 All right, welcome to the leaders mindset. We're still bringing you illuminating conversations with leaders who are making an impact in business and their communities. If it all looks a little different than what you're used to, we're doing something a little different today and we are actually at our guest location. They have graciously offered to host us for us and speaking of our guest today, I'm gonna introduce you to nine. We're gonna have him introduce himself properly in a second. He's involved in a lot of things and he has some amazing experience, but mostly what we're gonna talk about today is his newest passion, North, and what he's learned about leading teams and leadership on his journey all the way back when he started his service in the US Navy and all the steps he took to get here. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah, hey, thanks for coming over to my spot. I appreciate it. I love it, it's great. I love these microphones. I feel like I'm in the boxing ring getting ready to announce the fighters. In my world, we call that the Boxer's Corner. The Boxer's Corner? To tell I'm not a fight fan, but I may need to learn a little bit more about it. So we'll talk a little bit about the Boxer's Corner in a bit, that's a part of what is North. Can't wait. Yep, it'll be cool. Okay, so just to get it out of the way with the audience because I know they're gonna ask and you know what YouTube comments are gonna be like. Okay. What's the deal with the name nine and introduce yourself properly? Sure, so my true name is Paul, but I never hear that. I hear a nickname. My last name is a K and nine letters. It's a finished last name. It's somewhat complicated for people to say, can find in, that's how you usually say it. Long ago, Navy drill instructor says, hey, what are we gonna call you? Because they usually call people with not only last names, alphabet. Alphabet was already taken. He says, do you realize your last name is a K and nine letters? I said, no, I don't or I didn't. And he says, you're dumb, you're like a dog and that's your name from now on. So people started to call me K-9 and I think once you get a nickname that starts to stick, people naturally want to give you a nickname. So, or that or they were lazy and they called me nine. So that's my name. Well, you know, we all get familiar with that. I have a squadron commander in the Air Force who is N plus 13. So military folks are familiar with the initial plus the number of letters. So, all right, now that that's out of the way, tell us all about North and what you're trying to achieve with that. Yeah. I would say probably by history or whatever, history's sake or whatever, my professional discipline, I've been a security professional for decades. And I've touched security in almost all capacities, protected people, places and things, navigated fear and risk at a super high level for a lot of those things. And these days I have a company that's called North. It's an upstart and it's ultimately about helping everyday people navigate fear and risk and get after what they want. Yeah, I love it because when we, we met through another guest on this show, Mike Andrews, and we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago and what really, what I really liked about the conversation we had is you talked multiple times about leaning into fear and risk, helping people lean into fear and risk. And I had never, I never heard it put quite that way before. So how does leaning into fear and risk fit into North? What is it you're trying to help people do with that? How are you trying to help them with that? Yeah, I would say, you know, hey, what is North? A good way to describe what it is is what it is not. I think a lot of people, North's tagline is to live bold. And a lot of people that may discover the brand or whatnot would probably be confused that it's what some may call like a brute force strategy to getting after what you want. Maybe the, no knock against Jocko Willink, but every day at four or 20 in the morning, I'm taking a picture and all that. I think that works for some people, but it's not generally functional and it's not for sure sustainable. So North is a little bit more of a, probably a thinking man's or a thinking woman's or thinking whomever's approach to getting after what you want. Okay, it's very cool. So leaning into fear and risk is all about this. It's more just, like I say, for example, I don't believe pushing through fear. Again, that's not sustainable. It's like leaning into it. It's gonna ebb and flow your ability to kind of push against fear, your personal fear. All humans are super fearful. And then it's kind of like acknowledging that, understanding what holds you back and then leaning into that. And then tracking where you're doing that and where you're having success. So it sounds like it's a lifestyle brand. A little bit, yes. North is somewhat of a lifestyle brand. It will be ultimately, at first, it's a series of workshops that encourage people to take a critical look at how they're operating, see where fear is holding them back and then separately get super clear about what they want and then get after it. Okay, are you currently doing the workshops now? Yes, the workshops are offered. People go online to our site, which I'll provide the descriptor later. And then they enroll. And it starts with an intake session where we talk to them a little bit about what they wanna do. And that's me. So I don't do coaching, per se, under North, but there is an intake session where we talk to them. And then we move into like, hey, how fear is holding them back and things like that. And it's not as ethereal as you may think. Ultimately, I think we talked, or we will talk probably about my security background. Among other things, I was a secret service agent. So probably the fear exploration starts with how do they teach a secret service agent to jump in front of a bullet. And if you get pretty clinical about fear, there's a couple of different categories of fear that would hold you back. And that's what we do with individuals, is take a look, like a clinical look at that. Yeah, so it's not purely an academic, purely a theoretical exercise. There's nuts and bolts to this. There's nuts and bolts. So I'm definitely not into, so if you go to North's website and you see what's there, it's definitely not about mystical stuff. I don't believe in ask, believe and receive. At least that's not been my personal experience. Life is a little kind of mystical in how it works. And I'm not discounting that, but for sure I believe in practical skills and tools, especially based on my background. Yeah, I would imagine, because we're gonna go into a little bit of your background, but Navy, Secret Service, Intelligence Community, National Park Service, you can't, again, not academic, not theoretical exercises, you're taking care of problems every day. So without getting too deep into North and giving it away for people, what is something practical? What's kind of the top level practical stuff you get into North? Yeah, so this is a good example. So I'm gonna take you on a little rabbit ride, buckle up. That's okay. That's why we're here. Some time ago, I oversaw security for the entirety of the National Park Service. Boston Marathon Bombings, they took place of course in Boston, and much of the property around where that accident took place is National Park Service property. It sent ripples and shockwaves, not only through Boston, America and these things, but for sure the National Park Service and its employees. Gettysburg had its sesquicentennial event, 150th year celebration, not long after that and everyone at the park was super terrified that there could be some event like that at Gettysburg. So I was summoned up to take care of that. And then how did I start? Ultimately, I brought in a whole audience of all the employees. I said, okay, let's talk about scary stuff. And we started to put that like on a whiteboard. And then separately with a homework category, right? That if we identify things that we're not already tracking, we're gonna go and handle those very practically. And then separately, when people do that exercise and they start to talk about what's scary now, it's all over the map. It's spaghetti, right? It's everywhere. But once you do that, you have to have like a practical lens to look at that. You look at what's the likelihood of something happening and the consequence. So like an event, like say for example, if somebody was reproduced the Boston Marathon bombings at Gettysburg, it was a lower likelihood event. So in your personal life, when you look at all these things that are holding you back and that's probably a very academic explanation of that. But if you look at what's holding you back, you can't just look through this lens of just man, it's so overwhelming. There's all these different things going on. You have to start to structure it and then peel it back. And there's other things too. Time plays an important component in fear. Like say for example, if you were gonna die tomorrow, right? And I don't know kind of like what your day to day is in the present moment, but if you were going to die tomorrow, you wouldn't be concerned about telling off that person at work that's been driving you nuts, asking this person for a date or whatever the case may be or a billion other things. So time plays a kind of an interesting role in fear too. So we unpack what people are scared of, we put some frameworks and structure around that, we examine things like time and how it factors into fear and get people on a trajectory that starts to then look at like what they want to do and get pretty practical about implementing and then certainly tracking where fear rears its nasty head. So it sounds like you help people pull apart the spaghetti turned into something organized and time-phased. So in the Air Force, we always when we were looking at a radar scope, we were always looking at not just what's close to us, but what's moving at us quickly, right? And that's something you help people make sense of what doesn't make sense when you look at it. So there's a great analogy that I talked to chat GPT about the other day. So chat GPT ultimately said this, you know, there's a concept of time slowing down. Have you ever had that happen? Oh yeah. So time slowing down, particularly for military people, you know, if you've had that happen, it's traditionally where you've had a lot of training and you've done repetitions and you're very clear about what you want or what the outcome is and time tends to slow a bit and you can make better decisions. So if you get super clear about what you want and you're in a stressful situation or fears there, then ultimately that serves as kind of a pocket compass to help you make like good critical quick decisions. That's great. Yeah, I've had those experiences and I think it's great that you're trying to help other people have those experiences to be able to slow that time down to have the training and the confidence to go in and go, okay, I haven't seen this exactly before but I've seen something like it and I've prepared for it and so it's not racing at you quickly. It's coming at a pace you can handle. Love it. Love it so much. So what I would say is we've had like a lot of kind of discussions about material but in the end, I'm super committed to like practical skills and tools. I think, and it's probably in your cards here but no doubt we'll talk about my time with Elon Musk and he was all about practical. So like imagine going to Elon as a barometer, he's a good barometer for me and if I was to tell him I'm gonna open a company like North that encourages people to lean into fear and risk, he would ask me practically, what are you doing? So practicality is very important to me. And we will get to Elon. There's no way I was gonna let you get out here without talking about what you learned from Elon. So any other lessons from your government service that are helping you with what you're trying to achieve today with North? Yeah, so I mean North is ultimately packaging up a lot of the different experiences I've had and calling lessons out and then applying them to help people navigate fear and risk is what that is. So that's pulling lessons from just starting in the Navy, I was with the special warfare community the SEAL program for a little while. I was not a SEAL myself but I learned a tremendous amount there that's very applicable to fear and risk. Just probably as an example, the concept in the SEALs is take one step at a time every one step at a time and kind of keep that fear and overwhelm at bay. All the way up to my time with SpaceX, there's some very practical things there that help you push boundaries and go into the unknown. Rocketry is all about taking massive risk. Yeah, and why don't we just get into that right now? We'll just jump to that question because when I was in the Air Force, I worked on satellites, I worked on rockets for my first assignment in the Air Force. And so I know how risk averse the government is when it comes to that mission area. I know how risk averse the big contractors, the Boeing's of the world, the Lockheed Martin's of the world in that. But SpaceX is approaching space from a startup mentality. A move fast and break things may be a little aggressive for what they're trying to do but they're using a startup mentality of we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna learn from our mistakes. In fact, we've even seen that in some of their recent launches over the last few months. So what was it like being part of that mission area knowing that the customers were really risk averse but the company was kind of moving faster than the industry was used to? Yeah, I think ultimately in a role like that and just to be clear at SpaceX, I oversaw the physical security program there for many years and then I moved on to oversee the national security portfolio. So that was the liaising a lot with government and then standing between SpaceX and the US government which was very interesting. Like I was the one that communicated exactly what you're talking about. And ultimately that comes to making people feel comfortable. You have to explain that there's some logic, some methodology that has been thought through in these kinds of things behind what you're doing. Obviously there's fear and risk so to speak involved in all of that. And if you set down a practical pathway that's kind of baked with some good sound thinking around that with some smart minds, it makes sense. Yeah, it was a really positive influence on the Air Force as well, the space community Air Force. Oh yeah. One of my group commanders did, actually two, I had a squadron commander and then a group commander who went and worked for SpaceX as part of their professional military education, a fellowship for a year. So, and they were both very let's lean forward kind of guys but that feedback loop did start to occur to come back into senior leadership in the Air Force of if we are smart about taking risks and we are really managing risk, not avoiding risk, we can take chances. Yeah, I think it's like probably a quick detour on the conversation but society for sure has become very risk averse these days. Like our modern society is not quite as older as adventurous as it was in the past nor kind of factors into that in some respects but I am pretty encouraged by where we are as society right now. We're on the cusp of an era filled with just rapid technological change like a choose your own adventure on the horizon to include mankind going to places like the moon and Mars which once sounded like fiction but it's true and I think like the risk appetite and the risk portfolio is changing for sure. Absolutely, I would say probably COVID factored into that too. People really questioned kind of what they were doing and then wanted to push and go in new directions. So like the spirit probably of mankind at this point in the history is very much about biting off a little bit more than they could chew perhaps. I see there being more of an appetite for that. Yeah, appetite for risk. It's great that your north is helping people not just have the appetite but learn the practical skills to feed themselves in a way that's healthy. 100%. To belabor the analogy a little bit so. So we're both military, both prior military. I found and I was not an outside the wire guy. I was not a combat kind of guy but I did find in those rare situations that we got into when you're in a situation where you're thinking about life and limb or even just people's safety. We kind of take a little bit different perspective on leadership on teams. What's your perspective on that? What did you learn from those kinds of situations and how is that factored into the leadership decisions you make today? So what I would say, I don't have a pre-scripted answer for that one but what I would say is, Tony Rowan says an interesting exercise where you identify your primary question in life. If you think about it and you're still and you kind of like think like, hey, what is constantly rattling in my brain? Mine is what could go wrong? And it just so happens that I channeled that pretty smartly in my day being things like a secret service agent. So when it comes to protecting people places and things in life safety and these kinds of things, constantly I think there's an important component of that is sitting there very focused on what could go wrong and kind of being ultra committed to that. If you look at the secret service, they look under manholes and all these other things. I think some of that in your, you can't overdo that stuff. You have to, the time like we talked about before is an important factor. You identify what risks are there. You get very concrete about what those risks are for life safety and those kinds of things. You put in practical steps to solve those and then you proceed forward with whatever the mission may be. Rocketry is the same way. You take all the steps that you can to mitigate risk and at some point you have to launch, otherwise you're not learning. Absolutely, absolutely. And speaking of what could go wrong, before North, in fact, you still have the company, you have a personal protection and security company and you deal with primarily high-end clients. So that's my company Sisu, S-I-S-U. It's a finished term, I select my last name and Sisu means a steadfast courage and resolve despite overwhelming odds. So I open a small business, which is always tough, but I intentionally put that name because how are you gonna call a business sticking to it and that and quit? So Sisu has in its kind of DNA this idea that you lean into just like fear and risk and stuff. I can't think of a better name for a security company. It protects people, places and things. So if I look at people, yes, we do protect some higher-end clients, entertainers, politicians we've protected, just like a variety of different people in that respect. I have my favorites, they're not exactly who you would think. These days I very much enjoy helping people that are not famous, who are discovering fame, navigate its darker aspects. So like content creators now that traditionally can't afford heavy security details and stuff like that, helping them navigate some pretty scary stuff. I think that's fantastic, yeah. People, places and things on the places side, I'm supporting a number of technology-related companies in both the energy space and then also in some kind of manufacturing spaces. And what do I do there? I help them assess what is scary, what is risk-worth mitigating and things like that. I help them set out a path to do so and also help with like custom workforce training, educating a workforce so they can integrate into helping protect whatever that may be. And things I protect a couple of different things that are passionate and cool to me. In the past I used to protect, among other things, the gun that shot Abraham Lincoln up to the Statue of Liberty. These days, mostly like science that you'll see in the coming years unfold. That sounds really exciting and we'll have to have you back when some of those things come out so you can tell some stories. What I really wanna know, and you don't have to get into any names if you don't want to, but with the folks that you protect, you're pretty close to them. What have you learned from them about, I assume some of them are business and influencers and that kind of stuff. What have you learned from them about business and leadership and teams? Yeah, so probably where I'll take that question and answer is I'm about to release a small piece that I call Inside the Bubble. I frequently get questions that ask me what's it like to be around the president or Elon Musk or these kind of people. And you could probably simplistically describe some things, but the things that's been the most fascinating to me and I didn't anticipate in protecting people is that you are exposed to their very vulnerable side. You're exposed to actually some of these mega celebs that are pretty brittle behind the scenes that they are fearful. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to, like say, for example, be the press reporting on you negatively or these kind of things and then get out onto stage and sing in these things. And I've surprisingly found myself in a capacity that actually helps push these people forward a bit. So I would say Inside the Bubble, just like with everyday people, is a tremendous amount of fear and risk. For whatever reason, that has been a prominent theme in my life that now is starting to, after a number of years addressing that, I said, I should do something about that and create like some kind of a enterprise to tackle that and that's North. Well, that is great, I can't, when is that coming out, that Inside the Bubble piece? Soon enough, it's art, so it takes its time. I can't wait, because I wanna learn from it, whatever it is, whatever form it takes, I wanna learn from it, because I can barely take it, wanna get a somewhat negative YouTube comment. So I think that's a lesson we all have to learn. So there's a couple of different things. I am like a doctor in that realm, so to speak, although I'm not a PhD in these kind of things, but what I would say, and I talked to people about, we just talked about some negative comments on YouTube and stuff, anytime you kind of step into the public light, two things, if people are not saying negative things about you, they're similarly not saying positives, that's a very good thing. But the other one is you need to establish your new normal, right? Like the concept that someone is providing negative comments or whatever the case is, that's your new normal, and you get comfortable in that baseline area, and then you look, for me as a security professional now, you look for where that spikes, and that's what should really catch your attention or cause you concern, and oftentimes, hate online is good feedback, Elon would encourage that you can make some good changes based on that. That's what I try to tell myself, when I get that negative comment, that means, okay, people are watching this, which is what I want, so that's good, and I can't wait to see more about in the bubble, when it gets in the bubble. Inside the bubble. Inside the bubble when that comes out. By the way, Sisu was awarded, named the Vegas Chamber of Commerce 2023 Emerging Business of the Year, so congratulations on that. Yes, thank you very much, I appreciate that. So that is exciting. So we talked a little bit about SpaceX, but I want to get into what you'd like to share, what, Elon is a fascinating personality. Yes. Lots of people have lots of feelings about Elon. What did you learn from Elon? Were there any particular lessons you got from him you found that were especially valuable? Yeah, so probably caching it up front, I will be a bit judicious with how I talk about Elon. As a protector, that's part of my nature too. I would say, for sure he's a good word to use is mercurial, he attracts a lot of differing, very passionate opinions about him. But this is what I would say, and I think most humans cannot discount this, is that he is one of the brightest human minds that has walked the planet. When I think about Elon, he reminds me of Newton, Einstein, people that saw things that were beyond the horizon. So I would say working with Elon was extremely interesting, extremely empowering. When I started at SpaceX, ultimately I built the security programs that are there largely from scratch. And that was my charge, is how can you make something that's world-class? And I was totally empowered to do it. I like to describe the story as this, he says, what would it take to build a world-class security team? Great, I'll come back and I can tell you maybe two days from now. Great, I'll see you tomorrow morning. I come back tomorrow morning, he said, what would it look like? Well, it would look like these things. It operated a little bit like the Secret Service, the agency, blah, blah, blah. Great, how long would that take to kind of put together? No, maybe about 120 days. Great, you got up 60, go get at it. So that was a little bit about working for Elon is a great degree of empowerment, bold thinking, definitely a fixation on world-class and these kind of things. And I would say there's a super high expectation that's also important about being around Elon. Imagine, and you see it, SpaceX has learned how to land rockets, which wasn't always possible. Now imagine if I am working for Elon on the security front and I say I can't figure out some badging system or something like that, it's not an acceptable answer. If other aspects of what Elon is touching can bend science, you should be able to too. So there was for sure a high degree of expectation around how you think, how you perform in all these things. Well, that was a great answer because that was gonna be my next question is when you get those kinds of autonomy, that kind of empowerment from leaders, often there's a very high expectation of initiative and accomplishment that comes with that. And it sounds like Mr. Musk puts all those things together. Yeah, and then the important component is this, you have to imagine if it's a company, right? And I don't know what the employee count is these days, but scale up what I just told you, I was empowered in my specific lane to do these things. And now there are many lanes, HR, finance, production, manufacturing and all these things. And everyone is kind of encouraged to do these things. It becomes a extremely complex undertaking where people all over the place are kind of pushing boundaries and the problems you begin to collectively solve with that group are very rich and mind-bending. I bet, did you ever feel the pressure with that kind of challenge in front of you or were you kind of ready for it with your previous experience? I would say, and I think the sentiment is true and holds amongst all the alumni from SpaceX that I still connect with, that place is unlike anywhere else. It is for sure, somebody said, I saw the other day in a LinkedIn comment, it was a SpaceX employee who was recruiting for Starlink. He said, there is no coast phase. A coast phase is where a rocket gets to outer space, turns off its engines and just kind of coasts. There is no coast phase there. You are full blown in launch every day, very long days, but very rewarding days at that. Sounds like our military days where a lot of expectation, but a lot of feeling really good at the end of the day, you did something important. 100%, you see some things that are, again, I use that word mind-bending, that's true. So any other ways your views on leadership and teamwork of change from starting out as a young man in the Navy, all the way through intelligence community, park service, SpaceX, any other ways you're changing? Yeah, so this is an important theme for me with leadership is ultimately, I joined the Navy, I was a junior officer. And in the training to become an officer, which is of course the leadership position, you're encouraged to look up to leaders above you and glean lessons and consume books about leadership and these other things. And for sure in the military there's a mentorship that you need to kind of drink from. And I did find with time as I kind of grew older and for sure away from the military, I found that the leadership out there was not very strong all the time. And with time, it became pretty clear to me and it's incumbent upon yourself to do that, right? I think in the formative years in the workplace where the case may be the military, you discover what your style of leadership is and then it's incumbent upon you because your style is all your own, you can't go and draw it from other places per se. It's incumbent upon you to refine that and how do you do that through reps at leading people? I love the idea of reps and because I look back and I didn't realize at the time but even from our early days as young officers, we were getting reps, right? They were giving us opportunities to kind of go lead and find our own way, find our own style. And that's something I think the military does. Our military does just about better than just about anybody else in the world when it comes to leadership is, no matter what rank you're coming in at from the moment you come in, we start giving you those reps. Yeah, I would say fear and risk, which are prominent themes and I'm not saying that just to reiterate back to North because this is very much like who I am, plays a prominent role in my leadership style too. Humans are naturally fearful and oftentimes don't believe they can accomplish this, that or the other thing. And a part of me is encouraging people to push beyond that. I think if you're a leader that empowers people to take risk, it's hyper effective and Elon is that. Yeah, I think that's something that looking back at my time in the Air Force when they encouraged us to take managed risk, we would get, sometimes we would get really good payoffs and sometimes we would learn a really big lesson but those were valuable lessons for us as leaders. So and don't feel bad, we're here to talk about North and that idea of leaning into fear and risk. So bring it up as much as you want. So when you and I first talked, you brought up something that I thought was really, really compelling, a really compelling idea I haven't heard anyone bring up before. And you said we're moving from the information age into the intelligence age. Can you elaborate a little more on that and what makes you think that and what that means for all of us? Yeah, so I have told you and I tell other people too that we are moving from the information age into the intelligence age. Information is just like saturated with text messages, emails, information that you can consume, et cetera. It's becoming a world that is the volume knob is turned up till 10 or more. 11, right? Yeah, 11, 12, whatever the case may be. But the intelligence age is where you start to sift through that and then start to harness information to do great things. And I'm not just jumping on the bandwagon with AI. I'm super fascinated by that capability. It's super clear that it can help you see through a lot of noise and help you grab disparate information and do some pretty amazing things. It comes with a tremendous amount of risk but the benefits are super promising. Yeah, I agree. AI, this is my personal opinion. Take it for what it's worth. AI is going to be the kind of technological change. It's not going to be like the internet kind of technology change. It's not going to be like splitting the atom kind of technology change. It's going to be like printing press technology change. It's going to be completely changing the way the whole world does everything. I 100% agree with you. I think we're one or two iterations away with some of the predominant large language models and other tech that will really fundamentally change how we are operating. And I did, I use chat GPT, OpenAI's large language model quite a bit to explore ideas and stuff. And as you're talking about it as if it's a person like meaning me, but I had an interesting conversation literally with it this morning and it occurred to me that AI will ultimately just magnify who you are as a person. I think if you're a person that is not cool doing bad things and those kind of things it will kind of supplement your efforts in those areas. But if you're a good person trying to do good things and a creative person or whatever it will augment or supplement those things. I think AI will ultimately help humans be more of what they presently are. And then hopefully like in some respect which I cannot see will filter out some of the human and not so good parts. Well, it sounds like AI might be just like money or fame. It's just gonna be an amplifier for what you already are as a person. So I wanna go back to the idea. I didn't plan on getting into this but with the idea of leaning into fear and risk because there is a lot of fear around AI there's certainly a lot of risk. What is your advice for all of us as we alternate whether we embrace AI or how we approach AI advice on leaning into fear and risk with AI? So this is what I would say. Interestingly, I have a 14 year old daughter and she does not like the concept of AI. I would figure children would be very opposed or like into it. Kids, what are you gonna do? But my daughter kind of gravitates towards this idea that a lot of jobs will be lost to include things that she may want to do. And this is kind of as a father you're forced to answer that kind of question. It's a difficult one. And the truth of the matter, the cold hard truth without sugarcoating is like Pandora's box is open, I like to say and there's no turning back. So the idea is you have two options or three, bury your head in the sand, kind of maybe tacitly be aware of it or lean into what's unfolding. And I think two fold, number one, there's advantages to come from leaning into what AI is and something about being human is very much leaning into fear and risk. And AI can't lean into fear and risk, but humans can. Yeah, and I'm encouraged because we are having the conversation about pros and cons of AI unlike some other technologies that have come along in the last couple of decades. We're having that conversation and I'm an optimist. I think AI is gonna help us find what's more human about all of us. Yeah, I think so. One thing I would say that does concern me. It's not, well, perhaps I am fearful of it. I've noted just kind of been watching AI develop and unfold. There's not a lot of classic security professionals involved in those discussions. It's largely preeminently software designers, engineers and these things that are leading the charge without probably a classic security component in there. And that's not great. That suggests two different things, which is like I philosophically believe in the security world, we're on the cusp of some change there too. I don't believe that the security industry is kind of prime for what's over the horizon. It operates in a probably 1980, 1990s fashion. It's one of the last industries that is still not been disrupted. I mean, I'm tired of taking off my shoes in the airport and surrendering my bottle of water, aren't you? Absolutely, I've been tired of that for 20 years now. Exactly, exactly. So yeah, I came up through special programs in the Air Force and yeah, things, I got out in 2015, I actually stopped working special programs in 2012, but things were still kind of running in 2012, the way they were running in 1999. So it's an industry ripe for disruption and maybe you can help with that. Well, so what I would say is disruption, some people, I think that was a term that was in vogue a couple of years ago. I'm not really about disruption. I think these days probably what's a more practical pursuit for people is much more like what you saw with Elon and SpaceX and NASA. He didn't try to disrupt NASA. He just fundamentally tried to solve some problems and focused on that. And I think that's probably a great example and a great inspiration for people. Excellent. So you obviously have a really great relationship with chat GPT. What are some of the other tech tools you use to manage your companies, work with your team, that kind of thing? Yeah, so a lot of classic tools, nothing that probably blows your mind. I use things like Atlassian's Trello quite a bit. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I definitely use probably simplistically notion to capture thoughts and things like that. Classic suite of office tools, but more so on Mac, meaning keynote and pages and these kinds of things. And then a great amount of multimedia tools I use just because I have a passion in that. So what is that? Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and these kinds of things. Excellent. And what are the non-tech tools or processes you use to manage your teams and keep all your initiatives that you have going? Yeah, and that falls into North too. Is for sure, I'm a big believer and you have to have a map, so to speak. That can be copied down digitally. It can be on paper or whatever the case may be. That just charts out where you're trying to go, right? And the good pocket compass that ultimately helps you make decisions, right? That, hey, these things are important to me. When I make a decision, it should factor in my family. Like this pursuit at work that I want to do or whatever my passions are. So I'm a big believer in that and then managing a company that way too. Good map and compass, so to speak. Cool. So way back at the beginning of this conversation, you talked about how do we train people to jump in front of that bullet? Business, especially on the government side, the contract, the government contractor side, but in general, a lot of business folks, a lot of civilian leaders, leaders in the civilian world, I want to say, are taught to at best manage risk and kind of more, especially the last 20 years or so, are taught to avoid risk. But if we really want to achieve things that are worthwhile, sometimes we need to jump in front of that bullet. So what's your advice for leaders to help their young leaders that they're trying to develop break those habits and patterns of trying to avoid risk and lean into fear and risk? So I believe that a core component of leaning in the fear and risk is meaning, right? Why would a marine run towards danger? Like a ridiculous amount of meaning. Why would classic aerospace companies that are known to be risk averse, lean into it like crazy when we went to the moon? Meaning, like ultimately meaning if you as the CEO or leader can instill rich meaning in what you're doing. That's like the catalyst that will help people push through fear and risk for sure. And what I would say conversely, this is somewhat related to that topic and space of course, I'm very fascinated by all of that. If you look at the Apollo astronauts when they came back and if you go back and do the research, a lot of them really struggled. They didn't do well with putting on the necktie, taking off the astronaut suit and sitting in the cubicle. And a lot of them had problems with alcoholism and things like that. Why? Because they lost meaning. Yeah, I imagine just like after you're done being president of the United States, what more hills are there to climb, right? Yeah. You gotta go find meaning in your life somehow. Yeah, 100%. I would say, for sure George W. Bush is an interesting example of that. Yeah, absolutely. It's very inspiring to see what he's doing with painting these days and all of that. So that's an interesting kind of rabbit hole I could for sure run down because I think it's pretty intriguing. Yeah, I'm fascinated by the fact that he picked up painting because a lot of presidents will go, they'll start a foundation, they'll do that kind of thing, a lot of chair to work, a lot of philanthropy, a lot of trying to do outside the government the things they were trying to do inside the government. George W. Bush took up painting, which I really respect. And I think it's cool. So a personal opinion on that. I had kind of an aha moment. I was protecting George W. Bush. I was in the Secret Service in those days and I went to his ranch in Crawford and I was near his private library that was there. And it dawned on me just like right there for whatever reason that there was no escaping for him what was going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and kind of this stream of U.S. soldiers getting injured or killed and these kinds of things. It was just like, that was pretty profound. But what I would say is when I see him doing the painting and things these days, it's healing some of what I saw then is my personal opinion, interesting character. Yeah. Looking forward to seeing what's coming from more of that. From W. From W, yeah. So some of the ideas you have about leading into fear and risk, they come from growing up with your dad and your relationship with your dad, especially as he got on in years. Can you tell me more about how that started? Yeah, I'll tell you two things. So the first one I talk about a lot. The second one I've really not talked about publicly before but I'm cool doing that. In the first respect, when you're a child you tend to repel against whatever your parents instill in you, right? They may tell you, hey, don't wear that clothing that exposes you or whatever the case may be and you're like, I'm gonna wear it anyway. My dad was ultimately just a very fearful person and encouraged myself and my brothers not to take a lot of risk. And by default, I kind of repelled against that a bit and I became very much about taking some risk in my life. I would say that over time, decades worth of military, secret service, central intelligence, space sex, all these things. My dad originally was not a proponent of any of those things. He actually encouraged me not to join the military and things like that. I asked him once in kind of a frustrated way. I said, what would you have me do? Would you have me work in like a library? Is that what you want? And but long story short, with time with my dad he became comfortable in the idea that I guess you're figuring it out and stuff like that. And I wouldn't say my dad was a completely fearful character, but he passed away a couple of years ago. And I said goodbye to him before he expired. Probably more technical term, but I said goodbye to him and he had Alzheimer's. So it was like a brutal end for him. It took a tremendous amount of courage to navigate that. So kudos to him. But I remember he was lying in the bed, right there towards the end of the day or so away from passing away and I came to see him. And he kind of opened his eyes in these things and he grabbed my hand and I had tears dripping down my face onto my dad's face. And he just grabbed me super tight with his hand and I told him that everything was okay. And I gave him that jolt like I told you that for whatever reason in life I've kind of been in a space where I've been called upon to do that many times. But at the same time that my father passed away I thought to myself and this is the part I haven't really shared very much is I will not live or so much like I will not go out like this. I will not go out like you. I will push myself into fear and risk all the more. Do what my heart tells me to do and things like that. And just like so I can go away like walk off this earth knowing that I really put it all in the field. And not only are you doing that for yourself but you're doing that for lots of people through North. Yeah I mean so just imagine put yourself in my shoes for a second and of course you do a positive impact and things like that too. But for me this is ultra rich. The idea that I could help people lean into fear and risk and get after what they want. Ultra meaningful for me. How could it not be? Yeah and it's really as I look back in time and I didn't really kind of know I was on a path to do what I'm doing. It's intuitively makes sense. Has it helped you as a parent? So anytime you get these practical skills and then you try to apply into parenthood and that is kind of a laboratory in and of itself. I would say probably candidly. I've definitely been a father that's encouraged my daughter to be bold and these kind of things. But my daughter is finding her own way and what I would say is I'm very supportive and passionate about that. And then this is an important part about North too. Again back to what we started. I'm not a big believer in brute forcing getting after what you want. I don't think that's sustainable. I think you have to have compassion for yourself in your ability to lean into fear and risk. That will change every day. But I think the most important component is you just don't settle, keep moving and really chase after what you want. So we've talked quite a bit about the meaning behind North. Yes. But let's get into a little more nuts and bolts. What's coming up for North in 2024? What are your goals? How are you gonna get there? What kind of help do you need? Who are you looking to bring on? Yeah, so I think the North is a startup, right? So what's interesting is I've owned Sisu, a security company for a number of years now and had a lot of success with it. But people have come out of the woodwork to ask me about North. People that I've known from industry and all these things, there's a lot of interest around North. But I think also with where it's at and it's present, it's life cycle of a business. It has some explaining to do. We've been doing some of that today. But I ultimately think when people perceive a brand like North, they view it as some rah rah exercise to get after what they want or something like that. And that is not the case. So in 2024, North in its upstart mode has a lot of probably evangelizing to do around what it is. Some of that comes from me also explaining my journey is very much stitched into North, kind of what that's all about and getting people to know like and trust you and believe in your ability to help them. So there's other things too. It's workshop series will go. I talked about the boxers corner, right? So ultimately, North offers a series of workshops. If you've been through those and you're using the practical skills and tools to lean into fear and risk, there's a community that goes along with that called the boxers corner. You can imagine by the descriptor what that is. It's a group that's been through similar style framework and then now is supporting each other and getting after what they want. Sometimes I may be in the boxers corner. It's not like I'm impervious or immune to fear and risk or life landing wicked shots or these kinds of things. So very much look forward to a growing audience or not audience, but enrollees in the workshop series and then to continue to build the boxers corner. Boxers corner will in some time have some retreats. They're not only virtual, but also physical, probably adventurous retreats to connect with the people in person and then push forward. And then probably lastly with the North and I'm very much looking forward to it. North has a component of it that's about messaging that I talked about. I'm headed to the beaches of Normandy in the fall. So where D-Day took place and then that will be very fulfilling to do some content in a place like that because the people that stormed that beach were all about courage. There was a mix, I'm sure, but in hindsight what took place that day was very courageous. Yeah, talk about doing something with meaning, right? Yeah, it's a, you know, they call that generation the greatest generation. I don't know that to be completely true. I'm not ready to close the book on the rest of us, but it was pretty damn remarkable, that's for sure. Well, we are honored. You're letting us have this conversation with you today and we are honored to help you with your messaging for North over the coming year. Please let us know how we can do more of that in the future for you. Yeah. So when you are looking to hire someone, especially if you're looking to hire them in a leadership position, what are you looking for from them? Whether it's traits, experience, what are you looking for when you look to bring someone into be a leader in your organization? Yeah, I'll say two things. One is probably my lens and the second, probably because it would be interesting is what Elon would think. The first for me is I'm very much a believer in multidisciplinary experience. Let's step back. I own a security company. In security there's only so many things in the toolkit, a military solution, intelligence, security technology, these kind of things, law enforcement, maybe if I hire someone, they better have experience in multiple areas. They say that experience comes from making mistakes. If you don't have a lot of experience, you're going to make some mistakes. So I'm not into that. On the Elon side, interestingly, and I don't know how much he still adheres to this today, but he was a big proponent of asking interviewees, what tell me about the most complicated problem you've solved? Because if someone can't answer that question, it's pretty clear, like if you don't have an answer that you can kind of, oh yeah, hey, I remember, I solved this crazy thing. You don't have that. It's not something that you can fake. And by way of explaining how you solved the complex problem, you're explaining how you think, you're explaining your experience, your approach to solving problems, all that. What a fantastic interview question. I'm going to add that to my list. Yeah, you should. I'm going to because that is a fantastic one. So when we bring people on to be leaders in our organization, whatever role it is, we bring them on for whatever amount of experience they have, they're usually not 100% fully formed of where we want them to be. What do you do to develop the leaders in your organization? So I'm a big believer and then North doesn't have a lot of people on board yet. It's still very much a startup mode. It's very much a passion, project, personal mission and these kinds of things. It will in time grow and scale. But with respect to the security company, which is a much better lens to explore, I'm a huge proponent of selectively hiring, properly training and effectively equipping people to get in the mix, be it a junior entry type person or a leader too is those things. And for sure explaining a lot about what the mission is, the meaning, we talked about that earlier, that's critical. You could probably take a lot of the hard skills and security and throw them out the window, take in security staff, spend two to three days talking with them about the meaning of what you're up to. You'd have an explosive workforce. Yeah, I think that's so important. When I do new manager training with companies, one of the first hour we spend on the meaning of being a leader, the meaning of being a manager and the meaning of being part of this organization. And we only spend an hour on it. We probably could spend two or three days on it. But I think it's such an important thing to not only to say upfront, to continue to say every day. Yeah, so an important component on that too, which is a quick vignette on that, right? In my security company, we're very much focused on customer service, right? So when we do our stand-ups or group meetings and stuff like that, there's an intentionality around where did you exceed a client's expectations? Tell me about like a magical moment that you created for a client. I think that's critical. It doesn't just start a jump where you explain all this meaning and all that. It's you constantly revisit that with your team. Awesome. And cultivate leadership and many other things. Love it. What was the best mistake you've ever made and what did you learn from it? Yeah, best mistake I ever made. So this is a little bit longer story, but I'm gonna try to condense it. I talked about being the military. I talked about being in the special warfare community with the SEAL teams and whatnot. And I talked about the idea very explicitly that I was not a SEAL. And that's because I went through SEAL training, but when I was in there, I quit. So for sure, imagine spending years training to become a Navy SEAL and you quit. That was pretty rattling or jarring for me. Here's an interesting one that ties back to the storyline that we talked about previously. I won't reveal it, but guess when I was going through SEAL training, which they call buds, when I called someone, like when I called home, guess what I was told? You know, I'm looking for support because SEAL training is tough in these things. Guess what the voice on the other line, which was my dad said? You gotta stick with it. He said, you should quit. Oh, he did. Yes, because he's very fearful critter. And I will say that my dad's voice rattled around in my head and there was a variety of other reasons too. I saw a lot of friends leave training and things like that. But ultimately that was, could be construed as a mistake, leaving the SEAL program. But what I would say is that fast forward in many years into the future, and I'll try to be as quick as I can about this story, very disorienting time after I left the SEAL program. What am I gonna do? Like how can I find a life of adventure? Because I thought the SEALs were everything. I realized because I go to the ATM and check out how much cash I have, I don't make any money in the military as a junior officer. And I bought like a car like most military people do. This was the 90s, right? Yeah. I made my first full year on active duty. And it wasn't a lot. You're like, it's not a lot. So I go to the library and I get a book called, Into Thin Air by John Cracker. It's about this 1996 climbing disaster on Mount Everest. I was literally sleeping about 20 hours a day, depressed for sure. And I started reading that book and I read that book for two days straight. I didn't like go to sleep. It was so riveting. And Mount Everest taught me that there was for sure adventure to be had out there. I borrow a friend of mine's CDs. He's trying to get me to listen to Tony Robbins CDs. Before I went to SEAL training I was like, I want nothing to do with these things. But I didn't have any cash and I didn't have anything to do. So I said, why not just give me these things? And I start kind of getting, he has practical skills and tools to kind of get clear about what you want and get after it. So fast forward many years in the mistake part and all of that stuff, oftentimes a mistake comes some interesting things. Fast forward many years, I've now under my own power protected Tony Robbins, which I wouldn't have imagined in those days. I've been to Mount Everest myself, which I wouldn't have imagined in those days. And then lastly, I've recently started talking to the SEAL teams about talking to people who don't make it through training. I think that'd be fantastic to go tell your story to the folks who are in the position you were in all those years ago. I think that'd be fantastic. So North is headed on an upward trajectory. It looks like it's headed towards a lot of success. You've had a lot of success with the other companies, the other ventures you've been involved in, but not everything is all an upward trajectory. And success, what are the things to keep you up at night? What are the things, what are the real challenges you think you're gonna face and how are you gonna deal with them? Yeah, so I would say that the entrepreneur space in general is a very, it is, I've used the analogy that some have likely heard me say. It's a little bit like walking through the desert with just the light of a small lamp at night, kind of showing you the way. At best, you can see a couple feet ahead or behind. So one of the things that's pretty unnerving about small business is just it's a, you wake up every day without the best clarity as to what opportunities will break and stuff like that. That becomes very, at times, disheartening, frustrating and these kind of things. And you have to lean into fear and risk to navigate that terrain. Very cool. So to lean into that, to navigate that terrain, how do you stay calm and centered? Part of that is like my finish upbringing, right? Finish people are known to be pretty stoic in these kind of things. Yeah, but I would say I for sure have a lot of training that has been very dramatic. I have a lot of real-world experience now, which probably just, I mentioned I worked aspects of the Boston Marathon bombings. I've worked down commercial airlines. I've worked fatalities. A lot of things that lead to, we used this descriptor earlier too, which is you have to get this new normal. So I would say my new normal or my threshold for probably freaking out is pretty high. So if your threshold for freaking out is pretty high, what are some things that don't get you freaked out but get you excited? What are you excited about coming up here? So for sure I'm excited about the concept of North and getting people in that ecosystem is ultra compelling to me. That is probably if I could walk away from the planet having pulled off something like North, that would be worth it. So that's super exciting to me. And in turn, my kind of excitement doesn't manifest like bouncy and giddy like many people would. It's more invested to an expenditure of energy is how it manifests. So if I'm excited about something, you'll see me constantly working with it, tinkering with it, talking about it and things like that. And North is one of those things. Yeah, it's exciting. I can't wait to learn more. Be part of North. I think our audience probably can't wait to learn more and be part of North as it gets really, gets to go in this year. Someone or something you're grateful for? So I'm certainly grateful for many different people. This is one of those questions where you're just like, man, I can't just identify one, but for sure I'd have to put my wife in the mix as far as just the belief she's had in me. We've taken a lot of twisty turns to arrive at where I am, although it sounds very maybe fairytale, all these different wickets I've touched. There was a tremendous amount of risk involved in making all those moves. In the early days, we did things like sell, my wife's name is Tiffany, we call her Tiff. We sold Tiff's wedding ring to just simply exist. The government doesn't pay a lot, downsized like crazy. I took massive pay cuts. A good example of that, I was a secret service agent before I went to the Central Intelligence Agency. I've made about maybe 160, 170 grand a year. I took a pay cut all the way down to 60 grand to go to the Central Intelligence Agency. So you have to imagine my wife in her side of the Jeep with her seatbelt on, she's been very understanding, kind, considerate, supportive in these things. So I'm super appreciative of that. And that extends out, daughter, mother, like my dad, et cetera, et cetera, there's so many. It sounds like they've been there for you every step of the way and really behind what you're doing. I assume they're behind what you're doing with North. Yeah, I mean, in the end, I think back to leadership as a topic, right? People put their trust in you and it's on you to deliver. And I think humans in general don't expect you to always win because they know that's how life works, but they expect you to try damn hard, right? And I would say that the circle of family and friends that I have, I feel supported in all those things, but they're in the background expecting me to try damn hard. That's incredible. I think that's fantastic advice for everybody. And speaking of advice, this is our last real question here. Advice you would give to young leaders, future leaders, aspiring leaders, especially about leaning into fear and risk. Yeah, I would for sure, I mean, you kind of short-circuited my answer, but I definitely am all about taking bold risk. I'll probably go back and use a short story to highlight what I mean. Life has a strange way of when you, and this is sounding very kind of preachy about North and I don't mean it to be. Life has a very funny way, although I said not the mystical component too earlier on, has a very funny way of rewarding you when you take unthinkable risk. I'm at the National Park Service. This is probably the 2013 timeframe. And I've had this kind of security career that is pretty amazing. And my dad and I have a conversation, he's involved in that. I told him, I said, because it's actually a time with him as a young kid, influenced me to go down the security track watching a lot of James Bond films. But he says, what are you gonna do now? I said, well, I think I'm gonna be an astronaut. And my dad says, at this point, he's comfortable with me taking risk. He says, well, you do what you want. And of course, I don't have a STEM degree, science, technology, et cetera. So I'm not a great candidate for that. So I don't apply by USA Jobs, which is the traditional means of doing so. I would get insta rejected. I couldn't even make it through the portal. So instead, I look at the job advisement. I tracked down in size four micro font where the recruiting office is. I send a personal letter with photos and all these other things, a compelling begging letter, let's say. I tracked down the lead astronaut recruiter and I harass her for a couple of weeks that I'll use that word harass because that's what I was doing. And ultimately, they were super cool and NASA sent me a rejection letter on old school letterhead, which they won't do if you apply through USA Jobs. I took some unthinkable risks, tried to be an astronaut. Of course, I didn't really think I had a chance at it. But a couple of weeks after that, a friend of mine says, why don't you check out this company? It's called SpaceX in Los Angeles, California. It's owned by this guy, Elon Musk. I said, I will. I wind up interviewing for a position where they need somebody to build out their security program from scratch. And the question I get is this, everything about the security side and what you're talking about there makes sense. But why do you wanna work at a space company? And I pull out that rejection letter and put it right there. And I was hired pretty much on the spot. So what I would say to any aspiring human being, let alone a leader or whatever the case may be, is in life, it will surprise you if you take unthinkable risk. At least that's been my experience. Well, you heard it here. So all right, what else should we know about you and what else should we know about North or anything else you wanna tell us about? Yeah, probably the last for me is my company and you could quite simply Google these things. It'd probably be the easiest to do. Sisu S-I-S-U is my protection company in Las Vegas. So if somebody is traditionally the clients that we work with the most are people that are really legitimately scared or need help navigating some complex problems, we help them out. And then North, ultimately just Google North and live bold and you will find us. We will put all that in the show notes so you guys don't have to Google it. You'll have it right at your fingertips. Yeah, so that's the case. And I would just say, definitely, we've talked a lot about my passionaries and my background, but I don't think those are the probably funnest or coolest aspects of who I am as a human being. I would say if whomever may see or hear this, if you see me in public, come on up. Let's have a chat about many different things beyond just the realm of security or leaning into fear and risk. I can vouch for that. We've had a couple of good conversations so far. So I'm excited to have more in the future. Thank you for talking with us today. Thank you for hosting us today. This was a lot of fun to come to your place and do this. Thank you all for watching. If you like Nine, if you like what he's doing with North, be sure to reach out and thank him for being on the show for us today. If you like these interviews, please like, comment, share, subscribe, tell a friend we love doing them for you. Whatever you're gonna go off and do today, make sure you do it with impact. And lean into fear and risk. Lean into fear and risk, onward and upward.