John Ballenger has spent over +20 years serving in the Marine Corps and was the pilot for Marine One serving directly for two presidents. John has led over 800 Marines including in combat, and retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Today John is a highly successful consultant and coach for leaders wanting to grow in their business, lead effective teams, and faithfully love their families.
Connect with John Ballenger:
-Website: https://www.michaelandjohn.com/
-LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ballenger53
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-Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/McMillionLeadership
-Resilence-Based Leadership Program: https://resiliencebuildingleader.com/
- Discount Code: JMCMILLION
My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!
Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
John Ballenger has spent over +20 years serving in the Marine Corps and was the pilot for Marine One serving directly for two presidents. John has led over 800 Marines including in combat, and retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Today John is a highly successful consultant and coach for leaders wanting to grow in their business, lead effective teams, and faithfully love their families.
Connect with John Ballenger:
-Website: https://www.michaelandjohn.com/
-LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ballenger53
✅ SHARE THIS PODCAST
✅ GIVE A 5-STAR REVIEW
✅ SUPPORT
-Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/McMillionLeadership
-Resilence-Based Leadership Program: https://resiliencebuildingleader.com/
- Discount Code: JMCMILLION
My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!
Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
You're listening to the Tells the 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 a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.
Speaker 2:Alright team, welcome back to the Tells the Leadership podcast. I am your host, josh McMillian. I'm an active duty Army officer. I have over 16 years of leadership experience and I am on a mission to create a better leader what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader or a pal and I plan to do that by sharing transformational stories and skills. On today's episode, I'm going to be having a transformational leader on John Ballinger.
Speaker 2:He spent over 20 plus years serving in a Marine Corps and was a pilot for not one but two presidents and piloted Marine One serving directly for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, they're both presidents of the United States, and that is such a unique experience. John has led over 800 Marines, including in combat, and he retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, which is not a small feat. Trust me, I'm trying to achieve that rank. Next, I'm currently a major. Today, john is a highly successful leadership consultant and coach, and he helps people focus on growth and really finding their purpose, but he does all of that from the core of who he is, and that's three things His family, his wife and his faith. Which I absolutely love, and you'll see that theme throughout this podcast episode is that he's never lost sight of that, and that's one reason that he is so successful today. John is a purposeful, accountable leader, so let's go ahead and bring him on to the Tells of Leadership podcast, john. Welcome to the Tells of Leadership podcast, brother. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:Joshua, I am doing amazing. Thank you so much for having me on. I've really looked forward to this for the past couple of weeks, so I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Ever since Stu gave me your point of contact, I have been looking forward to getting you on the show. We're talking before we started. This is that life is just crazy, especially you understand, like where I'm at right now in the season of life that I am. So I'm just glad that we're able to make this happen and I'm really excited to kind of dig it to your leadership story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'm excited to talk to you face to face instead of just seeing you on your podcast, so this is exciting.
Speaker 2:So let's just start off with, you know, providing an overview to our listeners. You know who is John.
Speaker 3:Well, if I could give you the ideal priorities in my life, it's my faith, my wife and my kids, and then everything else. Hopefully, everything I've done lines up in that priority list. But you know, I am just a blessed 43 year old, recent retiree from the Marine Corps, after serving 20 years as a as a helicopter pilot. Now I'm in my second act, my second chapter in life, and just trying to really rediscover who I am and rediscover those things that made you know, gave me a little bit of success in the first half, and just figure them out again and go go from there.
Speaker 2:So that's that's it in the nutshell.
Speaker 2:I love the concept is that I have people on the a lot of have military experience, but every time that we get towards the end of our career, when we first joined, we always think like, hey, this is all that they're ever going to be. And then, when you get closer to that, 20 remark, or if you're kind of privileged enough to go beyond that or you choose to make those sacrifices, I guess, however, we want to view that it's tough and I love how you define that as your second act. And and to me, like that is the essence of leadership, is that we're always growing, and I define leadership in multiple different ways, like ourselves leading a team, leading an organization, leading our family, and we have to be able to understand that we're never going to like get it, we're never arrived in that you have that humility and understanding. To recreate yourself is awesome. I can already tell this is going to be a great, a great episode.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks, yeah, it's. It is interesting. You know, walking from walking out of the doors of a successful career, what I feel like is somewhat successful and being on that mountaintop and then looking out and seeing other mountaintops that you want to hit. And I always tell people there's no bridge from mountaintop to mount. Usually there's not right. Somebody can be that good and that successful. But you know, walking out and looking down, there's, there's a big valley down there and you want to avoid it as much as possible but you're not going to be able to. And so it's a lot of just recreating who you are, redefining those values, recreating your purpose and your mission and trying to make some semblance of that so that you can be successful again and in the definitions that you said in front of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the journey is that we always think it's going to be exponential growth, exponential growth. But there's a book, and it's a great book. It's called the A team and it talks about the. You know, the S curve of and I think that's in life and it's going to be applied to everything is whenever we start something, we always get resistance, but then we get into that flow state. We see exponential growth and then we plateau and then, if you don't continue to grow, then you begin to decline, and I think that that's true with, with everything. But I don't think I've had the opportunity to to interview a Marine, so I want to know how you define leadership in your terms, wow.
Speaker 3:You know, I think, about leadership from you know a couple, a couple points, a couple places. One it's, like you said, leading my families and then to lead those around you, whether it be Marines, whether it be some of your friends or your coworkers, and I think that leadership is just being being the, the rudder, you know on that, on that organization, on that, you know, whatever that is, however many people that is, and being that rudder that provides just the smallest little steers, smallest little steers, that that get you from place to place and success to success and allow you to avoid, hopefully, some of the pitfalls that align you know that may lie out there. And so you know you're not a big, you're not a big muscle, you're not a big instrument, you're just a tiny little, tiny little. You have a tiny little purpose, you know, but it's, but it results in a big, you know, a big steer, a big, you know achievement.
Speaker 2:I've heard multiple different metaphors of you know like leadership is? You know like rowing. We all have to be in unison. I love that concept. Is that and that? That's true, because I always go back to one of the quotes by John Maxwell and it's basically talks about his leadership is being a shepherd and being able to attend to the flock, and it's very spiritual, based of how he kind of groomed his leadership. And I believe the same way, as a leader, regardless of what you're leading, you have to be able to steer that ship and like give left and right limits so we don't fall off the edge but we can still arrive to that destination safe and as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible. I did. I love that metaphor. I'm going to steal that credit, I promise.
Speaker 3:Or you may just not interview any more Marines after this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've done. No more Marines. John dropped the mic. We're moving on so kind of starting off with your, your leadership journey. You know, I almost joined the Marines but the Army sold me on when I saw a Ranger commercial like jumping out of airplanes and I was like how I'm going to the Army, but what? What drove you to join the Marine Corps and where did? Where do you think your leadership journey began?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, interestingly enough, I think it started I was a sophomore in college. I was looking for purpose and I had a couple of job offers waiting for me when I graduated from college, but it just didn't seem. It didn't seem right. It didn't seem like I should be 22, graduating able bodied, athletic, you know, with the world of adventure in front of me and and setting out to do something that didn't fit my personality at the time. And I actually went.
Speaker 3:One day I went to four recruiters Army, navy, air Force, marine Corps and I. I got the brochures and I started digging over the information. But I want to say that it started truthfully started, when I laid out those brochures on my table at home. Yeah, my dad looked over my shoulder as I was sitting there and he said what are you doing with those? I said, dad, I think I'm going to join the Marine Corps and he laughed and he said, yeah, right, he said we'll see how long that lasts, because for two years I had been going to Orr Roberts University and I had been spinning, spinning my wheels.
Speaker 3:I had been a rocket without rudders. I had been aimless, trying to find my purpose, trying to find my identity, trying to find my group and where I fit in. And um, it had caused a lot of consternation amongst my dad and I because he was very focused when he was growing up. My mother was very focused. They both knew what they wanted to be when they were 17, 18, 19.
Speaker 3:Here I was floundering second year of school. But when he laughed because he knew that I was aimless and because he had known the trouble that I had gotten myself into, that right, there was what inspired me to do it and set out to do what I had notionally in front of me. I followed out the next two years of school with that focus and getting in the weight room and getting in shape and getting my purpose and defining who I was going to be. That was it that set me on my course. I went straight from college to OCS and then onto the basic school and then to flight school. But becoming a Marine Corps officer, it's a lot of weight, it's a lot of gravity put on you and a lot of responsibility all at once, even though you're just a second lieutenant. But the history and the camaraderie and everything that goes into it really just plays a factor into shaping you very quickly.
Speaker 2:That's the one thing that I love about the Marine Corps is that just the history and the camaraderie that always goes into it. But right now, look at across the country in terms of recruiting, I think the Marine Corps is the only one that met quota. But there's a theme that I see there too, because I'm also I love to read. I read a book when I was going through the MacArthur Award about the Korean War, because MacArthur played a role in that.
Speaker 2:When the height of the Korean War started, like in the 1950s, the Army was just getting devastated. They were just getting their butt handed to them because after World War II, we thought we were never going to fight another great war. Our standards dropped. What didn't drop in the Marine Corps was their standards when they were going to fight in the Korean War. They were taking it to the enemy. Yeah, they were taking casualties, but if you look at the ratios, they were far outmatched in terms of the other side. I love that about the Marine Corps is that they confidently know who they are. You know who you are and you're unapologetic about it. That's why they do awesome. That's why you guys do awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, I read that in an article just last week that the Marine Corps recruiting was hitting their quotas. It's because they're unapologetic about, like you said, who they are in the mission. They're very strategic about who they're after and you look at the commercials year after year, decade after decade. They don't change much and they know who they're targeting and it's pretty interesting, especially in today's world, to see that difference in approach. But the Marine Corps is pretty true to who they are. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm team Army, but I think of it in the terms of the Army struggles with recruiting. But I think we're in an identity crisis. We're going back to be all that you can be and we're changing our logo and we're thinking that, hey, marketing is going to improve. That's not it. It's more simple than that. All we have to go back to is what are our core values Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, personal courage, all of those things. Let's focus on that. That is the center of who we are as an organization, and if you want to be part of our organization, you have to embody those same types of mindsets. And that's again, that's what the Marine Corps does.
Speaker 2:Great, and I love that story too, about you kind of walking through your journey in college. And I'll share a secret is I was the same way. I think I changed my degree from dietetics to criminal law, legal studies to criminal justice, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. When I was a junior in college, I realized I was going to go join the National Guard and I told my mom and dad that, hey, I'm probably going to get out and join the Marine Corps. I joined the late entry program.
Speaker 2:I was like this close to go into basic training until my buddy told me that I could go join ROTC and be a commissioned officer in the Army. And then he showed me a Ranger commercial and I was like, ooh, that looks exciting. And then the rest is behind me. Yeah, you starting your college and then going in to be a pilot. There's a lot there. At least I know for the Army is that OCS for us is about 16 weeks for the infantry and then we go to Ranger school, which is another three months, if you're lucky two months, then airborne school and all these other things. But for you guys you get an opportunity to go to those schools, but pilot school is like a two year program, right?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we go through 10 weeks for officer candidate school and then six months for the basic school, where all Marines you know, learn how to lead Marines right Before we become tankers and lawyers and helicopter pilots.
Speaker 3:But then we go to flight school and that's, that is a two year usually two year commitment to get your wings. And then, once you get your wings, you owe six years or eight years depending on your platform, and that may have changed now, but at the time it was eight years for me and so by then you know you're at 10 years before you even get the chance to even get out. So yeah, it is. You know it's a big commitment at 18, because that's 10 years is half your life that you're committing to at that point.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't think people will understand that, yeah, just the level of commitment to go into aviation and do that. It's not like, hey, I'm joined the military for two years and I'm going to get out. No, it's that you're doing an ad, so probably to get your school paid for for three to four years and then you're going to two years to be a pilot and the army's, the Marine Corps, has spent so much money in you they're not going to let you just get out there. You have to owe that. So that level of commitment, I wanted to make sure we're kind of hit on that, because I think that's part of being a servant leader, that selflessness of wanting to be part of something bigger than yourself. But what were some of the challenges that you faced when, when you just started out in the Marine Corps?
Speaker 3:Wow, you know, for me, I grew up in one place. I grew up in Tulsa, oklahoma. I'd lived there my whole life. I was going to college in Tulsa, oklahoma, and all my friends were there and my church was there and my identity was wrapped up in Tulsa, oklahoma and the people, and so one of the hardest things was leaving, you know that, that foundation for something completely unknown. Another thing was my faith, you know, walking not necessarily away from the faith, but walking into again that unknown, just me myself and I, you know, and God, you know, leading me.
Speaker 3:And it was at the time, I would say a lot of people were struck by my choice to go to the Marine Corps because it didn't fit in the, in the values of the person. I had been for the last two years or four years of school and I don't want to say my values changed, but I just wasn't, I wasn't serious, I wasn't committed, I wasn't dedicated to something. And, like I said, when I, when I decided to join between that sophomore and junior year, it shifted something in me, it made me focused on something. And even today, when I tell people, you know, that I haven't seen in a long time, oh, I just retired from the Marine Corps. They're like you did 20 years in the Marine Corps. I never saw that coming, but it was.
Speaker 3:It was a completely different direction that I, that I think a lot of people saw me on and it's. It's interesting when you hear that, because when you do, you kind of take it as a challenge or you take it, as you know, kind of an insult right, where, where was I going in my life? But then after it all shakes out, people, people really see that change and where that place? You know that, where that change takes place, and for me I think it just shifted me into a great, into a great attitude and it shifted my priorities and it got me more focused on my faith and my up and coming family and my priorities and what I was really here for for that period of time.
Speaker 2:That is one of the things that I love. So part of being a leader, I think, discovering your, your passion in life and then being able to connect it to your purpose. And you also growing up in Oklahoma. I grew up in rural West Virginia and you know what I did in my younger days.
Speaker 2:Probably you know what is not podcast worthy, right, but the labels that I was identified as to who I am now people were viewing me as you know how I was when I was 18. I am not the same person and that's the whole concept in life is that we're constantly growing and getting better and you pushed yourself because you got to that, that point in life where you knew you needed to stretch your capacity and grow and then the environment that you were in was no longer conducive to that growth. And, yeah, you, you have that like almost this uncomfortableness that sits about you when you know that you're growing off to that next journey in life. But that discomfort that you get is far outweighed by just the sheer growth that you have in life, because now you have your passion and you have your purpose, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, josh, it created something in me that I now take on, I carry on to my kids and my wife. And you know we say in our family Ballinger's, never look back. And that is significant for us because I had the chance a couple of times to get out and go back home and job offers that were waiting for me when I got back. I just I kept looking at the, the life I left behind. So many good things, so many positive things in that.
Speaker 3:But I saw a lot of people who didn't step up to the challenge and they accepted mediocrity or they accepted status quo. And accepting those in my life made all the difference. And even you know, last year, when we got out and decided where we were going to live, tulsa was one of those options and I thought, you know, I just I can't do it. I would love to go back and I'd love to be around friends and family, but again that's going backwards. We're going to keep pressing forward. We're going to keep going to somewhere new because it allows us to grow, and now we're growing as a family.
Speaker 2:Dude, I again. I love that my wife always listens to my podcast and she's like you use the same word every time. I love that. I can't help it. That's who I am. It brings me back to, like a metaphor, when I was going through ranger school and and I asked a silly question. I was like hey, you know why is our American flags always facing forward? It's because we never retreat. We're always moving forward. No matter what resistance we have or we encounter, we're we're always moving forward. And that's a key point, john, is that if you want to continue to grow, it's all about the environment that you surround yourself in.
Speaker 2:It's not just like the physical environment, it's the people you surround yourself with, because there there's the rule of you know like five and I can't remember what book I read this in but the friends that are in our network, the top five people that we interact with. We begin to absorb those traits and states unconsciously. So you have already raised that bar in the Marine Corps and you know what greatness looks like and you don't want to go back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:So walk me through why you decided to stay in the Marine Corps for 20 years, because that that is another huge commitment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. And I for a while, I thought, you know, being that I was born in Tulsa, being that, I lived my whole life there. That's what was shaping my thinking. I thought, when I get married and when I have a wife and kids, we're going to settle down and that's that's what they're going to know, because I think it worked for me for a period of time. So that's what I, that's what I kind of adopted.
Speaker 3:But I got married and in 2008 I got married and my wife and I were still in my time commitment and we started thinking about what does this look like if we, if we stop after my commitment, or if we keep going? And I think she really recognized that I had a passion and I was really living in kind of my best life at the time and I enjoyed it and I was fulfilled by it and I had already done two deployments. And she just said you know, this is working, this is it's working for us, I can handle it, I'm strong and and why don't we keep going, if you want to, you know? And she always put the option back on me, which was I mean, I'm blessed, I'm blessed to have a wife that would do that for me. And to that point it did just keep working. When we had our first child. I said maybe now is the time and she said no, you're still, you're still doing it. And I deployed again, you know, and, and we just kept going. And I was five years away from my end date and I had just gotten I was actually in Afghanistan, I just picked up Lieutenant Colonel and I just gotten accepted to the presidential squadron to fly.
Speaker 3:I said I don't, I don't know, I think this is going to be a really big strain on our you know, on our marriage or our family and our kids. I think this may, this may be time that we call it quits. She said you know, if you don't do this, you're always going to regret it. You're always going to look back and think what if? She said you know what? This is the most impactful thing, she said.
Speaker 3:She said you have been faithful up to this point and you've been dedicated to our family. Go do what you want to do, go do what you need to do, do your job well, but when you come home from you know all the traveling and the trips, just be present with us, like you have been before. And if you do those two things if you do your job while you're gone and you be present while you're home then we'll be just fine. And that was my clearance to continue to push. And that was the last five years that I had, and so I said, okay, we're gonna finish this out, we're gonna finish it strong, and that's what I sought out to do.
Speaker 2:All right, team, let's take a quick break from this podcast and I wanna personally invite you to our private Facebook community that I call Purposeful Accountable Leaders, or PALS, and PALS is a community dedicated to inspiring and developing servant leaders by sharing transformational stories and skills exactly what tells the leadership is all about. My goal is to build a community of like-minded leaders that can share lessons, learn, ask questions and celebrate wins when it happens. And my mission in life is clear I will end toxic leadership by sharing transformational stories and skills, and you will find countless transformational leaders in this group, many of them I have had the honor to serve with in the military. If you want to find a community that can help you grow both personally and professionally, we would love to have you. You can simply search Purposeful Accountable Leaders on Facebook or click the Leadership Resources tab in the show notes to join. I am looking forward to seeing you guys and continuing to grow together on our leadership journey. Back to the podcast.
Speaker 2:That is what I learned in the military that separates people who get out, you know, at the 10-year mark and the 20-year mark is that they have a strong support network, and my wife was the same way.
Speaker 2:I remember questioning after company command if the military was still something that I wanted to do, because I achieved all my goals.
Speaker 2:I did everything that I wanted to do and beyond that it did not excite me anymore.
Speaker 2:And she sat down and she's like, hey, you've always talked about going and being a Lieutenant Colonel and doing all these different things and wanting to achieve all these other things that you quite haven't done yet. And I know that you want to get out now because you think the grass is going to be greener on the other side. But I think you're going to regret that decision and if it wasn't for her, I would have never stayed in, probably, and it got pushed through that middle plateau and achieved some of the stuff I've done. But that's another key thing that you said is being present, and I think that that's hard to do in the military, of being able to maintain a balance between, I always say, three areas our work, ourselves and our family, because if we don't serve ourselves, we can't serve our family to the fullest and we can't serve our organization to the fullest. And how did you do that? And then I'd love to transition to Marine One, because I'm sure you have some crazy stories.
Speaker 3:You know I just I had a lot of great mentors pre, you know, pre Marine Corps and then during the Marine Corps, and a lot of them just gave me little bits of advice, like you know, the little anecdotal piece of wisdom that say you know, the Marine Corps is gonna get their pound of flesh out of you, so get you know, get what you can out of it or do what you wanna do, because if you don't, the Marine Corps is gonna tell you what to do. So I kind of took those, you know, took that as I need to do what I have set out to do and do it well for the Marine Corps. But I also need to be very intentional about the time that is away from the Marine Corps. And if I'm gonna do this, you know well, and do it for 20 years, then I've gotta be very intentional about what I'm doing on the backside.
Speaker 3:And you know I really had another piece of great information that said you know, a guy said if you do 20 years in the Marine Corps and you get out, you still have to do the rest of your life with your family. And wow, I mean you talk about, okay, talk about that makes you wanna be present because the Marine Corps is gonna end, your kids are gonna move out and they're gonna go do their own thing. And then you're stuck yeah, not stuck. But then you're looking at your wife or your spouse figuring out what did we do for the past 20 years and why are we now strangers? And I thought I don't ever wanna be a stranger to my wife. I don't ever want to have to relearn who this person is. So we're not gonna get to that point.
Speaker 2:That is something that happened to me with one of my colonels, colonel Landers, and he's transitioning and I'm hoping to get him on the show soon. But he sat down with me during an OER counseling and you know those are in the military. Oers are extremely important because it determines if we make the next grade or not. But he why? If he's looking there and we're going through this evaluation, he's like Josh, like these OERs are gonna come and go. At the end of the day there's just gonna be a piece of paper. The thing that's gonna matter is when you retire and you go home, do you have a family that still loves you?
Speaker 2:That is the hallmark of a successful career, and a lot of people that I look around now that I've joined the Army with they don't have that. And it's tough and you can do it. You can strike that balance. But you have to have that type of support network that you've talked about and be able to look into the future and not just have a very short-term mindset with everything. You have to force yourself out. But walk me through being a pilot on Marine One. You did for two presidents, right.
Speaker 3:I did.
Speaker 3:I was there for four years for Trump and a year for Biden. And, you know, one of our earlier commanding officers really made a concise statement that I think sums it up pretty well, and it's we're not special Marines doing an ordinary mission, we're ordinary Marines doing a special mission and that, to me, really just quantifies. It, quantifies the Marine Corps, you know, and our roles in the Marine Corps. We're just all ordinary Marines and we're doing the job that was placed upon us, but we're doing it with excellence and we're doing it well or trying to do it with excellence. And so, you know, it was interesting because I had applied years back to get in and be a part of the squadron when I didn't have kids and I was early in my marriage and I thought that's the best time to do it. And I didn't get in because I had a bunch of speeding tickets on my record from high school and college.
Speaker 3:But I got in at the end of my career and I thought, man, what a chance to put an exclamation point on all that I've done and really do this with excellence and try to do it as best as I can. And I had my wife and my kids. My two boys were on board and, yeah, it was just. It was a phenomenal, phenomenal experience to go from, you know, flying 24 Marines in and out of combat or around the ship in and out of country, to looking back and having the president of the United States on board and his staff and thinking, man, this is what an honor this is. I mean it's a lot of pressure but it's an honor, and every day when you come on board or walk off, it was just you kind of take a hard swallow and you say, okay, this is it, but it's a deep sense of pride for what you're doing, not who you are, but for what you're doing and who you get to carry around. So great experience.
Speaker 2:Do you have any like crazy, crazy Trump stories that pop in your mind?
Speaker 3:You know I have a great experience and it was the first time I actually was in charge of doing a lift, a movement, presidential movement, and it was for the 4th of July. It was his celebration of America and he did it I believe in 2019, up on Mount Rushmore and we got to fly him in from the Air Force base there and land just below Mount Rushmore and there were fireworks and the Blue Angels flew over and an air show and he did a speech and then we got to fly him out. But tons and tons of pressure, I felt on me, but a day that truly, just it screams America. You can't get any more American than Mount Rushmore and fireworks and President Trump speaking in front of thousands of people for that event.
Speaker 3:But I also remember flying, you know, one of the flights. I flew him home from Walter Reed when he was recovering from COVID, and the whole flight was televised, which I didn't know at the time until I landed I saw it and I thought, oh my gosh, thank goodness I didn't know that that was being recorded. But just, you know those type of events are. You know, being able to fly up in South Korea, or when he walked across the DMZ over to North Korea and met Kim Jong-un for the first time in handshake. I mean, what a you know just a monumental event that I got to be on the backside of and be just part of the staff that helped get him up there. You know what an honor that was. So, you know, I look at different places and different trips with honor and just a sense of reflection, because they were truly things that will stand out in my mind and maybe in history for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:No, that's amazing man. That's such a rare opportunity. I don't think I met a president yet.
Speaker 3:One day.
Speaker 2:I'll make it so kind of transitioning through the rest of your leadership career. When did you learn the concept of brilliance and the basics, and can you kind of walk me through what that is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, so brilliance and the basics. You know James Mattis General James Mattis before he was Secretary of the State he was, you know, he was commanding troops in the Marine Corps and it was the first initial push back into Iraq after September 11th and he came up with this concept of brilliance and the basics. And it's essentially is designed for every Marine to recognize the foundations and the things that are required to build upon to do bigger and better and greater things. So, for example, knowing your weapon, whatever that weapon is, whether that's an M16, whether that's a tank, whether that's a helicopter, knowing your weapon inside and out, knowing how it operates, knowing the limitations of it, knowing it so well that you can build upon that and grow in your capabilities, in your skills, knowing how to dress yourself. You know, the Marine Corps at the time was going through this period where we were kind of in between wars and downsizing and the focus wasn't necessarily on fighting, it was in garrison, it was back at home and how to keep Marines out of trouble, because when Marines aren't focused on a task, they're looking for something else to do. And so he came up with this concept of brilliance and the basics where it really required us to hone back in, hone back in on who we were, how to polish boots again, how to dress again like Marines and stand apart from all the other services, and how to know our abilities and our skills and know the skills of the person on our right and our left, because if they go down in combat we've gotta step in and we've gotta fill in their role until somebody else can come fill in for them. And so that was a concept that was, you know, pre. You know. It kind of came about when I was in my infancy, right, I was going through officer cannon school and the basic school and early flight school. I'd always heard that.
Speaker 3:And then it was in early flight school period where one of my flight instructors, you know, really related brilliance and the basics to growing in your abilities as a pilot. And he said to me you know, john, if you can hover well and you can, you know, master the art of staying predictable, then you can go and pick up external loads with your helicopter. And I'd already been placed in the CH-53, which is the heavy workhorse of the Marine Corps. We're carrying troops, we're carrying howitzers and we're carrying humbees in and out of combat. So it requires us to hover above Marines that are hooking things up to our aircraft so that we can take them and transport them to somewhere else. So it's very critical that we stay predictable.
Speaker 3:And he said you know, if you can hover or, I'm sorry, if you can fly formation really well and you remain predictable to your wingman, you'll be able to. You know, you'll be able to fly formation off a C-130 and get gas to extend your mission. And if you can land at night every time and be very you know, precise about your numbers and hitting that profile, then you can land anywhere in the world if you want. You can land if there's a dignitary on back and I don't know if he was speaking into my life, but I remember that.
Speaker 3:And so that brilliance and the basics kind of carried into my flight training and I did. I tried to do every landing as if it, if I was gonna be tested for it. You know, because you don't wanna be put to the test, you don't wanna. You don't wanna be figuring yourself out when bullets are flying and there's dust around. You wanna be figuring that out when you're just starting out and then build upon it. And so brilliance and the basics to me was a concept that I took from the military into my life and it resonated time and time and time again with me in everything that was that has transpired since then.
Speaker 2:There was a battalion commander that I had and he was doing an in brief, and he talked about getting the little things right and he used it in the metaphor of putting a puzzle together that each one of us are a piece of that puzzle and if we can home our skills into the craft that we've chosen and we are subject matter expert or whatever, it is a mortar tube and we can fire based with an M16 ploddy board versus all these fancy tools, it doesn't matter what the world throws at us. We will be ready to tackle any challenges. And I think that's the key there, john, is that being extraordinary isn't, it isn't sexy, it really isn't. It's just doing routine things routinely until those routine things become habit, and that that's a tough pill for people to swallow, because they always want to go after these big, these big goals, and I've seen it time and time again with leaders who come in with these like hey, here are these 100 meters, 300 meter targets that we're going to go right after, like right away. But I like to think of it as a West Virginia analogy for you, a mason jar and you got Skittles and oranges and those oranges for your big one year goals and the Skittles are all the sub goals, little sub tasks that have to go into completing them. And a pound of Skittles and a pound of oranges you can't fit the orange and the mason jar, but you can fit the pound of Skittles and the mason jar and those are all the hundreds of steps that led to that big goal. And if you can think of it that way, that that is the best way to understand what you just said so beautifully, is that master the basics, brilliance in the basics, and anything is possible, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Dude, have you ever heard this? And I don't know if it's true or not, but it's the rule of 18, 18 minutes. So if you do 18 minutes one day or every day for one year, it doesn't matter what it is. So let's say you want to be a better leader, or you wanted to be a better pilot or a basketball player, whatever. If you do 18 minutes for one year, that's 100 hours, and at the end of that one year, if you've done only 18 minutes a day, then you're supposedly better than 95% of the rest of the world in that one thing. And I'm trying to my daughter's playing soccer right now and I'm trying to instill that because she wants to go to that next level and there's a level of sacrifice that kind of comes with that. Yeah, and I'm trying to frame it for as if you can sacrifice 18 minutes every day to master those basics, at the end of that year you are going to be leaps and bounds better than all the other girls that you play with. But, dude, that's an amazing story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's amazing, you know. I just add you know, when my wife and I were dating, we were, we dated long distance for three years and we had a ton of time to spend on the phone talking and we talked about everything. Nothing was sacred, nothing was, you know, taboo. We really, we really did break down every barrier and every wall and every awkward moment, because when you're long distance, that's all you have to do is talk and that right, there was a basic thing that we had our communication, and it really it really proved insightful and really proved helpful when, when we encountered a lot of negativity in our, in our lives and a lot of hardships because we had that one. You know that one area we had communication already worked out, probably more than 18 minutes, because I remember hours that we spent on the phone each night.
Speaker 2:So there's another thing that I heard. So I go back and I listen to some of my podcast episodes, because I've had truly amazing people, and Edmund Chun was someone that had only talked about the rule of like compounding, like a combat multiplier. Yeah, if you put a horse to get on a buggy, it can pull 4,000 pounds, but if you put two horses on the buggy, if you think about it in theory, it should pull 8,000 pounds. There's a doubling effect, there's a multiplier effect that happens and they can actually push 12,000 pounds. So maybe if you do more than 18 minutes a day in that one skill set, it's purposeful action. It's not, you know, unpurposeful action, just being busy to be busy. You can be even better at the end of that one year mark. And yeah, there you go. That's why you've been so successful and had such a great relationship.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what. That's what Malcolm Gladwell talks about, you know, in one of his books, is the thousand hours. If you can do anything for a thousand or 10,000 hours Sorry, 10,000 hours You're a master, you're a master at it. So you know it's, it is a compounding effect and there's some, there's a point where it's 100 hours, 10,000 hours, where you, you just stay diligent in doing the basic things, you're going to blow past everybody.
Speaker 2:So kind of walk me through. You know we met the pinnacle in our Marine kind of a career. You got to fly some presidents you've done 20 years in. What was that transition like to being a civilian and when did you know? Like that day, like today I no longer have that drive, because I think that's critical.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, you talked about it earlier in your show. You talked about a plateau, yeah, and there was a place where I had I was, I was actually flying. I remember it pretty, pretty specifically. I was flying and I thought to myself I think I'm, you know, president, wasn't on board, but I was just flying, I think you know, down the river in Virginia and I thought I think I don't think this is what I should be doing anymore. I think there's more out there.
Speaker 3:And that was my plateau moment and it really started an interesting, you know set of thoughts. After that that I really started trying to tease out and figure out what you know, if I get out, what am I going to do and what's next? And my whole career and identity has been wrapped up into flying and being a Marine and so used to wearing a flight suit or a uniform. You know what. I can't even imagine something next. But but that was the moment, that was my plateau moment, where I just realized I've got to do something else, I've got to try for more. Not that there wasn't anything else that was greater in the Marine Corps, it was just for me it was. I had done something, I thought I had done it pretty well and I reached that you know that place where the next thing was needed to be a challenge. And so, yeah, and then you know, from there I was just trying to seek out advice and seek out my you know my purpose and my identity and figure out those you know those answers.
Speaker 2:And as you're kind of working through that, when did you discover like your spark of, hey, I want to be a coach and I want to get into that realm, because I think we all have our story of how we kind of got to that journey.
Speaker 3:but walk me through when you realize that Well, you know, as you know, that as an officer in any service, you have the privilege of having a bunch of, you know, soldiers, marines, sailors around you who are looking for guidance.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if I offered, you know, very valuable guidance, but I know I always tried to put my faith on display, my love for my wife, love for my kids, all those things, and try to keep those in the priority. And so I, in passing those things off, I just thought, man, this is, you know, I've had a lot of great mentors in my life. I would love to mentor other people in return and I'd love to do it with intentionality. And so I got out and that was really the first thing I tried to pursue was, you know, I had a coach and I reached out and said hey, let's, let's figure out what truly is what I'm after and truly what, what my calling could be. And after three or four sessions, he said you know, I think you should just do this, you should just be a coach. And as soon as he said it, it just kind of rang. It was like a light bulb moment.
Speaker 3:And I thought yeah, that's, that's what I want to do. And I started mentioning it to a couple people around me in my sphere and they're like, yeah, that's easy. I mean you'd be a great fit. And I love, because I love reaffirming things in people's life, I love encouraging them, I love speaking life into what they're doing. And so it just it did seem like a great fit, it seemed very natural, and then I did it for the first time, not as my job, but I sat in front of somebody and started. I said, you know, let me just try to offer up some, some information and try to help you along this journey. And then I walked away. I thought, man, if he feels is fulfilled with what we talked about, as I do right now then, man, I think it's going to spark something pretty fantastic in his life. And so that's when it really started for me.
Speaker 2:Alright team. Let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share a leadership resource with you, and that is the resiliency based leadership program. Rblp's vision is to create a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. So why do you need to build and lead a resilient team? Resilient teams are the key to individual and organizational growth, regardless of being in the military or in the civilian workforce. Building collective teams allows for exponential growth and the team's ability to overcome adversity, adapt and, most importantly, grow. And in bottom line, up front, resilient teams are just stronger together. And here's the fact 99% of the people who take that course recommended to others, and I'm one of them. I just completed my certification and I highly recommend this, and the great news is it's most likely free to you, and if you're in the military, it is 100% free to you. And if you want to learn more, you can look in the show notes for this episode and find the link and use the discount code J-M-C-M-I-L-L-I-O-N, and that is also in the show notes. Back to the episode. Yeah, that's the beauty of coaching, and I remember going through my ICF accreditation. The miracle of coaching. And it's not on our perspective, right. It's seeing that aha moment in someone's life and I'll never forget this.
Speaker 2:When I was a company commander, I had a soldier keep his name out Senior Medic was getting ready to get out and I just had a simple five minute conversation with him and it changed to the next five years of his life and this was the day that I was getting farewell. That was my farewell speech and I was literally getting in the car that same day to drive to California. I was done and DuPoul comes over to me and talks and play. Hey, sir, you know I'm getting out of the military. I thank you for everything. And I stopped there and I asked him why are you getting out of the military? He's like well, I want to go be a fire. You know, wildfire, firefighter, whatever those weirdos are called. I can't think of them now. And I asked him the question is like well, can you not do that while you're in the army? They literally have MOS's for that. And he's like well, I don't know, in five years, right now, where do you see yourself? What do you want to do in five years? Who is the person that you want to be in five years? And if you get out right now. Do you have a plan to achieve that? And if you don't, why are you getting out right now? Because that's not purposeful action.
Speaker 2:And we kind of left on that moment and then the Sergeant Major came up to me like what did you say to that guy? I was like, what does he in behavioral health? Like I thought I was in trouble. He's like no, I tried to talk to the medic for five days to reenlist and whatever you said to him, he just went and reenlist and like to me, that was my, you know, that was my moment of like how, how warming that was that what I said impacted someone's life for the positive. And that's that miracle of coaching.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's it's amazing when you can connect, or two people are connected, and one can encourage and challenge and hold somebody accountable, you know, and then it pushes somebody to to greater, greater things. So it's so rewarding, I think, on both sides.
Speaker 2:So walk me through. You know now where you are on your leadership journey. I think you got 828 venture coaching, and then you also get your podcasts. I think a second act Can it walk me through all of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so 828 ventures was something I started right after getting out, and 828 ventures is is after Romans 828, which basically says, from the love of God, all things happen for good. Yeah, and that story really came true in my life. That verse came true when my wife and I in between our two boys, we had a daughter and she lived 86 days and lived in the NICU all 86 days and then she passed away and we walked away thinking what good is going to come out of this, god? How can anything good come from this? But truly, truly, all things happened for good and we were able to turn that narrative and really be able to speak into other people's lives who have experienced a similar loss. We've been able to work on starting a nonprofit to help other military families who have lost little children and just help them navigate through that, provide them with resources that to make their lives easier and really to support the marriage so that it lasts. So that lasts through that, because when we lost Brooklyn, our daughter, that was the 83% of marriages don't last under the loss of a small child. And going back to those late night conversations where my wife and I talked about everything, that was a basic thing that we had that when our daughter passed away, we still had our communication, we were still able to encourage each other, and we had to learn a lot through the grieving process and how to communicate, but we had the basis, we had the foundation that was strong and our faith, of course, got us through. But H28 just resulted in. H28 Ventures was a product of that story and I thought what a great way to get into people's lives where, if they think that all things are breaking down or something is causing them to be rerouted in this life, help give them the ammunition they need and the support they need to make it to where it's a good story, where they can thrive again, where they can provide inspiration to other people. And so that's how the coaching started with H28 Ventures, and then the podcast really was a result of my coaching.
Speaker 3:One of my earlier clients was Michael Newborn and he's in Denver. I'm in Colorado Springs and we started coaching him and after a couple months he had gone on to do some really, really amazing things Start writing a book and start a company and he started a blog all these things that were on his list that he just needed a little bit of accountability for, and he reached out to me and said you know, I think I want to do a podcast. I'd love for you to be my co-host and I said absolutely, let's do it.
Speaker 3:It's called the second act, with Michael and John, and essentially we're just trying to give people who are going through a transition whether that's out of the military or out of a job or into marriage or out of marriage or with kids, you know anything that's a big life transition we're trying to give them the ammunition they need and the resources they need to help them just transition, maybe a little faster, a little smoother, through talking about these topics that affect us all, as we're starting something new, you know, things like impostor syndrome and getting started and the fear of failure, networking, you know. So that's what we're trying to tackle.
Speaker 2:I the same way. Like me, starting my coaching, podcasting was just something that I wanted to do because I had all these ideas in my mind, and selfishly too. I love podcasting because I can tease all the leadership wisdom out of people like you, people who have 20 plus years of leading. You know not just a couple of people, thousands of people. In your lifetime You've led thousands of people and the wisdom that you have gained and that you share is what, I believe, distinguishes extraordinary leadership. Because if you find people like you and you can tap into that wisdom, well, we only learn two ways through experience and through wisdom. And if we can find other people who have that wisdom, we can shorten the learning curve.
Speaker 2:And that's my goal in life is I never? I never want to get out of the army. I love what I do and I genuinely want. I want to go and I tell everyone like, hey, I'll be a general one day. If they'll, let me, let me do it because I love what I do. But I do this. A lot of these conversations that I have from a general and you know, curiosity that I want to be the best leader that possibly can be, and that story you shared about your daughter.
Speaker 2:I won't get into it, but I had. You know, I lost a couple of soldiers in my command and Romans 828 was something that I went back to because it was a very deeply personal story for me and I'm like what good can come out of that. But with some self reflection, like deep reflection, I was able to figure out why that happened and what the good was behind it. But, man, I cannot imagine if I lost my son or my daughter of how devastating that would be when our marriage 83% of marriages fell as a mind boggling stat. And I think it's because we allow our hearts to harden and in those deeply vulnerable moments we build silos around our hearts and that just leads down to growing apart, unfortunately. But that's. I'm sorry for your loss, I'm sorry for sharing that and I'm amazed you're willing to help other soldiers.
Speaker 3:It's interesting because what really is the wedge is our ability to communicate. You know, when something hard like that happens, you know women just communicate differently. It's just a fact of life and you can either choose to ignore it or you can dig in and figure out how to communicate better or more effectively. And it took a lot of, you know, hard conversations between my wife and I. You know she was obviously grieving and more on a daily and visual basis, where I would internalize a lot of things and I would really push it down. And then I would go out far.
Speaker 3:You know, the time I was living in Hawaii, I'd go out on my surfboard or my paddle board and go out there and just start slapping the water and yelling at God and trying to figure out what you know what happened, and I'd come back in and everything would be great because I got it out and she never saw that. And so for a while there was this, there was this idea that I didn't grieve or I was over it, and and it just took her reminding me like that she would love to see me grieve, or at least talk about how I grieve, so that it would remind her that this was a significant event or that I was dealing with it as well, and that's that's, I think, the answer to keeping some of these families together. And so that's what we want to focus on If we can get this nonprofit started is getting these couples back together and just on to grieve and communicate and have some facilitator for that grieving process that they might not encounter on their own.
Speaker 2:So I think, kind of keep you know, moving forward through your career, looking now into the future, what's your, what's your why that kind of keep keeps pushing you every day, man.
Speaker 3:I'm going to go back to my three priorities.
Speaker 3:You know my faith my wife and then my boys and then everything else. You know, as I look back on the mentors that I had in my life, I want my boys to have the same mentors. I know that there's going to be a time in their life where they don't want to hear from me anymore. I've exhausted what I have to tell them for a while, but I want to have planted those seeds to where there are other men, friends or mentors or people that are around them that can speak into their lives, and I want to have planted those seeds. You know, I want to be able to draw closer to my wife now that I'm outside the military and remind myself that, no matter what I do, we're going to be together till the end. You know the end of our lives and I want you know when I end up passing away. I want there to be someone, if just one person, that says man, my life was made better and the trajectory of my life was made better by John being there and being in it.
Speaker 3:And you know so I try to choose the things. Right now, it's coaching and it's this podcast, and you know the other things that I put my hand to on a daily basis. But it's really the connections that I'm gaining through all those things. It's the conversations, it's the encouragement, it's the little builders of faith, and that's what I'm trying to do and that's, I think, what gets me up out of bed and every day, I love that man.
Speaker 2:So, right before we get to the final show segment, if you could give advice to someone who's just starting out on the Marine Corps, just getting ready to start on their journey, what would it be?
Speaker 3:And you know, when I got out or got in, you know I was very.
Speaker 3:I was trying to be a lot of things.
Speaker 3:To a lot of people, my identity was in crisis, but deep down inside I knew who I was supposed to be and that was very, very strongly rooted in my faith and the family that I had been brought up in and the foundations that I had from that time in Tulsa.
Speaker 3:But I would say that if you just hold true to who you are and the values that you hold, close the Marine Corps is going to make you a Marine. But that's only half the story. Who you are inside is very important as well. So, you know, stay true to those values, stay true to what you know to be right and wrong, and everything else will come. Everything else will work itself out. Have those foundations in your life and the Marine Corps will mold you into a better person. But if you don't have your values and you don't have that foundation, the Marine Corps will mold you into who they want to mold you into, and it can be a lot of things and it can be distracting at times. So really, just hold true to who you are and keep your faith.
Speaker 2:I love that man Find your foundation.
Speaker 1: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 2:Question one what do you believe separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader? Honesty.
Speaker 3:Honesty. I've seen a lot of good leaders and I've seen a lot of them not necessarily, while they were honest, they weren't open. You know, they kind of put up a front from time to time. I think sometimes, even though you don't want to let that show through, it does it does. And even if you're discouraged or you're going through a tough time or the results aren't how you imagine them to be, or success doesn't look like what it wants to be, you just remain honest and share that with those around you. They're the ones that are going to scoop you up and keep you going.
Speaker 2:I love that. So question two if you could provide one resource to our listeners to kind of grow their leadership capabilities, what would it be?
Speaker 3:I read a recent book by Simon Sinek and it was the Infinite Game and I don't know if you've read it. But essentially, leadership, you can have a very narrow focus and encourage your people to spin their wheels and to produce and to do what they need to do to reach this really fine finite goal. Or you can push your people to just expand and be so much better than they can be, bigger than what you think the focus should be, and that that book is kind of embodies all that and it's it's pretty powerful for a leader.
Speaker 2:Hmm, All right. So the third question is if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be and why?
Speaker 3:I think, go back and you know being true to those values, but don't be discouraged. Don't be discouraged by the hard things that come along, because those hard things are really shaping you into the person that you can be. I remember my dad when I was very young. I said, dad, I think I'm going to be a pilot. I mean I was eight, nine, 10, 11 years old, something like that. I said I'm going to be a pilot and he said well, pilots have to be really good at math.
Speaker 3:And math has always been my weakest subject. I still today don't like math, but I found a way to persevere and I had people that I leaned into and I told them hey, I'm not good at math, so I'm going to need some special attention. They gave it to me because I asked. And I remember sitting in an aircraft one night with a very special person to me, a very special flight instructor, and he worked with me time and time again, longer than he probably should have, but he made it stick, he took the time, he made it personal and if I wasn't honest about my weaknesses and my weak points, then I wouldn't have grown to who I am later on in my life and my career.
Speaker 2:I love that man. So final question is how can our listeners find you and how can they add value to you?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I'm on LinkedIn and that's where I usually send people if they want to talk to me about coaching or just connect, and they can find me and reach out. I am building out a website as we speak for that to be a little bit more streamlined, and I love for honesty, for people going through a transition whatever that transition looks like to check out our show the second act with Michael and John and they can. They can get on there through the website, which is wwwMichaelandJohncom.
Speaker 3:Just listen, give it a listen, right, you know, drop us a line. Let us know what else we can talk about that that they're dealing with, because we're slowly evolving. We've only dropped four or five episodes. We are. We've got a goal for 100. And then we can go on after that. But we want to make that a show for people who are going through life's journeys and the difficult turns and pitfalls that may occur, and so we want to just be a resource and so checking that out, listening, leaving us a good review or review in general would would be a blessing.
Speaker 2:I would tell you one thing is those 100 episodes are going to come much faster than what you thought. It's crazy to me of how many episodes that I've I filmed to this point because it's it just happened so quickly. Yeah, so that's amazing, john. This has been a phenomenal episode. Thank you for being a guest, being intentional and having the patience to allow me to find the time to make this happen.
Speaker 3:Well, Josh, thank you so much for one, for you know, bringing on people not necessarily like me, but bringing on amazing individuals that can encourage those around you and, you know, really help men identify their mission, their calling and stay true to what they have set out to be. So you're doing a phenomenal job. Thanks for just having me on the show.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. Hey, have a great night. Okay, thank you. All right, team is time for our after action review.
Speaker 2:That was a phenomenal episode with John and, as always, I always have a hard time distilling down what I think my top three takeaways are, but it is critically important to kind of have that type of self reflection. So what are my top three takeaways? The first one is Ballinger's never look back. I love that concept of the core values that he kind of instilled in his family, and it's true when, when you're a leader, you have to have a mantra, you have to have a slogan, if you will what I like to call a strength statement, and for me it's every day's a gift. I'm not going to waste mine, because I understand that every single day is an opportunity for me to become better, to grow into the leader, the father, the husband, the man that I want to be. The same is true in John's family and he is instilling that in his children, which is absolutely amazing, and I share the story of my life of why is the army's flag and the military's flag always facing forward, why are the stars always to the front. It's because we never surrender. That's just not in our vocabulary, we do not retreat, and if we do, it's a tactical retreat to set up for another step. And the same is true in your life. You may have a momentary lapse of where you have to take a step back, but that's just because you're getting a better position and a better footing, and then you're going to go continue to take action. So that's a first takeaway.
Speaker 2:Number two is brilliance in the basics, the concept that General Mattis first came up with. And what does it mean? Mastering the small things and then being things will just naturally come into play. And that is the secret of anything in life. You don't have to be an absolute rock star at everything. If you learn the basics, then you can do anything that you need to do. And I think a great example of this is like an M4.
Speaker 2:When I was a rifle company commander, I had an M4. Was I expected to operate that as efficiently as possible, as effectively as possible? Yes, but at the soldiering level, I was still able to break down, do functions, checks and understand my weapon. And now that's a combat multiplier. It's a combat multiplier within an organization. When you have 158 soldiers, they can do those things, they can do the small things, because there is one standard within an organization and it doesn't matter who you are or what position or what title that you have.
Speaker 2:If you can instill that fact of being able to master the routine things, those routine things will then become habits, they'll become muscle memory and when those big problems do come, it doesn't matter how big they are. You've already taken all those small action steps to win. That big elephant enters the room. You've already taken over a thousand bites right. So it doesn't matter what the obstacle in front of you is. And remember, an obstacle can block, turn, fix or disrupt. Those are the four basic definitions of an obstacle when it comes into the army and the doctrine that I've learned. But you can overcome any obstacle as long as you've mastered the basics and whatever career field that you want to grow in.
Speaker 2:And the final key takeaway and this was such a vulnerable story is where John lost his daughter, and I kind of reflect on Romans 828 that he got into, how he named his coaching company. And we know that in all things God works for the good, for those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And let me tell you, one of the hardest things to do is to find a purpose in loss. We've all lost. I've lost people in my life. I've never, to the glory of God, lost one of my children. I couldn't imagine that. It's unimaginable. But I've lost soldiers. I've lost some of my best friends and I always try to find the good in it. And it's hard to do, but you have to be able to do that, because the past is the past and you can affect that. But you can only continue to move forward and you can continue to improve yourself, and that's one of the critical takeaways that I think that I learned from John hey team.
Speaker 2:So, if you like what you're hearing, do me a favor make sure that you share this podcast with someone who wants to grow their leadership capacity, regardless of that's being a better self leader, being a leader of a team, a leader of their family or just a leader in their community. It doesn't matter. This podcast is designed to arm you with the tools to go conquer whatever obstacles are in front of you. And, number two, leave this podcast or review on whatever platform you're listening. That would mean the world to me if you gave me a five star review or even a bad review. At this point, man, I don't care. My goal is to add value to you, so any feedback is positive, because I'm going to continue to grow and continue to produce content to make you guys a better leader. And then number three is support this podcast, If you so find it in your heart to do so.
Speaker 2:You can go to tells the leadership forward, slash buzzsprout, or you can go to Macmillan leadership coaching and see all the different resources that I have for you. I have a blog, and I've written over 20 blogs up to this date, and each one has multiple different tools to help you become a better leader at whatever season of life. And then also go follow me on social media. You can find me on LinkedIn and then you can find me on Instagram, but also go find our purposeful, accountable leaders private Facebook group and join our community, and that's the best way to reach me if you want to get directly involved. As always, I'm your host, josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.