 Hey, so I'm that guy, I'm between you and lunch. So I made a deal with the Let X staff, starting to come out here. So I need a volunteer. If you can knock me off the stage, then we can go right to lunch. But if I knock you off the stage, then you're going to see my 96 slides on the 21 attributes of being a leader. So I've got a volunteer, one of the cadets. Come on, come on up here. You right there. Come on, get up here. I'm not kidding. Yeah, I'm looking right at you. Get out. No. You. Yeah. Come on. I'm just kidding, brother. You can go back sit down. I was excited. So how's everybody doing? I'm not a non-stage person. I'm a hands-on type person, former chief. So I like to walk around and judge my, you give me the feedback I need to either hurry up or, you know, continue. So fighting, who's passionate about it? About fighting. Every single one of you should be, because that's our job, that's our mission, is to kill the enemy. I'm not going to teach you anything about leadership. I'm not going to tell you anything about leadership because you're just like my daughter. You know everything. Passion. Who's passionate about what they do? Everybody. Passion equal. I heard in the back, you were in the last brief, weren't you? Love. I'm not afraid to say it. Man, I love you. That's why I'm here. That's why I gave up my time. I came up here because I love you. And if you're not willing to say that to your fellow airman, to your teammate, that I love you, then you have no passion. And I came up with five simple words. Five simple words, man. And I got the lowest IQ in this room. So these will be easy. I don't have 96 slides. I don't have 21 attributes. I got five words that equal passion and passion equals love. You can write it down. You don't have to. But man, it's easy. Five words. And if you saw in that book, they're in there. Commitment is number one. Creativity is number two. Trust is number three. Maturity is number four. And a proud member of the Waukesha Public School System, I can add to five expertise. Five words. Take it or leave it. Commitment, creativity, trust, maturity, expertise. Now I'm a former combat controller. It took me 28 years to think of this. It only took me 20 years to get my degree. But man, we all love acronyms, right? So I came up with CCT me. And that's the way I could memorize it. That's the way I could pitch it. I don't use slides because I want to talk about these five things, man. Five things. Easy. Commitment. Who's committed? Well, I took the oath, right? Everybody's committed. But are you truly committed? Alabama doesn't have a lottery, right? So everybody runs across the border to buy the big megamillions, right? Shirt, you won the lottery. Would you be here tomorrow? Yes. Yes. Good answer. Think about it, man. You won the lottery. If you won $348 million, I mean technically the Air Force would probably ask you to leave anyways because you would have a lot of FU money. And what's the point of having FU money if you can't say FU? I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, but think about it. But are you committed? Look at all these people at 15 years bailing to take some corporate job or take greener on the other side. Being retired two years, the grass is not greener. I love that uniform. I miss that uniform. But are you truly committed? Because in order to be committed, you have to have passion. You have to have love. How many have a significant other? Raise your hand. Do you love them? Obviously, because you're with them. If you didn't love them, would you be with them? Well, you're still in high school, right? No. Are you college? Okay. All right. You look like high school. I was like, you will not love anybody or be with anybody. That's the dad coming out of me. Sorry. Commitment. Creativity. How many of you are creative? He's like, don't talk to me, chief. Don't talk to me. No creativity whatsoever. Come on. Really? You haven't invented something. You're medical. You got to be creative. This STEM, everybody knows what STEM stands for, right? I learned it this year in June. It's like I added an A for air power because I am creative. All right. I understand you guys had no audio visual or sound in the other auditorium, but here you got it. Creativity. October 14th, 2001, where were you? Where were you? Somebody yell out where they were. That's what I am going to talk about. This generation, man, I was in Afghanistan, October 14th, 2001, I was in Afghanistan with a team, the first team, given the direction and the guidance and the authority to drop bombs on the enemy, something we hadn't done in a long time. Who here remembers the plugger? I mean, we still have it, right? The POS GPS system we have. You heard Steve's talk this morning. One day a soldier on the ground will be able to carry around a 15 pack and be able to know where he is in the world. Well, unfortunately in the 80s, I was one of those guys testing that. And we went from 15 pounds to seven pounds to three and a half pounds, and it didn't even have a map. You had to have the map that coordinated with that machine to know where you were. But these really cool people out in California developed this thing called the Garmin. And it had a map. And with some AA batteries in less than a pound, you know where you were in the world. And if you knew your coordinate and you knew a range and distance to another coordinate, the enemy, you know where they were too. And you could pass a 10-digit grid, emensurate it. Two, the aircraft. Two, kill the enemy. Creativity. And there were the naysayers. You can't use that. It took going all the way to General Jumper, the chief of staff of the Air Force in April of 2002 and briefing him in his office telling him, sir, this is what we are using. We need something this size. So stand in the future and look back as leaders, as men and women of our armed services, of your profession, and be creative. Because if you don't, it might be that airman's life on the line because he didn't have what he needed or she didn't have what she needed to survive on the battlefield. And sir, I'm telling you right now, you may be the one that cures cancer. You may be the one that an airman goes home and lives because of something you developed. I challenge you. Be creative. Trust. Do you trust your teammates? My brother's an arms man. I know you guys do. Do you trust your teammates? Do you trust your teammates on the battlefield, on the PT field? At work? Where's my pilots? Raise your hand. You trust those maintenance? You trust that 18-year-old kid having a bad day fixing your aircraft? You had better, medical, maintenance, admin. Who likes getting paid? Right? Everybody likes getting paid, I do. Everybody is important to the fight. You have to have that trust in them. If you don't trust the person to the left and right of you, find better people to be with. If you are not running with the right crowd, find a better crowd to run with because I trust you. I trust you to defend and support my Constitution. I'm retired. I trust you to take the fight to the enemy. I trust you as leaders, as commanders to get my airman home. Maturity. Does age bring maturity? Does rank bring maturity? I think not. How many of you worked for that commander, that chief, that guy, that gal? That's not very mature. I see it all running through your heads. You're saying names to yourselves right now. You're nodding your head, yeah. May not be working for them now. You're probably going to be working for them at some point in the future or you had worked for them until hopefully they were relieved publicly. How many have met that brand new lieutenant, that brand new airman has come into your unit and was the most mature person there despite age, despite rank? I met a young kid here from Alabama. Haileyville, Alabama, the most mature airman I had ever met in my life, 2010. The most mature airman I had ever interviewed as a combat controller, as a joint terminal attack controller. The most mature airman I had ever seen get his combat test in minimal amount of time. The most mature airman that I had ever seen interact with the Navy SEAL team, with the Special Forces team, with Army Rangers, with the CIA. The most mature airman that I had ever met to be able to go out on the battlefield and go to the worst place there was in the world at that time, fire-based Cobra. The most mature airman I had ever got the opportunity to serve with. The most mature airman that paid the ultimate sacrifice, saving two of his teammates. Senior airman Mark Forrester, look him up sometime. Maturity doesn't come in rank, it doesn't come in age. I think you build it off commitment, creativity, trust. And then finally expertise. Are you experts at what you do? Raise your hand. You better be. And if you're not surround yourself with people that are, because I'm not, again, product of the Waukesha, Wisconsin public school system, lowest IQ in the room, I have to surround myself with smart people. And I'm not afraid to admit that. And when I became a senior NCO, I immediately was identified my shortfalls. And I had a commander simply say it. Charlie and Mike, you're not the smartest guy. Motivating, man, you can speak loud and you get people to do what you want. But man, you're not smart. So I suggest you surround yourself with smart people and develop those people and bring them along. With that expertise, you have to find balance. Does everybody know how to balance work and life and home? Do you? Because if you do, tell me, because there is no balance. How do you be an expert at work? How do you be an expert at home? I can't tell you. That's the $100 million question, but through passion. If you show passion in what you do and how you do it and the people that you do it with, man, that equals love. And if you don't love what you do, go find something else. Don't waste your teammate's time. Don't waste your family's time. Don't waste your time. And especially all, don't waste my time. Through those five words, through passion, you will become strong leaders. You already are. That's why you're here. Most of you will move to be squadron commanders. Some of you will become group commanders. A very few of you will become wing commanders and move on beyond that. Surround yourself with people you're passionate about, people you love, and you will do good things. I guarantee it. Ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for you. Enjoy your lunch. Enjoy your time here at Let X. Thank you for your time.