#35 Dr. Gene Coughlin - CEO & Founder of Resilience-Building Leader Program

Dr. Gene Coughlin is the Founder and CEO of Resilience-Building Leader Program. As the CEO, he is responsible for establishing and promoting the vision, purpose, mission, and core values of the company. He has dedicated himself to creating a worldwide community of practice committed to Building and Leading Resilient Teams. Dr. Coughlin earned his Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

👉🏽How to Contact Him:
-Website: RBLP.com/
-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rblp/
-Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/ResilienceBuildingLeaderProgram
-Twitter: https://twitter.com/RBLPnews 

🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.

👉🏽Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/talesofleadership

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader. What I like to call how. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership. Welcome back to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Josh McMillian, an active duty Army officer and founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching. And I'm on a mission to create better leaders, what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader or a pal. And my vision is clear. I want to end toxic leadership practices in both the military and the civilian workforce by impacting one million lives in the next 10 years by sharing transformational stories and skills. Well, today's episode, we are going to be interviewing a transformational leader, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Gene Coughlin. He is a veteran of the Marine Corps with over 20 years of service and the founder and CEO of Resilience Building Leader Program. As the CEO, he is responsible for establishing and promoting the company's vision, purpose, mission, and core values. He has dedicated himself to creating a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. Dr.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Coughlin has earned his PhD in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University, and he is a purposeful, accountable leader. Let's go ahead and bring him on to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. Dr. Gene, welcome to the Tells a Leadership Podcast, brother. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:38

I'm doing good. Listen, I was just jamming out to your uh to your music there. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, I always play it one um because it just it kind of recenters me before we dive into a topic, you know, which is passionate about me is leadership. So it kind of just gets me mentally ready to go.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Yeah, very good. You win uh best best podcast uh music of the year.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

So that's good. I'll take that. So I think the first thing to start off with uh for our listeners is just provide an overview of who you are.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Uh so I'm Dr. Gene Coglin. I'm the uh founder and current uh CEO of the Resilience Building Leader uh program. We are a leadership certification agency. Um we uh certify people in building and leading resilient teams. And uh it's called the Resilience Building Leadership Professional series of certifications. And so I'm the I founded that back in 2018 and uh have been running it uh ever since. Before that, I was uh way back in the day, I was in the Marines. Uh I retired uh from uh the Marines about 16 16 years ago. Ironically, also about 16 pounds ago. Uh I don't know if there's a correlation there. I'm not looking forward to being retired for 30 years, I don't suppose if I keep that up. But uh yeah, 16, about 16 years ago, uh 200 uh seven, uh I retired. Uh and then after that went to work. Uh, like a lot of folks do, uh, the kind of you know, Marine Officer Employment Program. I went to work for a defense contractor uh for a couple of years. Then I went back to school to earn my doctorate in uh education, organizational leadership at uh Pepperdine University, and uh worked for the Red Cross uh out here in Southern California, running some programs for them. And then uh the last thing I did before I founded RBLP is I worked for a big uh company called AECOM. It's a Fortune 100 or 200 uh infrastructure development uh company. So they build large buildings and airports and uh football stadiums and things like that all over the world. So I worked at their global headquarters here in here in Los Angeles doing some change management uh work for them.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

So you spent 20 years in the Marine Corps, right? Um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

That's that's kind of a quitter, you know? Uh just 20. Uh yeah, did 20 and and uh and then and then got out. Yep, sure did. I was a uh I was enlisted uh for 14 years and then I became a uh chief warrant officer for the last uh the last six years. I was an infantry weapons officer uh in the Marine. So that's a um an infantry weapons officer is uh an expert on the uh tactical employment uh of of weapons, uh all of the weapons that you find in an infantry battalion. So everything from pistols up to uh machine guns and mortars and tow missiles and things like that. It seems like seems like a lifetime ago I can barely I can barely remember any of uh any of that any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

But um Yeah, if you if you would ask me like what's the minimum uh effective range of like an M4 or 240 or hey, what charge one of a 60 millimeter more? I used to be able to round like just read those off the top of my head, but now it's it's gone. I gotta uh need to make more room in my brain.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Yeah, I don't uh I d really don't remember much of that uh uh much of that at all. But it was good times. Uh you know, those were formative years during uh that time taught me a lot about uh training, taught me a lot about leadership uh during that during that time period, and then I refined that with uh a lot of work in the civilian sector after I left uh left active duty.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

And I think that that's a beautiful place to start because to kind of get to where you are right now, there's a journey that that led you to that. And that's where I really would love to start. Where where do you see your leadership journey starting? It was that in the Marine Corps.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

I actually entered uh joined the Marine Corps kind of late. I was 23 when I went to when I went to boot camp. Uh so I had worked uh you know a couple of jobs um before I before I entered uh entered the Marine Corps. Uh so I saw some good and some bad leadership in those jobs uh before my military service. But I would say certainly uh my time in the Marine Corps is what got me interested in this this idea of building and leading resilient teams, which is what I I did some uh initial research on when I was at Pepperdine. And then when I founded RBLP, uh that sort of served as the impetus to do uh some more job task analysis, what we call role delineation stuff uh in the certification world. Um so but the my time in a service certainly is what introduced me to the idea of that uh teams of people could be resilient. Individuals, of course, are resilient, teams of people can be resilient, and organizations themselves uh can also be resilient, meaning that they can overcome adversity, adapt, and grow together because of that adversity. So the idea of uh, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger than that when you were a kid, and that is literally uh little true. You uh go through you know, you you go through a tough time, go through some adversity by yourself or with a team in a work environment. Uh, and uh as you overcome that adversity, uh you learn uh sometimes the hard way. Uh you learn from uh what works, what doesn't work, you learn from mistakes, and you bounce back uh from the adversity to get through it, and then you you come out stronger on the other end. You adapt and grow uh as a result. So anybody that's played team sports kind of knows that, you know. If you've been on a if you played football or baseball or anything and had some tough times as a team, uh you learn uh from those tough times, you you practice, you get better, and you come back uh stronger for going through that experience.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, I I I think one of the fundamental truths of of building resilient teams, that at least that I've learned in the military, is going through crucible events. And I think the being in acquisitions now as an acquisition officer and being an infantry officer in a kind of prior service in the National Guard before that in the military, it's it's seems like we we chase adversity. I had a battalion commander once tell me when I was at a brigade live fire that leaders are placed in friction points. Like you should be where friction is happening so you can help your team kind of get through those. But I think crucible events is what creates organizations, teams, sports, whatever it is, it doesn't matter, but makes them great. I think that's the thing that separates an ordinary, as John Maxwell likes to say, from an extraordinary. And it's that just a little bit extra going through those crucible events and like how you said it, and I love that. Overcome, adapt, and grow. It's simple.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Yeah, I absolutely believe that's uh true. Uh adversity uh can be a blessing. Uh adversity uh can be can be learned from. So it's a you know, part of building and leading resilient teams is reframing uh the thought process around uh the tough times like you just did. Uh it's it's looking uh at adversity uh as an opportunity uh to overcome, adapt, and grow, an opportunity uh to get better. If you're on a sports team, um you know you look forward uh to facing some tough teams early in the season. Uh you want to do that because you want to you want to be tested. Uh you want to figure out what works and and you want to learn learn from that so that you can get better uh as you head into uh the rest of uh the rest of the season. So uh tough times are something to, you know, in in your personal life, in your work life, that's what our uh training and certifications are about, uh, workplace uh adversity. Um it's looking forward, taking advantage of uh uh those opportunities to grow, get better, become more uh competitive uh as an organization, as a team over time.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, you while you were in the Marine Corps, I'm curious what were some of the challenges that you had to face, some of those ad adversaries that you had to face, struggles that you've had to face, and and how did you overcome those, especially as a team?

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah, so I mean I have several uh combat deployments uh during that during that time. That was uh my unit. I was with Third Battalion, 4th Marines.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Uh during the march to Baghdad. So that was uh that that was uh 3-4 was the unit that ended up getting into Baghdad to Firdrow Square. We pulled down the the statue uh of Saddam Hussein. Of course, I that got a lot of uh that got a lot of uh attention. We didn't realize at the time what a you know what the the impact that that that would have. Um certainly a lot of adversity uh during the march to Baghdad. I we were back less than a year later, uh in Third Battalion, Fourth Marines fought in in what we call Fallujah Part 1, uh April of 2004. So certainly those combat experiences were you know fraught with plenty uh of adversity. And you get you get to you get through that uh with a team. I you know, I tell people all the time that you you cannot reach your full potential, your true potential by yourself. You you do that together with a team. True in sports, true in business, true in family, uh true in all aspects of of life, that you reach your full potential together uh with a team, because it's with a team that you go through those times that steal you, that make you harder, and and uh you know the idea of iron sharpens iron. This idea that you get uh better and tougher over time uh is is is certainly true. And it the research that we did, it's you know, you mentioned going to the point of friction, the research that we did, we ended up with a leader task that came out of that that job task analysis that we had we called uh being there when the going gets tough. Uh it's the best, it was the best descriptor of of the task as was described. When you do this kind of research, you talk to people about what they're doing in the in the real world. Uh it's uh irrelevant what's being taught anywhere. You talk to people that are doing a job in the workplace, and you say, What it what are you doing to build and lead resilient teams? What leader actions are you taking? What leader actions have you seen others uh take that were successful? And what came back was this idea of being there when the going gets tough, which translates into in the military of going to the point of uh friction, uh not to micromanage uh but to uh to be there uh sometimes just emotionally, mentally. You know, you get there physically and and you don't necessarily take over, but oftentimes when folks uh see a leader at the point of friction, it it uh gives them a little bit of calm or uh the the th the idea that they've got some backup there, that they're not in it, uh they're not in it alone. That's also, by the way, a great time to observe your team uh is to be there when the when the pressure's on so that you can see uh how well they're how well they're performing.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

That's a great point. Um I went to that Proverbs and I looked it up while you were talking because it was on the tip of my tongue and I couldn't find it. But Proverbs 27, 17, iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. So I I love that. And I usually have that memorized, but I uh but I could not find it. And it's so true is that when when you're surrounding yourself with uh with a team or another person, at the end of the day, what are they doing for you? They're holding you accountable uh to what your responsibilities are as a leader, because I think that comes first, the responsibilities. We all have a duty, title, or position, um, things that we must do, but when we don't do those things, then after the fact we have to be held accountable. And if you surround yourself with those winners, those people on the team that want to push you, they're going to just naturally make you better. And and you kind of just how you said it again go into the point of friction. Um, I love that.

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So kind of moving forward with you transitioning out of the Marine Corps, what was some of the biggest challenges that you've had to run through? Because I've had a lot of people on here that are getting out of the military, and probably a lot of people that listen to this podcast are are in the military, and at the end of the day, one day we're going to hang up our uniform. And I know that's a very challenging and a stressful time for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Right. There's a difference. Um, I think we all sort of know it intuitively that that you know, if you're talking in terms of of leadership, most people consider uh they look to military service members and they know that uh that they that leadership's a big deal, that they've had responsibility for uh if they were in for any length of time, that they were in charge of other people, and sometimes in some you know really uh tough situations. And so, but there is you know leadership, there's a difference, I would say. Um and it doesn't really matter whether you know we agree with whether military people agree with it or not, but I would say there's a perception in the general population. Remember, you know, in what I don't know, what is it, 98 or 97, some percent, some huge percent of people have never have never been in in the military. And uh so they're they're really unfamiliar uh for the most part uh of what what a lot of people do uh day to day or their responsibilities, uh leadership responsibilities, responsibilities for others. And I think they you know they're they're shaped a lot by what they see on on TV. Yeah. You know, you know, I I was in the Marines, you know, so all Marines are, you know, kind of crazy and crayon eaters.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

I'm the infantry, so we're that close. We're we're we're brothers.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Yeah, so um, but you know, that so there are there are some there are some differences, and the challenge for for military folks when they get out is to adapt uh their leadership style, the vernacular that they use, uh the um, you know, methods uh to a degree, temperament, their um, you know, uh emotional intelligence uh, if you will, to uh to the new environment. No, there's not very many uh civilian employers that are looking for uh someone ex-military, former military, to come in and and act like like they're still in the military. Now, and I'm I'm not saying that any of that is right, wrong, or indifferent. I'm just telling you, I I that's that's my perception. I've been out a while, talked to a lot of people, uh and that have hired a lot of people, of course. And and I I can tell you a personal story of my own. Uh I I was um well, I was at AECOM, the company that I I worked for here in uh Los Angeles. I was actually told by some folks that were helping me get into that company. And I was gonna be working on the the C-suite, I wasn't a C-suite guy, but I my office was on that floor at the global headquarters in in Century City in Los Angeles here. And uh the advice I was given was to not uh don't overplay the retired military guy. No uh the combat tours, the you know, decorations, uh, you know, all of that. Don't you know it's not you know, he they actually he actually told me, listen, folks just aren't uh really impressed with that, uh per se. And and in fact it could be a bit intimidating. It's kind of the unknown. Is this you know this guy gonna blow up one day in the in the in the office here, you know, if he was just you know in combat a decade ago, um you know what's is is he okay? Is it you know what's it gonna be like? We don't want this to this is not the Marines.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Uh so there so there's a there's there's um it's you know, and military folks have to play by the rules of the new game, and so you have to adapt, I think, the styles, bit vernacular. For military folks that earn our certification as they transition, we think that that helps the feedback we're getting, it is is that it does help because we introduce terms that they may not have been familiar with, like psychological safety and constructive dialogue and mental models and and these you know these types of things. That they're th they're they're concepts that they are aware of. They didn't may not be familiar with those those names, uh, or the idea of organizational learning, the relationship between learning and change, the experiential learning cycle that that uh teams go through, how we how we learn from our experience. They they know all these things uh because they've been doing them, but they may not have known the the terms uh to put uh put to them. So there's definitely some challenges. Uh, I mean, there if there weren't challenges with military folks transitioning, there wouldn't be so many uh agencies and nonprofits, and I mean there's a proliferation of of of these uh people doing great work, uh, but that you know, it's a you know, the the the market is what created the need for all of that assistance to help people uh transition.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

So I love that advice is being able to adapt your leadership to kind of the season of life that you're in. And I've had a blessing just from my side of transitioning from the infantry into acquisitions and not just an any acquisition job getting put into kind of PEO aviation, so working with like aviators and civilians from that sector. And it's funny that the perception that I have working with civilians now is that coming in with a ranger tab and my CIB and airborne wings and all those things, that I'm gonna be a totally different person. But one of the beauties and going through the training that you've created right now, too, is something that stuck out me today when I was going through that is being vulnerable and authentic. Um, and that's in the first model that we're kind of going through. And that in an essence is me. Uh, because at the core of my leadership philosophy, J.R. Flatter kind of helped me go through um a coaching course, and he talks about building your house of leadership. Well, my house is built on meekness, and I call it hugs, which gets even cheesier, right? So humility, understanding, gratitude, and and having a servant heart. Those are the the four main characteristics that I try to go in every job I have, and it served me well because I can do a well in a very alpha driven organization if I need to be that guy, but I also can be empathetic, I can listen, I can be vulnerable to others. And that's the key, sir. You just said it is being able to adapt your leadership. And it took me a very long time to realize that your leadership style is not universal to every job. It has to change, um, like like the willow tree in the wind, where where the wind takes you, you have to be able to maneuver.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Yeah, I would agree. It's uh it's incumbent upon the service member to to make the adjustments required to fit in. I mean, that's really what we're doing. It's a cultural shift, and uh you have to put in the work to fit in uh to the new environment. Whether you think that's fair or not, yeah, it doesn't really matter. Uh, but the fact is that you know that what I don't know what the number is, it's a pretty large number. It's like 98, what is it, 3% of the uh 2 or 3% will serve in the military?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

So I've heard 1% joins the military, but even 1% from them do combat arms.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah, so it's it's a cultural change uh that people have. I you know, it's not easy either. I'm sure I'm guilty of still uh trying to make that adjustment from from time to time. Um, you know, I I run my own show now, so I've got uh a lot more, yeah, I've got a lot a lot more latitude to screw up, is what I love that, yeah. Quite frankly. So uh but I've got a pretty good team around me that keeps me uh keeps me in check uh for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

But uh there's a cer a couple words that I'm not allowed to use in acquisitions because it has a very negative side, like kill, for example. So if I end if I end a program or I transition a program, I've been uh forbidden from saying the word kill. Uh so it's like okay, I I will not use I will not use that word.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Yeah, we do, you know, in the military, it's uh you know it's okay to fat shame somebody in the military. Yeah. Hey, you know, you there's height and weight standards, and you know, it's you would, you know, somebody may say, Listen, you you look like you're getting you know pretty fat to me. You look terrible in that uniform.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

And uh that is not something you can oh absolutely not. That's not something you say in the in the in the civilian world. So it it's it's very different. Uh it's you know, it's culturally different, and it's just a process of adapting. Anyone that's you know fought in a war overseas, and uh, you know, the cultural challenge that you face when you're immersed in an in another, you know, say the Middle East, uh, I mean, it's a different type of uh it's it's different. Yeah, that's it's not quite that drastic, a military person going in the civilian world, of course, but it it it is different. You just have to recognize that there's some there's some new tricks to learn. And there are a lot of people out there uh I see on online, particularly on LinkedIn, that are helping service members with that transition. I see a lot of really good advice uh being given out there. I see a lot of people uh giving of their time to help folks with the transition, folks that have kind of been there and and done that, made that uh transition, helping other folks out. So it's really good to it's really good to uh to see that.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah, I think it goes back to to the point of being at the point of friction. So kind of being our our brother's keeper is that when someone transitions um out of the military, it's a very difficult time. And and I've seen soldiers take the dark path, and and I've seen soldiers take the path of light. And uh that's one of the reasons that I've done all this is that I'm trying to to inject more light in in into this world.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

And it's funny I think you're doing a pretty good job.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I wanted to provide some context too for our listeners. Um, where you said like you could literally call someone fat in the military uh under UCMJ, you know uh uniform code of military justice. I can hold soldiers accountable and literally kick them out of the military if they don't meet a certain standard. And that standard is important because I've seen it in combat. If you're overweight or out of shape, you become a detriment to your organization. Um, and and it will get people killed, uh at least from the world we come from. So it's a totally different, totally different mindset. Right. So kind of continuing on, sir, this is where I would love to kind of hear when did your spark happen the moment that you become deeply per uh passionate and purposeful on the path that you're today? So you get out of the military and then you go work a civilian job. When did it dawn on you that hey, I can help bring change in in organizations by building more resilient leaders?

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Yeah, I think um certainly during uh the first uh uh 10 years that I was out of the military, I what I was observing uh in uh government uh uh government contracting, which is almost like being in government still, uh large nonprofit like the Red Cross, a large uh fortune, whatever, one or two hundred, like AECOM. Uh is I I noticed that that the level I didn't see the level of teamwork um that I I had witnessed had seen in the in the in the military. And I also saw that that teams I like to say that the best measure of a team is how well it performs under pressure. Um some teams fall apart and and that's okay. I mean, you know, and and that's sometimes you have to reconstitute a team uh to keep going uh forward, you know. Um I'm I'm a baseball fan. That the Dodgers are not gonna get into the playoffs with the same roster they had a couple of days ago at the season opener. Some some people will be let go, some people will go down to the minors, some will get injured. Um stuff happens, right? And so the same team isn't gonna move forward. But I I noticed that when teams were operating under pressure that they they weren't nearly as as cohesive as some of the teams I had I had seen. And anybody that plays a lot of sports or really likes sports, probably even without being in the military, you may you know may have witnessed some of the same things. We all remember teams that we worked on that were you know really kind of tight and cohesive, uh very good climate. Everybody felt a sense of uh purpose uh for what they were doing. And so when I got to the point where I decided to get a doctorate in education at Pepperdine, I determined that that was the topic that I wanted to study. I wanted to do research on this idea of collective resilience, the idea that teams can be collectively uh resilient, that that uh they can you know get knocked down and then bounce back together and adapt and and and overcome and get stronger. And so that that's I would say that's uh when I really started looking at that from a academic scientific research uh point of view, and I began to see uh evidence that validated sort of my gut instinct on on some of these things, that other people had done uh some research in that regard. And then um through my my program at Pepperdine, uh the process of of researching and writing a dissertation, that's what I uh that's what I took a look at. And that that's what really that got me interested in it. And then when I founded RBLP, uh we sort of took that idea uh to the next level. We couldn't use uh what I had done. Uh we needed to start new research, uh, but we got a lot of the same uh some of the same results uh generally, generally speaking. Um and that so that's I'd say that's when the when the light uh when the light uh came on uh for me. And then the the other thing too was I noticed the reason I founded RBLP is I was I was familiar with certification programs like certifications in project management and human resources management, IT, a lot of different IT certifications uh through Microsoft or Oracle or Amazon Web Services, what have you. But there wasn't a certification that sort of validated uh assessed uh uh a brilliance at the basics uh of leadership. And uh so I determined to uh, you know, that that job task analysis and role delineation that we did was for the purpose of uh eventually uh determining specific leader tasks. We ended up with 29 leader tasks across five competency domains, and we mapped them to three levels of leadership frontline supervisors, middle managers, and senior leaders, depending on when you first got a lot of exposure to that particular task. And um and I saw this gap in the in the in the marketplace that there was you know you could assess that somebody had basic project management skills and uh through a certification exam. You could assess that somebody had basic uh HR skills, but there was no basic certification exam uh for leadership, those things that we you know traditionally called uh soft skills. Yeah. And um and part of that was because part of that was because it is difficult to assess them, which is why we had to develop an oral exam. Uh we discovered through the through this process that that assessing uh those skills on a written sort of truefal multiple choice test was simply not possible, that that leadership knowledge was too uh experience-based, too contextualized, what we call tacit. Uh it's another term we introduce people to in the training program and the certification exam. So explicit knowledge can be uh recorded, uh, you know, written down easily, maybe not easily, but it could be uh transferred in writing. Tacit knowledge is in your head, it's very contextualized. It's uh it's when you say to somebody, well, no, hold on, let me let me explain this. Let me tell you what this really means. Uh that's that that's tacit knowledge uh coming out. And so we determined that the best way to do the assessment, to to do the certification exam was through an oral exam. And that's what we developed and validated, and we've done thousands of them. Uh now we're very good at it.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Team, I want to take a quick break from this episode and personally invite you to join our tribe.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

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SPEAKER_00 33:38

You can find the link in the show notes to either join the Facebook or LinkedIn group or simply just search purposeful accountable. Back to the podcast. So there's um a resource that I want to share with everyone uh that that has helped me go through or going through the program that you developed. It's the Army Credentialing Program. And this is something that I wish I would I wish I would have known when I was a rifle company commander or an HHC company commander, because that's when you learn all these resources when you're not actually leading soldiers anymore. But the army will give you uh four thousand dollars a year, no strings attached, no adsos, to go seek better um credentialing programs. And one of those is the R RBLP program, and you can go through that, get the accreditation, and become become a better leader. And and I wish that that resource I would have I genuinely wish I would have known that before. But it's funny when you said soft skills. I my 06 that I'm sitting in uh working for right now in um uncrewed aircraft systems, asked me this question. Came in, Josh, like, who are you? All this stuff, and she and she looked at me, she's like, Josh, what is your soft skills? And I'm thinking, like, as an infantry officer, it's like I'm not soft, I don't know what you're talking about. I had I had no idea what she meant by soft skills, and is talking about like trend translating or crossing the bridge between civilian and military. In my mind, I still have not made that. So that's what really drew me to your program, is that what what what are my my soft skills and and really thinking thinking on those because that that's the key to I think uh illumination is sitting down and reflecting, and I love now how you've explained it that leadership is it's not it's not inherently a set definition. It's a can it's a definition that we learn through our own experiences and the wisdom that we pulled through that. And it's really hard to take a test on those things, but it's much easier if someone has that experience to contextualize it exactly what you just said, tacit information. Like I can't put that on paper, but I can tell you, tell you what it is.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Yeah, and what we what we found out uh through the job task analysis is that there are certain leader tasks that fit into competency domains that are universal. So, in the same way that you know, project management, for example, the project management professional uh certification, which is a great one. Uh, we're complementary to that. I would I would recommend uh all project managers also uh earn our certification as well. They're complementary. Um, but the project management certification is you know, it's a brilliance at the basics. And and then from that, it's it's applicable to project management in healthcare, project management in in the military, project management in IT and retail and manufacturing. Um, because there are certain things that are fundamental to that, to the managing of projects. And that's what they did at the Project Management Institute. They did uh role delineation studies where they determined across a wide uh swath of different types of organizations what are the what are the basics of project management that everybody needs to know that they can then build uh build on. And that that's what we did. We found out that there are certain leader tasks that are are universal. So you mentioned earlier going to the point of friction, which came out of our uh study as as we call it a bean there when the going gets tough, uh, because that's the best we could get. That's what that's what it came through as. And uh even though nobody may teach a class in that, it doesn't matter. It's it's that's that's that's an actual task that that leaders do in a variety uh of industries. It's not unique uh to the military. Uh manufacturing leaders uh need to be there. I was w working with somebody once, they were in healthcare, and I said, uh, and they they helped process uh Medicare uh claims and and help people get Medicare, uh health care covered by Medicare. And and uh I asked her, um she was a director at this company, and I asked her what you know being there when the going after she had done the uh the the readings and had done her reflection questions, so she came in prepared to talk about what what when does she there? What's going when the go when is it that the going gets tough in her world? And in her world, it was around um inspection time. The government apparently inspects these companies that administer Medicare health plans, and that, and that, you know, I don't know if that happened once or twice a year, but in the month or so leading up to that was the tough time. Uh so she said, you know, that's not when I go on vacation. That's not when I take time off. That's when my my spouse knows that that I'm gonna be working a few late nights because a lot of my folks are gonna be working late, trying to dot all the I's and cross all the T's and make sure that we're ready uh for this inspection. And oftentimes I'm really of no help to them uh as they're working these extra hours, except to be there uh for support, uh to go get the pizzas. Uh or to I would use that, she would use that opportunity to get to know people uh a bit better. So that's you know, another leader task is enforce accountability. That's of course universal. At the middle manager level, encouraging constructive dialogue, universal across all industries, building new mental models, again, uh universal at the senior leader level, promoting a shared vision. That's uh not unique to any one industry, it's applicable to uh to all. So this I you know the idea of being uh brilliant at the basics um so that companies, uh organizations can then build uh on top of that the same way they do with these other certifications is is what we were going for.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

I I love the the shared vision one. Um because I all of those tough times, forced accountability, uh kind of constructive candor, how I kind of put it in a shared vision, are all things that I've been able to replicate. And this is another reason that I love being in the military, because it it it tests me every single time. I've been in for 16 years now, and now I'm at that tipping point where I'm a field grade officer. But before that, every single job I was only in for a year at a time, so I had to rapidly learn, I had to get results, and then I moved to something else, and then just it's a uh it's a it's a model, and I I've learned an actual model of what makes me successful in those jobs, and now it's just me replicating them. But one of the things that you said shared vision, and I was um interviewing David Petraeus a couple days ago, and a vision is all about having an idea at a strategic level, um, and then being able to communicate that idea orally and writtenly, being able to have people see it in their head. Where are we going? And then start executing that. So now you're getting their heart aligned and their hands in and they're doing the work and then refining, and that's the the beauty about it's just a loop.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Yeah, when leaders, uh subordinate leaders throughout an organization understand where you're going as an organization, it allows them to make better decisions. I'll give you an example. We had I was working with someone one time that they're uh they were an East Coast organization. They had uh the vision was to expand to the West Coast, open West Coast offices uh in the in the you know two to three, four-year uh future. This person was negotiating a contract for a supplier, and they had options. One of the the supplier that seemed to be the best fit had particular expertise on the East Coast. In fact, that you could characterize them as being an East Coast supplier. One of the others that were in the running for this contract, who didn't seem as qualified on the East Coast, but also had a West Coast operation. And so this particular leader in assessing which contract, uh who they were going to award this contract, because they were aware that in the future the boss's plan was to get to the the West Coast, they realized that if they'd have limited themselves to this, you know, supplier that had was very good on the on the East Coast, the number one on the East Coast, that they would have limited their ability. That supplier couldn't have grown with them uh to the West Coast when they when they needed it. So he was able to use his judgment based on having a good understanding of the shared vision. The vision was shared. Everyone understood. Uh any everyone that was listening understood what the future was going to look like in three or four years. And he was making decisions in the present day that would support uh that that vision. And that can be, I mean, that to put a dollar figure on that type of uh situational awareness uh and how that adds to your ability to make decisions is is significant.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

There's a there's a great metaphor that I like to think of this that at the strategic operational and the tactical level of leadership, at least in the military, strategic level leaders have basically free reign to create whatever vision they want. They're setting the vision. And then below that, the operational, it's it's like a three lane highway. It's not quite as big with the latitude left or right limits, but you you have your general bounds, and you can you have a little bit of latitude to make some of your own discretions. But at the tactical level, you're on a bridge, you don't have the latitude to really build that vision outside of what. What operationally and strategically have been aligned, but you you're within that and you know your left and right limits. So it becomes a lot tighter as you're getting down the waterfall.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Yeah, yeah. Your your job is, you know, that's why it we mapped that particular leader task, promoting a shared vision, uh, which is you know, this ties into collective resilience. When you understand where the organization's going, it's easier to bounce to get through adversity, adapt, and grow as a result. And so we mapped that particular leader task to the senior uh leader because that's who's really responsible for sharing it, getting it out there. Now, of course, the middle manager and the frontline supervisor, the middle manager has a responsibility to share it as well and get it, get it out there. And then the the frontline supervisor and middle managers, they have a responsibility to know it and try to make decisions uh based on on knowing that. If you know where you're going, uh you know, if you know where the end result is, uh it's like driving a car from one city to the next. You know, the city you're going to is is the vision, the mission is to drive there. The strategy, which route you're going to take to get there is, you know, could change. Strategy changes all the time based on conditions. And so if you're if you're on the way and you have and you run into uh you know uh road construction or accidents or what have you in this analogy, then you if as long as you know where you're going, uh then you can you can come up with a different plan. You can adapt your strategy based on the the situation uh as it presents itself and and keep and and make sure that you're headed towards the uh towards the towards the right in the right city uh in that in that.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

I love that. So I'm I'm I'm a walking uh army regulation, probably. So there's four different doctrinal definitions of an obstacle block, turn, fix, or disrupt. And when when you're executing someone's vision, and I've learned that the hard way, is that you're going to encounter those types of obstacles. But exactly what you just said, it great leaders don't micromanage their subordinate leaders to get to the desired in state. They know what the end state looks like, but they give them the latitude to to maneuver around those obstacles. That's that's a beautiful, beautifully said.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

Yep. Ideally, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah, in a perfect world.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Yep. Uh micro, you know, micromanagement. I tell my team sometimes that uh well, of course I would say this, but you know, micromanagement gets a little bit of a bad rap uh sometimes. I mean, everybody wants a uh everybody would like their boss to be a team player and more involved, but they don't want micromanagement. So there's a fine line between these things. But you know, everybody hates meetings, but they love collaboration. Well, I mean, you know, uh make up your mind. What you hate is really bad meetings. What you hate is micromanagement that was unnecessary. So there's a fine line between uh all of that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

I love that. So what's the future for RBLP? Where you where where are you trying to take this?

SPEAKER_03 47:15

So we're um right now we're in the uh process of partnering with uh more education and training partners. Our education partners are colleges and universities that teach uh the curriculum that we developed. When we when we did the the research and came up with the exam, we also developed some training uh to go with it because uh the complete training package to get folks ready to answer, to take the exam that was created based on what you know what we heard uh did not exist. So we created a training. We did it ourselves for about 18 months, uh early 2020 into 2021. We did the training ourselves. We had a bunch of instructors all over the place teaching this, and then we we decided to uh to spin that spin that part off. In fact, if to get GI Bill approved, which we are now, uh we're we're approved by the GI Bill. The GI Bill pays for the exam and they'll pay, they'll also pay for the training once uh some of our partners uh get their paperwork back from the Department of Veteran Affairs. But if you're to get approved by the Department of Veteran Affairs, if you're the certification body, which we are, if you uh if your job is to execute the exam, to do that research that develop the exam, update it from time to time. If you're the certification body, then you cannot be involved in the training. You can develop curriculum based off, not off of the exam, but based off of the competency domains. So you can take those competency domains and you can develop uh good training, which should also set you up to do well on the exam because the exam questions are based on the same competency domain. So they both they both have the same origin, right? Uh which came out of the research. So we we did that training ourselves, but then we started partnering with folks that would deliver the training. And at first it was training and workforce development companies uh that were doing that for us, and then we started uh partnering with universities. We partnered with Pepperdine, Maya Mamata out here on the West Coast. We partnered with Georgia Southern University on the East Coast, and and uh we kind of test drove that, if you will, for six or eight months, and we decided that that really was working well. We like that. We think that would be a good way uh to get to our vision. Our vision is to build a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. That's what we want people talking about. Similar to, you know, several decades ago, the Project Management Institute wanted to make project management a household term. We want to make building and leading resilient teams uh ubiquitous. Everybody knows it's something that they need to learn how to do. So we started uh partnering, and now uh that's the future is to continue uh to build more partnerships, uh colleges and universities. We've recently partnered with uh Virginia Tech University, R1 Research University in Virginia. We're partnered with uh the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas AM, Suffolk University in Boston, Western Kentucky University. Um, starting to partner with some community colleges now, Albany Tech in Georgia, big Sandy Community and Technical College in Kentucky. Um I know I'm missing a handful uh here, and we've got a whole bunch more uh in the chute. Uh we should be partnered with Spelman University, the HBCU in Atlanta pretty soon. We're partnering with a college in uh Canada. Uh so we partner with colleges, universities, they teach the course. Uh the people learn uh how to build and lead resilient teams, the curriculum that we develop. Those that are up for the challenge will come to us and sit for the uh certification exam. Not everybody will. Some will just take the knowledge back into the workforce. Um, not everybody that gets human resources training sits for a human resource management uh certification exam. Some do. Some people climb mountains just because they're there, some people take exams just because uh they're there, and they have good uh education benefits. Uh, like you said, you mentioned the military's got good benefits, the uh uh veterans have it through the GI Bill. Uh we're a lot of the universities that were are teaching our course have corporate partnerships uh with big corporations like uh Amazon and Walmart and so on, uh FedEx, and that these big companies uh have good education benefits and and they go to universities, continued education programs to find courses to uh to use. And that that's that's where we're at. So that that's the future for us is to partner. Uh we're also partnering with workforce uh training and development uh companies that do a little bit more of the business-to-business uh type of work. Um the work like what you're doing in the in the military is a voluntary program. No one's telling you to do it. It's your education benefit, you're using it how you see fit. That's one, that's a business to consumer uh sale, if you will. But sometimes there are business-to-business opportunities where a small to medium-sized company might say, you know what, we want to get uh 40 people trained, and a handful of them may take the exam. Uh, but it's gonna be mandatory. We're not asking anybody if they want to do it. We're not giving them benefits to do it in their part-time. We're gonna make this part of the part of the workday, and we're gonna uh bring an instructor in uh either on site or virtually, you know, for the for the different seven different sessions, and folks will get the training and then put it to use, and some maybe uh take the exam. So that's the future for us. Continue to partner. We I mean there are 4,000 colleges and universities uh in America. Uh we're partnered with less than uh 20 of them now. Uh we want to be partnered with you know over 100 in the next year, you know, three or four hundred the year after that, and then uh go from there. But that's that's where we're that's the future for us, building a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

I uh so my wife tells me like the after-action review for every podcast, quit quit saying you love that, but I I I love that. So starting leadership development, especially for academia, for for young, I'm gonna say kids because I'm 36 now, but but young kids is so vitally important because everyone that gets a bachelor's degree should take a seven-week course in building and leading resilient teams.

SPEAKER_03 54:17

They're gonna be a better employee, they're gonna be more prepared to step into a leadership role uh when given a chance. And by the way, that opportunity for a leadership role is gonna come much quicker than they know because there's opportunities for shared leadership uh and stepping up uh uh informally uh to lead well prior to ever being given a title in the workplace. And so uh we think that eventually this is not just a continuing education offering, but it's an offering uh also to undergrads uh to what they call stack on top of their four-year, uh two-year, four-year degree, this micro-credential and building and leading uh resilient teams going to make them better prepared for the for the workforce.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

And I also love how these modules basically walk you from the lowest level of leadership to the highest level of leadership. And and I'm a weirdo, so I've I've journaled, I see six phases of leadership. And the first one is universal, it's ourselves. We have to learn to lead ourselves well and master ourselves. So when those opportunities come, then we're ready for them. And then continuing all the way up to to me is summit leadership, which is kind of phase six. And I I learned from what I know military operations, so I broke it down as like a battle plan, six phases of leadership. But I'm I'm sold on this program, and I know that it's going to help, especially in acquisitions. Um, so I'm going to continue to be a champion of this as I as I go through the military. And I don't see I'm gonna stay in until they kick me out, so we'll see how far I can take it because I I love I love what I do.

SPEAKER_03 55:54

Yeah, and getting certified isn't the end of the uh journey, it's really the beginning of the journey. There's a recertification requirement every three years. We've been doing this for more than three years, so we have people recertifying as we speak. Today, people uh recertified, and when they recertify, they have to go back and do a written assignment that's a reflection on the previous three years and how they've uh applied those leader tasks and supporting concepts in the workplace. They have to write a narrative, uh, again, getting that trying to get that uh trying to turn that tacit knowledge into explicit as much as they as they can. Uh and they get that down, and and that's the uh that's one thing. We also have uh an app, RBLP community app, that uh is available for everyone to download. And we upload uh 13 podcasts uh from a variety of vetted sources, good podcasts. Yeah, you may find yours uh in there. Uh that we and it is it's 13 hours, one at the top of every hour during the you know, start of work on the east coast to the end on the west coast, seven days a week. Don't worry, we're not making somebody work those hours. It's uh it's a scheduling program inside of the technology. So this so the app is so there's there's good leadership podcasts in there from a variety of different sources that we encourage people to use. We also publish a newsletter that's a compilation of uh blog posts about leadership from a variety of of uh vetted sources. And here pretty soon we also have a reading list. We encourage our credential holders to read three to four books a year. That's on the on the website. And those are books directly related to to the to the basics. It's a you know a deep dive into some of the the basics. So uh Amy Edmondson scholar has a book on um psychological safety that's very good, that's that's on that reading list. And that's a deep dive into some of the encouraged constructive dialogue uh leader task that you're gonna get into eventually. And so uh pretty soon uh we're gonna be offering some continued education courses based on those books. So it'll be a 90-minute or two-hour online uh event where an instructor will take uh a cohort through uh a deep dive discussion of the the salient points of of uh the key takeaways of of some of these uh books. Uh the really uh tough ones may have two two sessions uh of that length, but those are coming soon. We're putting those putting those together right now. But but reading is something every reading books, reading blog posts about leadership, and listening to uh podcasts about leadership is something that everybody can do. And we tee up all of those uh resources so that you can continue uh to learn because the like I said, getting certified is not the that's not the the end of the end of the journey. That's the that's how you join the community of practice. That's how you you know you get closer to the center of it uh is by getting certified, and then you just keep sharpening the sharpening the the the saw, uh if you will, to borrow a covey expression over uh over time.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

So I'm going to look at those required readings or recommended readings because that that's a that's an area that I always struggle because I I love reading. I'm I'm an avid reader, uh, but they're kind of like all over the place. So my next book that I'm gonna read is uh Benet Brown, Dare to Lead, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Wellington. And now I think I'm reading um The Map of Consciousness uh by Dr. David.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

Uh the Brene Brown book is in our our reading list. Um I got one out of three. You did. You mentioned something about candor earlier. Radical candor is a great book.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Kim Scott.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

Yep, that book is on our uh reading list, and you'll see as you go through the the program that that books like that really illuminate some of the ideas that were. I mean, there are entire books on the topic of trust, right? So we have a leader task called Earn Trust. Uh, you know, you can you can certainly uh read quite a bit uh just on that single uh topic alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

So it's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Question one. So, what do you believe separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

The ability uh to get a to lead a team through the tough times.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

So, and you've already given a lot of answers to this one, but what what is one resource, just one, that you could think of off the top of your head that you could recommend to our listeners?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:56

Uh our reading list, even if you uh don't have good education benefits and can't afford uh the training and certification uh right now, uh download our app, sign up for the uh newsletter, uh the blog posts, and and get into the get into the reading list. All of that is free, it's vetted, it's curated, it's it's ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

I love it. So question three is if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:27

I think I would have uh started my education much earlier. I waited, uh I didn't have a lick of school. Well, I had maybe a couple of classes when I retired uh from the Marines. I went to school for 10 straight years. I earned a uh most of them, some of them are hanging behind me, but I earned an associate's degree and I hung it on the wall, and a bachelor's and I hung it on the wall. My first master's uh hung it on the wall, then I got an MBA and I put it up there, and then I earned the doctorate in education and I put it up there. But 10 10 straight years of full-time school while I was working uh was very uh challenging, and I wish that I had gotten after that uh earlier. So this I think is advice, not just for the military folks that are out there, but for anybody that has an opportunity to go to school to learn something, a trade, uh skills, uh short courses, micro-credentials, learn how to use Excel better, what have you.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

I I was so uh consumed by my work uh in the military that I kept putting all of that off. So I would my younger self uh I wish had started started school uh a lot earlier.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

That's that that's a a great a great answer. So the final one, how can our listeners find you and how can they add value to your mission?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:56

Yep, so uh find us is easy. It's rblp.com. Um just rblp uh.com. If you type that into Google, the first two or three hundred search results will be about us or the partners that we have that provide the training. If you want to learn, talk to somebody that's been certified, go to LinkedIn, type RBLP into the search box, uh, and then click the people tab, and it'll return over 1,100 uh people with RBLP in their profile. You're probably already connected to some of them. If not, find some people that uh resonate with you and connect with them and ask them uh what they uh what they think uh about the the training wherever they happen to get it uh and the certification exam that was uh administered by us. And what people could do to help us advance this mission is just to consider this idea that that uh this idea of building and and leading resilient teams. It's it's uh you know the team's ability to get through the tough time is what really separates it. That's how organizations adapt and grow, it's how sports teams win championships, it's how militaries win wars, um, it's how we get somebody to the moon, it's how Edison invented a light bulb. And so this idea of um trying and failing and trying and failing and running into obstacles, not just persistence, per you know, grit, perseverance, and passion for long-term goals, but sometimes we run into a real dead stop. We get knocked uh backwards and we have to bounce back. And you do that together with a team uh in the workplace. So I would people can help us by by thinking through that idea, see if that resonates with their lived leader follower experience, and if it does, uh start taking a look at at the work that uh that we're doing and uh hopefully be able to take take the course and and maybe sit for the exam.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Sir, this has been a phenomenal podcast. A little bit over. I didn't even get half of the questions I wanted to be answered, but this is tremendous value, and thank you for being intentional with me.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

Okay, no worries. Part two in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

Yeah, part two in the summer. It'd be in person maybe because we're I'm moving up to DC.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:20

Oh uh I don't live in DC. I live uh I live in uh Burbank, California, but uh I was in DC recently for uh for a conference. I'm in fact I'm heading back to DC uh at the end of next week for the American Council on Education conference uh back there. Um but uh yeah, we could uh maybe we'll do a part two at some time. Keep me posted on your journey through the training uh that you're doing uh with one of our uh partners. And uh I've enjoyed the you've been a really good uh host. I enjoyed it. I wouldn't be surprised if uh not just the episode with me on it, but I wouldn't be surprised uh if you're if the Tales of Leadership podcast uh uh isn't already in uh being fed into uh uh into our app. Um so I'd encourage people to go take a look.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

I'm humbled by that, sir. Thank you and have a great night. All right team it's time for our after action review. So what are the top three takeaways you should have from Dr. Coglam the first one that I have is the proverbs that I shared 2717 iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another you will become better when you surround yourself with a team whether that be a mastermind whether that be in an organization that you're leading whether that just be a friend that I like to call an accountability tree when you find your tribe group of people that push you to become better every day they form your accountability tree or even better think of it as a shield wall. And what is the purpose of a shield wall? It is to protect the men and women to your left and right from the enemy's advance. That is what you do when you find the team that will help you do that. Someone deeply rooted that will be there in tough times but also be able to provide shade and is unmovable, unwilling to hear your excuses find the right team start achieving extraordinary results. The next key takeaway that I have is there's never going to be a perfect time to start developing yourself. We talked about this in the podcast that there's different levels of leadership and I've done an extensive podcast and blog series already on that called the six phases of leadership. But the first phase of leadership is self-leadership and it's universal through the rest of the phases of leadership. And unless you learn to lead yourself well you're never going to lead others well. And part of that is continuously growing I've shared this before with you guys but growth takes three things it takes being curious it takes being coachable and it takes being committed so do not wait to start training for the job that you want. Start training now because you never know when that opportunity is going to come and make no mistake about it it will come. So start taking action today and the final key takeaway that I had is something that I've shared before and it's just the theme is leaders go to that point of friction. Make sure as a leader you're placing yourself in the best position to where you can help your team and your subordinate leaders get through those tough times. We're always going to encounter tough times. We're always going to run into those waves but there's a quote out there and I don't know who to attribute it to but we don't need to learn to control the ocean. We just need to learn to ride the waves and when a leader goes to that point of friction you can help break that tunnel vision that leaders are having by providing an aerial perspective. And when you go to those points of friction think of it like this the leader extends the hand down and helps their subordinate leaders by pulling them up. So make sure you're going to those points of frictions and you're helping your subordinate leaders get through those tough times. Hey guys if you like what you've heard today do me a favor make sure you subscribe share and rate this podcast out of all of those what it would mean the world to me is if you shared my podcast with someone who just started out on their leadership journey. Also go to McMillian leadership coaching.com read the blogs that I've written and give me feedback on them let me know how I can continue to make great content for you guys to become a better more purposeful accountable leader. As always I'm your host Josh McMillian saying every day is a gift don't waste yours I'll see you next time