 Well, good morning and thanks for getting us exercise and some blood flowing before we get started. Well, one of my greatest honors in leading Fleet Cyber Command and the 10th Fleet is to actually get invited to come do stuff like this, be able to talk to a lot of different folks. You are a different audience than I usually get to talk to every day. Because you might imagine, you know, the cyber part of my portfolio has a lot of demand and people want to hear me talk about what's going on in cyberspace. And so that's a very comfortable area for me to talk about. I'm not going to talk about that very much today. And so Ergo, comfort is not a place that I'm going to be in today. This will be my first keynote. I've served on panels here and we've done different types of events. But I haven't stood up in front of a group like this and talked about a topic like I'm going to talk about today. So, you know, that's a little uncomfortable. It may not be what you're expecting. You may not laugh at my jokes. I might have to tell you when they're jokes. That happens pretty routinely anyway. And then people will laugh. And you might think, boy, she likes to talk about herself. She needs to get over herself. The reality is nothing could be further from the truth. Hate talking about myself. But I was looking for something that might be meaningful to you that I've learned along the way. And so when I do talk to the geeks, I talk almost always about reducing the attack surface in cyberspace. And what does that mean? That means ensuring our mission by eliminating vulnerabilities that we present to the adversary. Vulnerability in this sense, we talk about it being a weakness. Being that an adversary can take advantage of to thwart our mission and to undermine what we're trying to accomplish. And so I talk about vulnerabilities a lot in terms of weakness, in terms of flaw. And today, standing here with you, we're here to talk about leadership. And the notion of vulnerability in leaders is a much disconnected sense from that of being a flaw or a weakness. In fact, it is, I believe, absolutely essential to lead. And so what we're going to talk about here today is some of the benefits of embracing vulnerability in how you conduct yourselves. I'm used to having an iPad to help guide my discussion. Today I have a treasure map that I don't know if I will need, but what we're hoping to do is follow that. And so when I talk about vulnerability, the Chief Naval Operations has recently published his maritime design. And one of the core attributes that he expects of his leaders is toughness, toughness. Toughness is the opposite of weakness. It's not the opposite of vulnerability. He also is expecting innovation, us to drive change. We live in a very uncertain world. And all of that, all of that puts us as leaders in a vulnerable position. So vulnerability is not weakness. It's the courage to take risk. And for those of you in the Navy, and maybe some others, you might have heard of John Paul Jones. I heard about him at a very young age, as you might imagine. And John Paul Jones talked about, well let me just quote him, he said, it seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win. And when I heard these words as a midshipman, I imagined this Scott who had come over and joined with the French Navy and the Continental Navy to take on the British during the Revolutionary War. And I imagined his words to mean taking risk in mission, sailing off against poor odds, sailing against a Navy that is well trained and well disciplined and maybe can outgun you, and taking risk, trying to achieve surprise and winning at the end. But I think his words have more meaning for us than just that. I think there is sort of the personal risk that we have to take as humans and as leaders. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. I think I've always considered myself to be a little bit of a risk taker, not reckless, but a risk taker. People would probably agree with that analogy. And I think it goes back to a story, and I use the word story very heavily because my parents tell this story, about how I learned to swim. And it took place in Kentucky. This is back in the 1960s. My father at the time was a high school teacher, and he was a lifeguard in the summers so that we could eat. That was a joke. But not really, it was really true. It was so that we could eat. And I'm just making sure you guys are with me. And his methods in teaching me to swim may be a little unorthodox by today's standards. So he took then two-year-old Jan Elizabeth, or Jan Elizabeth that he used to call me, and he threw me into the deep end of the pool. And you guys are a gas, like, how could a person do that? He was 22 before you judge him, 22 years old, and he was a lifeguard, so we had the pool when no one else was around. And there were no video cameras, so no evidence. And I don't really remember, I don't really remember that. Now nine years later, when my brother came along, he was a much more responsible parent, and my mom and dad took my brother to swimming lessons at nine months old, because we lived in Florida at that point, and backyard swimming pools everywhere, so you had to know how to swim. So in the walk, you need to learn how to swim, because you could end up in one of these pools that would be very dangerous. Well, nine-month-old Duke, you know, the only way you learn to swim is to force your face into the water. That was a very angry baby. But I mean, I watched it. He was mad as hell. I mean, just furious, red-faced, and we have videos of it. So it's fun. But at the end of the day, both my brother and I, very comfortable with the water, love swimming, love all water sports. And so there is risk in learning to swim, but with that is reward. And so that may have been the beginning of my willingness to take risk. There were more times. I think about when I was in high school, 16 years old, and one of my best friends, kind of a new best friend, I had grown up in the area. She was kind of new to the area. We decided it might be a good idea to run for class office. What could go wrong? Just put your name out there for all of your peers and classmates to vote on you. So there is risk in putting yourself out there like that. I ran for class president. She ran for vice president. And it worked out for us in that case. Little bit later, applying to the Naval Academy, first class of women had just graduated from the Naval Academy. And I thought, well, this might be fun. I was wrong. I was really wrong. But I was willing to take the risk and go see what it might be like. And I wasn't the best student or the best midshipman or the best example of professional development. But I graduated. And so that all worked out. I waited 15 years to go to graduate school, so 15 years since I had had a math class. And I thought, and I was a math undergrad. And really for my work, I really needed to be an electrical engineer. So 15 years out of school, go back and start in an electrical engineering master's degree program. Which means you got to kind of take all the bachelor's level electrical engineering classes. For me, that was again because I took some of them at the Academy. But at that point, so six months into that program, the opportunity to apply for a PhD came up. And guess what? I tossed my name into the hat. I hadn't even made it through the bachelor's courses in electrical engineering. And I knew that if I didn't try to grab this opportunity, it may not come along again at the right time in my career or whatever. So I tossed my name into the hat. And it worked out. So it's a lot of risk taking. And I can't even tell you exactly, you may ask, why do you do these things? Are you trying to prove something to yourself, to the world? Are you gluttoned for punishment? Is that what this is about? You want to hurt yourself? And at the end of the day, if you don't ever try, certainly you won't get to achieve these things. And so you may think that the moral of the story is with risk comes reward. But that's not really what I'm here to talk to you about. That was just a backdrop for what I'm here to talk to you about. The story is much different, as you might imagine. The reality of what was going on in my mind is much different than what it may appear or what your perception of it may be. And so let me set this up. When the PAO, Sean is here, and some of you know him, he's popular, I guess. Sean and I were talking about what's the right topic for this symposium. You're the keynote for having sakes. You need to have something besides your usual cyber shtick going forward. Okay. We started bantering about, I was reading Patrick Lanconi. Any of you heard of him before? Anybody? Okay. I would commend him to you if you're looking for some good reading or searching YouTube for videos that might be of interest. One of his books and one of the things he talks about is the five dysfunctions of a team. So everything that we do, you're working as part of a team, right? And so at the foundation, the first dysfunction is lack of trust. A team cannot function if there's not trust, if there's not open and honest communications and that you trust in each other. And we started bantering about this idea of the connection between leadership and trust and vulnerability. Because one of the things Patrick Lanconi talks about is that building trust requires vulnerability and that vulnerability is the courage to risk. And so we were bantering these things about and he says, hey, you know, you're channeling Dr. Brene Brown. And I go, really? And he goes, yeah. And I go, who's that? And he goes, well, I'll send you her TED talks. And so he did that. And as it turns out, Dr. Brown, also another thing I would commend to you, Dr. Brene Brown, she is a research professor at the University of Houston. In the Graduate College of Social Work. Now you know why I've never heard of her before. And she's got a couple of TED talks. And the first one is the power of vulnerability. The second one is listening to shame. And so she has done research for the last 13 years on vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame, lots of taking in of people's stories, lots of talking to people. And she talks about vulnerability and one of her key findings in her research is that vulnerability is a willingness to do something when there are no guarantees. Vulnerability is about emotional risk. It's about uncertainty. And it's about being uncomfortable. She clearly points out that weakness and vulnerability are different. Vulnerability is not weakness. And in fact, in her research, she's found it to be the most accurate measurement of courage. And so let's reexamine all of those choices that I made. When I ran for junior class president, I wasn't particularly popular. I didn't consider myself among the cool kids. I wasn't confident of how this would go. I had no idea of whether I would be voted in or voted out. And at 16 years old, when you get voted, if somebody votes against you, what does that mean? What does that do to you? The rest of that story is the next year, my best friend and I decide, well, we ran for class president, why don't we try in student government? And so we flip flopped. She ran for the president of the student government. I ran for vice president. And like I said, she didn't grow up with all these people I did. And she won. And I lost. And it hurt. I actually, I think I went home from school that day, sick. I was nauseated, like, oh, my God, what have I done? What have I done? And, you know, so it's not always about risking and winning. It's about risking and being willing to put yourself out there. And take the Naval Academy application, you know. You rely on a lot of people to write letters of recommendation. People interview you. You have to go take the SATs and the ACTs and the admissions office kept saying, you need to keep taking that over and over and over again. Because my math score was OK, but my verbal scores, not so good. So I took it over and over and over again. Eventually I took the ACT, which has a little bit different format, and I made it in. But it wasn't, you know, a walk in the park. And then, you know, the idea of going to the Naval Academy, you know, did I think that I was going to thrive there? I was looking to survive. It was something I was hoping to survive, because I would have been glad to have been, you know, through it. One of the least proud moments in my time was the first semester I was home on Christmas leave. My mom, who's a high school principal, is driving me back to the airport early so I can go to an academic review board, because I got a one, two, six in my first semester at the United States Naval Academy. Not a proud moment. It was very quiet in the car. It wasn't a sunny day in South Florida. It was all gloom. I really needed her to pull over the car so I could throw up. It was not, it was not good. And they, of course, they said, you know, young lady, you're playing varsity volleyball. You need to get your priorities straight. You know, you need to do better in school and, you know, maybe you need to change your major from then chemistry to political science. Like, do you want me to come back here and fail again? No, I can't do political science. Let's just try math. I might have a chance. Look at my verbal scores. I can't even write. So, yeah, so that was in a proud moment. And then, you know, and then going to NPS, I was pretty senior. I was a, I was a very senior lieutenant commander, which is really late to go to your graduate program. So there was a risk that I wasn't going to, you know, get promoted. I had my promotion board met the first year I was at NPS. So, you know, it was pretty much based on those things that I had done before. But there, you know, there was risk associated with that. And then the PhD, you do screening boards, both written in oral. You do qualifying boards, both written in oral. And then you have to find something to research that nobody's ever done before. So, you know, I kind of knew what that process was. But, you know, the things running through my mind is, okay, now I'm a selected commander. The Navy has chosen me to go into this PhD program. What if I'm not smart enough? What if I, I can't, I can't get electrical engineering well enough? What, what's, that's not going to just be embarrassing and humiliating. That, that's, you know, the Navy's going to look at me and go, well, we trusted you to go get this PhD and you didn't get it done. So, you know, so there's, there's a whole lot of, you know, of risk associated with those things. And as you make those decisions, those things are running through your head. When I got, when, when I was in my job after NPS, I, you know, and the selection for 06 came out. One of our most brilliant engineers that, that I had been working with, he was, he was a commander who had, who had retired as a commander and now working as a civilian. And he, you know, he looked at me and goes, Jan, they might let you be a captain with a PhD, but you're never going to make admiral. Okay, all right. I mean, I, you know, he, you know, if you look at the history of things, that, that may have been the case. And so, you know, what I'm talking to you about is, is sort of the fear and the shame associated with it. Shame is, you know, being afraid you're not going to be enough for what is expected, that you're not pretty enough, that you're not smart enough, that, that you don't know enough about whatever specialty that you're in to go up for the next promotion. That we all have that. We all have that unless you're a sociopath. And hopefully you're not. I learned this from Dr. Brown. We all have that. So, so you'd rather have it than be a sociopath. That's, that's what she says. And so, so it's in us. Let's just submit it. It's in us. And so, when people look at my bio and, and look at the accomplishments that I may be most proud of, those very accomplishments end up in some cases being obstacles for making a connection to people. Right? Building trust. People are looking at you like, like you landed in a pod from Krypton. Right? And that couldn't be further from the truth. Like you have no weakness. You are confident in everything you do. The reality is not that. We are all, we all have vulnerabilities. And the question is, how do you build trust as a leader? You know, as you get more senior, how do you, how do you build trust moving forward? You know, you think about my, you know, my time as an ensign. What did I have to offer? What did Ensign Jan Chen at the time, my maiden name, what did Ensign Jan Chen have to offer? Her division. Her division, who was mostly older, probably smarter, certainly had a lot more experience in SIGINT and cryptologic operations than I ever had. You know, all I had to offer is, hey, I made it to the Naval Academy. You know? So maybe I could just fake my way through this and hope that they don't call me on it, you know? I mean, so you, you know, you protect yourself. You set up boundaries and hope that you're going to make it through while you're learning, hopefully, while you're trying to connect these people. But the very protections that you surround yourself with are the things that prevent you from building the trust. And so, you know, I look back and, you know, there wasn't Google at the time and my command of the English language wasn't very good, but I did learn at one point during, you know, that division officer time, I had a nickname and it was Dragon Lady. Now I look it up and I go, oh my God, that's terrible. You know, mysterious, okay. But, you know, strong, okay. But like, deceptive and manipulative and all these horrible things, like no, no, no, I'm not that, but they don't know because all they see is the barrier. So over time in interactions with people, you know, beginning to show more of yourself, getting that kind of feedback, seeing how that works, making sure people know that you're in it not for yourself but for the mission and for them is so key. And so, you know, it's the very things that, you know, our shame and our vulnerability and our inability to allow that to be expressed because we have lots of pressures on us to look tough and looking tough and being tough and strong and all knowing is incompatible with realizing that we're vulnerable. And so, you know, over the years, I've actually was able to sort of downplay some of those things, not that I wouldn't be myself or that I was ashamed that I was a Naval Academy grad or the PhD or whatever, but, you know, people in my community, some of them knew, but over time, it's not something I talked about. Hi, Jantai, Naval Academy grad, you know, Ringknocker, PhD in electrical engineering, what you got? You know, let's have a trusting relationship. You know, let's build a bond. No, you know, that doesn't work. So, you know, I try to reach out and make a connection to people, you know, and all of that stuff is just things I did, not necessarily who I am. And it's kind of funny, when I got to the Pentagon as a, when I was at the Pentagon as a one star, I got to work with a whole lot of people from other communities that I hadn't had the opportunity to work with. One of them, and for a year, one of them was Tommy Rao and Vice Admiral, Community Service Forces. And, you know, the bad news about being a flag officer is your bio's out there for anybody to read, but that doesn't mean people do. So, I'm working with Tommy for a year. We're going, you know, into meetings and working solutions, you know, across information dominance and surface warfare. And about a year into it, he goes, I didn't know you had a PhD. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure how to take that. But the point is good, good. I'm glad you didn't know. I don't know if that would have been any kind of inhibitor if you, you know, would have treated me differently or whatever. So, I really tend to downplay that as a compensation to try to make a connection to people. And, you know, how much of yourself are you willing to show? I use humor a lot with my folks. I try to be funny. I think I'm funny. They laugh, but you never can be sure. So, the point I'm trying to make is that we all have this shame and vulnerability. And if you want to build trust with your sailors, soldiers, airmen, Marines, civilians, you have to be willing to show yourself. Building trust is fundamental to being a leader. And I know that there are haters out there, right? There are haters out there and putting yourself out there means you're just gonna be judged. But the reality is, who do haters hate most? Exactly. They hate themselves. So, when they're hating, they're just, they're just showing themselves in that regard. And so, if you're gonna build trust, okay, let's try this interactively. Let's see who's willing to be brave. So, who's read the Twilight series? Okay. Who's, okay, okay. Who's read the Twilight series as an adult? Okay. Who's read the Twilight series more than once as an adult? I don't know what's wrong with me. Really? Okay. But the point is, the thing I'm trying to draw on there is the special power of Bella is her shield, right? It's her shield. It's how she protects herself from all the other special powers of all the vampires, of all the other vampires. And in the end, she finds a way to project her shield and let people in. And to let people know her and see her. And the rewards are great for her. And so, it's a vulnerability, but I would encourage you to project your shields so that you may lead, build trust, and open and honest communications. So, thank you very much. Oh, ma'am, don't run away. On behalf of the Sea Service Leadership Association, we'd just like to present you with this very special gift.