 Well, welcome to the show, Brett. Great to have you. Thanks. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. I was very curious about the title of your book. So we get a lot of leadership books, and surfing is not really something that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of military leadership. So what does surf when you can mean to you? I think surfing means a lot to me in different ways. One, I enjoy the physical activity. I grew up in California, and if I was stationed somewhere that had a beach and I had my surfboard, I'd always try to figure out a way to go surfing. But I think over the years, surfing became kind of just a way for me to remind myself the importance of taking a break from all the other things that kind of hit you day to day. And, you know, you got to put your cell phone down. You got to get on the water. Hopefully you're out there with some good buddies. And so it's a chance not just to have some physical exercise and have fun and enjoy that, but also to really think and that chance to kind of sit back and contemplate. And I think sometimes, particularly in our busy world, and whether it's a military or not, we have so much information at our disposal, emails and texts and phone calls and feeds and whatnot. And so unless you're someone who wants to bring out a waterproof bag with a cell phone, which is generally pretty frowned upon, you just have to be out there with you, your board, the weather, the waves and enjoy. And you'd obviously the clips of people surfing are that you're on these big waves. But to be fair, most of the time, surfing is about paddling out and getting out there. And you're only probably spending about 5% of your time actually on a wave surfing. So there is a lot of time to think and, you know, and I, I like to run, I like to work out too. And if, if you ever followed me on a run, I'm probably one of those people that stops every mile or so to pull out their phone and write something on a, like a notepad, because you're, you know, you're thinking and these things come up, which a little bit harder on a surfboard. But maybe that's why it appeals to me. And I think that, you know, as you become more senior in leadership roles, you cannot underestimate the importance of just taking a break and thinking about, you know, what it is you want to focus on, what it is you want to prioritize and how you can do that. Otherwise, you just become a slave to email and, and trying to process information as fast as you can. So, so that's why I like to surf. And I just like to get out in the water. Yeah, I figured part of the Navy background in you as well. Yeah. I'd love to hop in the time machine and think back to when you first enrolled in the Naval Academy. What goals did you have for your Navy career? And how did you envision it going versus where we sit now? And so obviously, you know, young 18 year old Brett, as it were, heavily influenced by a movie that came out in 1986 called Top Gun. I just wanted to fly. And I, you know, I would have skipped college. I would have gone right to flight school and done what I saw in the movie. So smarter people prevailed and made sure I understood there's a path to get there that entails like going to college and learning about engineering and sciences and leadership. And the Naval Academy does a great job of teaching people about the fundamentals of leadership. You know, they don't teach us how to do it. They just teach you some of the prerequisites that you need to think about on developing as a leader. So when I got to the Naval Academy, I realized I had to study a little bit to get to flight school and that was still became my primary goal. And without a doubt, I joined the Navy to fly. I didn't really put much thought into it beyond that. That's what I wanted to do. And I love flying. I flew helicopters for 10 years. I flew fighters for 20. But I didn't stay for flying. And I'm often asked now, like, do I fly now? And I don't. I stayed for the people. I stayed for the people I met along the way and the people that gravitated to that line of work and folks focused on a mission greater than themselves. And that's why I stayed. That's why I enjoyed it. And the flying became a great, maybe a great distraction at times and a great hobby. But you put a lot of time into it because I think to be successful military, you have to balance your role. For me personally, you know, yourself, your family, you have to balance your role as a warrior. You have to understand your profession, your trade. And as you stay in long enough, you have to understand the importance of being a leader and those three things, you know, family, your profession and leadership all kind of tie together in some way. So I think I went from young 18 year old just want to fly Tom Cass off a flight deck to, hey, flying's cool. I like doing that. But leading people and being part of the team is even more rewarding in the end. I would imagine at a younger age, the flying itself is the carrot that makes you want to do everything else because that is the reward that makes everything else acceptable to be doing, right? And there's like, why else would you put yourself through all of this without that of being in the sky? Yeah, I mean, much like surfing lets you get away from the day to day grind and your business job, whatever you have now, flying in a ways like that. There's and there's a huge adrenaline rush, whether you're flying helicopters or fighters and you do, you feel lucky. I mean, even, even I was the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier towards end of my career, I was still flying helicopters. And I was still flying fighters and I was still driving the ship and running, you know, a 5,000 person crew. So I felt pretty lucky when amongst all the chaos and things that it takes to run and manage a 5,000 person ship that I could go jump on an F-18 take off and then just hang out over here at the ship and then watch it and relax a little bit. So it was my, it was my way of surfing while I was in command. So definitely remained a carrot to the end. So I definitely enjoyed it. Well, when we think about Top Gun, we think often about the rugged individualism, the heroism that goes along with being a pilot, but that doesn't really fly in real life, right? You mentioned teamwork a few times now. So how has your fighter pilot experience influenced your leadership? Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, you think of the movie, even the most recent one, which I love and they did a great job. And it's very focused on the individual. And I mean, there's some element of teamwork in the sky, whether you're wingman and your backseater and stuff. But, but it's obviously much more than that. You know, I often found that when I was sitting in my captain's chair on the, you know, on the aircraft carrier bridge and watching a fighter, you know, F-18 take off. I mean, there is literally thousands of people that had to work to get that to where that aircraft had launched. I mean, whether it's the folks running the reactors, the folks making water for the steam, the food, the laundry. I mean, it's a city and all 5000 are focused on that one mission. It's not about just getting the ship from point A to point B. It's about getting the ship somewhere and launching those aircraft. And when you're, you know, when you're younger, I think, and you're doing it for the first couple of times, you're just so excited about it. You, you might lose some of that understanding. But as you get more senior, you realize it, it does. It takes, takes that 18 year old kid on the flight deck that checks you out one last time before he hits the button to launch you. Had a sail that worked for me that was driving the ship. So she was the helmsman on the ship and she didn't even have her driver's license, but she had joined the Navy and now he had taught her how to drive an aircraft carrier. And, and it takes all of that. So I think, again, as you get more senior and your perspective broadens maybe a little bit and you understand that it is, it's all about teamwork. You wouldn't even think about being able to take off by yourself, which is why now when I, you know, when people talk about, Hey, do you want to go fly civilian flying? I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't quite understand the same, you know, the teamwork that's going on. I know there is and there's ways that it's very safe to do, but, you know, it's, it's not like having a team of 5000 to make sure you get off safely successfully every time. So I think that's, that's what I think is you, I think it's important to understand that you're, it's a privilege to fly. It's a privilege to fly Navy aircraft and it comes because of those thousands of people that are making that happen for you. What stood out to me in the missions that you described in the book is the teamwork outside of just the Americans. So when we think about the military and even the work that we do in training the military, we often think about the relationships built internally with your peers and with your commanding officers. But a lot of the missions you were on involved the locals and teaming up with other military forces and working cross cultures and even with language barriers to build and forge trust. How did you approach building those relationships outside of the US military to achieve the mission goals that you had? Yeah, extremely important, particularly in the Navy, because obviously the whole reason we as a nation have a Navy is so we can directly fight in a way game, right? We can, we can send our Navy where it needs to go to protect the interests of our allies, our nation. And that requires, you know, the alliance with our allies wherever they're in Japan, Europe, Italy, you name it. We have some really strong allies and it can be hard to fight with them sometimes because there's different radios and language barriers. But in the end, they always say it's, you know, while it's hard to fight with them, it's much harder to fight without them. But on an individual level, particularly when you're a shore or a meeting or staff, it's very easy, I think, for language barriers to prevent you from wanting to reach out like you would maybe somebody that speaks English as their first language. But it's a really small barrier. I mean, once you get over that, and to be fair, most of the world speaks English pretty well, you know, my foreign language skills are minimal at best. But once you kind of get over that, that hesitation, and you learn how to communicate with or without words sometimes, I think it kind of dawns on you that we are just all the same. We just happen to speak a different language or we grew up in a different country. But we really come back to, you know, we're all, particularly in that line of work, it's very similar. They're focused on family. They're focused on their career. They're focused on their profession. They're making a living and doing what they can to take care of their interests and that aligns with what we do every day. So I think when you come down to the base level and you just get to talk one-on-one or you share espresso with the Italians or whoever you're working with or sake when you're in Japan, yeah, it's fun. And I actually really enjoy it. And they're fascinated by our culture. We're fascinated by theirs. And if you just kind of humble yourself a little bit and open yourself up and understand they're just, you know, they're just eager to be part of the team, then I think there's amazing things you can learn and do. And I, we benefit. We lived in Italy for a couple years. My entire family, we lived in Japan for a couple years. And it was really fun to be part of those cultures and learn about, you know, the folks, not only do we, are we called allies, we might fight with if required and certainly we became friends along the way. Yeah, that rule you have never skipped espresso. So you talk about essentially having this mission, having this pressure on you, got to get the task done. And here the Italians are stopping to have a coffee. And American coffee culture is a little bit different than Italian coffee culture. And your Edison's at first to participate, hey, guys, we got to get this task done. What are we doing here? Taking a break for coffee. But what you learned about that and creating this rule, can you unpack that for our audience and how you approach relationships? Yeah, and I think, you know, just to set the scene a little bit, obviously, you know, I think about when I go to Starbucks or something, I'm usually driving through or getting my order and on the run to whatever my next meeting is. You might go share coffee with somebody, but it's, you know, it's probably more rare than you care to admit. And in Italy and even in Japan, too, they spend a lot more time, I think, finding ways to take those breaks, to socialize outside of work or even just a break from work. And espresso is a great way. And I tell you, I've become a, I mean, I had my two espresso shots this morning with my Italian coffee maker that I bought, you know, 12, 13 years ago. And it reminds me every time. So yeah, I found myself in a job, a NATO headquarters job in Italy. And, you know, I was still relatively junior in the tour, so I was super focused on making sure I answered all the emails and all my PowerPoint briefs were done on time. And, you know, I had used the correct font on the paper I had to write. So there's all these little things that aren't really that important, but I was focused on as a staff officer trying to, with my standard fighter pilot type A personality, be as aggressive as possible. And the Italians and the Germans and the folks that were there in this multinational command had kind of had a different pace and, and definitely hard working. I found this out to be true later, but they took the time, I think, day to day to work on building that relationship. And so I was hesitant to go on these so-called espresso breaks that were, you know, more than, more than once a day put it that way, like, you know, and, and they don't, they're not long and espresso is, it's a shot, right, by design. So you, you stand up, you drink it, you socialize a little bit. And when I finally kind of slowed down a little bit, and I took the time to go down and have espresso with these guys and get to learn to know them, I, what I realized I had been ignoring my leadership in my teamwork building was the chance just to get away from the work, just to go talk about, okay, what's life in Naples, Italy like, or what's life in Paris like for the French that worked for us, or the, you know, the guy from Berlin. I mean, and I was, I started to really enjoy it, even though it was a short couple of minutes per day, but it really helped us grow as a staff and a team. And I think in the end, we're, we were challenged as a staff a couple of months later when operations in Libya kicked off. My initial assessment when I first got there that these guys were never going to be able to work hard, it was all going to be about the U S as a dominant force and everyone would just kind of follow us. I realized not to be true that these guys stepped up, we, you know, they were there, they had my back every step of the way. We worked long days, seven days a week for months on end. We still took our espresso breaks, which is good as a break, but, but a lot of that's because I think we invested as a team on the relationship building that was important. So, so anyways, yeah, I, I learned a lot from that. It was a small thing I think initially I learned from a guy named Luigi Fazio, who was the Italian that kept trying to encourage me to go have espresso with him. And I, I could still picture him today and, and I try to make a, you know, a point now of finding those moments throughout your day to kind of slow down, talk with the folks you work with, talk about stuff other than work and, and really get to know them. And you, you build a trust and you build confidence. And, you know, I think you just develop a better climate and a better command as a result of that. And I think it's important. In that and coming back and in our individualized culture here in America, it took a moment for you to get used to that and have an understanding of why that was so important to them and their culture over there. Of course, you're going to come back to America, you're going to, and you're going to understand that tradition. What have you done to get others to understand and accept here in America? Yeah, I think, I mean, it is something I think that I've, I found I, I lead better when I take a break from my day to day and kind of find a way to, uh, to, you know, to build those relationships with my staff or folks I work with. I mean, as I went on through my career, the Navy is really big on softball as an example and every ship you're on has a softball team or sometimes a couple of softball teams. And you know, I played baseball as a kid and maybe it, you know, has some fundamental effect on how I wanted to lead someday. But, but I made a point of always joining the softball team on the ships I was on and really trying to promote it and make sure it was important because when you're on the field, the softball or soccer or football or basketball, whatever your sport may be, you know, you, you reduce some of the barriers, the natural barriers of, of rank in the military or position when you're not in a military, you're able to talk on a level that's more about sports in the field. I didn't, you know, I never let them call me sir or captain. It was always chopper in my call sign or Brett and, and they enjoyed that. But I, and I really did. I think, you know, I think there's, you know, the more you, as I say, the more you bleed on the field, the less you bleed in combat. I think that was someone way more famous and, you know, the most like Patton said that, but, but I think it's important. You spend the time on the field as an example, much like a coffee break. You break down those barriers, you remove the hierarchy, you get to know each other. And then the next day at work, you tend to be more social. You tend to feel like you know the person a little bit better and builds trust. And even now in my, I'm in a nonprofit now where we help focus on veterans that have veteran issues of homelessness or drug abuse and stuff. And, and I make a point once or twice a week, I grab a baseball glove. I go down on the courtyard, I'll find a veteran that's, you know, wants to throw the ball around. And we'll just play catch right there in the courtyard. And they really love it. And I'd love it too, one, because I like baseball, but it's a chance to kind of remove yourself from behind the computer or on the podium or, you know, behind a microphone as it were and kind of just relate one-on-one. So now, now I certainly still have my espresso, but I still try to play catch, you know, a couple of times a week as a, as a way to break down those barriers. And, and the fact of stuff you learn when you do that, the veteran clients that come up to me and talk about challenges they're having or ways we can make the organization, organization better. Those are just valuable insights that you might not get if you're just stuck in your office, you know, with the secretary in front of the desk and no one can ever access you. So sometimes it's about, I think as a leader, you have to force yourself to remove those barriers to become accessible and strive to do that. And on an aircraft carrier, you know, which is, again, you have all the hierarchy and stovepipes you'd expect in a large military organization, it meant you had to walk around, you know, if you weren't, couldn't play ball because you weren't in the port, you could walk around and talk to folks and, and try to be as, you know, as approachable as possible. Go have lunch or something with your sailor, sit down with them. And, and after they get over the shock, they'd love to talk and tell you what's going on. And you just have to kind of humble yourself and, and learn. And it's not, it's not really so certain. I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed learning about folks and understanding the people that made an aircraft carrier in that case work. And I always learned something, whether it was about them or about the ship, or I always came back with a better insight on how I could maybe lead better. So I think leaders have to make sure they're approachable, have to spend the time on the ball field or the espresso bar. And I think build those relationships to make you successful. I've certainly been in situations where the person who wanted to lead or thinks they are a leader, likes to sit up in their ivory tower, yelling and barking orders at everybody and, and stay there so that there is no retribution or no feedback. So they can rule from their, from their roost and not having to defend any of their situations. But being that leader, making time to connect with them to allow everyone to feel that we are on a team. And there is a reason that we need to be connected and to work towards their vision. It just allows everyone in that organization and to feel appreciated. Yeah. And there's certainly a time in the military. If you're in combat, you're not going to necessarily walk around the deck plates and ask people how they like the chow or where they want to pull in next for a port call. So there are those moments where you are up on the bridge, you're in combat, you're directing the ship or, you know, you're, you know, on the front line with a, with a team somewhere downrange, and then you've got enemy fire coming in. So those aren't obviously the moments to you need to worry about, I think that open communication about what's going on me or be focused on the work. But, but even then, I mean, to be a good leader, you have to be a good communicator. And to be a good communicator, you have to be willing to listen. It's a two-way straight. And even in those combat scenarios, you better be listening to your, your trusted advisors, and they better feel like they can approach you and say, you know what, Captain, you want to go this way, we actually think that's unsafe. We should go this direction or we should take that hill. I mean, you're going to be better for it. It'll be stronger as an organization, but obviously in combat stakes are different. It's still important to listen as much as ever. But obviously I can see where those are times where you're going to be probably more directive. You're also leverage in that trust you built from all those other moments when you weren't in combat and you were communicating. So they trust that you're going to do, you know, the right thing. I think it's important lesson for leaders, even in your career, you didn't spend 100% of it in combat. You get deployed, you come back, you get a chance to reintegrate and then maybe get deployed again. And in business, we're not constantly in combat. We don't have to treat every day like we're in combat and focus solely on the task at hand, taking the time to really get to know your team members, especially now in a work from home environment with COVID, where we seem to have less time for each other. Those little moments to bond, to connect actually make you stronger in the moments of combat and have more trust for one another in those moments when the stakes are really high. Yeah. I mean, and you probably only spend a like a small percentage of your time, like in the single digits or less, actually in combat and most in the military never do and most in business never have, you know, a combat type scenario. So I think you're right. You have to use the other 99% of your time to build that trust, put that trust in the bank and stuff, as they say. So when you have to, when you have to make those life or death decisions, they're going to trust you're going to do your best to make the right decision. They're not going to question you. But it takes time and I think you should lead, I think, with all that and the perspective, you have to know how to lead in combat, but I think you should also stand, you're not, you're rarely, if ever, in combat and most, most leaders aren't in combat throughout their entire career. You know, there's definitely life or death situations. There's definitely times you're making decisions that affect how you operate and there's always a high risk environment. So it's not saying you don't make important decisions, but, you know, truly in combat, we were talking about doing calculus on whether you're going to lose sailors or how many sailors you're going to lose. That's a rare occasion for for most leaders, obviously, which is good, which is what we want. We don't want to have to be making those kind of decisions. So that's not a bad thing. Now you mentioned the leadership training you received in the academy. I'm curious to hear that moment as a leader where the training wasn't enough and you had to trust your instincts and you had to really lean into this leadership role. I know for a lot of young leaders listening, there is this this gut check moment where the training, the MBA program, didn't cover that. We don't know what to do next, but we have to trust our instincts and make an important decision. What was that like for you? Can you paint a picture of the scenario and how you worked your way through that as a leader? Yeah, I mean, I think you go back to how do we train leaders, whether it's the Naval Academy or other leadership forums. There is obviously no, it's not it's not engineering, it's not a science, right? There is a science to it, but it's mostly, I would argue, tends to be more art than science. So it's like, how do you teach someone how to paint? And while one, you get them, you try to give them a broad experience and a broad foundation that focuses on maybe successful traits of other leaders. I used to like to read a lot of biographies about famous leaders. I love reading about Admiral Nimitz and how he grew up through the ranks and lessons he learned along the way. And so you're really just kind of building that base and then I think it's important as a leader to understand too what your strengths are. There are some folks that are more introverted than others and they might lead in a different style. There's others that love to be, they're great communicators and you put them in front of a crowd and they can get them to do anything they want. There's some that are very analytical and like the science and the math and there's some that are more intuitive and they tend to rely on understanding their advisors and making those kind of, and so, you know, there's no one path or one right way to be a leader and you have to stay true to what works for you. And so I think as you study other leaders and you study the fundamentals of leadership, that might not work for you. It might be something different. So I think that's important as you go along. You develop as a young leader, knowing you're going to have your own style. If you approach it that way, then when something happens, you're not necessarily trying to go to your playbook and try to look up the recipe for how to solve a problem because it's never going to be there, right? You're going to fall back on, okay, yeah, maybe you might think about, okay, maybe what would Nimitz have done in the situation? But more than likely, you've just kind of, you've developed a way to think over the years and how you approach problems and what your core fundamentals are. And that's generally where I found that, you know, when in doubt, you know, I defaulted to those types of decisions. So I think in my career, I learned early on that, you know, if you focus on your sailors, you focus on the people that you're leading, which I think is the number one fundamental of any kind of leadership role is you're taking care of your people. And if you take care of your people, then they're going to take care of everything else. But I found that, you know, if you, if you focus on that and you make sure when you make decisions, it stays true to that fundamental, you can really help drive the culture and you can really, I think, you know, build a superior organization. And I think countless times when faced with a decision on a carrier, whether I was the EXO or a modern CO, and I always try to default to, you know, all right, I'm making a policy decision here that'll affect the command. How will the sailors be impacted? You know, this isn't a give everybody ice cream, candy kind of thing. And, you know, that's not what that's not what your folks want. They want to be, you know, led given the resources they need and held accountable. But if you're making an arbitrary policy, because, you know, example B have, you know, one or two sailors getting trouble for something, right? They, they get in trouble because they came in after curfew. Well, you could, you could then make a decision to say that, okay, we're going to, we're not going to let anybody go out or we're going to make curfew even earlier. And then you, you have to kind of step back and go, well, I've had two sailors out of 500, 1,000, 5,000. Why would I make a policy that's going to impact, you know, thousands of people because, you know, I wanted this to zero defect mentality. So for me, it was, you know, I knew a core belief for me was as a leader, you're taking care of your people. Let's, let's think about how you're taking care of them. How, what would be the impact if I were to arbitrarily punish 5,000 or 2,000 or even just two people that work for me because of the, you know, one or two that made a mistake. And that, that kind of helped me, I think along the way. And I think with that, I built an effective organization. I was mindful of the impact of their time. I was mindful of the effect, you know, impact on our, our mission, you know, because it all kind of, it all relates together. I think, again, it's leadership is science and art. There's a lot of art and it's also very personal based on your own skill sets. And you have to always understand what your fundamental tenants are, you know, which again, I think personally, it's that as a leader, you're taking care of your people. And whatever scenario that is. You describing that involves a level of self-awareness. Where did you turn to? Did you have advisors? How did you develop that feel for your leadership style and your strengths and weaknesses? Well, again, I think you have to open yourself up a little bit because you're going to get feedback from no one, if you're not careful, or you're going to get feedback from everybody and you've got to, you know, understand how you filter through what's important and not, you know, you'll make decisions that are not going to be liked, no doubt. And you'll have to do your best to explain them, but at some point you'll have to kind of move on. But there's valuable feedback in that. And, you know, ideally if you've made a decision that is controversial and you get pushed back on it, if it's a surprise you're getting pushed back, then you probably didn't think long enough before that. You still might have made the same decision. It still might be the right decision. But ideally along the way, you've had advisors or you've opened yourself up to that feedback before that moment. And so we make decisions every day all day long from what you're going to wear to work to, you know, which way you're going to drive to work. And ideally we have feedback mechanisms in place that, you know, whether it's my wife that tells me whether I should wear what I'm wearing or not, or, you know, my app on how I get to work or at work, you know, feedback from the veteran clients who, you know, what we focus on at my nonprofit job right now. And you've got to make yourself approachable and you got to seek out, I think, that feedback. You've got to build a command where feedback is expected. Not just desired. And if you do that, I think you can really grow quickly. So as a leader, you know, not just within the organization but also as a leader, you've got to ask yourself, how, what are you doing to make sure you're getting feedback? Who you're surrounding yourself with. And I used to, you know, one of the things I talked about in the book a little bit, we had a saying that was, it's called NKR, Not Quite Right. And so I'd speak publicly or I'd speak in front of the large group. And at the end, I remind everybody, hey, you're all part of the same team. We're going out to do this mission. I need your feedback. You know, things are not quite right. NKR, I need you to let me know. So the point being for those that are falling along and know how to spell, you know, not quite right is NQR and NKR is not how you spell it. But you say it a couple of times and initially they're like, that's the captain of the ship. I'm not going to tell them that he's misspelling, not quite right. You know, maybe it's me. And that was true. I mean, first couple of times I did that. I didn't get any feedback. I kind of got it come smirks. And then like the third time I did, I had a sailor that stood up and said, hey, sir, you know, NKR is, you know, not the right way to abbreviate, not quite right, it's NQR. And I'm like, you're absolutely right. I use the moment, obviously, to compliment them and say, yep, that's exactly what I want. You know, you guys all have a valuable role on this team. I need your feedback. So that if I'm going the wrong direction, you gotta let me know. And you have to, when you get that feedback, even if it's wrong, even if someone tells you you're doing something wrong, or you're going the wrong direction, but you know, you know, you're right. You can't discourage it. You can't bite their head off. That feedback is so valuable, it almost trumps whether what they're telling you is right or wrong, because you want that environment where you're going to get that kind of feedback to allow you to kind of sharpen, give you that self-awareness, and really ultimately allow you to achieve your mission more effectively. I know as a leader, part of my understanding of that feedback, especially in those moments where you had to make the decision, you believe the decision's right, that feedback gives you an opportunity to understand where your team's coming from and where their gaps might be, or where there was a miscommunication. Maybe you weren't clear in what your description of that goal or the mission was. So even if that feedback is wrong in terms of what you should have done, it's still valuable to understand where that team member is coming from, where their head is, and how in the future you can lead more effectively that one team member or the group. Yeah, it's just that whole communication, going both ways thing. And you're absolutely right. I mean, you can't assume that everyone's going to understand you. Clearly, you can't assume you understand everything going on. It's impossible. A large ship, large squadron, large organization with hundreds or thousands of people. The reason you have that many people is because it takes that many people to get stuff done. And as a leader, you can't do it all. You can only do one person's worth of that. So you better understand where they're coming from, understand their challenges, and understand you might not know what their challenges are. And so you better have that feedback mechanism and your leadership style that allows for that. And I found that to be true all the time. I was always amazed. I'd put something out over our speaker system on the ship as an example. And I generally repeat myself every day. So if, hey, we're going to talk about our schedule, I tell the sailors what ship, what port we're going to go into. Hey, we're going to pull into Guam. And I tell them again the next day. And then I'd walk around the ship. And in my mind, I've done a good job of communicating. I took the time to come on the speaker system that was in every space on the ship. So all 5,000 people heard it, whether they wanted to or not. And then you walk around the deck plate or you're in the cafeteria, the galleries, we call it in the Navy. And you talk to a sailor and you're like, hey, you excited about pulling into Guam? And they look at you like, oh, I didn't know we were pulling in, sir. I'm like, in your mind, like, I just told you that twice, didn't I? But it's a good reminder that you really can't over communicate, I think. And it's not mean you have to say the same thing the same way every time, but there's less risk in over-communicating and there is an under-communicating. And to be effective, you communicate, you get feedback, you communicate again, and you kind of build that message. And with that, you build the culture, I think, that you're after. But yeah, I was always trying to be open and getting that feedback and making sure no matter how much I did or didn't want it, you took it with a smile on your face and you welcomed it and recognized it. The win, really, was they gave you the feedback. When we think about the military and its hierarchy and discipline being such a core tenant of it, that NQR almost flies in the face of what we think of the military, which is take the orders, listen to the command, it's not your time to question, just to enact accordingly. So how are you able to preach that with military training or doctrine that sometimes won't counter that, especially when you think about being in a situation on a boat together where you don't want to be speaking up in the wrong and then letting down 5,000 people on this city that's floating around the world? Obviously, as a leader, you're setting the example for the crew and you're building the culture and I think, particularly the military, a leader can have more influence on the culture and the success of mission than any other position. And that's true, certainly on the outside as well in the non-military roles. You have to accept, I think, and be confident enough to know you're not always going to be right as a leader. I think you also have to be comfortable and confident enough to demonstrate that. So I had my sons, one is already out of the military so he's a Navy veteran and the other son is in the military. It's sometimes interesting to see their perspective and hear them come home and talk about what they had to do for the day and the idea of what you do today. And he's like, well, we swept the courtyard all day in the rain. I'm like, why did you sweep in the rain? Well, I don't know. They wouldn't tell us. That's what we were told to do. Did you tell anybody? Oh, yeah, we told them. They just said, we had to do it, quit asking, quit asking. You know, this is your order. So I know it exists and I know that I can't expect that every leader out there is going to have the time or patience to explain it or communicate in a way that might instill a little more trust I guess and confidence. But as a leader, as you become more senior, it's incumbent upon you to demonstrate and exemplify what you expect from your other leaders beneath you. I knew as a CO, if I was short tempered and I yelled at people in public, man, I just gave permission to like 5,000 other people to do exactly that. So again, air on the side of kindness, air on the side of being patient, air on the side of accepting criticism publicly. Ideally, that's going to translate down the ranks, as it were. There's the trickle down effect. But I knew it wasn't perfect. I knew that you have to be patient too knowing you have leaders that are learning beneath you. You might be a division officer and have a chief working for you. So you're the officer in an organization. You have a chief petty officer, a senior enlisted that works for you that's given some of the day-to-day orders. And they might be a little more short tempered in their style and delivery. It doesn't mean you allow them to be toxic or yell at people, but you have to use the opportunity as well to mentor and develop your leaders. So whether that's set an example, if you're in a high enough position or sometimes it's just the mentoring day-to-day and pulling people aside and saying, hey, you know what? I know you think that's effective, but I got to tell you, I don't think you're going to, that's not an effective style. In fact, we'll lose people. And now that I'm in a non-military position, I see that even in the outside. And I think it surprised me a little bit at first when I see very senior people in the nonprofit world that tend to be short tempered and yell at people more than I ever, maybe I ever saw in the military. And then I kind of take a step back and go, the reality is they just haven't had the benefit of a lot of leadership training that I had throughout my career. They haven't had any good, maybe mentorship or feedback along the way. But it's absolutely something I have to address because otherwise, in this line of work, people can quit and leave. And in the military, you can't take for granted just because people can't just quit and walk off the ship, that you can take advantage of that. I think it's more incumbent to treat them with respect and communicate that way. Yeah, I found even in the nonprofit world, there's leadership challenges and development requirements to be effective. And I address some of that stuff more than I thought I would have to. But it's good. In the book you write about, I think your ultimate NKR moment, a very pivotal moment in your career with COVID striking and your old command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, can you walk us through that moment, your decision-making process, and how you dealt with the NKR? Yeah, and it ends up being towards the end of my career, maybe the culmination of all these things I learned through almost three decades of service. And we were in a spot like the rest of the world trying to figure out what COVID was all about, what was the risk, what's the impact. And so I found myself, I was the CEO of the Roosevelt. Like you said, it was March of 2020 through maybe a port call or through other means, we were exposed to COVID to where I had some sailors that came down with it. And remember, this is before vaccines, this is before we even had adequate testing available. The military was doing a good job of trying to react, but like the rest of the world, we were still trying to figure out what was going on and we were watching the stuff kind of starting to ravage. Parts of the world was in pretty high fatality rates for at-risk populations. Obviously on a ship, the things we know of now is terms like social distancing and quarantining are pretty hard to do. Viewers spent time on a Navy ship. In some cases, you have 200 people and a single birthing compartment. And everyone's an arms distance away. So there is no such thing as six feet of separation. It's impossible. So when we had COVID and we were, and we had already reported it and we pulled into Guam on the ship. So we had stopped our operations, we pulled into Guam. And it became obviously our number one priority, our ship's number one priority was, okay, how do we deal with this before the spreads? And we had watched other ships, other cruise ships, other cities across the country that were dealing with this and watching it spread very rapidly. And we were running our own analysis. You know, and I care you have an entire medical department. You've got doctors, you have lawyers, you have, we actually had a epidemiology team on board to help us analyze it at the time that happened to be on board because of what was going on in the world. So we were being very deliberate about our planning, certainly concerned enough as we watched it spread, trying to get sailors off the ship if they were positive, trying to quarantine those that were close contact. It's almost a fool's errand in that, you know, within like a couple of days, we had all been within close contact. There's no other way about it. And we were just running into resistance due to, I think, what we call sometimes the Foggle War, you know, the theory being that what happens on the frontline, by the time that information gets all the way to senior decision makers back in DC as an example, it's slow, it's cumbersome, and the information they have might not be accurate. We were faced with a little bit of that. We were seeing firsthand the impact. I was seeing the sailors that had it. We were tracking the numbers, and we were getting resistance, I think, for a variety of reasons. Some of it formed policy, some of it was trying to negotiate with Guam to get our sailors off into proper quarters. We knew, as we know now, the only thing we can do to really stop it is to quarantine folks and stop the spread. And we knew by stopping the spread of COVID that we could minimize the impact and the fatality rate. And we didn't know what it was. I mean, sailors are generally pretty healthy. But even 1% of 1,000 is 10 more, the numbers willing to sacrifice. And we knew our numbers were going to be close to 2,000 or so positive cases if we weren't careful. And that's about where we got. And eventually we do, unfortunately, lose one chief, Chief Thacker, who was one of our chiefs who succumbed to COVID. So through all of this, we were really pushing hard to get the sailors off the ship. We were trying to communicate that up the chain of command. I think everybody, and I say this in all honesty, I think everybody wanted what was best for the sailors on the ship. But I knew that no one wanted as much as I did, like no one spent every day side by side building that trust, that confidence with these sailors. So I knew that not only am I the ship and ultimately accountable for everything that happens on that ship, I knew that my number one job, like it had been throughout my career, was take care of your people, take care of your sailors. So for me, that was my focus. And in the end, we weren't getting the response we wanted. We were watching the numbers increase. We were watching the risk, therefore increase. And I ended up just sending a very pointed email after we had exactly that point exhausted all our other options to the leadership. And it was the people within my chain of command like, hey, I'll take full accountability for this, but at this point, all I care about is we have to remove these barriers. I have to get these sailors off the ship. I have to get them off the base, and I have to get them in proper quarters. And so I knew as well, I was rocking the boat a little bit because that was my NKR moment, that things were just not going right. And what we had had in place at the time, our normal decision-making process seemed a little bit slow and cumbersome. And some of that I own. I mean, part of me is how well I communicate up the chain as well as down the chain of my sailor. So I own some of that. But I knew that I needed a method and a way that I could quickly communicate to the powers that be. So I wrote the email to a very small number of folks in my chain of command and asked for the help, which sometimes is hard as a leader to ask for help because you're trained to be a Type A warrior to get stuff done. But I knew at that point I needed help. I couldn't remove the strategic barriers. I couldn't work the foreign policy aspect with Guam. And I sent the email on my NKR moment or Red Flare signal for help. And I got the help. I lost my job in the end result because I think as I rocked the boat, people were frustrated with how I handled it. But in the end, we got the help we needed or accelerated the help we were getting, I think is the other way to look at it. We got the sailors off the ship. We put them in hotels. We quarantined them. And then about six weeks later, they got back to sea. But they got back to sea without me because at that point I'd been fired by the acting secretary, the Navy, who was the one I think who was probably dealing with pressures that I can only imagine from the administration at the time. And I'm often asked, like, would you do it again? And I say, yeah. I mean, knowing what I knew at the time. Yeah, I'd like to think I'd do it again because it was fundamental to me. It goes back to what you had asked earlier. You know, there's no textbook for this. There's no script on how you handle a world pandemic or what you do when you feel like you're not getting the help you need. But I knew then I fell back on my core beliefs as a leader. It's about taking care of people. And I figure if I do that, I might hit high and I'll do all I can. Even if I get fired as a result, so be it. I'll get them the help they need. In the chain of command, if everyone has a lot of anxiety going on or everyone is worried or everyone wants a certain thing and you move to allow that to happen in order to fix something or to alleviate the pain or anxiety that everyone's feeling, only doing what you think is best in the moment with the information that you have. And then the possibility of learning after that, that that decision was wrong or it has caused more difficulty and anxiety than was induced. And then backtracking on that, that turn is going to take a lot of time. And if you don't have the trust in the staff, as you mentioned, we're pulling in the Guam. How are you guys excited about Guam today? What? We're pulling in the Guam? It's like... Yeah, I mean, and I fully recognize that it was chaotic, not just obviously off the ship but around the world and we were all trying to figure out how we handle it. I made it not just for my sailors, obviously. I thought in some regards, too, the blowback on the Navy, if we had lost 10 sailors to COVID would have been detrimental. And so in some ways, I was looking at the organization. But in the day as a leader, you're going to make the best decision you can, ideally for the right reasons. It might not be perfect and you might face heat for it. But if you're making it for the right reasons and you're making it for something you believe in, then I think you can stand by it. And in the end of the day, I lost a job that I love because I could... Again, any job where you can fly helicopters, fly fighters, drive the ship, be well taken care of, it's a tough job to believe, no matter whether you had it six months or six years. But at the end of the day, I mean, what's more important is that you stand up for what you believe in and you stand up for the core beliefs you had as a leader along the way. Otherwise, it's all for naught. If you suddenly turn your back on your beliefs to that point, well then, they weren't really pleased to begin with. You're just kind of bouncing around like a ping-pong ball. So there was no clear guidance. You're only making decisions without any sort of... Any fundamentals to stand on and then losing that job. It's like how many other different ways it could have been done, how you would have done it, how you would change things. If you stand on your principles, it's like, well, this is how I had to handle it. Due to the information I had, due to my training and if I had the same decision to make again, it's going to go down the same way and I can feel good about that. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And nothing's black and white. I think the more you find yourself in leadership positions, it's shades of gray at best. So there was no easy answer. I mean, I did at the time what I could. I got counsel from my peers and medical folks and everybody else. So I knew I wasn't just writing an email in a dark corner somewhere. I mean, I had people around me when I wrote and sent it. But again, I knew I could live with it. And I think it's unfortunate that it went down and the Navy got some blowback for the decisions they made. And I think it's... I want to follow up too because I think it's important for those that didn't follow the story after we moved on to other stuff. In the end, the Navy took pretty good care of me. I didn't get back in command. I didn't get the ship that I loved and was part of. But they gave me a good job. I kept flying fighters and helicopters. I lived in San Diego. And so I felt... I think that was kind of the epilogue of the story, so to speak, is that I... They didn't fire me. I mean, they fired me from that. They removed from the ship and the command. And that was unfortunate. And certainly that created a lot of the drama. But in the end of the day, I think, they understood why I made the decision. And some might have disagreed with it. That's okay. That's how it works. But I had a great job. I had a lot of responsibility. I had a big team I was working with and kept flying fighters and helicopters. And we tired two years after that. And with my boss and admirals and friends and family there. And the Navy, for us, like I said earlier, my son's were in the Navy and one still is. It's still like a family business for us. So I'm proud of the time on there. And I look back at this as a teaching moment for me, but also a lot of other people too on leadership. And particularly when you're that kind of crucible of a decision. Did you ever imagine that it could end in that fashion that they would fire you from command? I think I knew I was rocking the boat. I mean, to the point of when I hit send, one of those moments, if you write the email, I'm like, wow, this will be interesting to see how this plays out. I don't know that I, in all honesty, I didn't think I was going to be fired at the moment. I knew that I probably wasn't going to continue in my career trajectory and go on to make an admiral. I knew I would rock the boat enough that would probably mean the end. I would peek at that job and I'd retire after. So it definitely, if I underestimate anything, it was probably the political reaction. Because ultimately I was fired not by the Navy. I was fired by the acting secretary of the Navy. And again, that's how the military works too. We have civilians in charge for a reason. And he was empowered to do that, if that's what he felt was a requirement. And I don't, I might disagree with his decision, but I also understand that he's making his decision based on the influences at the time. Yeah, I think it's important perspective to have in mind because in that moment, this is something that you've preached to young leaders as a principle you live by, but then you're actually confronted with this exact moment in your career that has the potential to end in a way that could wipe that away from you. I think a lot of times it's easier said than done. It's easy to talk about these principles. It's hard to live these principles. And I think that example really crystallized it for me in the book, just how important it is, even understanding the stakes. Yeah, and I'm about to say it's just a job. I mean, it's a career, it's a profession. I dedicate my life to it. But at the end of the day, you're there to take care of people. You're there to be a leader. And the question becomes, is that what's more important? You know, there was a path I could have followed to minimize risk to my career. And that was just to kind of follow along and go with what I thought was a pretty slow, bureaucratic process. To what end though? Then I'd be, maybe I'd make an admiral or maybe I'd be a senior officer, you know, but maybe at that point, fundamentally would have gone against everything I'd believed up to that moment. And that might have been, you know, I would argue that's much harder to live with in ways than it is just to take a stand when you think it's important for the right reason and then deal with it. And reading the book upon flying jets and helicopters and the carrier, I was like, you got to play on all the best toys that we have. Yeah, it was a fun career. I mean, obviously ended with that one moment. But when I look back in total, I mean, I had no regrets. It was a phenomenal, the lucky to have served and do what I did with the people I did it with. One thing I'd like to touch on, obviously, talking about jets, helicopters, and captaining a ship, the complexity of what we're talking about here, right? These are complex decisions impacting up to 5,000 sailors. There's a lot that goes into it. And it's easy to overanalyze, overthink. And there's a cost to that overanalysis and overthinking. So how did you approach these really complex decisions and situations in a way where you could act on these principles that you have and not find yourself in decision anxiety and not being able to work your way through when necessary? Yeah, they say the enemy of good is great. And that if you're always trying to get the perfect decision and solution, then you'll miss all these other opportunities and probably spend the wrong amount of time trying to analyze. I mean, I think that is important. I think you need to have some foundation by which you make those decisions. As you get more experience, though, now you're relying on that experience and your intuition that you've developed over time as well. And I think that's why you don't take a young, supercharged lieutenant and put them in charge of aircraft carrier. They just don't have the same experience and arguably you'd set them up for failure because they don't even have that analytical ability. Over time, when you learn how to think as a leader, as you spend that time along the way, I think the data is important. I think you want to make most your decisions with some kind of data or information that still allows you to be founded. But you also have to trust your instincts. You have to trust your intuition. I think, to be honest, maybe as a pilot, as a helicopter or fighter pilot and combat missions, I think maybe that gives you a sense of confidence and an ability to know that you face things that are many times much more risky. And you've just had to rely on intuition and training. And that, I think, sometimes gives you the ability to then, when you're in those decisions, those bigger decisions that affect a large organization, make the right call. I mean, I find it even now, like we're faced with decisions as an organization and we're just totally over-analyzed. In my mind, I'm thinking, no one's going to die from this. We get this wrong. Or no one's going to care if we pick the wrong menu item for Sunday brunches or something. So in those cases, it's like, I don't want to spend my time making these kind of decisions. I want to think about the big decisions. And I feel comfortable enough to be intuitive about what the right things are to do. But when you get to those, that's where I think the TR decision with COVID was, it was a decision that it was going to impact 5,000 people or more. There was a lot of data, but it wasn't a perfect amount of data. I definitely had to rely on a little bit of intuition and the advice of all the team, the team I'd build around me. The docs and the analysts. And then you make your best call you can. And you just kind of have to, if there's a chance to make the decision and then adjust fire, if it's a decision that's reversible, then you can make a decision and you can always go back. And so that was a big one. I think in general though, I mean oftentimes in society and even in military, we tend to want to make decisions as if they're all irreversible. And there's a whole theory on type one versus type two decisions. Not all decisions are irreversible. Now, if you're in combat dropping a bomb, that becomes pretty irreversible. Once you push, you know, you pickle and you drop the bomb off your airplane. In most cases. So in general though, when you're making decisions in staff or you're making decisions on where the ship's going to go, they're not irreversible. You have the ability to get a lot of advice, but you also don't need to spend 100% of your time to get that perfect, great solution. It's probably 80% is probably good enough because you want to spend your time on those other irreversible decisions when they come up. And that is a tough... Again, I go back to what we said at the beginning. I mean, we're overwhelmed with information these days. We have so many analytical tools and database managers and stuff, and it becomes hard. If you're trying to always make that perfect decision, you might never make a decision. Or when you finally do, you've ignored three or four of the things that needed your attention. And as a leader, we vote with our time, and I think you have to know how to prioritize. So when you use the data that's available, use the intuition you have, seek advice and counsel. But again, this is where I mean, the decision-making as a leader is one of the most important things you do. You make decisions. And how you do that relies on all the things we've talked about today. Trust, relationships, feedback, data, your core moral principles. And ideally, you know, you get it right. You won't always get it right. But I think if you understand and prioritize and you understand what it takes to make a decision, you'll do okay. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and your NKR moment with us. We love asking every guest what their X factor is. What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary? I've learned at an early age just, you know, that no one's better than anybody else. I think that I approach every relationship like I've got something to learn, more than I have something to give. And I think that allows me to approach relationships, whether it's espresso in Italy or, you know, sailors on the ship or even veteran clients that I have in the shelter I work with now where they're coming off the street. You know, it's very easy to look at somebody who's been living on the street for months on end and get them into shelter and think that they have nothing to teach you. But I think you'd be surprised there's a lot to learn from everybody. So I try to approach every relationship as if I got something to learn. I hope I can give something back. But in the end, I think everybody has something to share. And that's kind of in my strategy. I don't think it's unique. I think probably there's others that do that as well. But so that and I'm a very mediocre surfer. So that's, you know, I've got a lot to learn there too, despite the title of the book. Well, hopefully you have more time to surf now. Yes. Some days I wish I had more, but I'd surf when I can and make the most of it. Well, thank you for sharing these lessons and learnings with us and our audience. Where can they find out more about the book and the work that you do with your veteran charity? Yeah, if you go to surfwhenucan.com, the book's released June 13th. You can buy it from the website or you can go to Barnes and No-Mole on Amazon. And if you go to that website, I've got a link to non-profit causes that are important to me, whether it's Veterans Village of San Diego where I work now or others, I think that are a way to give back to those in need. So yeah, I encourage you to check it out and find what motivates you. And if you like the book, let me know. But hopefully you guys enjoy it. We did. Thank you so much, Brad. This was awesome. All right, guys. Thanks a lot.