Tales of Leadership
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Tales of Leadership
Ep 93 Colin Boyle
Colin Boyle is an Infantryman in the US Army with 17 years of experience and a combat tour to Afghanistan and multiple rotations around the globe. He was born in Tazewell, VA and settled in the suburbs just outside Richmond, VA where he spent most of his time as a child and young adult. He has held many jobs, from a dishwasher at iHop to a platoon sergeant in the Army. Colin is married to his wife Meghan, and they have one son, Braxton, and two dogs, Lilly and Goose and live in Temple, TX.
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You're listening to the Tales of 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. All right, team, welcome back to the Tales of Leadership podcast. I'm your host, josh McMillian. I'm an active duty Army officer, I am an Army leadership coach and I am the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching, and I am on a mission to create a better leader, what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader. My vision is to impact 1 million lives by 2032, and I plan to do that by sharing transformational stories and skills. And then, on today's episode, I'm bringing you a transformational leader. I'm bringing you a purposeful, accountable leader Colin Boyle.
Speaker 1:He is someone that I've known has been a part of my life now for probably going on 14 years. He is active duty still. He's an infantryman. He's been in the military for 17 years, but he's been someone who has been really instrumental in my growth. He was a team leader when I was a platoon leader in the same platoon in Afghanistan one of the most pivotal points, at least in my career, of making me, forging me, shaping me into the leader that I am today and we kind of just go through that journey together and honestly, this is just another reason that I love podcasting. I get to reconnect with, I consider good friends, and it's humbling just to be able to go through and honor those stories that we've shared together and honor those that we've lost together. And Colin's a phenomenal leader, as always. Stay to the end and I'm going to give you what I believe my top three takeaways from this episode is. But let's go ahead and bring Colin onto the show. Colin Josh.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Tales of Leadership podcast. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I know we got a chance to catch up before and then several phone calls, but I love doing podcasting, especially with people that I've had the opportunity and the honor to serve with, and if you're getting a chance to see this, we're wearing our fancy new medals. If you want to go over that real quick, just so everyone knows and congratulations by the way.
Speaker 2:Thank you same. So the Order of St Maurice is a club for infantrymen past present who have significant contributions to the infantry past present who have significant contributions to the infantry, and a member has to nominate you. In a board down at Fort Moore, georgia, at the National Infantry Museum where all that's headquartered, they read through your bio and they vote on whether or not you should be inducted into the order. And then it goes from there.
Speaker 1:It's a good organization. Yeah, I remember when I got nominated for that after my second company command, it was like it was an absolute honor. I feel like I didn't do enough to to earn it, but it was an honor to receive it. Same, all right. So let's jump right in. Dude, take the time to just introduce yourself. Who whoin?
Speaker 2:boyle, okay, well, um, a platoon sergeant in infantry right now. I grew up in virginia, uh, had an older sister, small family, huge, huge extended family though, and I've been in the army for 17 years. Uh, been all over the country, all over the world. One combat deployment, a couple rotations, and you know? Just seeing where the future takes me from here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you and I just for anyone who gets a chance to listen to this we've known each other. I think now what going on? 14 years, about 14 years. I've had the honor to serve with you when I was a platoon leader in Afghanistan and you were one of my team leaders and I knew when I went to the platoon you were someone that I was going to get along with, because we had the same humor.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we clicked we have a sense of humor. It's funny.
Speaker 1:So 17 years in the Army, dude, that's crazy to think about. How fast time has flown.
Speaker 2:What do you think about that? I never thought I would be in this long. I mean, when I joined, I I joined for you know obvious reasons. It was uh, not too long after 9-11, a few years after, and, uh, as part of that generation, and you know, I joined just to serve, like my grandfathers did, and I mean I just kept going from there. I didn't have anything going on in the civilian world that was encouraging me to get out, so every time I was up for re-enlistment, I just kept signing back up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's crazy how, how that happens, like when, when we're in the, the, the military, we always find ourselves like getting re-enlisting, like I, I see all, I see all of my buddies who are enlisted finding a way back in something. I'm done, I'm going to get out, and then the re-enlistment comes back to but hey, do you want to stay in just a little bit longer, another four years, another four years?
Speaker 2:but now you're in death, right? Yeah, I made it to 16 years before I was in death dude.
Speaker 1:That's amazing man. I'm glad that you chose to stay in, because I know you're a phenomenal leader and I know the soldiers that you've had an opportunity to lead. It probably would say the exact same thing, and you're only going to continue to be able to lead more soldiers after this, because the next is you're going to be a first sergeant one day, which is absolutely crazy, and when that happens, I want to come to your change of responsibility. I don't care where it is, I'll find a way to get there.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll wear my Thunder Kitty tab.
Speaker 1:So, before we jump into kind of your story, take the time to define leadership. I love having everyone on this show define it in terms of how they see leadership. But you've spent the military for 17 years. You've been groomed through that process, We've been on the same deployment so we've had a lot of shared experiences. How do you define leadership in your terms.
Speaker 2:I was trying to think about that going through the questions that we were going to talk about, and I don't like the doctrinal answers. I don't like the black and white answers. To me, leadership is like being able to humble yourself and to get down and get dirty with your men and to constantly be searching to better yourself. And no matter what that is it could be, you know, the most mundane thing, or it could be the toughest challenge of your career. Um, just every day trying to do something better. It'd be a positive influence on people. Yeah, that's the answer, man. I've had tons of great and a few bad leaders. Not, uh, my fair share have been better than worse, but you learn something with each one that you have an interaction with, and that's something I learned from my first team leader in the army. He was like you're always going to find something bad in somebody, but try to take a little piece of each leader that you have with you going forward and then incorporate that into your leadership.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the best leaders that I've had that has left a major mark on how I lead, is Kearns.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, yeah, I don't want to get into it yet because we'll get into it, but he was someone that I have really tried to emulate, because when I came into that leadership role, he was the exact right person for a very immature first lieutenant that was getting ready to take over a platoon that was very war wary at that point. Dude, I don't want to jump into that story yet. So what drove you in to join in the military?
Speaker 2:What motivated you to take the oath, join in the military. What motivated you to, well, take the oath? My, I have a generational gap in military service, but my grandfathers were both in world war ii. Um, they were in the army air corps. One was a balter gunner b-17 and the other was a pilot for a b-24. So I had a lot, you know, encouraging me from them to just continue that service.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I was at kind of a weird point in life. I had a long period of, like my later teenage years, of doing a lot of stupid stuff and getting in trouble. And I actually went to a military school in Virginia Beach for six months where they take a lot of troubled youth and they give them like a little two week boot camp and then you can get your GED. And, you know, after you get your GED you go into community service. But you know, you live in barracks, you press your uniform, you know the drip, dry or, uh, stapler starch, you know, hang them in the shower and just soak them and then iron them where you like, cut yourself with them. So I had my first, like you know, introduction to military life there and I excelled phenomenally once I accepted it.
Speaker 2:But I got back out and I got back into the same group of friends that were still, you know, just young, doing whatever they wanted to do to have fun at the time, and, yeah, it was taking me back down that path and I was in this weird like niche of vietnam. I was just I couldn't get enough, uh, vietnam material in my hands and I read book. It's actually this one right here. It's called Secret Commandos by John Plaster and it goes over the MACV SOG unit in Vietnam, for this, the first special forces group that ever was created, and just the amount of stress and how much those men were able to accomplish just kind of gave me that, like you know, ignition that fire to to finally decide, you know, yeah, this is what I want to do do.
Speaker 1:I think that that is one of the things that I miss at least now being in acquisitions and not in the infantry anymore directly is being around those people who are filled with that fire, the ones that will go towards the channel the sounds of gunfire and will chase hard things, move to the points of friction. When you're around those types of people, the exact reason of why you joined, that is like one of the best feelings in the world and I think that's why, like you and I right, we we've been separated for 14 years. I don't think I've seen you since probably 2014 10 years. That's when I left jblm but I could talk to you like I just saw you yesterday, because we've we've shared some similar experiences and we have that same mentality yeah, mean you picked up the phone and picked it up like we had just seen each other last week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you joined the army. Walk me through that process. What was it like?
Speaker 2:Some of the challenges, just first starting off, I again I don't know if there was anything specifically that was extremely hard, because I was active in sports when I was younger, so it wasn't like a physical challenge to do I was already into athletics so I was already in decent shape but probably just like being away from home for the first time and not having the ability to just do whatever you want. That was probably the hardest thing to get used to. But honestly, like I think about it a lot, I still keep in touch with a couple of guys I was in basic with and I loved it.
Speaker 1:I thought it was awesome that was one of the toughest parts, at least for me, is like being away so much, at least for my family, cause I was married when we first showed up, like just got married. When we showed up to four, two, three and within a month, you know we were getting on a bus and we were going over to Afghanistan.
Speaker 1:That was kind of like my really first introduction outside of all the trade off schools that we went through. One thing that you are not physically gifted at is wrestling. I just want to point that out.
Speaker 2:I knew you were going to bring this shit up. So for those of you you want me to go and tell them now, you can tell them now if you want. Those of you who don't know, we got into it before. We went out on a patrol in Kandahar and we were just, you know, rough housing a little bit, but our cop was nothing but just a big gravel parking lot with just giant, giant rocks, huge, and this behemoth decides he's going to pick me up and slam me over his shoulder onto the rocks. Thank god I had body armor on, but it knocked the wind out of me and that promptly ended the fight, because he was a bigger man than I was at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I look back at that and I'm sorry but I won. I'll just say that. No, I'm joking, man, those stories, a lot of the things that I miss. Man, your first unit going through basic training, you're getting ready to show up to your first actual assignment. What, what was that?
Speaker 2:So I actually was supposed to be going to the 82nd airborne at first Um when I enlisted I had a lot of stuff in my background so I couldn't get an 18 x-ray contract. I had to do airborne infantry. And so I found out midway through basic training, probably towards the end, about the old guard. So wife and I were boyfriend, girlfriend at the time. We've been dating for probably two years or so and I was kind of, you know, nervous about going away from her and getting love so I wanted to be close. So I actually got my order switched to go to Fort Myer to go to the old guard. So I was close to her so it was only a two-hour to see her on weekends.
Speaker 2:So that was my first unit. I spent four and a half years there. I did one year in what they call escort platoon. Each company has a escort where it's just mainly the marching platoon and then they do other stuff like that, but then they have a caskets platoon and a firing party and I did that. And then I tried out for the Continental Color Guard and I did that for three years. So that was a really cool experience. I got to travel all over the country, actually all over the world doing that. I got lucky and got to go to the 65th anniversary of D-Day over in Normandy. That's awesome. And then the Saints Colts Super Bowl was pretty legit.
Speaker 1:Dude I had with the last guest that I had on was Jake Larson, the 101 year old World War Two veteran, and hearing his stories because he was part of D-Day, he planned D-Day and then he was the NCOIC of after they took the beach at Omaha Absolutely crazy and absolutely inspiring Just hearing his stories and I'm sure you being able to go over there. I didn't know that, I didn't know you were in the old guard first. That's a prestigious unit to get into, especially right as a young soldier. So I'm sure that that probably instilled in you a high level of a standard that was set within the military.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then going to try out for one of their specialty platoons. Like they have a little bit more of a high standard to adhere to. Everyone does there. Just because of the focus that you have in the military district of Washington area. You know you're doing ceremonies and cameras are on you all the time. So everyone there has a very high standard of discipline. But to elevate a little more and try out for something that's a little harder, like the tomb or drill team, stuff like that, those guys are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had the honor to do the the reef laying this past Christmas with the family of where we are able to go in there with all the additional volunteers and you lay a reef on each one of the tombs of the soldiers, and that was pretty memorable for the family at least for my daughter, because she was able to understand what that meant. And we went to section 60 and that's where all the Iraq and most of the Afghanistan casualties were. So we were kind of walking through and I was reading them off and that that's a that's a humbling experience and I can't wait to take them to the tomb, to where they do a changeover, just just to let them experience it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm dying to take my son. He's never been.
Speaker 1:Dude, next time you're in the DC area I live at Fort Belvoir. You're always more and welcome to bring your family and stay here. Absolutely, that'd be awesome. Transitioning from the old guard did you go straight to Tomahawks right?
Speaker 2:after that yeah, I was actually supposed to go to Wainwright. I was in airborne school and I got orders to go to Wainwright. Megan being in the EFMP program, we weren't allowed to leave the continental United States, so I was offered, I think, bliss Hood and then Lewis, and it was Drum Hood and Lewis and we chose Lewis. I'm not going to.
Speaker 1:That's a good choice. Thanks, I was in the 10th Mountain too and I love the unit. I absolutely love it. But, jblm, I remember when we were doing LDAC out there and you have a Mount Rainier in the background and I was doing land navigation and I thought like I was on like a vacation, like this place is absolutely beautiful and I want to figure out a way how I can get back here. So I spent all my college career trying to get the highest OML that I possibly could so I could get the duty station I wanted, which was Fort Lewis. I am dead set on finding a way to coming back to this place because it looks absolutely awesome. That was my whole goal.
Speaker 2:Is it that competitive for a duty station coming out of Bullock?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the order of merit list, at least for when I was in, was totally different. So it's based on your PT score, it's based on all the extracurricular activities. So I joined a fraternity. I was only active in that fraternity for the semester, just so I could get the points on my OML, so I could go get infantry and I could go to, to, to Lewis.
Speaker 1:But the biggest one was your degree and most of a lot of my friends would get general studies degrees because they would want to. You know a 3.5 or a higher GPA. And I got like a three, four don't, don't tell anyone uh, uh and criminal justice, which I guess is you know, pretty, pretty good. But then the army tricked me when I made major and they made me go get a systems engineering master's degree. Dude, that was painful, I learned, I learned a lot. But, uh, I spent a lot of money on tutoring. I figured I learned a valuable lesson that if I put my mind to anything I can get through it. But it's not going to be pretty when it comes to math.
Speaker 2:I feel your pain. I had to buy the Algebra for Dummies book to teach myself math when I was trying to get a warrant to take the SIF test.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we took a modeling class, dr Palmer I'll never forget. He was a Marine officer who retired, was a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and we were one of the very first acquisition cohorts to go through, because they wanted to have STEM related acquisition officers, which me being in acquisitions now and working within SOCOM. I understand why, but at the time we all had general studies or philosophy degrees or just things that didn't really matter or were relevant. The first time that I showed up at NPS and they said that you were getting a systems engineering degree, I was like what is happening? I'm supposed to be getting an MBA right now.
Speaker 1:And everyone else in the room had that same shock look. So every time we would start a class, we would set the bar for our professors, because there's all these really beautiful minds Like hey, just so you know, the highest level math anyone has ever had in here is algebra, and like most of the prerequisites for calculus and all these advanced things. So it was like, just go slow, we don't eat crayons, but we're, you know, we're close to that level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we had three or four times.
Speaker 1:We had a Marine instructor. He's like I don't care if you're in it. This is exactly what he said I don't care if you're mentally fat, you're going to learn to lose weight. And I was like, oh, and that was the hardest class, but him pushing me outside of my comfort zone, at least academically. I learned a lot from that man, but it was challenging. So going through Alpha Company, did you go straight to Alpha Company when you showed up to 423? I did Okay, yeah, and was cap. Was captain Crabtree your?
Speaker 2:company commander. No, he was my PL.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:Uh, it was captain loose.
Speaker 1:I don't think I met him.
Speaker 2:No, there there's a funny story, but I can't tell it here. I'll have to wait till we're not being recorded to tell you about it. Um, but uh, no, but no, I'm having trouble remembering who the company commander was. I can see his face, but I can't remember his name. I know he had a really difficult name to pronounce, kind of slim guy Wolfschlegel. Yes, brandon Wolfschlegel.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's him. Yeah, yeah, what was that like? Because I missed all that. I was in like, kind of because I missed all that. I was in Ranger School and I was actively getting sought after by Colonel Harkins at the to graduate. So I knew kind of where I was going when I was in the Florida phase, because he wanted Ranger qualified lieutenants, which I understand. And when, when we were there, it was, it was. It was interesting because we we heard what you were doing. You were going to NTC. You were doing all these buildups for this deployment that was going to be pretty kinetic because it was part of the surge we were going with 82nd, so there was going to be a lot of military operations that were happening. I missed all of that. What was that experience?
Speaker 2:like. What was that experience like? For me it was very intimidating and very nerve wracking because, coming from the old guard, I mean you know I showed up with an EIB but besides that that's really all the tactical training that I had done at the time, because you know there's no ranges attached to Fort Meyer. You have to actually drive about an hour and a half south to go to a National Guard base AP Hill I think they've renamed it now but that's where you had to go to do any of your training. So it was only a few times a year that we actually got to go do anything and I had made sergeant by the time. I PCS there, and so I show up as a team leader and I've gotten none of that experience that a lot of my peers did. So for me it was extremely intimidating because I can remember my first live fire, my team live fired, and do you remember First Arm Powers? Oh yeah, I remember Powers.
Speaker 2:I remember going through the wood line trying to lead my team and I didn't have the faintest idea of how to properly execute it and he just stopped it and started screaming at me. I can see him walking down the trail right now behind me and he was just yelling what is this abortion? And I was just like, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed but it sucked, but that was. That was that like good drive to like try to like pick up everything as fast as I could. And you know, we went 10 TC. We were doing constant training in the field, constant qualifications. That's my first experience in California and that is my only place that I'll ever go to in California. Uh was NTC, but that was. It was really intimidating and especially because at the time you remember uh Sarn Hoover, the platoon Sarn, he was at SLC the time we went to NTC. So the uh weaselasel, you remember Kabyav?
Speaker 1:He was my so crazy story for Kabyav. I'll tell you afterwards.
Speaker 2:but yeah, 100%, I also have a tie-in for him. Later, too, he was the acting platoon sergeant while we were at NTC, so he didn't have the opportunity to do his training. He had to step up and be the platoon sergeant. So not that Hoover was a unqualified leader. The dude was a badass, but it was just a lot of moving parts at the time.
Speaker 1:Cabby, believe it or not, was my squad instructor in Ivolic.
Speaker 1:Like he was my squad instructor in Ivolic and when I went to ranger school he pcs'd and happened to pcs to the exact same company, to the exact same platoon that I ended up taking while I was in afghanistan, which was it was comical in a way, because I think that at least it helped me transition, especially and we can get to that um at the point at which I transitioned to take over the platoon, because I had a familiar face, and not just a familiar face but a great mentor that was able to help walk me through that process.
Speaker 1:But there's something that you said there, dude, and I want to make sure I highlight. That is that you know you were nervous walking into that job because you felt, at least what I've learned through this whole coaching and leadership deep dive, that I've really been on this journey like an imposter syndrome and all in a way. But when you got to that unit alpha company, which renamed erico company 423, you raise to the level of the other people around you and when you put yourself in an environment where you have all high performers and if you're down here then you will naturally raise to that level because that's the standard in the organization that you have to get to. And not only is that the standard you have to get there, because you're getting ready to go to war.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Like that's something that I miss now. I miss now I mean, I don't miss, you know, being in a war, but just that drive of you know, competition and the I don't know exactly how to say it but just the activity and everything that's involved in the training of the expectations of. If you don't get this right me, you, whoever, we may not make it back.
Speaker 1:I think what I, what I missed so much out of that was the purpose behind everything, and everything was purposeful. Leading up to that, at least for you guys, the deployment, the leadership, selection and looking back on my 16 years in the Army, that unit, alpha Company, was a bunch of studs, um, and you know the officers that I, that I had the honor to work with and I'll never tell frank foss this if he ever watches this, he's um because he's like the one officer that I've ever worked with that I knew that he was better than me, like he was like Captain America and all the non-commissioned officers that we had on our team and the team leaders that we had and the individual soldiers that we had was just phenomenal.
Speaker 2:I don't think I could have asked for a better group. We were really lucky. We had a lot of awesome, awesome leaders on both sides officer and enlisted. I mean you had Francis Jones Kearn on both sides officer and enlisted. I mean you had Francis Jones Kearns just in our platoon alone.
Speaker 1:You need to give Jones crap, because I've been trying to get him on this show, Because I would love to get his take on how he thought I was as a leader, Because one of our interactions I don't know if I should say this, but I will I was very motivated and I was very young, full of testosterone in a combat environment.
Speaker 2:That's an understatement.
Speaker 1:And we ended up getting in an argument. And then Captain Nason at the time Seth had a boxing area kind of set up and he's like you know what, let's go put on our gloves. He looks at me. He's like I'm not going to fight you, I'm going to shoot you. Sergeant Curtis is like whoa, let's back up, guys. At that point I just learned to love him because he was so truthful. There was never no full transparency. He said what he meant and he meant what he said, and I love that about him.
Speaker 2:He was great to have as a squad leader when I showed up because he was so like, honest and genuine with everything he did and, honestly, I think he only actually ever had to yell at me twice. I've never seen him yell. I remember we were on a patrol and I can't remember what I was doing, but he yelled at me to pull my head out of my ass. Oh, I do remember we were cutting the road from Dagobah to the police station that we were building and we all got tired and we sat down and he got on the radio and started screaming at me get off my ass and do my job dude, that mission.
Speaker 1:We were talking about that today. Um, in the organization I work with right now, one of the platoon leaders was in um 101st and he was in afghanistan while we were there and he heard the rumors of what colonel menace made us do and I don't care about using his name at the time, but clear two clicks through a minefield in front of a dozer dismounted with minehounds. Because why? Well, I this is what I think at least because he believed that a dozer was more important than soldiers lives, and I one dude. It was rated for, I think, over 500-pound blasts, multiple over 500-pound blasts. And if you remember that mission and maybe I'm like misremembering, I remember everything about that mission I think we found like over 76 IEDs. By the grace of God, no one hit an IED. I know Kabyab almost hit several IEDs. By the grace of God, no one hit an IED.
Speaker 1:I know Cabiab almost hit several IEDs during that and I was sleeping on one in a pomegranate field, like just sleeping on an IED. Do you remember Sanders? Was that the? Was that the deep one that went off and almost blew up? Colonel Harkins, If you remember that one.
Speaker 2:No, he was, I think, a specialist at the time he just got out of there, I remember, oh I remember sanders and I have a deep respect for him, but I can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm trying to remember what story here?
Speaker 2:well, we were. He was part of my team because I had the gizmo, the little foldable minehound that wasn't as heavy as the other one, and we we had found a couple of IEDs and we brought up the sappers to come blow them up, and we went and pulled security on this little clot wall and then they laid the charges and we pulled off the wall so we could be out of the blast area and exactly where we were sitting, or had our knees, were two pressure plates to two 40 pound jugs of HME. They had been there so long that the wires had just rotted out or something and it just didn't go off.
Speaker 1:Dude, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:You know, guys from our deployment got tattoos about that mission, right? Really, do you remember Villareal, the one who got shot in the ambush? Yeah, he has a tattoo of.
Speaker 1:every day is a lottery and every step is a ticket I remember um jones and francis had that written right above their cot. So all right, here I am a brand new. You know, first lieutenant, I'm the night battle captain and I'm seeing this platoon continuously having a bad string of events. I think the first one was that happened. Was it Hoover and the team getting hit by an IED? Was that the first one?
Speaker 2:For our platoon? Yes, Not for the company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, walk through everything that happened to the company before I took over.
Speaker 2:Well, you had gosh. I feel really bad dishonoring him in this way, but I'm drawing a blank on his name. He stepped on an IED and had his leg amputated above the knee and he did not make it. He was in the second platoon and then we'd had multiple gunfights at this point Pretty much every day that we were there. We were getting in gunfights two or three times a day. And then our strikers were too wide for the roads to get to the villages, especially with the bird cages on the outside, so we had to walk everywhere. And, granted, we were still ripping with the 82nd at the time, so those boys walk everywhere they go, but it was pretty kinetic.
Speaker 2:And then we were right above the Argandog river and where our checkpoints were, our little strong points, um, we had to walk through this town. That was like literally right on the river and they were coming back. We had, um, a position to the North above the trail, and then they had I think it was, I think it was 10th Mountain. It was two or three deployments before us. They had paid this guy to leave his compound and it was like literally on a cliff on the river and we had a couple of machine gun nests on top of that. And then right on the other side was his Grape Rose. And then we had a northwest, northeast position and I remember I was in the northwest position.
Speaker 2:They were coming back from uh getting resupplied and walking back and somebody saw something, either close to the river and it was like disturbed and they didn't know what it was. But uh hoover being the you know ex amphibious recon, uh bear that he is brought out his Bowie knife and starts digging at it and it's like, oh, it's nothing. But it turns out that was like you know, faint. And then they had a command wire that was ran to it. They blew it up. It blew shrapnel in his face, blew holes through his arms. It got in one blast got our platoon sergeant, our medic and our RTO. All survived, luckily. They definitely beat it pretty bad.
Speaker 1:I think when I took over at the point, deployed with 44 soldiers and I think there was 28 actively the one thing that the reason I love Sanders right, they asked for volunteers within the company because the platoon was so mid-man they couldn't even operate the strikers and the MRAPs that we had. You had to ask for volunteers and Sanders was one of those soldiers so he's always had like a special place in the car.
Speaker 2:I think it was one of two or three we didn't have a lot of volunteers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think it was three in total that actually volunteered to come and they were coming to at the time the one platoon that I think was having the most kinetic time in Afghanistan and probably one of the hardest positions that they had. So, cop Dagobah, or, as you guys would say, dagobad um yeah, so I show up. The first interaction with the company was hey, captain wolf schlegel, and, you know, lieutenant mackie is the exos, your platoon's out at their outpost. They're not going to be back for 24 hours. Go to their, you know, basically, barracks, their tent, platoon tent, and they'll meet you there. In the morning and I had all night in the barracks I found this one dude's bunk I think his name was Colin Boyle, and I ate all his food that he had.
Speaker 2:I had a shitload of packages under that, under that cot.
Speaker 1:But that was one of the most nerve-wracking times that I had because I knew that I was getting ready to take over a platoon that I met probably three or four weeks before that. I think it was at Sergeant Rod's memorial. I'm pretty sure it was. Was it his memorial?
Speaker 2:I don't think so no, I'm pretty sure you were the PL then, or? No no, you weren't. No, it was still Crabtree, because I remember.
Speaker 1:I was literally just getting ready to take over around that time when that event happened. I remember that mission to a day because I was the one who ended up approving it, which in a way I feel like partially at fault, because I was the night battle captain and I approved that mission to go forward.
Speaker 2:But I've struggled with that. A lot of you know the what ifs and uh, you know, I don't think there's anything that would have changed it.
Speaker 1:What was crazy, um, is that I met the platoon at that memorial and I had such a. That was a pivotal point in my life. I changed completely at that time when I was at that memorial because beforehand and I always tell this story, but it's true I was that Lieutenant that was charging the hill and we were soldiers. I wanted to go win medals. I wanted to go to 75th Ranger Regiment. I wanted to go win medals. I wanted to go to 75th ranger regiment. I wanted to go do all of those things and I viewed this opportunity to make a name for myself.
Speaker 1:But when I was at the memorial I saw all the raw emotions from every soldier that I was getting ready to lead and I couldn't help but think man, I am a selfish prick because I'm thinking about myself right now. And I changed my perspective completely. It was that my goal was to get everyone home as safe as possible and alive. So I always had that calculus in the back of my mind when Wolf Schlegel would try to get us to do all the crazy missions of my mind. When, when wolf schlegel would try to get us to do all the crazy missions, I would always have that in the back of my mind with the calculus is like, okay, we're going to do this, we'll be successful, or maybe someone else could probably do this mission, but I always would have that calculus of how can I make decisions.
Speaker 2:That's going to bring everyone back on yeah, we were fortunate enough after uh we left dagobah that we were going to a little less kinetic area each time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was after that one mission in Shershaka, I think, or Mandazai, where we built that police station. It really the deployment got fun after that where we went to Nalgam. Nalgam was, I'm sorry, like I enjoyed my time there.
Speaker 2:So did I.
Speaker 1:I really did not enjoy ripping out with 82nd. Do you remember when I shredded that lieutenant's property? So we were going through? I think it was Turner. Turner grabs this lieutenant's CD that has all of the property filed for their unit, shreds it. He's like what are you doing? Oh my god. And he write that lieutenant and I wish I remembered his name because this was like such a little trivial thing that he did on the white board back there and the cop that we had. It's like hey, enjoy afghanistan for the next six months. We're going home like, okay, yeah, all right, I'm going to enjoy my time. This is way better than what we were doing.
Speaker 2:Honestly, now that I've been in long enough and I've seen, like, how painful property can be, yeah, I think having to recreate a property book or go home, I don't know.
Speaker 1:That would have been amazing. He was the YUMO for an entire company and within 30 seconds, all of that beautiful property was just stripped away from him.
Speaker 2:Somebody's bags didn't make it till when they got back.
Speaker 1:So what was your best memory from that deployment?
Speaker 2:From that deployment there's tons Probably like are you talking about funny or just like anything? Hmm, yeah, we can go there.
Speaker 1:Funny. What is the funniest story from the deployment?
Speaker 2:The funniest is when we went from Dagobah to Nogum. So Dagobah for those of you who weren't there it was basically like a little longer than a football field, but it was like a triangle and it was just nothing but HESCO barriers and there were two GP mediums that each one housed a platoon and a half, or a platoon and a quarter, because we had headquarters attached to us. And then Nogum was a company size cop for basically the same size that we actually ended up scaling down later. But while we were scaling everything down back to a more manageable size or more appropriate size for our element, uh, this brand new private at basic training, uh turner, he shows up and he's in my team and he's running, he's like redoing all the wires to all the junction boxes and he, he thinks he's this amateur, you know, uh, electrician and he's like I know what I to all the junction boxes and he thinks he's this amateur electrician and he's like I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm doing, and he did not and he plugged in the wrong wires to the wrong junction box, fried our generator and I don't know how long it took us to get power back to that cop.
Speaker 2:I think it was over a day or two. Yeah, it was about three days, I think. Yeah, that was the funniest thing. Just look on his face when he had to walk up and tell me what he did. And I just had him go get a couple of bottles of water and I was like we're going to go over here behind this basket so nobody can see what's about to happen.
Speaker 1:I will. I will never forget Turner. He he blew me away by a brand new private of how clearly he could communicate. If you remember, jack Ryan was the lieutenant that we ripped out with right before we were getting ready to leave. I can't remember what unit it was. I was in a striker with him. We were basically doing a left seat, right seat and we were just driving routes so I could get him familiar to the AO that he was getting ready to take over and Turner, you know, was in the gunner seat and he was. He was doing everything like better than me and I'm looking over at this like private and I'm like you've been here like three months, man, and you've already picked it all as sharp as a whip Like, and I knew he was going to be going places and he promoted rather quickly. I think he got out at the rank of was it E6?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was a staff sergeant. He was a drill sergeant too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, he was a phenomenal soldier. And again, just a testament Whoever was doing the recruiting for our unit was just bringing us phenomenal soldiers. Yeah, I wish I could thank them. So what leader had the biggest impact on you during that deployment?
Speaker 2:That's hard to pinpoint because, like we said before, we had so many good ones, but it would probably be Derek Kearns. He just had this presence about him. He was, you know, quiet as a church mouse until he needed to be the most explosive man in the room. And he's what do you think? He's like five, nine, five, ten. You know he's not super imposing, but he's a stocky dude and he was just the most intelligent person that I could be around at the time and he was funny. He was all about the boys and that's kind of like the person that I looked at who I wanted to be when I became platoon sergeant. You know, very caring and he was awesome.
Speaker 1:All right, team, let's take a quick break from this podcast and I want to 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 is all about my goal is to build a community of like-minded leaders that can share lessons learned, 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 1:My first interaction with Derek was at the Memorial and I just remember the handshake and how stoic he was and that he was going to be the platoon sergeant. I was like, oh man, I'm in trouble. That was my first thought to myself and he was the world's best mentor and the right person at the time. If you, if you remember me as a lieutenant, I was taken bass with afghans with no body armor in a well outside of an area that we just got attacked by over a hundred and some health and fighters. But in my mind, you know, putting myself back in young Lieutenant McMillian's mind, I was trying to build rapport with that platoon that we had. So I was like what better way to do that than just to go take a bath with them shirtless, without any body armor in their vehicle, because it made sense to me. And he's like sir, I strongly advise against this, you're going to die. That was the last words that he said before I went out. But I remember another one.
Speaker 1:I was talking to the ANCOP and those Marine PSYOPs teams that we had when we were building that police station out in the middle and I remember you guys were pointing out some of the buildings that had holes in them and those were, you know, 40 mic, mic rounds for a prior firefight that you guys were in. But we're sitting there and we start getting a shot, a shot at because that's when devin, if you remember, or um catlin, was doing the recon by fire because it just didn't feel right with like something's going to happen, and all chaos broke loose. And here I am, by myself out in this field, is like oh, I need to go back in. And I'm running and here comes Derek Kearns, sir, like a disappointed father. We need you. And it points me to the guard tower and I jumped in it and he was.
Speaker 1:He was the right person at the time to I had the right mindset. Unfortunately, I gained it the wrong way. To. I had the right mindset. Unfortunately, I gained it the wrong way, but I didn't fully understand how to kind of carry myself in that type of position with authority. And he was the right person at the time.
Speaker 1:That set me up for success and I generally mean this is that I won some pretty prestigious leadership awards as a company commander old Dougie back there awards as a company commander, old Dougie back there. I contribute all of that to Derek, all of the mentorship that he's given me over the years. A hundred percent was from that man. And the crazy story is he is now, or he was, the first sergeant for a company that I commanded, wolf Company 2-2 Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain, at Fort Polk. It is a small world and it's funny that we follow each other. And if they could tell me that I could go back to the infantry and be a brigade commander and Derek Kearns, and you could be one of my first sergeants, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would leave the cushy job of acquisitions which it's not, by the way, but I would leave acquisitions and I would do it in a heartbeat. That would be a dream job.
Speaker 2:I hope you know.
Speaker 1:I'd give you gray hair. I already have gray hair, but I use Rogaine. That's a secret, let's not tell anyone. So walk me through kind of getting back from the deployment and some of the challenges that you had to face as a leader, and and I'll kind of set the stage. So sequestration just hit. We had no money. We just came back from getting shot at basically two to three times a day going on multiple missions, and now there's no outlet. Hey, you're home, be, be with your families. We don't have money to go to the range, we can't do any type of training, just come in, do paperwork, do some counseling and you're good to go. What kind of challenges did you face as a leader?
Speaker 2:at your level, keeping them busy on something that was pertinent to keeping them ready in case we had to go back now I had a feeling that we wouldn't because once we got back, we got tasked with the battalion, or actually I think it was the installation, got tasked with pacific pathways, so they would no longer be doing combat rotations, they were going to be go doing uh partner training with the uh armies of like indones, indonesia and all that area, but just keeping them focused and not like doing things that were going to get them in trouble because they had all this energy coming back and they, you know, we did the little trips, remember? We went skiing.
Speaker 1:Dude, that was the worst experience. I got a story for that, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Just having something for them to do, because we knew that we probably wouldn't be going back to Afghanistan, and just keeping them training and trying to get them to want to do something extra.
Speaker 1:You guys totally deserve that ski trip, by the way. So in the military, there is an MWR fund that you can tap into. There is an MWR fund that you can tap into. And if anyone's listening to this and you're a platoon leader, you're a company commander, you have morale fund every single year that no one ever uses. They will pay for one event and it's. You go skydiving, you can go deep sea fishing, you can go to amusement park with your platoon, your formation, you can go to a professional paintball range, you can go rent out a campground and pontoon boats for the day. You have that funds available to you, so use it. So if anyone listens to this and you're a company commander, you have it, find it.
Speaker 1:But we went to Stevens Pass. Never skied a day in my life. But I had the mindset. You know, I'm Ranger qualified, I'm airborne qualified, I own this world, I just come back from a deployment, I'm going to the top. So I went to the top and I went 10,000 feet up and then I had no concept of what the different colors were between you know black, blue, double black. So it's me and Kearns. We're up the top.
Speaker 1:He, he finally gives up on me about 30 minutes. He's like, sir, I'll see you down at the bottom. I was like sure, see you down at the bottom, because I kept just falling. And not only did I fall, I couldn't figure out how to stop. So when I got to a certain speed, the only thing I knew what to do was just like, oh, plf, and then my ski would go off and it would go in the deep snow. And I was like skiing is stupid. I don't know why anyone does this. This is absolutely miserable. And it took me four hours to get off the mountain the first time, and I think it was wet Lake, uh, and Travis down at the bottom. And they're like, sir, are you having a good time? I was like no, I'm done, you guys go have fun. I'll see you in a little bit.
Speaker 1:I have a really funny picture of you from that day, with you holding your little ski pole out like this, like onward boys, and that was like I think, after you finally came down, y'all have to find it and send it to you. Yeah, man, that's funny. But I think the biggest challenge that I faced, at least as the platoon leader one I didn't want to go be an XO, I wanted to stay and be a platoon. That's one of the hardest things of at least that I've experienced throughout the military is you. You work in an organization. You get the honor and privilege to lead the, the world's the, the nation's treasure and I really mean that is that what is the greatest resource that we have? It is our men and women who volunteer as a fighting force. We live in a professional, all volunteer fighting force. That's what the army is, and it's absolutely incredible and it's true.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to transition to go be an XO, so I was doing everything in my power to stay and I and I won there for a while, cause it was like 15, 15 weeks. I just kept coming up with excuses of why I needed to stay and and convincing or captain wolfschweigel to keep me. But one of the things that I struggled with the most was trying to to keep everyone directed the right way and there was a lot of soldiers at the time that were getting out. If um devin, if you remember he was getting out because of a poor leadership, how many level drove him to kind of get out? He was a phenomenal soldier. I wanted to keep him in and that kind of created a tipping point, at least in my mind. You know, pete right, pete getting out. I feel that I've totally failed him and I'll never forget.
Speaker 1:You know, derrick and I are sitting in there and we were counseling him because he's like, hey, I want to get out and pete, you know, being from utah, being a mormon, uh, playing heavy metal, death music, being like one of the best guitar players in the world, the world's best rto his plan getting out, transitioning, was he wanted to go be a guitar player and derek and I just looked at each other as like it's dangerous and we know it's dangerous and and we tried to talk him out of it. But I just didn't do a good job. I could have done a better job and I think if I would have been more intentional, at least knowing what I know now, with regret every day, one of the things that I feel that I personally felt as a leader. But that was one of my biggest struggles of when we first came back was making sure that we would maintain transitioning soldiers out of the military, but have a plan and I think emotionally and mentally, maturity wise, I failed you guys at that point.
Speaker 2:It's, it's really hard being, you know, a young adult at a college. You know, yeah, you've gone through this, this training, and you had the expectation of you are the one in charge, you're the one who makes the right decisions. But I mean, I think about it now. I have so many soldiers that have been in my platoon that have transitioned out and, as I think about it, like I don't feel that I have prepared them or given them the right counsel and mentorship, because we're pulled in so many different directions, especially at just a platoon level, it's almost impossible to foresee like, did I do enough or did I do the right thing? Here? I mean, especially if you ever get the pleasure of serving in an ABCT as an infantryman. It's 10 times worse because now the priority is vehicles and then you also have that underlying priority of your discounts. So it's it's hard to manage and it's something that you know if you ever put together like a little leader, you know quick book of like things that you need to look at.
Speaker 2:That's something that I think often gets overlooked. Is doing the right thing. You know gets overlooked is doing the right thing. You know one, thanking them, uh, properly, you know, giving them the proper award that they uh have earned. Um, you know, maybe give them a little goodbye gift and uh just making sure that they are set up for success, whether it be just information or whatever, and then checking up on them. I've done a very poor job, I believe, in my eyes, uh keeping in touch with people that have transitioned out. You find them here and there on Facebook, but there's so many people that I'd love to reconnect with that I've lost contact with.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the hardest things, man is that you're only one person right, and I finally realized that is that we all have times, talents and treasures. How we use those and if it's purposeful, can make a much bigger impact. And that's honestly one of the reasons that I started this podcast, because I've had phenomenal leadership in my life. I've worked with amazing people that have shaped me into who I am today. I've worked with amazing people that have shaped me into who I am today, and maybe one of your guys' stories will save someone's life, create a better leader who will create an atmosphere and a culture that will save someone's life. That's the whole purpose of this. That's the whole purpose of the podcast is because I want inspiring leaders like you I always call purposeful, accountable leaders pals to share their story and to bring light into this world, because there's enough darkness and I'm tired of it. I'm going to start bringing some light. So where are you at right now on your leadership journey?
Speaker 2:I'm nearing the end, sadly. You know it depends on how long I decide to stay in, but I just finished my time as a platoon sergeant. I actually rip out the next couple of weeks and then I'll be transitioning. Congratulations, by the way, thank you, it went by fast, you know. Two years. You think it's a long time, and then you look back on it and it's gone in the blink of an eye. But hopefully I will pick up, master Sergeant, and eventually get a company of my own. I don't know if I really want that job I've seen the stress of a First Sergeant but I think it would be fun.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll tell you why you need that job. Because what you just said, you don't want the job. A lot of people who chase that is because they chase it for title. They want the authority and the power that comes with it. You don't want that, but you will make a phenomenal leader and that's exactly why you need to stay in and you need to be a first sergeant, because you're going to make so many soldiers' lives 10 times better. And I'll tell you this is that your humor and I don't think I have it in here, but the plaque that you turd nuggets gave me when I left 1st Platoon Paleosaurus I don't know if you remember that nickname that you guys gave- me, uh-huh I think I think it was jones who gave me that nickname because I had really big legs and tiny little baby arms like t-rex, huge thighs.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you found pants uh, every time I see that plaque and I walk by it, it brings me joy when I that's awesome. So you've been in the army now 17 years. You've seen the culture kind of change. Yeah, what do you think? Some of the the traits and characteristics that are lacking in young leaders today in the military drive and ambition for the biggest ones that stand out.
Speaker 2:Um, and I don't know, like you know, we we said we had like the cream of the crop of like leaders and soldiers on every level that were on that deployment and, um, I just I'd see a lot of guys and they, they have various reasons for why they join. All of them good, but I don't see as much competitiveness to be, you know, number one or be successful with the younger generation that's coming in, and I think that it is a shift in culture and it's going to be a big challenge for the Army moving forward, because we're already at the smallest serving force. Since what? 1941 or 40? Yeah, the smallest serving force since what?
Speaker 1:1941 or 40? Yeah, it's I. When I was a company commander, I took over my first company, I think, in like 2018, um, and then I know 2017, and then I took over my next company in 2018 and I remember at that time like man. The army has changed, um, at least since I was a lieutenant, and like, looking back at it now, after COVID, the Army has changed so much that it's almost unrecognizable To when I was a company commander in 2019, that's how fast it's changed, and I think COVID has amplified that, at least in my mind. Yeah, how is?
Speaker 2:that on the ground in my mind, yeah, how is that on the ground? Oh, it's difficult because you know a lot of these soldiers that went through basic and you know they took away the shark attack. Uh, for those who don't know, like when you come off the bus first day of basic training, you got like 11 team drill sergeants just all in your face just screaming at you non-stop. You know, put the bag up, take you know, put it down, pick it up, put it over your head. Just hours of that and that's like you're like shocking introduction to the military. Um, and it's gotten a little softer. And you know a lot of the soldiers that I've seen and it's not all of them. I don't want to, you know, yeah, put a moniker on them, but a lot of them have difficulty with authority. They have trouble having someone tell them that either a they're wrong or they've made a mistake, or this is the better way to do it, and it's.
Speaker 2:it's a hard barrier to break down and you got to find your way to do it. And the bigger challenge is you have to do it with each one, because each one has a different way that they're going to get through to.
Speaker 1:You hit a nail on the head, man, at least what I've seen clear communication, and each person has a different way of being communicated to, and in the military, at least in the infantry, it's a melting pot. We had what refugees within our platoon? When I was an accompany commander, I had people all the way from haiti to nebraska. And that's what makes us great, because we have that diversity. And diversity is great when you come from different walks of life, because you look at problems differently, you solve problems differently, and that's what makes a great organization great. Is that creativity, that innovation, and that's why the military is so innovative.
Speaker 1:Look at wetlick. That dude built a freaking catapult when we were doing rotc range and I couldn't find him for four hours one day and sergeant kearns and I were looking for that dude everywhere. He built a two standard catapult like legit catapult that was firing like 10 pound rocks and I can't remember, but I think it was like firing him like 50 feet. It's like you did this in four hours. Yeah, I just you know I had some time together yeah, I just threw it together.
Speaker 2:I was like he made you know he's the most creative person that I've ever seen the couches that he made and we would put sleeping pads on them for cushions.
Speaker 1:He made that deployment. He ran all the equipment, he built all the garden towers. He was the most handy man in the world. Yeah, dude, that dude, he was a wild man. I love him. So let's kind of think long-term. Where do you want to go five, 10 years from now? Where's Colin Boyle?
Speaker 2:Most likely out of the Army. I would say 10 years definitely. But I'm actually struggling with that now because my wife and I have been talking about it and we're at three years till I can retire and we've been here at Fort Cabezas for three years now, or a little over, and it's gone by really fast. We're both getting a little nervous of what do I want to do, or what do we want to do. Where do we want to go? I think I want to probably stay close to the DOD, maybe be a contractor or do some GS work or something like that. I don't know, I'm looking for something that will keep me busy, maybe be like a contractor or do some GS work or something like that. But, um, I don't know, I'm looking for something that will keep me busy. Um, I don't like riding a desk, I like to be out and moving around. So I don't know, maybe I'll be one of those old guys in range control that pull up and uh, tell you to pick up brass.
Speaker 1:I think I got to. We'll talk after this. I after this, I think I got a good path for you of what you could do, and I'll tell you that your skills and a lot of infantry soldiers don't understand this. Your skills translate so beautifully to the rest of the world because your leadership capacity and leadership is the one thing that cannot be taught. It takes time, it takes frequency, it takes rough experiences to kind of forge those. And what you have went through and all the different experiences you went through, that is gold to companies and organizations. Company it does, absolutely does, and it doesn't matter if you have the business acumen to run a company, because that's not necessarily your job, right, because you're the leader, you're building the vision, you're guiding the team and you're taking them on the path, or you're an underlining leader and you're executing someone's vision with purpose. So the last question I'd love to ask you before we get to our final show segment is what advice would you give a new soldier that's getting ready to start their career?
Speaker 2:It's challenging so many different ways I can go. Take the biggest risks that you want to take early on in your career and don't have any hesitation't be afraid of it. I think I missed the biggest opportunity of going to ranger school when I was young and I was very afraid of it because you know, uh, like I said, I mean I got my eib, but I only I was. I think it was a miracle that I passed nightland, that um, but that was what scared me was going. I didn't think I would fail physically, but I wasn't confident with one of the gated events and I, I had a ticket, uh, we went down and did the best range of competition colors, um, two years in a row, and the brigade uh, or the fourth RTB, uh commander and SAR major gave us these little business cards.
Speaker 2:You call a number. You don't have to wait on ATARs, you don't have to wait on OML. You get a slot in the next school, the next class state, and I had that for years and I never, ever called it because I was nervous about failing. And that's probably the best thing that you can do is to be afraid of failure, but don't let it keep you from doing things because, yeah, you're going to fail, but I really wish I had went when I was younger. I eventually did get down there. I went twice in 2019, right before COVID happened, but I think just because I waited so long and I'd gotten some more mileage on my body and also I don't think my head was 100% in it. But if you wait to take those chances, you may miss the prime opportunity to go.
Speaker 1:That's great man. When I'm going through my master's program, I really had a pivot within my mindset is that a lot of people chase hard. Why do people chase hard things and certain people avoid it? And it's nerves, it's it's the they're afraid to fail. What happens if you fail? What's the worst case scenario? If you were, would have went to ranger school and you know 2010, 2009, 2008,. Whatever that would have been. What was the worst case scenario? You recycle, you go back to your unit, but you gave a try, and in engineering, every single thing fails, but there's a concept of fail fast and fail small. That's the key Fail fast, fail small, then iterate, build upon that, get better and get better and get better. And that's how success is built. It's built on the mountain of failures, micro failures. But you have to understand that. And if you were to go in life and just win every single time when you do something, that would be boring. It's it's kind of it's kind of fun to have the challenge at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great advice. Sometimes being a loser has its advantages too.
Speaker 1:Well, not at wrestling man, I missed you. 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. Question one so what do you believe separates a good leader from a great leader?
Speaker 2:You know the picture of the men pulling the block with leader on it pointing, and then the other one with him in the front, that that doing those types of things, if it, if it looks like it's going to be difficult or dirty or not fun, or I'm above that, I don't have to do that anymore. Having been with people that have done that and then having leaders that get down and do it with you, you build so much more loyalty and trust by doing it with them rather than telling them to go do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I love that Deeds not words. I had a battalion commander tell me that one time. Deeds are more important than words, but when you can align those two, it's powerful. So question two what is one resource that you would recommend to our listeners?
Speaker 2:For young personnel in the Army. It's ATN, army Training Network, and specifically the CAR Central Army Registry. I believe it was you or Dave Taylor that showed me that as a young NCO Dave Taylor that showed me that as a young NCO and it has every resource that you can think of for any type of mission individual, collective training. It gives you a breakdown of how to do it and then your go and no-go criteria. It's a step-by-step way to do it and you can take it from a team leader level all the way up to a brigade commander with how far to go down the rabbit hole of executing tasks. It's amazing and I wish I'd known about it when I was a brand new sergeant.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, All right. So number three if you could give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker 2:and why have fun, but don't have too much fun. I think I spent a little too much of my younger years having too much fun and it just it creates habits that aren't easy to break and it's not really fun later in life. So enjoy yourself, but keep a cap on it.
Speaker 1:I love that. All right, last one. So if this story resonates with someone out there and someone wants to reach out to you, what is the best way to find you or add value to you?
Speaker 2:You can find me on Facebook or Instagram and then, obviously, reach out through you. I don't have anything specific. I don't even remember if I'm on LinkedIn anymore it's been so long since I logged into that but that's the easiest way to get a hold of me. Okay, or just follow Taylor Glitter For those who don't know. Well, do you remember what I did to Kearns when he?
Speaker 1:left.
Speaker 2:That was epic. I have Glitter all over his office. I still have pictures of that.
Speaker 1:You have, was it Jack Nicholson?
Speaker 2:pictures 20 headshots of Burt Reynolds, jack Nicholson, nicholas Cage and Sean Connery.
Speaker 1:And then you put an air horn underneath his chair. So when he sat down it locked and the air horn just went and it worked perfectly. Yeah, that was epic. I'll have to find that picture and I have it somewhere. That was a good one.
Speaker 1:I have it if you don't, Colin it's been an absolute honor to get to catch up with you again. It's crazy that it's already been over an hour and I feel that I could have kept going, but I tried to cap it off out of respect to your time, so your wife doesn't hate me, thanks.
Speaker 2:No, thank you for having me on here. It was an honor to to be thought of to be on your show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't think of a better person. Brother, have a great night you too. All right, team, it's time for our after action review. What a great episode with Colin, a great friend, and we spent probably another 20 minutes when we got off just continuing to catch up. Really a phenomenal leader, and I hope that you reach out to him and do me a favor shoot him a personal message on Facebook or Instagram and tell him to stay in the army so he can be a first sergeant, because soldiers need him to be their leader. I'm telling you right now that's how great he is and that's the, at least where I put him on in my mind. If I could go back and be a soldier, starting all over, or if my son or my daughter was going to be a soldier, I would want him to be their first sergeant.
Speaker 1:So what are the top three takeaways that I took from this show? At least, the first one was chasing hard things. Life is full of very challenging environments. Full of very challenging environments, situations. We're always going to find ourselves put in the corner of, where we are afraid to take action because we're afraid to fail. But failing is just part of it. You know, dave Ramsey talks about everyone that we always look up to that is on top of the mountain. They're on top of the mountain from all the different steps that they've had to take and all the different failures that they built along the way, and I'd shared a story of mine of. In engineering, we have a quote fell small and fell fast, so we can iterate, become better, build upon our failures, and we never truly fail if we don't stop trying to better ourselves. And that's what life is. That's what leadership is. It's a continuous fight, every single day, to be a better leader, and if you can do that, then you're winning the fight, and that's the whole purpose Chase hard things, grow yourself and stretch yourself.
Speaker 1:The next one that I wrote down was fighting imposter syndrome, and he talked about that from the standpoint that he was nervous when he was transitioning from the old guard to Alpha Company, 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. That company was getting ready to go to war in Afghanistan the final surge in 2012. And he was in a trade-off organization for all intents and purposes, or a training unit before being able, as a team leader. To just walk into a leadership role and not fully understand what you're doing is very challenging. But how did he overcome that? He overcame that by elevating his performance to the leaders that were around him.
Speaker 1:And that's the most important thing Wherever you're at right now, if you feel inadequate, are you around superior people to you, of whatever job you're doing or whatever you find yourself doing, even if it's sports. That's good, because that means you're growing, that means you're stretching yourself. And my daughter had a wrestling match this weekend and she ended up getting third place, which is absolutely phenomenal. But she wrestled much harder competition and she's harder on herself because she thinks she has to win every single match. But the harder the wrestling match is, the better she is going to be, because she dominates everyone at her practice and she's not growing. But when she gets in those situations of where she finds herself being nervous, that means she cares number one, but also, too, that means the competition is higher, and if the competition is higher, that means you're going to be better. You're going to grow.
Speaker 1:The final key takeaway that I have is take a little bit from each leader that you have and that's a theme throughout my leadership, especially my leadership coaching is that take time to think on all the different leaders that you've had in your past. Which ones did you like? Which ones did you respect? Why did you like them? Why did you respect them and pull those threads together to help you be the better leader that you are today? And Brene Brown, in her book that I just finished reading, dare to Lead, talks about core values, and are they aspired or are they practiced? When you find what your core values are, they're most likely going to be coming from other leaders or organizations that you have. Find what you want to practice in your life. Not aspire, but practice in your life, and that's key. If you have poor leaders, do not continue down that path. Understand what they did and why it was bad in your eyes and figure out a better way.
Speaker 1:One of the most powerful jobs that I had was when I was an observer coach trainer at Fort Polk, louisiana. I got an opportunity to see 18 different company command teams before I was able to take over my company and I was able to shape my TTPs or tactics, techniques and procedures, my standard operating procedures, sops, before I walked into my company, and I believe that that set me up for success to ultimately win the Douglas MacArthur Award and all these other prestigious awards that really don't mean anything, because it wasn't me who earned those. It was the men and women that I led. They did all the work. I unfortunately got all the praise and I didn't really fully grasp or understand that at that time. But understand, you need to take a little bit from each leader that you've led, and we've talked about this in a previous episode of having a leader book. Have a leader book.
Speaker 1:If a leader does something that you like or you don't like, write it down, Capture your thought at that moment and then you can always go back and reflect on it. All right, team, do me a favor. If you like this episode, I'm going to ask you to do three things. Number one share it. Number two follow me on any social media platform that you're listening to this. Make sure that you leave me a review and support the channel, and you can do that by going to McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom or TalesOfLeadership backslash Buzzsproutcom, and you'll find ways to support the channels in there and also on McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom.
Speaker 1:I write additional blog articles and I have additional blogs for this specific episode, so if you want to go back and wanted to take notes, you'll be able to find the one page article for this. That summarizes this entire podcast episode for you. Why? Because I want to provide as much content to you as possible to arm you with the tools to be the leader that this world needs. As always, I'm your host, josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.
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