

Kind of three main.

00;57;54;07 - 00;57;56;08

Speaker 2

Pieces, light exposure being your.

00;57;56;08 - 00;57;57;08

Bigger louder to pull in.

00;57;57;08 - 00;58;07;18

Speaker 2

Regards to setting up your system from a circadian rhythm standpoint disruptors. This might hurt some people's feelings a little.

00;58;07;18 - 00;58;08;15

Bit, but alcohol.

00;58;08;21 - 00;58;09;01

Speaker 2

You talked.

00;58;09;01 - 00;58;10;05

About.

00;58;10;08 - 00;58;17;07

Speaker 2

Like a nice bourbon or glass of wine, just like the next person, but just realizing what it does. So it'll be a sedative.

00;58;17;09 - 00;58;17;16

In the.

00;58;17;16 - 00;58;22;27

Speaker 2

Beginning of sleep, but it ends up being a disruptor of kind of a sleep cycle. So it fragments your sleep.

00;58;22;29 - 00;58;23;08

And it.

00;58;23;08 - 00;58;24;12

Speaker 2

Impacts the.

00;58;24;12 - 00;58;25;02

Quality.

00;58;25;02 - 00;58;31;01

Speaker 2

And the duration of REM sleep. So it does have kind of that impact directly on that sleep cycle.

00;58;31;04 - 00;58;31;21

Caffeine.

00;58;31;28 - 00;58;33;26

Speaker 2

We've already talked about it. I drink coffee.

00;58;33;26 - 00;58;36;22

I wake up, I have my coffee in the morning. I it's.

00;58;36;22 - 00;58;43;04

Speaker 2

Interesting. I would religiously have coffee at about 3 p.m. every day.

00;58;43;06 - 00;58;43;23

I haven't been.

00;58;43;23 - 00;58;44;24

Speaker 2

Doing it as frequently.

00;58;44;24 - 00;58;46;07

Lately and I have been.

00;58;46;07 - 00;58;47;23

Speaker 2

Noticing that I think I'm sleeping.

00;58;47;23 - 00;58;51;28

Better, so I'm feeling like it might be part of the.

00;58;51;28 - 00;59;02;17

Speaker 2

Equation too, that personally I'm also the person that I'll say my wife's GP and I grew up in a Cuban family for 20 plus years and there's always the capacity to chew coffee after dinner.

00;59;02;17 - 00;59;03;09

And everything like that.

00;59;03;09 - 00;59;06;08

Speaker 2

And I can usually drink one of those and say it doesn't impact my.

00;59;06;08 - 00;59;08;09

Sleep deprived.

00;59;08;09 - 00;59;10;10

Speaker 2

Doesn't impact of falling asleep, but it definitely feels.

00;59;10;10 - 00;59;11;11

Like maybe.

00;59;11;13 - 00;59;27;10

Speaker 2

There is something to that personally that I'm starting to notice. Stress. Stress is a huge one because essentially it's driving this sympathetic nervous system tone, which essentially is cortisol and adrenaline getting dumped into the system. Pain for some of your people. So.

00;59;27;12 - 00;59;30;07

You know, coming out of.

00;59;30;10 - 00;59;31;23

Speaker 2

Armed Forces service.

00;59;32;00 - 00;59;33;00

But a lot of people are having.

00;59;33;00 - 00;59;43;01

Speaker 2

Injuries. They may have pain. That is something that they have to deal with on a daily basis. So pain is one of those things, especially through some of what Anthony talked about. It's like maybe there's these things you can do throughout the course of the.

00;59;43;01 - 00;59;43;23

Day.

00;59;43;25 - 00;59;48;01

Speaker 2

To to mitigate your pain through soft tissue strategies or just general movement strategies would be a.

00;59;48;01 - 00;59;49;04

Big one.

00;59;49;06 - 00;59;53;23

Speaker 2

As well too. But those are probably the four.

00;59;53;25 - 00;59;54;22

Kind of.

00;59;54;24 - 00;59;57;14

Speaker 2

Disrupters. So if I paint a picture.

00;59;57;14 - 01;00;01;11

Of work all day, don't eat well.

01;00;01;13 - 01;00;02;21

Speaker 2

Had a stressful day at work.

01;00;02;21 - 01;00;05;01

Got home.

01;00;05;03 - 01;00;07;21

Speaker 2

Didn't get any sunlight through the course of the day.

01;00;07;23 - 01;00;09;00

I'm on my phone.

01;00;09;00 - 01;00;10;11

Speaker 2

As I'm sitting on the couch.

01;00;10;11 - 01;00;15;04

Doomscrolling through whatever you are looking at at 11 p.m. at night.

01;00;15;05 - 01;00;17;27

Speaker 2

That is a perfect recipe for all things that will.

01;00;17;27 - 01;00;18;10

Not.

01;00;18;10 - 01;00;24;16

Speaker 2

Optimize your sleep. So unfortunately, many of it and I'm not saying I don't do that occasionally.

01;00;24;19 - 01;00;25;16

By just really.

01;00;25;16 - 01;00;26;11

Speaker 2

Realizing.

01;00;26;15 - 01;00;27;15

Blue light.

01;00;27;18 - 01;00;29;13

Speaker 2

Stress.

01;00;29;15 - 01;00;32;24

In those things, really being aware of how.

01;00;32;24 - 01;00;34;28

Speaker 2

You start to pull those away as you get closer to.

01;00;34;28 - 01;00;36;02

Bedtime.

01;00;36;05 - 01;00;39;01

Speaker 2

If possible as well to.

01;00;39;04 - 01;00;59;06

Go. Got it. So I mean, and I'm going to unpack some things here because you basically just I and there's no way I know this, but I'm willing to bet that there's a large percentage of people that you just called everybody out on that. Yeah. You don't go outside too often for too long. And then when you're inside, you probably eight later than you normally did.

01;00;59;06 - 01;01;16;03

And then you're watching TV or you're playing on your phone and or you're thinking about stuff as a result of either that or work related activity and you're stressed, you go there and you fool yourself into thinking, I'm just going to lay down here and think myself to sleep, right?

01;01;16;05 - 01;01;24;22

Speaker 2

One of the most interesting study to say, the one most interesting things that I've heard somebody say in the past, I can't remember who it is, is you can use your brain to think yourself to sleep.

01;01;24;24 - 01;01;27;06

So count sheets out the window.

01;01;27;09 - 01;01;27;28

Speaker 2

Count. She's out.

01;01;27;28 - 01;01;30;12

The window. I will give you a couple other kind of.

01;01;30;12 - 01;01;34;00

Speaker 2

Things that are maybe a replacement for counting sheep in a second. But let's keep running.

01;01;34;00 - 01;01;35;16

Through your your.

01;01;35;18 - 01;01;36;12

Speaker 2

Pieces that you wanted to.

01;01;36;12 - 01;01;36;19

Hit.

01;01;36;23 - 01;01;57;13

Yeah. So? So this is comes down to functional. So because we talked about earlier, if I'm interested in fitness and I'm going to find the day time of day that works best for me or when I can fit it in and I work out at night and then I'm cold, lunch is the thing. So I'm going to now come back in there and try to do recovery at night.

01;01;57;13 - 01;02;12;15

Cold plunge. Because you talked about how hot showers and heat and all that stuff will help. And then I'm going to eat for recovery meal after six. Real quick touch on that. Good idea or think about how you're going to be able to if you're going to do that then ex.

01;02;12;18 - 01;02;14;03

Yeah again no.

01;02;14;03 - 01;02;19;10

Speaker 2

Absolutes so work out depending on what the workout is later at night.

01;02;19;11 - 01;02;25;16

So I'm an afternoon workout. I prefer to workout in the afternoon personally. Again, everybody's.

01;02;25;16 - 01;02;28;13

Speaker 2

Doing different intensity of things, but it just people.

01;02;28;13 - 01;02;28;28

Are doing it at the.

01;02;28;28 - 01;02;33;21

Speaker 2

Higher intensity. They're going to CrossFit, they're going to go for Jiu-Jitsu, they're going.

01;02;33;21 - 01;02;36;05

To whatever it might be.

01;02;36;07 - 01;02;36;26

Speaker 2

That's going to have.

01;02;36;26 - 01;02;38;08

A upregulates.

01;02;38;08 - 01;02;43;27

Speaker 2

Already. Or sympathetic nervous system drives your system, which basically is, Hey, I need to be awake.

01;02;43;29 - 01;02;45;04

But again.

01;02;45;07 - 01;02;48;17

Speaker 2

There's things you can do to counterbalance domestic violence. I'll grab that in second.

01;02;48;19 - 01;02;54;05

The eating piece, depending on your eating 6 p.m. is probably not a bad time to eat, kind of depending on what your.

01;02;54;05 - 01;02;57;00

Speaker 2

Eating style is. And again, I'm not a dietitian.

01;02;57;02 - 01;02;57;25

You don't want anything.

01;02;57;25 - 01;02;58;10

Speaker 2

Like super.

01;02;58;10 - 01;02;58;29

Heavy.

01;02;58;29 - 01;03;01;17

Speaker 2

Greasy anything that's going to give you indigestion.

01;03;01;18 - 01;03;03;12

Kind of later at night.

01;03;03;15 - 01;03;07;02

Speaker 2

On things because that's just going to cause you distress. It's going to keep you away just from a pure.

01;03;07;02 - 01;03;07;25

Uncomfortable.

01;03;07;25 - 01;03;10;13

Speaker 2

Standpoint. I think there's some play inside of.

01;03;10;13 - 01;03;13;01

That evening feeding window.

01;03;13;03 - 01;03;31;27

Speaker 2

Cold plunge is interesting because for most people it has a direct, sympathetic nervous system response, i.e. I get adrenaline dumped into my system because this is a strep. My body's perceiving this as a stressful exercise. Now what we can talk about is how can you use regulation practices.

01;03;31;27 - 01;03;33;18

I.e. breathing.

01;03;33;20 - 01;03;36;07

Speaker 2

To control your response to that.

01;03;36;07 - 01;03;37;05

Cold water.

01;03;37;08 - 01;03;41;28

Speaker 2

Which is also more of a down regulatory standpoint. So that's one of the benefits of using stress to help.

01;03;41;28 - 01;03;42;26

You build.

01;03;42;26 - 01;03;47;24

Speaker 2

These capabilities around reacting to stress. So if you just had Copeland straight off.

01;03;47;24 - 01;03;48;07

Of it without.

01;03;48;08 - 01;03;53;08

Speaker 2

Like, well, how can you actually mitigate some of that stuff? For most people, that's going to keep them awake.

01;03;53;11 - 01;03;54;05

Now.

01;03;54;08 - 01;04;11;27

Speaker 2

A lot of times will do in our athlete centers will do this contrast bars that you'll do cold for a period of time and then hot for a period of time and then cold for a period of time hot. So you can also blend those two together as well. Doing cold plunge depending on what you're doing it for, whether it's a stress resilience.

01;04;12;04 - 01;04;12;26

Cognitive.

01;04;12;29 - 01;04;14;03

Speaker 2

Exercise.

01;04;14;06 - 01;04;14;16

Or I'm.

01;04;14;16 - 01;04;18;13

Speaker 2

Trying to reduce inflammation in my system because that's benefits of cold punch.

01;04;18;16 - 01;04;19;18

And I'm.

01;04;19;18 - 01;04;22;04

Speaker 2

Kind of to ends of the spectrum.

01;04;22;07 - 01;04;22;27

But can you pair.

01;04;22;27 - 01;04;23;14

Speaker 2

That with some.

01;04;23;14 - 01;04;25;05

Warm water or hot water.

01;04;25;07 - 01;04;28;20

Speaker 2

Posts and get the same benefits of that.

01;04;28;23 - 01;04;29;13

And can even.

01;04;29;13 - 01;04;33;20

Speaker 2

Utilize some breathing practices, which I'll talk about here in a second, which are some things you put in your back.

01;04;33;20 - 01;04;34;25

Pocket.

01;04;34;28 - 01;04;50;26

Speaker 2

As far as some other strategies as well too. So kind of first blush is like, man, that sounds like a recipe for not sleeping well. But I think it all depends, which is often when I say to certain situations, I think there's ways to play with that because also what time do you go to bed?

01;04;50;26 - 01;05;00;05

Chris So I'm in that that exception thing where I have I have an environment towards 1112 at night, waking up at five, 530 in the morning.

01;05;00;06 - 01;05;00;24

Yeah.

01;05;00;27 - 01;05;03;20

Speaker 2

So that's 6 p.m. kind of stimulus.

01;05;03;22 - 01;05;06;05

Going to bed that late. You got enough of a window.

01;05;06;05 - 01;05;11;11

Speaker 2

Where you could put enough strategies in place to offset that kind of stimulus to your system.

01;05;11;14 - 01;05;28;26

You got it then. So I'll take this minute. Just plug the game changer with die. That's part of the exercise is that cold plunge, trying to be able to understand how you can mitigate the stress reaction to it with the breath. So that's another XOs option out there for anybody listening and paying attention.

01;05;28;28 - 01;05;29;19

That's right.

01;05;29;22 - 01;05;31;08

Sorry to interrupt. Let's keep going.

01;05;31;10 - 01;05;39;25

Speaker 2

You're good. So outside of kind of what can I control for my environmental factors, i.e. temperature, light, sounds.

01;05;39;27 - 01;05;42;20

What can I know about disruptors.

01;05;42;23 - 01;05;44;09

Speaker 2

At least the knowledge around them?

01;05;44;11 - 01;05;45;09

I'll kwahol.

01;05;45;09 - 01;05;47;17

Speaker 2

Caffeine stress and.

01;05;47;19 - 01;05;47;25

There's.

01;05;47;25 - 01;06;00;04

Speaker 2

Some things you can start to do to kind of offset some of those things. Right? So one of the future episodes is going to be around this idea of regulation reflection. So if I take reflection as an easy one, real time awareness, how.

01;06;00;04 - 01;06;01;23

Am I feeling in the moment.

01;06;01;26 - 01;06;06;27

Speaker 2

Proactive reflection? How do I set myself up for success through visualization.

01;06;06;27 - 01;06;08;02

Or whatever it might be.

01;06;08;04 - 01;06;09;28

Speaker 2

Or setting some goals for myself?

01;06;10;00 - 01;06;12;12

And retroactive.

01;06;12;14 - 01;06;13;18

Speaker 2

Awareness?

01;06;13;21 - 01;06;15;02

Are know, how well.

01;06;15;02 - 01;06;15;12

Speaker 2

Did I do.

01;06;15;12 - 01;06;16;23

This? One of the.

01;06;16;23 - 01;06;19;12

Speaker 2

Things that is pretty beneficial so.

01;06;19;16 - 01;06;22;02

A lot of people Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night.

01;06;22;04 - 01;06;23;28

Or time?

01;06;24;00 - 01;06;27;27

Speaker 2

What is kind of one of the things that you notice when you wake up in the middle of the night?

01;06;27;27 - 01;06;29;18

You may go to the bathroom.

01;06;29;20 - 01;06;31;18

Speaker 2

But from a kind of thought process.

01;06;31;18 - 01;06;32;26

Standpoint, are you thinking about.

01;06;32;26 - 01;06;34;18

Speaker 2

It in particular?

01;06;34;20 - 01;06;39;06

Yeah, thinking about I feel like I'm missing something.

01;06;39;08 - 01;06;39;16

Speaker 2

So a.

01;06;39;16 - 01;06;40;01

Great way to.

01;06;40;01 - 01;06;41;02

Speaker 2

Approach something like that.

01;06;41;02 - 01;06;42;03

Would be.

01;06;42;05 - 01;06;45;06

Speaker 2

Hey, here's all the things that I'm tracking is important to me right now.

01;06;45;06 - 01;06;48;01

Let me write them down before I go to bed.

01;06;48;04 - 01;06;50;10

Speaker 2

So here's the three things that happened today.

01;06;50;10 - 01;06;51;03

That are on the.

01;06;51;03 - 01;06;54;26

Speaker 2

Minds. Let me write them down in some sort of actually set that I can do tomorrow.

01;06;54;26 - 01;06;56;15

When I'm awake.

01;06;56;17 - 01;06;58;11

Speaker 2

Hear the things that I know are just swirling.

01;06;58;11 - 01;06;59;05

Around me that I.

01;06;59;05 - 01;07;05;26

Speaker 2

Want to also write down. And here's the three things that I want to do tomorrow from a goal standpoint. So if you're going to just take and put that down.

01;07;05;26 - 01;07;06;28

On paper, you've.

01;07;06;28 - 01;07;08;10

Speaker 2

Captured it. So it's not like you're.

01;07;08;10 - 01;07;09;03

Worried about.

01;07;09;09 - 01;07;11;04

Speaker 2

Losing it necessarily.

01;07;11;06 - 01;07;14;11

You don't have to wake up thinking about it and be like, Oh, forgetting what?

01;07;14;11 - 01;07;22;06

Speaker 2

This the news. So you've captured it. It's a great way to do retrograde reflection for the day before. It's a great way to be proactive reflection for the day.

01;07;22;06 - 01;07;23;08

Coming up.

01;07;23;11 - 01;07;26;22

Speaker 2

And basically you can kind of put that down, put it in a book. So it's essentially a form of.

01;07;26;22 - 01;07;28;21

Diary keeping that.

01;07;28;21 - 01;07;32;02

Speaker 2

Hopefully get some of the stuff out of your brain onto a piece of paper so you don't have to.

01;07;32;02 - 01;07;33;03

Ruminate on it.

01;07;33;10 - 01;07;39;24

Got it. So it's basically purging the thought and increasing the chance for you to no longer wonder about it and during the sleep cycle.

01;07;40;01 - 01;07;42;29

Speaker 2

That's right. So essentially, when you are waking up.

01;07;43;01 - 01;07;45;15

Ideally an ideal world, you're probably waking up.

01;07;45;15 - 01;07;46;02

Speaker 2

Once in the.

01;07;46;02 - 01;07;46;15

Middle of the.

01;07;46;15 - 01;07;47;22

Speaker 2

Night to go to the restroom.

01;07;47;22 - 01;07;48;23

And then there's no other.

01;07;48;23 - 01;07;51;20

Speaker 2

Wake up. And again, there's all kinds of reasons for people.

01;07;51;20 - 01;07;52;05

To have.

01;07;52;05 - 01;07;53;04

Speaker 2

Periods where they wake up.

01;07;53;05 - 01;07;55;11

At night. But if.

01;07;55;11 - 01;07;56;24

Speaker 2

We can kind of shut down that.

01;07;56;25 - 01;07;57;04

Are.

01;07;57;07 - 01;08;00;13

Speaker 2

Waking going to go to the restroom. But now I'm starting to think about X.

01;08;00;16 - 01;08;00;28

If we can get.

01;08;00;28 - 01;08;09;12

Speaker 2

Rid of that, then you should be able to go right back to sleep. Hopefully as you get back into bed from from using the restroom, some other kind of things prior.

01;08;09;12 - 01;08;11;08

To going to bed is.

01;08;11;08 - 01;08;31;08

Speaker 2

People like to meditate. So meditation starts to move us kind of towards those brainwave patterns that are more representative obviously this idea of visualization, of kind of visualizing certain things, whether it's kind of a relaxing scene. So most things that we want to think about to tears for Sleep are going to be this idea of parasympathetic nervous system.

01;08;31;08 - 01;08;32;09

Tone or.

01;08;32;09 - 01;08;42;20

Speaker 2

Drive. So you have your rest and digest as opposed to your fight or flight nervous system responses. So you have sympathetic, which is.

01;08;42;25 - 01;08;43;22

Fight or flight.

01;08;43;25 - 01;09;03;00

Speaker 2

Parasympathetic rest and digest. So we want to be able to do as many things around parasympathetic nervous system activation as possible, which is kind of be this idea of your body trigger. So those things are all going to be in this different area of down regulatory regulation exercises. Breathing is a great one, so you can use breathing.

01;09;03;00 - 01;09;04;00

To do a lot of things.

01;09;04;00 - 01;09;06;21

Speaker 2

You can use it to regulate your system to get you ready.

01;09;06;21 - 01;09;09;28

For more action.

01;09;10;00 - 01;09;21;12

Speaker 2

Packed things you can you definitely use it to kind of down regulate your system so drive more vagal tone and so it's a great way easy kind of thing to take away from down regulatory.

01;09;21;12 - 01;09;21;28

Breathing.

01;09;21;28 - 01;09;25;26

Speaker 2

Is utilizing exhale that is longer.

01;09;25;26 - 01;09;26;04

Than the.

01;09;26;04 - 01;09;29;19

Speaker 2

Inhale so great example of that would be maybe something like a four, seven, eight.

01;09;29;19 - 01;09;31;20

Breathing pattern where you're going to inhale.

01;09;31;20 - 01;09;33;06

Speaker 2

For 4 seconds.

01;09;33;09 - 01;09;33;28

You're going to hold.

01;09;33;28 - 01;09;41;24

Speaker 2

It for 7 seconds, and then you're going to exhale on a control for 8 seconds. So basically a four second inhale and exhale. That's going to be.

01;09;41;24 - 01;09;42;29

A good breathing.

01;09;43;02 - 01;09;47;00

Speaker 2

Or something similar to that. That's going to be a regulatory.

01;09;47;02 - 01;09;48;02

Breathing pattern that will.

01;09;48;02 - 01;09;51;09

Speaker 2

Hopefully get you into more parasympathetic tone, which which puts you in a.

01;09;51;09 - 01;09;53;27

Better.

01;09;54;00 - 01;09;59;09

Speaker 2

Position to be more restful and allow those processes to happen, like we talked about.

01;09;59;09 - 01;09;59;23

At the beginning.

01;09;59;23 - 01;10;01;19

Speaker 2

Of the episode.

01;10;01;22 - 01;10;10;05

Or you can just every 12 minutes exhale as in, and then have everybody what's matter.

01;10;10;07 - 01;10;11;13

Well and breathe.

01;10;11;13 - 01;10;11;29

Speaker 2

Interestingly.

01;10;11;29 - 01;10;13;00

Enough.

01;10;13;03 - 01;10;19;12

Speaker 2

Physiological sigh just like what you did. That kind of auditory is actually another great thing to add into that. So if.

01;10;19;12 - 01;10;21;16

You added in that.

01;10;21;19 - 01;10;32;28

Speaker 2

When you're eight second exhale, that's even more bang for your buck. So you can either get a sympathy card from having somebody ask you what's wrong, or you can use it as kind of like a stimulant to get you to calm down.

01;10;33;00 - 01;10;37;19

I'll do the latter is I'll sound smarter.

01;10;37;22 - 01;10;38;25

So hopefully.

01;10;38;25 - 01;10;40;18

Speaker 2

There's some takeaways.

01;10;40;21 - 01;10;46;27

For people if you really break it down, quiet, no light.

01;10;46;29 - 01;10;50;22

Speaker 2

No stress. Get yourself in a mental state where it's going to optimize it.

01;10;50;27 - 01;10;51;21

Get rid of any.

01;10;51;21 - 01;10;59;21

Speaker 2

Negative thoughts, pull down a piece of paper. If you take those five things and mix them in whichever way works best for you, that's probably going to put you in a position to be successful.

01;10;59;23 - 01;11;05;20

It's outstanding. John, Appreciate it. And so is that is that that Did you cover it all?

01;11;05;22 - 01;11;07;07

I cover I cover the big rocks.

01;11;07;07 - 01;11;17;14

Speaker 2

So, yeah, let's let's wrap it there. I think if people can do that versus trying to get more information because there's all kinds of things around time zone jump strategies around that ship work.

01;11;17;17 - 01;11;18;04

Probably a lot of.

01;11;18;04 - 01;11;19;12

Speaker 2

Questions around.

01;11;19;19 - 01;11;20;04

You know.

01;11;20;04 - 01;11;28;12

Speaker 2

Different or supplements naps we heard So essentially that was one of my other ones. And there are some some gender differences around sleep.

01;11;28;12 - 01;11;32;24

But I think we hit the big rocks that people can hit the big rocks. I think they're hopefully.

01;11;32;24 - 01;11;34;08

Speaker 2

Going to be successful.

01;11;34;10 - 01;11;52;20

Well, without a doubt. I think, you know, the combination of thing, which is the benefit of what we're trying to do with Exos is partner up and then bring, you know, to dissect these things in a way which these episodes will produce is enough detail to get below the service, get off the wave tops, hit it maybe a foot or two down.

01;11;52;27 - 01;12;13;04

In the context of the analogy, right? It's deep enough to learn a little something, and then it's practical for you to apply. And then you put them together. You're talking about how you can work out, how you can rest, how you can eat right, drink right, and then spend time doing things throughout the day where it's little elements of what you just closed with the nuggets.

01;12;13;04 - 01;12;31;12

You know, just remember to do some of these things in these intervals, create a habit, and then we'll keep going. So It's it's good. I appreciate, John, everything that you're doing and then the help that you're providing us to do all these things with, you know, Anthony and and whoever's coming up next, talk about these next couple episodes.

01;12;31;12 - 01;12;33;24

Speaker 2

You'll you'll see some of the usual suspects, but we're going to.

01;12;33;24 - 01;12;36;17

Have a few.

01;12;36;19 - 01;12;39;12

Speaker 2

New faces come on as well to.

01;12;39;14 - 01;12;43;22

Good stuff, right, John? So any any closing remarks are we cover all.

01;12;43;25 - 01;12;45;12

I think we cover it all. I mean.

01;12;45;14 - 01;12;46;27

Speaker 2

Access is is here to.

01;12;46;27 - 01;12;47;23

Help, you know.

01;12;47;23 - 01;13;03;13

Speaker 2

Individuals like, yourself and teams get ready for the moments that matter to them. And this is one of the ways. So, you know, anybody that's interested out there, they can they can reach out to us. Let's see Microsoft.com is is our website and then go to this interested to to get more information solid.

01;13;03;16 - 01;13;21;07

All right cool then and I'll put all of this stuff again for everybody by now. You should know to put it in the description, I'll add some of the elements that we talked about in the summary and some links specifically what you mentioned earlier as far as additional ways to find out from other sources. Matt Walker and some other books in the links that you suggested.

01;13;21;07 - 01;13;24;20

And on that note, already, one key moving forward.

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We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

• https://www.goldstarpeak.org/ - info@goldstarpeak.org - scholarships@goldstarpeak.org

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After joining the Air Force and the FBI, Milan shares details and lessons learned from service, his transition, and his journey to the private sector.   You ever wonder how your experience may compare to others and whether or not the choices you’re faced with making have been already paved by someone else? Life happens and when the opportunity to change presents itself at those inflection points, you need to have the right mindset and skills to accept the challenge with everything you’ve got. So what does it take? How do you add value? What do you demonstrate that contributes to doing what’s needed before you’re told? We get into the good stuff in this one.   So, take a listen as we dig deep into the secret sauce of being a valuable part of a team.

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In honor of Veterans Day, in this episode we are joined by several Oracle employees who are veterans from different eras of service. From the 70’s through the 2000’s, we brought them together to share their experiences of service. We talked about a few of the things that are still the same as well as the many changes that occurred between each era. What became clear is we all express our passion and purpose as we ventured down the path of paying forward. This episode will hopefully speak for itself.

A warm thank you to our guests: Gene Griffe: USMC 77-98 and 04. Senior Manager, Federal Security Programs & Facilities Security Officer Rik Schneider: USN 88-97. Principal Member of Technical Staff Dean Bradley: USMC 86-91. Principal Sales Consultant David Cross: USN 91-96. MAVEN Executive Sponsor and SVP SaaS Chief Information Security Officer Zuzana Vankova: USAF 07-15. Staff Sales Consultant

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In this episode, I’m joined by co-host, David Cross and guest, Mindy Jaffar, Oracle’s Military Talent Recruiting Program Manager. Looking for opportunities where we fit best can be a taxing process. There are a few steps we can take to help prepare all of us to be a match. What started as an idea to share ways of finding the right talent, you’ll hear us lay the groundwork of how to BE the right talent. And this goes both ways – job seekers and hiring managers. Hear our viewpoints and note some pro-tips to consider when looking to have the right conversations that will hopefully set you up for success. So, take a listen as we get back to basics and encourage a people-focused approach to career decisions as we continue the mission to serve. And be sure to view the additional information in the episode description.

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Oracle NetSuite’s, Heather Miller, is Group Vice President for Global Customer Success. Responsible for driving business initiatives that support consulting and enablement, Heather is also a huge advocate and influence for creating pathways to find the right talent using a programmatic approach. Of the many programs NetSuite offers to do just that, hear how SuiteVets intentionally focuses on our military veteran affiliated community and why it is so successful. What are the sought-after skills and candidate potential to consider? Listen in and find out as we uncover the basics while we continue the mission to serve.

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In this episode, Chris Spencer sits with Peter Cline - Army veteran and President and Founder of Boots to Books. Boots to Books is a nonprofit organization founded to help veterans find their next step by providing a number of services that connect them to valuable skill-development and employment resources. Peter and I dive into a few layers of how a service member may prepare ahead of time to map their journey. We also discuss how we should remember the traits and skills we already have, incorporate self-realization to be honest with ourselves, then apply what you learn and as you grow. - https://boots2books.com/ - https://bootstobooks.vfairs.com/

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In this episode I am joined by our co-host, David Cross, Oracle SVP and SaaS Chief Information Security Officer. David and I cover a few hot topics surrounding leadership – specifically informal leaders and the role we play. As I’m sure we all have experienced good leaders who are or were effective in helping us be better, we also have seen or heard of those leaders who sometimes come up short is one or more areas. David and I talk about some of the common things that are sometimes overlooked or not leveraged as we interact with others and this may serve as a reminder for many or something one has not yet realized or considered to be a useful tool to have in ready. One thing is for sure, we should bring value to the experience of others and hopefully this episode will do that for you. We also introduce a few books to serve as resources in case anyone is interested in learning more in their quest for knowledge…we’re only scraping the surface! As always, feedback is welcome and you may connect with David on Twitter at mrdbcross and you can always find me on linked in.

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Caroline shares with us a little about her early years growing up with the influences that would later shape her mindset and approach to educational goals, relationships, and career choices. As we listen to Caroline’s story, one cannot help but to also hear how her consistency has given the impression of how easy it is to maneuver through life’s experiences, when in fact, things aren’t as simple as they seem. Contact info – LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carolinekmhejazi Resources: HOH – Hiring our Heroes – they have a fellowship program just for Mil Spouses that is quite popular. https://www.hiringourheroes.org/career-services/military-spouse-resources/ O2O – Onward to Opportunity – great resource that helps Mil Spouses with education and professional certifications. https://ivmf.syracuse.edu/programs/career-training/ Military OneSource – general resource for military families. https://www.militaryonesource.mil/about-us/ #LinkedInMilCity – great resource for networking. https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkedinmilcity/ PsychArmor. https://psycharmor.org/

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Chris Spencer sits with Jessica Hunt, military spouse, mom, and Director of Impact in The Honor Foundation’s San Diego chapter. Talking about the early beginnings of setting out on her path and marrying her best friend as he begins his military career, where they make life changing decisions to support the balance of military, family, and other personal choices, Jessica shares challenges faced along the way. Don't Just Survive, THRIVE. The sign that will be an important shift in moving forward. Common within the military spouse community, Jesi illustrates how a resilient mindset nudges oneself towards constant growth through service and support of others. Looking for support? View these resources: - https://www.militaryonesource.mil/family-relationships/spouse/military-life-for-spouses/military-life-for-spouses-the-essentials/ - https://www.tricare.mil/CoveredServices/BenefitUpdates/Archives/04_23_2020_TRICARE_offers_telehealth_services_for_mental_health_care - https://www.militaryonesource.mil/education-employment/for-spouses/for-spouses-benefits/ - https://honor.org/

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Chris Spencer sits with PsychArmor's Vice President of Strategic Communications, Carole Turner. Carole speaks to PsychArmor's mission, introduces the "Behind the Mission" podcast she leads, in addition to sharing what it is like being a 30 year USMC spouse. Carole shares a little of her background in education and communications and how it has contributed to her passion for helping others in a variety of roles. We are grateful for Carole as well as the partnership with PsychArmor as they continue their mission to serve.

https://psycharmor.​org/
https://psycharmor.​org/podcast

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Chris Spencer and Gerry Borja connected with Travis Manion Foundation’s Heather Kelly. Heather is regional manager of the west and pacific northwest region for TMF and is the surviving gold star spouse of a Marine who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. TMF strives to unite and strengthen communities by training, developing, and highlighting the role models that lead them. We develop programs, training opportunities, and events designed to empower veterans and families of the fallen, and then inspire them to pass on their values to the next generation and the community at large. "IF NOT ME, THEN WHO..." https://www.travismanion.org/

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Chris Spencer sits down with Michael Halterman and covers Michael's military experience, the choices that earned him a place within the Marine Special Operations Community, and eventually the current position he holds at THF. Michael unpacks detail that describes the mission of THF and how much immediate impact the meaningful work the professionals within the organization have on the veteran-affiliated community.

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Chris Spencer and Shane Ruiz have an in-depth conversation surrounding Shane's choices leading towards military service, the experiences and relationships made along the way and how it all shaped his trajectory to find his true passion and purpose; ultimately landing him in his current role as a Senior Director for Product Marketing within one of Oracle's Global Business Units.

https://www.lionheartedfilm.com/

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This is the MAVEN podcast intro episode that offers a brief summary of the show's intent. We're happy you're here.