 Good morning everybody. I think my mic is working. Hey, I appreciate that Jeremy for the warm welcome. You know, I was thinking about what I was going to talk about before I rolled out here and then I realized, you know, from the amazing support that they have back here with Texard and Darnell, she gave me a couple of pointers to talk about and I already forgot. So I will tell you what an honor to be here this morning. What an honor to be not only back at Air University but to be in the room with such a group of folks as you walk away from the Air Force, the first thought that you have is what now? What next? How am I going to be an airman outside of this uniform? And as my wife just reminded me, you know, a couple of days ago I celebrated my 31st birthday and uh, no, what's, what's funny? So as I did celebrate my birthday, it wasn't my 31st, it actually was 37th. And my wife actually came to me and she, she know I travel a lot and I'm a, I'm around a lot and speak a lot these days and around a lot of organizations. And she kind of reminded me of an airman moment, you know, of how we, how we are so and so just entangled to this airman culture, right? How we will never, ever get away from this airman culture. No matter what you do, no matter how many times do I walk around and say, don't call me chief. No matter how many times do I said, hey, hey, you know, I'm retired. You know, how many times did I try to unchief myself? How many times last night did I start a comment with some of you at the smoke pit, smoking cigars saying, hey, I'm not here to chief you, which is preceded by chiefing you. And my wife reminded me that she gave me a gift as she walked out of the house and she said, here you go, here, you know, happy birthday. I know you're traveling today. I was headed out on my birthday to go work somewhere. And I opened the gift and it was a gift card. And it was from this, this, this company that makes suits that I like. And I said, awesome. So she said, it's two suits. Go buy two suits on me. I said, okay, amazing. And then the parentheses at the bottom and said, as long as they're not blue. And then I thought about it for a minute and I said, what is she talking about? As I went in to pack my bags that catch a four o'clock flight out of DC. And I was looking through my Facebook and I have someone who posts a bunch of stuff for me. I shouldn't probably tell you that for those of you who follow me on Facebook. No, that's all me writing. No, it's not. It is me. And I went in my closet to grab a suit to leave and I had six blue suits. And I looked back on my social media for the last four months of speaking around. And you know what? Every time I was somewhere, what was I wearing? A blue suit. What am I wearing today? I didn't have time to go buy those birthday suits. So you got to get the blue suit today. So what that taught me is that, man, culture stays with you. I heard some of the chiefs out here talking about the climate and the culture and we'll get into here in a second, that what we are is airmen. What we come into this institution to be carries on for a lifetime. You have had the opportunity to hear from all of your senior leaders already. And I know Chief Massar and Air Force Bass will close out. And they've probably told you this thing that really just keep going like a hand to wheel. Our people, our mission, where we're at. I know Chief Lieutenant Kirkpatrick talked about our competitive advantage and how we are in the fight today. The enemy is in your living room. The enemy is not scoping out your living room. He's in your living room. He has a seat at the table. He's already eating your chicken or your grits for all of you, eight grits this morning in good old Southern Alabama. He's here. There's no greater responsibility for the next 49 minutes than I have is to try to tell you how culture is going to be the strategic imperative of any organization today, tomorrow, and over the next 10 years. How you can't retain talent. How you take the best of what this country has to offer and put them in this room to defeat the enemy at your table. It's going to be undepend by culture. And this isn't a new phenomenon. This has been around for 30 years. We just, including me, when I say we, my wife always say when you say we, you mean me. No, I mean we have sometimes put blinders on because we could afford to look away because recruiting numbers were high. We can afford to look away because we were enthralled in a 20-year conflict that we saw the enemy with gunfire. We saw the enemy with mortars. We saw the enemy shooting directly at us. We can identify the threat. That's a little harder and a little bit more challenging today when you're trying to tell airmen who is your enemy. It's a little bit harder. You can't point toward a human. You can't point toward a region necessarily. You can't point toward a weapon system. You have to point towards something ambiguous sometime. And that's not a military problem. That's not the Department of the Air Force's issue. That's the world issue now. And as I walked out here, a little transparency, I left my clicker. And this is Sergeant Darnell. Everyone. Everyone needs a great NCO because they are truly the backbone of the Air Force. And I will tell you there are some great NCOs who have made me. And she already had it handed here because I was going like this with my thumb. And I probably spoke a little bit longer than I should because I was like, I don't have a clicker. So let's get into what we're talking about as culture as a strategic imperative. But first, thank you, Chief Master Sergeant Air Force Bass, for the invite, you know, Diamond One, Mike Perry, my brother in arms here at Air University, where we were in the trenches, all of the Majcom Chiefs, all of you Chiefs, all of the families that have just been in a fight with you for the last couple of decades. Thank you for the opportunity to come here and just share a couple of minutes with you on stage. I had a great time last night at the smoke pit. I had a couple of folks challenge me last night. It was like, I'll be lined up on the side asking a question. And I said, I dare you. And I dared some Chiefs and there's no one on the side. So let's talk about why we're here. I'm sure General Brown was here and had and you've heard General Brown talk about, you know, his strategic vision of accelerator or lose. But what I want you to understand is when he talks about the perfect conditions, and I'm not putting words in the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's mouth, I just know that you cannot wait anymore. I know that the perfect conditions for what you have to do, what you have to do yesterday, how you have to lead the generation that's coming, how you have to fight the new conflict there's going to be no perfect conditions for you to act. There's going to be no time for more PME. There's going to be no time for more resources. There's going to be no time for you to huddle and decide what I'm going to do for the next two years. There's no more time. The time has passed. And we are behind. We're behind. I heard, I think Chief Wolf came up here and said that he sold on Chief nine years ago or 19 whatever, 19 years ago. I've known Dave since like 1977. That's how we age in chief years, by the way. And I tell you, I thought back on the time that I made Chief a long time ago and I don't think I've never felt a sense of urgency as a Chief Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force, as the sense of urgency walking out of the door two years ago. Total transparency, I felt like I didn't do enough. I felt like I left a lot of things on the table that this country needed me to do personally. But you know what? I'm over that because there's hundreds of you in here that can take that up to take that fight up and to take that forward. But you cannot think like I thought. You cannot think like the Chief Master Sergeant Air Force thought when she put on Chief just three years ago. No. I try to, I don't want to age my sister, right? But you cannot think about the generation of Chiefs who raised us. Just think about my first Chief in the United States Air Force. I went to his retirement in 1996. He was a Vietnam vet. The first Chief in the United States Air Force was a 30-year Chief who served in Vietnam who instilled what that right looked like in the 90s based on what he received from a Korean war chief. That's who raised me. I was a staff surgeon on 9-11. That's what raised me. Today the enemy is different and you have to think differently so it's now. It's actually now or potentially never. That's how grave this is. And what does this have to do with culture? Everything. As Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, you didn't think I was going to have a picture of you, ma'am, but it's up here. Sorry, I didn't ask you first. When you're retired, you can do whatever you want. Within limits. Within limits. I still got a retirement check that I get from the Air Force. But as Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force said last year at AFA, and we've heard this from our leaders for years, it's not our weapon system. It's our people. It's our people. And that resonates with all of you personally. It resonates with me personally. 25 years, seven months, 14 days, and 90 minutes. That's what I served in the United States Air Force. I never counted. That's what I served. And when I think back after two years and I know a couple of my retired brothers up here can probably relate, what do you think back on? Not as a legacy, but what do you think back on? After serving. It's not the conflicts that I was in. It's not the wars that I supported. It's not the mission. It's not the 11 assignments really. It's not here at Air University, which was the greatest assignment I ever had. It's not the friendships really, but it is. It's the people. It's absolutely the people. And when I think about the people, I think about people like Airman First Class, Zachary Cuddleback. I think about Staff Sergeant Christopher Snyder retired. I think about Senior Airman Nicholas Alden. I think about Master Sergeant Retired Dustin Goodwin. I think about Master Sergeant Trevor Brewer. Those are people I served with. Those are the people that gave some and all for this country. I think about some of you in this room as I was so reminded this morning as I made my way through here. I think about the Chris Ricks, who I served with as a young, young Staff Sergeant, making me do push-ups. I think about the Regina Baileys. I think about the Regina, I'm sorry, Regina Baileys, the Renee Sinoffs, the Gerald Morris. I think about the Patrick Lombardo, who so reminded me this morning in a group of my friends that I was his first supervisor in the Air Force. I'm like, don't ever say that again in the public. But when I think about my service, that's who I think about. I think about the people. I don't think about the impact I had on them. I think about the impact that each of them had on me. I think about all of you. I think about why you're here. I think about what kept you here. I think about what culture did you infuse yourself in that made you sit in this auditorium today, that led you to this. And I will tell you that what led you here will not lead the future airman here. They're different. Our problems are different. Our world is absolutely different. And if you don't believe that the world has changed over the last two and a half years, then I don't know where you've been. Everything about everything has changed. Everything about how we're going to actually fight wars in the future have changed. How we're going to staff our offices have changed. How we think about talent has changed. How we think about culture has changed. How we think about people has changed. How we think about our family has changed. Everything has changed. And that change is not just in a world outside of the gates a half mile away. That world is inside of the gates, outside of the gates, and it's a global, a global change. And there's not been a global change in probably since World War II, as such a massive impact on a world that changes trajectory so fast. I will tell you in a nerd moment that the world was headed here in the next 10 to 15 years. We just was forced to take our blinders off. Something, an artificial mechanism forced us to look at the world differently because it happened and it shut us down. And it made us start looking at what purpose and value is in our lives. It started looking at what the next generation is going to do. How many of you are my Chick-fil-A people, right? All of you. So let me tell you a little bit of something about Chick Fil-A. And I did some work last year with Chick-fil-A in Atlanta and I actually signed a letter, no, not a real letter. I said, hey, I'm going to talk about you, don't sue me. If you give me chicken sandwiches for the rest of my life, I will absolutely talk about you. No, but let's think about this for a minute. Something as simple as how you make me feel now is a strategy, a strategy. All of those Chick-fil-A hands that went up, you don't like the chicken. Actually, the chicken is no different. So disclaimer, and nobody better not be recording this because I don't have insurance right now for being sued in my company. So I would totally, I would totally deny I said it even if it's on tape. Wasn't me? Everybody who's retired wear blue suits. Was it me? Chick-fil-A has done one thing and one thing that we have to pay attention to. In this world, all of us walk around and we have gotten accustomed to average. What does that mean? We walk around all day in our life and we are accustomed and expect average in our life. And let me tell you why. When you walk into a restaurant and you get average service, you leave feeling average. And you're okay with it as long as the food is good. But the minute you walk into a restaurant and you get that one waiter or a waitress or the server who gives you exceptional service, you over tip and you talk about it on the whole ride home. How many of you do that? That person was great. They're amazing. Man, man, man, we got to go back there and you don't even know what the food tastes like. Somebody made you feel because in a world we walk around and we already walk into average. Chick-fil-A tapped into one thing a long time ago, exceptional as the standard. Which means if I go to Chick-fil-A in Long Beach, California, or I go in Miami, Florida, I know that there is a 95% chance of exceptional and maybe a 5% chance of above average. Why does Chick-fil-A one of the only companies that did not have a downturn in its employment? Why did I go to dinner last night and then we passed by Chick-fil-A at around 7 o'clock, 6.30 last night here in Montgomery, Alabama, and there was about 100 cars in the drive through four times deep for chicken sandwich and pickles. I'm in the wrong business. It's not the pickles. It's not even the bun because I tell you what, Popeye's chicken sandwich is better. And if you want to debate that, catch me outside. I believe in what I say. I hold true to these principles. I gained 17 pounds after retirement for you to prove that. So this is scientific data. Don't be trying to like, yeah, this is not your pickle and chicken data. This is proven. This is like three grand of Chick-fil-A and Popeye's. But let's be, you know, let's take this a little serious for a second. Think about this blue sign. How many of you have conflict in your car over this blue sign? I will tell you right now, don't ever ride with me on any interstate. If you're going on a road trip with me and you say you want some coffee, we not stop until this sign says Starbucks. You're going to be upset because you're going to go about 100 miles and go, I just want a cup of coffee from anywhere you can stop. That's your problem. I'm driving because I feel a certain type of way when I see something. I don't have a non-disclosure agreement with McDonald's, so I'm going to talk about them. And there's a point coming. I worked at McDonald's at 16 years old. I'm a McDonald's fan. I don't really eat McDonald's anymore because I had to lose like all that Oreo cookies and Popeye's and Chick-fil-A, wait, wait. So I will tell you, but all of us have experienced this, what we talk about, average versus exceptional. You know you're going to probably get average at McDonald's, but you still go because you're holding out for that hot fry. You're holding out. And when you go through the drive-thru and you get your food, you do that prayer moment. You get your food, you pull up about 20 feet, and you pray. If there is someone on this earth who loves me today, these fries will be hot in this bag. And then you go and get that fry out of the bag, and when it's hot, you're celebrating. And when it's cold, you're like, man, I expected it. We have gotten so used to average. Why am I talking about this? Because if you look at this sign, you chief are on this sign. Your squadron is on this sign. Your triad is on this sign. Your wing is on this sign. Your legacy is on this sign. How you make me feel is on this sign. And my decision to exit is solely based on you and how you make me feel. In a minute, you can't make me feel like I have purpose and value in your organization. Exit three. I'm out. And I always ask people, and I will challenge you as chiefs in this room, go back and look at your enlistment rates for your AFSEs, something that some of us used to do. And I used to ask myself, why did this quarter, there was 30% re-enlistment rate in my organization? Which could be normal, but what happened to those 70% of people that exited? Was it because of the cold fries? It definitely wasn't for the pickle in the sandwich. Why did they leave me? Why did they leave the Air Force? Why did they come here? Because none of you went to jail or Air Force. None of you had that choice. Most of you, it was very difficult for you to get here. Why did they leave? Are we actually in those questions? Or did we get too comfortable with the fact that they were here and that they owed us something to be here? That's not the world that we live in anymore. The exceptional is the standard now. And it's not the standard, and I'm not here, so I'm about to do that disclaimer. I'm not here to chief you. I spend a lot of time in organizations. I spend a lot of time. And these unique issues are not Air Force issues. They're not Department of Defense issues. This is a worldwide issue. The largest company in the world that we do a lot of work for, the largest company in the world, cannot retain over 30% of its college-to-management program. 70% of college graduates within the first year are walking away from this company, 70%. 40% of military people are walking away from this company within the first year. Why do you think that is? Why do you think they're choosing the exit? It took me 45 minutes to tell the senior vice president why they're taking the exit. It's because of your culture. It's because of your culture. It's because how you make me feel has become something of a necessary strategic line of effort in all of your talent management plans. Because if you don't believe it, just look at this slide. Over the last two years, over 50 million Americans have made choices about where they work. 50 million. You can call it the great resignation or the great reshuffle. Google either one of them. And if you look at the generational shift, this should tell you everything that you have to start mapping out your plan to lead. The boomers, which most of us were raised by boomers, that's the hard work generation. They work hard. I would never and most of you would never be able to come home as a teenager and tell your parents that somebody at work yelled at you. That'd be like, did you get paid? Because the way my bank account worked is you can't stay here forever. That's the generation that raised me and most of you. You work hard, you do 35 years, you get your gold watch, and you go fishing. Nobody cares how somebody treated you. And that's why 5% of them change jobs. 5%. And then you look at the Gen Xs, which I'm a member of that confused generation. We're the first people who probably typed www.on a computer. I remember it was www.cocacola.com because I was in Bosnia and somebody gave me access to a computer. But you look at that, 31% of the Gen Xs said, I need a new thing. So some of us who are on that Gen X, Gen Z, Gen X millennial kind of line, we're aligned more with the, that's probably where the data shows that most of them were flighting. Because most of us listen to the same music that our kids listen to. Most of us are looking at YouTube videos with our kids. I know I am. It's really addictive. And look at the millennials. 50% of the millennials have made a move. There's a good percentage of you in this room who are millennials. And then look at our Gen Xs who are now your airmen in basic military training, or at least the airmen first class in the United States Air Force today. 80% of them said this isn't for me. I'm going somewhere else. And then you've got the Gen double A's coming up. And they're going to be even more challenging. Because they're not challenging because they're lazy or all these things that we said over the last 10 years. They're more challenging because they're thinking more complex than we ever did. And it threatens us. It makes us feel threatened. Their thoughts are different. Their access to information is more rapid than we can ever understand. So their input and output is something that really confuses us. So we feel threatened. But you have to understand that you are only a lighthouse keeper. You're showing direction for those who come behind you. You're chiefs now. Chiefs don't serve forever. You're on the downside of your career today. So you're a lighthouse keeper. So you have to understand that how do you create a space for these people? How did we get you? I asked this question regardless of where I'm at. Corporation, military. Because the difference in how we got you here and the difference in how we keep you here is two different fundamental questions. You cannot get wrapped around, we got you, you're here. We don't care if you leave. How do we keep you? I do this exercise everywhere I go and I have people put stickies on the wall. And it's really foundational to some really cultural changes in organizations. I've been in big organizations where I would put this on a whiteboard and have everyone answer these two questions on a sticky. I've seen some really, really, really, really good answers and alarming answers on the second question. When I take the owner of whatever company or the leader of any military and I show them what their people are thinking, how did we, how do we keep you? What do you think some of the generations are saying in the younger side? You think they're talking about money? You think they're talking about power? You think they're talking about promotion? You think they're talking about any of these things? Absolutely not. They're talking about purpose driven values. Are you going to listen to me? I want to be in an environment where I can be myself. I want to be somewhere where I feel inclusive. I want to be somewhere where you accept the me that's me. I grew up in the 90s. I wore size 38 pants, but I actually wore 32. And everybody looked at us like we were crazy, right? Because I had a seven X large shirt on and 38 pants and a hat that was like seven times bigger than my head. And everybody said our generation was crazy. But now we're at old people that's looking at them and calling them crazy. If someone would ask me how do you keep airman Simmons in 1999, when I had an opportunity to read and list, I don't know what I would have said, but it probably wouldn't have been a purpose driven thing. It would have been about taking care of my family and a job. But those things have changed. They have fundamentally changed. And if you want to be a part of an organization that wins, you have to do these three things. If you want to be a part of an organization that loses, then your culture will not do these three things. Because it's not about recruiting, which we talk a lot about recruiting. But you have to first attract this new generation. And if you can't attract a new generation, then you can't recruit them. And once you recruit them, if you can't retain them, then you're right back to square one. This will be a problem, not tomorrow. This is a problem today. Not only in the United States Air Force but around the world. But how does not retaining talent hurt your ability to defend this nation? It does. Every day. And if you look at this, these are posters actually I just learned that are in my room across the hall, across the street, like they're in the stairwell. But we can't recruit the way we recruited in 1940, 1950, 1960, 1999, or even 2019, or even 2022. We have to look at a different, because today, what got you here is pretty much what got me here. Stability, a job, college, medical. Guess what? Target offers that now. Walmart offers that now. Is that a threat to us? Absolutely. And I tell you, look at this picture here in the middle. You probably can't see very clearly what that is. But that is a class of eighth graders. Who in here have a eighth grader right now? A couple of you, around eighth grade. This class of eighth graders have been now exposed to two and a half years of a changing world. Two and a half years that they have been a part of a changing world. In two years, they will enter the workforce four and a half years into a changing world in a different mentality than they had. They're seeing their parents at home. They're seeing employment change. They're seeing what this world now has to offer a completely different options. And in two years after that, six and a half years from when COVID started, they will now be the airmen that we have to attract, recruit and worry about retaining. Have you thought about the airmen that will be here in four years? How different they will be than the airmen you recruited last year? As a chief that will be challenging. We can go back into our archives and go, well, if you just want to be here or not, we don't care. Or, hey, I don't need a cater to you because we've got another one coming behind you. Or, as long as we get our numbers, we're okay. Numbers don't matter in talent management anymore. Quality, the right skill set matters more than that. I'd rather take 10 people and be 10 people short who have the quality and the skill set to do the job. We can't get into numbers games anymore. Like General Brown talked about in that opening slide that I showed, the resources are the resources. The platforms are the platforms. What we have is what we have. And it's probably will be what we have throughout your 10 years as a chief master sergeant in the United States Air Force. What are you going to do with now? What are you controlled now? Because culture is free. Nothing I'm talking to you about is actually cost anything. It costs you changing your strategic foresight on how do we do things differently? Because the world has already surpassed the last two years of honestly what we're willing to do sometimes. It's to really look within ourselves and go, do I have a culture issue? Do I have a climate issue? And what does that really mean to my readiness? Not connecting those dots will continue to put us behind. Culture and readiness are the same thing. Actually, stop saying readiness. Say culture. Don't do that. Chief will not approve of that. But it's the same thing. Your readiness is tied to your culture every day. So when I did the research on what threats do we have to building the force that we need? What are the threats? What are the threats? And you can read, I won't read the slide to you, but if you look through this, this is all data that came directly from the source except number six. But if you look at this, and I had a lot of conversations with leaders about this, the short no shortage of entry level employment. What does that mean? Like I said, if I am six and a half years into, if I am six and a half years into the COVID in four years, then what do you offer in me, United States Air Force? Because now I've been a teenager employee at Target and they said I can go to school for free, that I got health care. What are you offering me? But then when you combine that, the fact that our youth feel disconnected from the values of the military, how does that now become even more dangerous when you put those two together? The fact that our recruiting has dropped from 13 to 11 percent, it can be a lot of that contributed to COVID. But if you look at the end result of that, of all the gains that we have made in diversity and inclusion space, if we're losing ground with minority recruiting, then how do we become more competitive? How do we become more competitive by mirroring the world that's already here? How do we connect with them? How do we change the mindset? Because we don't have an unlimited amount of kids who parents are military, who are joining the military. We have to depend on the youth out there that actually see value based in our society, value based in our institution. And the moment that that continues to deteriorate, it now affects our readiness. So how do you take 22 percent to 26 percent? How do you take 26 percent to 35 percent? How do you now pay attention to the 70 percent of airmen walking out of your institutions every day? How do you pay attention to culture in your organization? And why? What's the imperative about it? What's so important about it? The importance is that we will lose if we cannot attract, retain, retract, recruit, and retain the right talent. So let's talk about that. And I heard Chief Wolfe, I think it was Ziva Chief Wolfe or Chief Wade talk about the climate and the culture. You control both of these, but climate change is just like a thermometer in a house. My wife lives upstairs hot and downstairs freezing. I don't get it, that's why I'm always sick. I think it's a ploy, take me out. But culture is hard. It's hard. If you think you're going to go into an organization in 18 months and I'm going to fix the culture, you're not. We have to now band together to understand that what the last person did now has to find some importance in which you do to pass on to the person after you. We have to build sustainable cultures that airmen that you do not lead anymore now can hold on to something to sit in this room in 15 years. Your impact can be immeasurable in 10 minutes of someone's life. You have to build a culture that's not traditional. You have to build a culture that people are not used to. You have to change the climate in your organization every day or work on it every day. Our frontline leaders, and I don't say supervisors because I've seen this issue across whatever sector that you want to name, they're not empowered. Any organization that I go in, the first thing that I see is the frontline leaders are not empowered. And when your frontline leaders are not empowered, your value system is going to deteriorate faster than you believe. You can be the chief. You can add whatever line to your strategy that you want because a vision and a mission statement without a strategy is worthless, regardless if you're military or not. The words that you put on paper, if it's not actionable, it's not emulated, it's not a part of the smell of your organization and the fabric of what you put out every day, it is worthless. And that's the direct tie to your culture. I've gone into an organization that asks one simple question when I talk about their culture. What is your mission and vision statement? And typically about 8% of the people can even tell me half of the words. Why waste your time on even writing it if there's no actionable plan to actually live up to the ideals that you want everyone else to live up to? That's the first step in building a culture. Are you what right looks like? Have you given values to the generations that are coming behind you? Do you understand how to keep them? That's how you build a culture, cohesion. How do you develop cohesion in teams? How do you develop cohesion in your organization? How do you develop cohesion amongst the triad that you are a part of right now? How? I will tell you that in the competitive race of talent management, and I will pause before I say this, in the competitive race of talent management, you can't see each other's competition. It deteriorates any organizational growth. And here I am. I'm not preaching to the choir. Did I grow up in a system that maybe pitted us against each other? Absolutely. But we are all wearing suits and civilian clothes, and your leaders are telling you to think differently. Your leaders will say, how do you think differently when our competition is not competition? You cannot develop teams if everyone is looking up at right and right is that I can't trust you. Right is that you have something to gain over me. It's the number one way to deteriorate any organizational growth. If you cannot build trust inside of an organization, you will never have cohesion. If you never have cohesion, you're never going to have effective climates that permeate to your organization, and your culture will never set. It will never set in place. It will always be this lingering thing that's on the wall when you walk into your organization. It will always be a mission statement and a vision statement that 8% of the people can recite, or 8% of the people even know that exists, or maybe 2% of the people even believe in. You have to start with trusted teams. And the way to build trusted teams is to take away those barriers. Yes, this is a competitive race anywhere you go. Everyone wants to sit in this room. Only 1% will sit in this room. That's okay. Everyone can strive for something, but it shouldn't be the thing that we talk about every day. What are we spending out 10 minutes and 10 seconds with when you're with someone? I was known as the weird old chief probably here at Air University. I'm not here to chief you, so you know I didn't give my little thing. So now I'm a chief you. My exec is in the room. And when I say to people, my old exec is in the room, I got to make sure I say that. Master Sergeant now, Keon A. Vaughn. And when you say what Wright looks like, I might have not been about 50% what Wright looks like as she worked for me for two years, but I tried. And I would tell you the one thing when I say about building that cohesion in teams is I had a lot of senior NCOs do exactly what a lot of senior NCOs are going to do to you. Hey, chief, can you look at my records? How many of us have made that statement? I know I have. Everyone in this room has said, chief, can you look at my records? And I think they thought I was crazy because people would come to my office and say, chief, look at my records and I would speak to them for over an hour sometime and I would never pull their records off my desk. Sometimes it took two or three meetings before I even like would read your EPR. This isn't about advancement. This is about advancing culture. It's a difference. Advancement will happen if you have done what you need to do. Advancing culture only happens when you have in the real conversations. And when transactional leadership happens, it doesn't build cohesion in teams. I've been guilty of being that transactional leader until I was not. And I changed the conversation. And I challenge you to change the conversation about how we work together as teams. And do you even know what a Gen AA team was going to look like? Do you know what a Gen Z team looked like? Do you know what motivates a millennial team? I will tell you in a Gen Z team, they can care less about competition. I grew up in a competitive era where I played football and not everybody got a trophy. Either you were good or you were not. And that's what my football coach told me. You go to a banquet and they'll be like, we're giving out 12 trophies. It's 60 people. You get a trophy. Thank you for your how great you did. If you don't get a trophy, work hard next year. That's just what it was. But how do you build that cohesion in a team where that's healthy? I worked harder next year. That was the end of the conversation. We shouldn't force people to believe something that we should be forcing them to believe. Be honest. Purpose. If you were to ask anyone that you work with, what's their purpose for being here? I just had a great conversation I put on a spot. She asked me a question about this. If I was to give her one piece of advice about going forth based on essentially purpose, what would I give? I told her to run two races. Run Emily's race and run Airman race. The better Emily can be, the better Airman she can be. The better technical sergeant Darnell she can be. Run two races. Be, never lose Emily. Don't stump out people's purpose. They can be a great asset to the United States Air Force. They can be a great asset to themselves. Build those two houses together. And all of us have experienced this one thing. As I traveled around the AOR in my last year long deployment in Afscent, when I used to go to all these bases as the cop functional for Afscent, and I had an Airman write me a three page paper at a base in Kuwait, and he handed it to me and he said, hey chief, here you go. And I said, what's this? He said, this is a talking paper on why you should keep me here another six months and save the Air Force money. I'm like, whoa. But the question is, why do you want to stay here? I don't want to go back to my base. Interesting. So it prompted me to ask questions as I traveled, and I asked this question repeatedly to Airman, hey, where are you stationed? Oh, I would rather stay here. I've been on a flight line with B2 mechanics or B2 maintenance personnel and 130 degree heat while I'm waiting to get on my C17 or something in the AOR, and I'll ask this young staff sergeant, crew chief, hey man, it's hot out here. You'd be like, yes, chief. So don't ever, it's like being a cop which I was for 20 years and you come in through the gate and being like, hey, it's cold out today. Yes, sir. You remember those days, Jay? Just be like, really? And then they want to talk to you about the weather for five minutes, like you don't have to be outside. But the purpose that we instill, how many of you have felt more aligned to mission downrange than your home station? More than half of you in this room with Rager. Why? And people give me answers like, well, it's where I feel like I'm a part of the mission. We have no mission at McDale. We have no mission at Minot. We have no mission at Herbert Field. We have no mission at AU. Oh no, but it's different. I'm down here doing what the country is asking me to do. The country didn't ask you to do that there. You're here going two beer nights and we're having this discussion at two beer nights, listening to a rock concert. Your family is not here. You're the stressors of 16 hours. I feel, how do we duplicate that type of purpose in our airmen throughout? Because deployments are not going to look like deployments have looked the last 20 years. All of us, six, eight, 11 deployment people, that might not be the case here. You're fighting wars today from places here in the United States as we always did, but the battlefield literally has moved here. How do we now attract a cyber warrior who we're going to convince to them that the battlefield is here? How are we going to be going to recruit the next A1C, the standard that gate, to let them know, I got it. You're in a squadron full of heroes. You're in a squadron full of bronze star winners. You're in a squadron full of multiple deployments. But I need you to defend this patch with the same vigor, with the same effort, with the same zeal that any one of them have done in any fob, anywhere in the world. I need you to do that here. How do we instill that purpose in them? How do we infuse that throughout the culture? We do it by understanding what they believe in, what their values are, what is this gap in value that they have. That's how we do it. And I talk about connection because connection is the glue that holds all of this together. I will tell you that I am literally a person who okay with you not speaking to me in the hallway. But that doesn't mean that I can just go around not speaking to everyone. That doesn't mean that I got to understand the golden rule versus the platinum rule. And the golden rule is treat everyone like what? Like you want to be treated. What's the platinum rule? Like they want to be treated. Are we understanding that simple switch and mentality? Connection is the glue. It is the glue that holds everything together. It is the glue of culture. It's the glue of cohesion. It's the glue of purpose. It's the glue of everything. And if you don't have credibility, if you don't have credibility, then you have already lost. You've already lost anything. And I like to, and we're coming toward the end, and I'm a mass up chief before I come down. And I like to talk about credibility because credibility to me, you can take away the last 47 minutes that I spoke and delete it if you would like. But this right here underpins everything of a chevron that you are wearing or will wear. Your credibility. I got permission from the chief man starting there for us. Your credibility underpins everything. And 10 seconds can change your credibility. And I like to end with this because this is the fabric of who I am. Like I told Emily backstage, run two races. Run Todd Simmons, run Airman Simmons, run Emily, run Tech Sergeant Darnell. Run two races. And I've run two races for over 23 years because of a 10 minute interaction with someone who sat in this very room at some point, I'm sure. See in 1995, 10 February 1995, I showed up here, here at Air University, Airman basic Todd Simmons. 1995, 10 February. Why did I know it was 10 February? Because that was my birthday. Service dress here at my first base. I showed up here. I was picked up. I was put in the dorms with no bedsheets. Nothing. No reporting instructions. And that was okay with me. Because if you know my story, I wanted to be here more than anything. So I was okay with sleeping on a mattress. Wasn't even the worst of it. But unfortunately, my first experience with the United States Air Force was with bad culture. My first experience with the Air Force was walking into an organization that had toxic culture. And I went from an Airman who they used to call Airman run through a wall. That's typically what they call me at Fort Dix. Because if they would tell me to run through a wall, I probably would have. I was that invested into the United States Air Force because there was no plan B, C, D, E, F, G for me. The Air Force was it. I didn't even know how to get into the Peace Corps because I Googled it. But I was going somewhere from Hardyville, South Carolina. And I came into the United States Air Force and excelled in BMT. I excelled in tech school and I'm a high school dropout. I failed the fourth grade and the ninth grade. Yeah, I led your education for two and a half years. So blame me. If any of you think PME sucks, this is who they hired. Sorry. Just going to apologize. That's all I can do at this point. I'm retired. But I came into the Air Force because a recruiter really took a chance on me and didn't need to recruit me. And he taught me how to pass the ASFAB. To this day, if you look at my ASFAB score, I purposely never retook the ASFAB. It's the reason why I never cross-trained because my score wasn't high enough. I scored one point over the basic entry requirements to get one point. So they gave me two jobs. And I won't tell you what it was because you already know I was a cop. And they gave me two jobs. And I came into the Air Force and I showed up to this unit bright-eyed. And during that time, I went from Airman Simmons to 127 days later, 886 steps. I walked it this morning. 886 steps from this very location. I sat on that flight line with a rifle in my mouth, with a round in the chamber, with a selector on fire, trying to blow my brains out. 127 days. All because I showed up somewhere that did not value me. Some place that I overheard people saying that they were going to kick me out because I wore essentially a size 38 pants at the time. I was a thug. I overheard my supervision talking about that in the break room. And I did not know what to do about it. Because I came from an environment you hit back. You can't hit back as an Airman. Not if you want to be an Airman. And I remember to this day, nobody ever asked me who I was. I think it's fundamental questions that we ask our folks. Who are you? You got to look at who you were, who you are, and who you hope to be. Nobody ever asked me those questions. 120 days. I was trying to blow my brains out for two days. And on the third day, I called my mom and I told her if she doesn't get me out of the Air Force, I'm going to kill myself tonight. Unfair to that woman. And I proceeded to tear up a phone booth and cut myself all up in a dormitory over here, right here on Air University. And my first sergeant, a senior mass sergeant, walked in that night and saved my life. Yeah, saved my life. But you know how he saved my life? He was the only person in the organization that I can take my mind back to in that organization that had anything positive. And he went back and when he came in there and said, what are you doing, Airman Simmons? And I was all cut up and bleeding and he got me all calmed down. I looked at this man who did not look like me and I thought for a whole minute. And I came back to one interaction when I in process the unit with no bed sheets for two days. Don't know where I'm going, walking around Alabama and don't know how to get to anywhere. And you know what they told me to do? Hey, we need you when they finally told me what an end process. Hey, we need you over at Gunner to end process. How do we Airman basically get to Gunner to end process? I figured it out. But I took back when I in process, my first sergeant looked me in the eyes and he did everything. He signed me off and he said, Hey, Airman Simmons, when I was walking out the door, who's the most important person in your life? I said my mom and I just left with no, no indication. I saw that first sergeant come through my gate here at Maxwell and Gunner quite often because he drove a Volkswagen with a surfboard on top in Montgomery. To this day, I don't know where he went surfing in Montgomery at, but he came through my gate and what do you think is the one question he would always ask Airman Simmons when he saw Airman Simmons? How's your mom? That man had the moral authority to save my life that day because he invested the 10 seconds in me. That was free. I went into mental health for five months. No gun, nothing. Then he walked in on me one day and said, Hey, Airman Simmons, I heard your treatment is going well. Do you want to deploy? And I said, absolutely. He went to my young major, got my gun back, and not only did I deploy, he said, you can deploy with me. There are two, five levels in a first sergeant going to Cobar Towers, Saudi Arabia. And I went to Cobar Towers. It's a brand new one-scriper. And my first sergeant and I landed in Cobar Towers, Daharan, Saudi Arabia, and they said, Hey, shirt, you're not going to security forces. You're going to maintenance. And I almost had a panic attack because I'm like, this is my guy. And he went to maintenance and he came and picked me up every day of break that I had off. And we went to Charlie Chan's Chinese restaurant downtown Daharan, Saudi Arabia, and we ate rice for three months. And he built that cohesion. He built that team. He never asked me anything. He just let me talk. He created a coaching culture with me, where he allowed me to come up with my own solutions. And he wrote a napkin. He took a napkin out and he wrote eight bases on a napkin. And in the middle of those eight bases, he said, Osan, Kunsan, when you are mature. And all of you know what that means. And he said, airman Simmons, if you're going to run this race, if you're going to be in the air force, you need to leave Montgomery, Alabama and get out of here. And I said, sir, I don't know how to do that. So we redeploy here and he go makes me fill out my dream sheet one year and one month from the time that I arrived here, 10 February, less than eight months or whatever. So from me trying to kill myself, I was on a plane to Aria of Lake and Heath as a A1C with a napkin in my pocket. And for 17 years, I followed that napkin. I came back to the States as a senior master sergeant. Because every base was overseas. He said, airman Simmons, go to Alaska. I said, sir, I'm from South Carolina on the beach. He said, no, go to Alaska. I went to Austin Air Force Base for three years and eight months. Best assignment I ever had. I haven't talked to that first sergeant since 1996. He impacted my life forever. When I say culture is not something you write and put on a wall or culture is not something that you just say and say, hey, I'm passing this guide on or I'm going on to my next chief job. Culture is forever. I had a chief told me that he was going to send me to mental health when I was a master sergeant. It was a joke because he came in office. He wanted to give me a great career opportunity. And I told him this story. It was living it so long at this point. I said, well, sir, I can't go there because I'm trying to go here. And he said, why do you want to go there? I said, because it's on my napkin. And he said, what are you talking about? I said, well, let me explain you to this napkin story. And he said, you're crazy. I said, well, sir, I got to follow this napkin. 17 years. I went to Osan when I was a master sergeant. I served with Regina Bailey in this audience at Osan. She never knew how I got there. I went there only when I was mature. Chris Ricks had me doing push-ups there. I didn't want to leave my family again, but I was on this napkin. Why do I tell you that story? Because there's only one way to win this competitive race. There's only one way to kill, to close that kill chain. There's only one way to have credibility as a leader to change culture in your organization. It's only one way to silence the critics. There's only one way to win the war that's at your table. It's only one way. And it's not going to be with General Brown infusing another trillion dollars into our budget. It's not going to be Chief Bass giving you a policy from the Pentagon. It's not going to be any of your Magcom chiefs doing this, you know, putting a trick out of their bag. It's going to be you. It's going to be you. You want to win? You want to win? Stop being average. You want to win? Be exceptional. Where's the line outside of your door? Because it ain't the chicken and the pickles that's going to put the line outside of your door. It's going to tie into how you make me feel. And if you can't make me feel that way, I will not serve. And if you can't make me feel that way, I will not be recruited. If you can't make me feel that way, I will not be retained. And if you can't make me feel that way, we will lose. We will lose. I cannot express in any words as I close how proud I am of all of you. All of you. This has been the greatest chapter of my life. And as many other chapters until I'm buried, this will only be one for you. There's other chapters of your life. But I cannot tell you how much I am still proud to represent, not only being an airman, but representing rooms that we never had a seat in as a former Chief Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force. You have no idea how immensely proud I am to own six blue suits. And I will tell you, this race that we're on, it requires you to train. And I will leave you with a who's saying boat train. You train four years for nine seconds, the famous who's saying boat. We need you to train. Because it might only take nine seconds for us to lose. So we need you to train. Train your mind, train your replacements, train your bosses. We need you to think differently. Because the way I thought, the way all of us up here have thought, won the last conflict. To win in the future, start the way we thought. I close with this. Average is dead. Exceptional is the standard. Have a good day. All right, Todd Simmons, come back out here. How many y'all got, how many y'all got in your fields just now? How many y'all are okay with being average? Exceptional. Listen, Todd is nothing short of exceptional. When we were at dinner last night, he reminded me, we had a whole, well, he reminded me of a whole lot of things, but what I want to say is, brother, like you, there's so many things you could be doing, but for you to continue to wear your blue suit, for you to continue to pour into this generation, for you to continue to pour into our Air Force, you asked me where your coin was. So I got a coin for you, brother. I got a coin for you, brother, just to say thank you from your sister. Like, I couldn't be more proud to serve with you, brother. Awesome. Very good. All right.