EntreLeadership - #309: Leadership Lessons From the Flight Deck with Carey Lohrenz

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

Even if your work has nothing at all to do with aviation, the lessons former Navy fighter pilot Carey Lohrenz learned in the cockpit are universal—and will change the way you do business. Tune in as Carey, the first female F-14 Tomcat pilot, shares her thoughts on building a culture of excellence, overcoming fear, and the importance of finding focus. Leadership consultant Dr. Henry Cloud also joins us with a story about his personal experience flying in a fighter jet. Let’s just say flying at twice the speed of sound is not for the faint of heart! And finally, Patrick Lencioni, Founder and CEO of The Table Group, debunks the myth that good employees are impossible to find.   entreleadership.com/podcast Fearless Leadership: High-Performance Lessons From the Flight Deck Henry Cloud's website Patrick Lencioni's website Get your podcast listener discount for EntreLeadership Summit   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you focus on that most important work, what it allows you to do is take action. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre leadership. Now here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Fun episode coming to you. Going to be a lot of talk about fighter jets and leadership with three of our 2019 summit speakers.

Carrie Lorenz, the first female F-14 Tomcat pilot, and Dr. Henry Cloud, and Pat Lynchione. Going to be a lot of fun, so let's get right to it. Carrie Lorenz, fantastic lady, the author of Fearless Leadership, high-performance lessons from the flight deck. You're going to hear a lot about her story and some great leadership content. Here is my conversation with Carrie. Well, Carrie, this is so fun for me because I'm a child of the 80s, and we're going to talk so many things within leadership. But to talk to someone who actually flew a Tomcat,

and not only flew it, but the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot, and somebody who grew up thinking that Top Gun was the coolest movie ever made, this is fun. So I just want to acknowledge that to all the people that are my age going, Oh, yeah. We all wanted to feel the need for speed. So welcome. Well, thank you. And some of us still do, actually, feel that need for speed. Okay, so I'm going to ask you that. So I was going to ask you that later. I'm going to ask you that now. Then we'll dive into some of the backstory. Okay. How does someone who flew a 72,000 pound piece of metal that can do crazy things, and how do you replace that once you're done? Wow, you know, that's a great question. And I think actually the transparent answer to that is for some people not well. Because you kind of, over the course of time, you know, you're always walking this really fine line between balancing and managing just enormous amounts of what feels like uncontrollable or uncontained adrenaline to still having to be very methodical, very precise. But you kind of get addicted to those adrenaline burst. And I think a lot of us, are adrenaline junkies. So to all of a sudden, and to be in a group, to be in a team that has such

great purpose and alignment, to find that external to that environment is a big challenge for a lot of people. And it's hard. It's a really tough transition. How have you done that? Well, I'm fortunate because what I do now, it keeps me engaged with so many different types of organizations that have such different and vast challenges that in order for me to be effective in my job. I'm continuing to have to learn, to invest, to stay curious, to be able to shift in all different types of conversations with very different types of people. So that always keeps me kind of on edge, if you will. And then I'm fortunate because I've got four kids who appear to be adrenaline junkies as well. So now you're like, oh, stay safe. Don't do that. What are you doing?

Exactly. It occurs to me, we have three kids, Stacey and I. It occurs to me that the average American mom could be a great fighter pilot or general if they just had those sco just because of what they deal with every day for me. I know. Just being professionals and then being moms or even the stay at home moms. You talk about pressure. Oh, for sure. And the sleep deprivation and the, what can be stretches of boredom and isolation, right? Like you, you're supposed to launch into the world these perfect little humans while at times you feel really isolated and you're exhausted. So how do you do that. It's a challenge for sure. It's one of the toughest jobs being a full-time, you know, parent, I think. I want to go back to the early days. Now, I've got to tell you folks, I'm going to give you the

adrenaline stuff that you're looking for. I've got several questions that are going to take us behind the scenes of this unbelievably pressure-packed job being a fighter pilot. And I will say this, folks, for the book, Fearless Leadership, the introduction. I needed a couple of paper towels. My hands were so sweaty. You write it. I feel like I'm in the cockpit with you. I feel like I'm in the cockpit with you, and it's unbelievably intense. It's a thrill ride, the introduction, that opening that you play out for us is unbelievable. We'll get to that, folks. But if you're just looking for a great book that gives you the feel of a espionage thriller, but it's all real, and then you're going to get leadership. It's a great book. Can't wait to dive into it. We'll get to that in a little bit,

but I want to know, when does Carrie first feel like, hmm, I might want to want to fly something or I might want to do something fast. I just want to go way back. When does this become a thing? My dad flew in the Marine Corps. And I have an older brother who's just a year older than me. So he and I grew up playing with all of my dad's equipment. His, you know, we'd flip a bar stool over, you know, in our dining room and we'd each get into a little section of it. And we'd have silk maps and oxygen masks and all of this. But I never necessarily saw that as being an option for me. that was something I could do. And my dad was like, well, you could do it if you wanted to, but I didn't see any women doing it. And as I got older, you know, and I would do some reading,

and I realized that the wasps had flown in the 40s. And yet then there was nothing. I mean, hardly you didn't read anything about any women flying in the 50s, in the 60s, in the 70s. And so just because you didn't even see it, it didn't even feel like a real option. But it's funny that you say, And I swear to you, this is not staged at all. I'm sitting at home, I'm at my desk. I was just going through some old photo albums. And somebody had asked me a question about, you know, my brother and when did I start this? And I found this picture of me, and this is kind of old school parenting as well.

And it's January of 1971. Now, you can't really see this really good. But in the background is my dad running. And this is me on a seven-horsepower lawnmower with the cut. cutting deck engaged, driving a lawnmower by myself, obviously going fast because my dad's running at three. So you crawled up on it and took off and he's like, oh. I know. Well, there's another picture I have and I think it's in a stack I can't reach that it's funny because I always joke with people. I always torment of my brother just being a year older than me. Like I followed him

and everything. And there's a picture on the same lawnmower at my grandma and grandpa is that my dad is sitting there with my brother in his lap driving. And I'm like this, like kind of hunkered over like trying to get to it. So I was probably a year old at that point. Then the next year, again, I just ran, had access to some family photo albums. The next summer, it's my brother driving. I'm behind him. And finally at three, they trusted me to, yes. So I have a feeling I've always kind of been a little bit driven for that, had that need, I guess. And again, it's interesting because in this day and age, you probably don't find a bunch of three-year-olds on a riding lawnmower with a deck engaged with their dad running next time. People would be like, oh, that's terrible parenting.

Oh, listen, you would get reported. I know. I know. Absolutely. Your dad, who was the coolest guy of all the time for letting that happen would be reported. I know. Had word gotten out in the local community in 2019, he would have been ostracized. It would be a showstopper.

Well, and then it would make it worse because we had some property and we had this old, I think, think it was like a 1945 Ford tractor, and we had to have it for cutting grass and all this stuff. And I was young enough when I started driving it, the only way you could shift it, you know, they're like these metal shifter lovers, and you have to step on the clutch really hard. And that's great if you're an adult, because you can do that in a seated position on this old Ford tractor. But when you're a kid, you have to stand on it and kind of dance it. So it's like a real three-dimensional experience. And again, dragging behind it is a bush hog.

No protection, no anything. It can chop down like four-inch tree. But yeah, that's where I guess you kind of... No, I love it. Let's fast forward to at some point you decide, I think I want to go into the military, and then we've known now that you love fast things. You like engines, right?

You've always had that thrill-seeking. When does it all come together for you? It was one of those things where when I was in college, I realized I was always drawn towards the Navy because I loved its focus on mission before self. There was a big piece of that. And because I'd grown up, surrounded by this culture of aviation, you know, I knew that I love that piece of it,

and I thought that would be a great way to serve. But because I didn't go, there are only three ways you can become a Navy pilot. You either go to the Naval Academy and get a flying slot. You go through ROTC, or you do what I did, where you go to aviation officer candidate school. And so I applied to that, and it's a very rigorous application process. So you have to do physical tests, spatial awareness test, math tests, science test, all this stuff, to see if you're even a qualified candidate. They put you in that pool. Yes, you get selected. No, you don't. If you do, you head off to Pensacola for this. And it's a 16-week program that essentially takes you from being that regular college graduate to earning your officer commission. But it was extraordinarily challenging because

there was a really strong academic component to it, as well as a really exhaustive physical component. So it had over a 50% attrition rate because oftentimes people just can't handle those extreme pressures and that stress because everything about that program was actually designed to break you. It was designed to break you psychologically and it was designed to break you physically because what they wanted to see was under that enormous amount of stress and duress. Would you still be able to be flexible? Could you adapt and overcome really any scenario that they threw you in? And as importantly, they wanted to see that when you were under extreme amounts of stress, would you still make good decisions?

But what they were watching for is would you make a decision that was in the best interest of the team? When it became clear, it was no longer in your personal best interest. Because at the end of the day, that's what leadership is about. And they didn't want those people who were in it just so they could survive. They wanted to see, you know, would you make a decision that would bring everybody home, even if maybe that meant you didn't survive. At this point, do you have the context of the potential history that you could make? No, no, I don't think so, because I don't think if you only focused on that one thing on an outcome per se, you'd never be able to get through the day by day, the hour by hour, the minute by minute grind and commitment that it would take. And contextually for me, when I was growing up, although I didn't see any women really that were aviators,

I knew historically that the wasps had flown in the 40s. And then suddenly for decades, like, we forgot about them. And that, you know, there was now discussion about, oh, women can't fly or women shouldn't be in combat. And I'm like, does anybody remember the wafts, like, flew over a million hours in the 40s? Like, have we forgotten that? So, no, I think for anybody, actually, the key to success, when you're going to, through something that's really arduous and again, you know, a variety of threats to your psychological safety, to your physical safety. If you only focus on the outcome or you let

external pressures weigh you down, you will never be able to be successful in the day-to-day process and the work, doing of the work necessary that eventually will facilitate that successful outcome. It's too much. It's just too much stress. You know, I've never asked this question before. We had several Marines on the show, and they've been through all that. We've had seals on the show, and you've been through this intense stuff. You know, I've never thought about this, but we put high performers in the military through this physical and psychological tortured, essentially, to see how you handle it. But we don't do this for leaders.

You know, it's interesting to me, and I know it's not required to do it to that level, but what does it? I want leaders who may have never put themselves in a position where it was really, really intense. What did it do for you when you came on on the other side of that? There's so much that goes into that. And one of my big takeaways, though, was that, you know, it didn't matter if you had out of a class of 65, four or five people who were just crazy high performers. That just did amazing jobs.

Because if you had five or seven people that weren't doing well or couldn't quite carry their water, if you will, then you have a breakdown in that chain, right? I mean, as trite as it sounds, you know, you are truly only as strong as your weakest link. And the other part of that is that you have to be able to build within your culture, within your system. I believe this idea of, you know, that we survive, you know, we can survive solo. That's true. Those three, five top people could survive solo. But if you're looking for that long wind, or long-term maintaining relevancy, you need the entire team for that. You cannot do this by yourself. So that idea of constantly grooming, constantly mentoring, constantly engaging people to help them

develop and become a stronger teammate, I think is definitely critical in that spectrum that is leadership. Because it doesn't matter how fantastic you are. If you're not bringing anybody with you, okay, great, for the sake of what? What are you doing? So mentally, you're done with all of this, and are you now confident enough? And do you find yourself as you start to get maybe in an airplane and now this is the next level of training with the next level of pressure? Did you draw back on that intense mental training to say, okay, I put up with basic training, I got through that. They didn't break me. I can handle this.

Did you call back on that? Absolutely. And that's that confidence building part because for everybody on graduation day, The feeling, no matter how much they broke you down and tried to build you back up, but that feeling of, I've got this, I can handle anything. That's what you want. You wanted people that on graduation day were confident, but not arrogant, and who had been not down enough to hopefully go into this process

with a healthy dose of humility as well. And that, okay, yes, you've done this. But guess what? Now we're resetting it. Now you're back at zero and you're going to have to work really hard. So it's that delicate balance. And obviously you've had seals on here and you've had people that have gone through a lot. It's that delicate balance between operating with humility and operating with integrity

and still being able to charge forward and know that you don't know at all, that it's going to take other people and continually learning to either create a microclimate of excellence. or big picture wise, a culture of excellence, that you cannot rest. You're good enough today, but tomorrow we have to be better. You know, one of the basic forms or functions of leadership is delegation. And yet it's so hard for people, you know, so hard for leaders to let go and to train somebody and to trust them to do the job. And I think that's so ironic talking to a former fighter pilot here because here you come, so we take you back to Carrie's story, folks.

And Carrie, you're going to get to teach us a little bit here and step on some leadership toes. You get out of the classes, right, at all the training. Now you've graduated. Now they start putting you in planes at some point. And it's just so ironic to me that the government will put young people in, you know, a 72,000 pound plane or whatever it is. That's just the Tomcat I remember from the book. But they'll put you in something that costs millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. And it could kill somebody if you wreck it in a neighborhood or whatever it is. The point is, that's delegation. We're going to put some young hot shots who have all the skill set, But they don't have a lot of experience.

We're going to put them in a really expensive machine. That is delegation. I know. It is mind-blowing. But to take it even up a greater notch, what's amazing about that environment, so outside of my cockpit. So the first time I was in the F-14 flying at, I was probably 23. So 23 years old.

But to give you a little context for that, as young as that may seem, and here I am 23 years flying a $45 million airplane at twice a speed of sound, when I'm on the aircraft carrier, that aircraft carrier has about 5,000 people on board. And the average age on an aircraft carrier is 19 to 19 and a half years old. Wow. That's mind going. So you have, when you talk about that trust factor, there are times when I'm sitting in my airplane and when they have to reposition an aircraft on the flight deck, they might make a really quick call on the radio. and all of a sudden you'll have 15 people run up to your airplane, put their hands on the edge of your wings,

and start pushing you back towards the edge of the aircraft, where your tires come that close to the edge of the aircraft carrier, like three to four inches. And you want to talk about trust there. Those are 18, 19, 20-year-olds, pushing you towards the edge of the aircraft carrier that if those wheels go over, you're done. Like, you flip into the water.

So there's a very, very high level. level of trust within that team that culture-wise starts at the beginning of everybody being unified on a singular purpose. And then everything that you do drives towards achieving that purpose and making sure everybody else is aligned on that mission. So it's crazy. It's so exciting. It should encourage leaders who are listening to us right now who are worried about passing off a title, a team to a 27-year-old. And the military's training. training 19-year-olds to do things that would blow your mind. The point is here, the military is training. There's a training process. So the first time you get in that, Tomcat was not the

first time you had flown a plane. Just give us a snapshot. How many hours, how many different planes have you flown before you get that first flight? Right. So that's a great point. And from a process perspective, they don't just give you the keys, pat you on the head and say, good luck. Try not to screw it up, right? Or hurt anybody. So there's this winnowing phase. So in order to earn your wings as a Navy fighter pilot, it takes about two years. And at every point, every single flight, you're being evaluated, every single you're being tested academically. You're flying multiple flights a day for almost two years. And there's a funnel. So you start off at the beginning in primary flight school. And, you know, half the people wash out of that. And when you get to the

end of that phase, it's based on your class rank where you get sent next. So you might get sent into what's called the strike fighter pipeline, maritime pipeline, so that's propeller and big wing airplanes or helicopters. And then you go through an intermediate phase and you get about a half of those people wash out again because it gets harder and harder. You're flying different airplanes in each phase and more as expected of you. So by the time you get done with flight school, you have about two years invested in this. The majority of the people that you started flight school with are gone now, and now you earn your wings, and now you get to go to the fleet.

So it's, you know, the number that starts at the beginning to the people that are left at the end is, you know, there's a huge fall off there. But en route to this, you know, you're developing your skills, you're developing your confidence, your aptitude, and you have to be able to figure out in this whole process different ways. through emergency procedures, how do you rely on your training so that some of this becomes reflexive through studying and relentless preparation? And that's the piece I think people forget sometimes as they're trying to grow a business or they've reached a certain level of success,

that they'll stop doing those things that got them to that place. And understanding what it takes. It's hard work. It is relentless preparation. It is failing over and over again. But to hopefully get you to the point where whether you're flying in a $45 million aircraft or you're launching that business or you're trying to scale that business, that you have these different skill sets and you've mastered pieces of this that then allow you to be flexible and be innovative and adapt to these really changing environments. But it all builds just because somebody starts at the beginning of flight school and they're super excited and they're like, oh, I want to fly jets. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my life. And they show you this old picture of them standing by, you know, an old airplane

at a museum. That's all great. You need to have that vision, right? And that enthusiasm and that excitement. But you also have to figure out how to drink from the fire hose because the life comes that you harden fast and figure it out. So it's a challenge. It's challenge for anybody. All right. Take us to the aircraft carrier. Now I'm taking us to the introduction of the book. And again, it's a spellbinding kind of, you know, thing here. And I don't want to give it away. But you're flying in the dark of night. You got to land the plane. Then you take the reader through what it's like to take off of that. Now, if I recall correctly, correct if I'm wrong, 300 feet on that carrier deck. Is that right? Yeah, just about. Yeah. So you have 300 feet to take off.

How do you train for taking off? Certainly they make you do this on land before you do it on the ship. Yes or no? No, no. You don't. What? You can, no, you can talk about it. There's nothing.

There's nothing that can replicate. There's no way to simulate it. The doing. No, no. So it's a very, and it's interesting, I was just having this conversation with somebody else. The F-14 in particular had a couple of little idiosyncrasies in it because the nose gear would compress just a little bit right before it yanked you.

I mean, like a microsecond before. it yanked you down that catapult stroke, but you go from zero to almost 200 miles an hour and just under two seconds flat. Wow. So that acceleration is, you know, 10 times anything you'll ever feel on a roller coaster and your eyes go a little bit blurry and it just kicks you in the seat of the pants. And you have to be able to, in an instant, figure out if when you got to the end of that catapult, you've got good end flying speed, i.e. you're going to continue to become airborne.

Right. Or you don't because that's a fork in the road. If you don't have enough airspeed to get airborne, you're going to have to eject. And you have this much time to make that split decision. So it's crazy. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's remarkable. All while trying to get your vision back.

Right. Because, I mean, it's just insane. Okay. So then you get up there and you got to come back. And you describe it in the book as an exhilarating thing to take off. It's like the ultimate ride. But now coming back, it's terrifying for even this most seasoned of pilots. is certainly in the dark.

And the scene you take us to is landing in the dark. Here's what I want to know. How in the world do you keep the mental control to not let your fear, which is there, but you suppress it. That's what I was impressed by. It is not the absence of fear. It is the control, the suppressing of fear that allow you to do that. What's it like?

What's the pressure like in that moment? Well, it's extreme, obviously. And for a little bit of context for everybody listening, Navy and Marine Corps fighter pilots are actually the only fighter pilots in the world who will even land high speed fighters on aircraft carriers at night. Nobody else in the world will do it because it's so risky. They'll land helicopters at night and other slower airplanes, but they won't do high speed fighters. And one of the things that is such a crucial skill set to learn is how can you control that fear. And it doesn't mean that you ever want to put it away. and ignore it or pretend like it's not there. Because fear's a good thing. It's what keeps you alive. It's what keeps the hair on the back of your neck standing up and hopefully helps you from avoiding becoming complacent or too comfortable.

The challenge and the struggle in that, though, is managing that fear so that you can still work through it and get the job done that you need to get done. So I don't think there's a fighter pilot out there who could ever truthfully admit to not having at least a handful of landings at night where their legs weren't chattering or their teeth weren't chattering because you get into really extreme pitching deck conditions or unfortunately are the occasions that there are accidents, there are mishaps that happen. And unlike any other service, when you're deployed and what's called blue water operations, which means you have no other place to land, you have to come back and land on the ship. Your only other option is ejecting. And there's

There's no guarantee that you're going to survive that. And you've now, as a taxpayer, lost a $45 million asset. So it's a very suboptimal outcome. So you have to figure out how do you take that fear on board? How do you manage that fear and flip it? And there are ways that we can do this. I'll share with you really quickly. One of it is, and from even a leadership perspective, it goes both ways outside of the cockpit and within the cockpit. We have to take all of this noise, all of this chaos, all of this fear and clarify it and clarify that complex environment and make it simple. So here's what we do in our cockpits. The only thing that we're responsible for from a memorization perspective, we'll have emergency procedures that may be five steps or 10 steps. And we call those

bold face procedures. So those are the things that we have to be able to have memorized. So it doesn't matter if you're hanging upside down or whatever. You should be able to spit that off in your sleep while you're brushing your teeth, juggling, polishing your boots, anything. But everything else that we do all of a sudden coming close into the boat, it all nets down to three things. And we keep it to three things because from an overwhelm or a multitasking perspective, all of the data and all the science really shows that really good multitaskers can only focus on about five things at anyone given period of time plus or minus two. Oh my gosh. So we worse, yeah, so we worst case.

scenario that in essence by default by keeping it to three things so you know airborne it's avate navigate communicate if you do those three things in a row you should be okay when you come into the boat when you when you get to about three quarters the mile and you know at night you can't even see that thing hardly it's pitch black you're sensory deprived you focus on three things and we call it meatball line up an angle of attack the meatball is your lens that lets you know if you're high or or too low on the glide soap. Line up, you need to be able to have your lineup down exactly because unlike on a runway, if you start drifting, you can correct for that on a runway. But when your hook engages a wire, your momentum's bringing you that way. You can't correct for it. So you have to have

that. And then your angle of attack. It's your airspeed. If you do those three things and we're trained and we go over this over and over again, it doesn't matter if somebody's screaming in the background, you've got bells and whistles going off and all this stuff, unless you have to make the decision, to eject, if you focus on those three things, you should be able to effect a safe landing. And everything else you'll figure out and deal with once you stop. But in that five to seven to 10 second period, it's focusing on the most important work. So part of that skill set that fighter pilots end up being so strong with and astronauts and even seals as well is your ability, again, to clarify the complex, to focus on the most important work and let the rest of it go. For now,

you can come back and re-address it. And that's where people get so tangled up. That's where we get so much overwhelm and burnout and distraction within businesses is that we're trying to do so many different things that we dilute our power and we end up being average at best or not good at the most important things. So the focusing is huge. That's how you, and I know this is a long explanation, but it's really critical. When you focus on that most important work, what it allows you to do is take action. And taking action is what conquers fear. Yes, it's absolutely right. That's the thread. That's what ties all of this together. And if you're getting pulled in a million different directions, you're not taking action on those important things,

but let you blow through that fear. This is so good. I don't want to move on from this, folks, until we make sure you hear what she said about focus, because if you start focusing on stuff in the cockpit and start focusing on other stuff, it's life and death. You have to be, those three things are what gets you on that deck in the black pitch of night.

It's unbelievable. Absolutely. And it's those three things. And so if you're talking to leaders, on that, what are some things you tell them, you know, do they need to define for themselves the three things that only they can do? Because it feels like as the pilot, you've got a wingman in there, or, well, I'm sorry, you've got a partner in the cockpit. We'll get the wingman in a second. And so there are certain things that you have to do and only you have to do. Is that

correct? Yeah, absolutely. And from a leadership perspective, if we take it kind of out of the cockpit and into the leadership perspective. I do a lot of executive, high-end executive level coaching. And I'll give you a little secret trick. One of the things that I always start off for the first month with the executives that I coach, and I've worked with some athletes, I tell them every single day at the beginning of the day, I want you to take a Post-it note. Just a 3-inch-by-3-inch post-it note. Doesn't matter the color and a fat sharpie marker. And write down your top three most important things that you need to focus on today that will move that performance needle and get you where you want to go. Now, obviously, when you're working with executives in athletes,

high performance athletes, do they have more than three things that are important? Absolutely they do. I have not met a person yet that can show me and successfully argue a list of 17 things that all have equal importance in order to achieve X. And what happens, what's, starts to change your mindset and the way you think about the work that you're doing, it drives you to start becoming very intentional in your decision making and those things that you're saying yes to. And as importantly, the things that you start saying no to. So when you do that, when you go through that exercise of every day writing down your top three things and you put it on the back of your phone or on your desktop or your laptop or if you

happen to be a salesperson that's in your car a ton, you put it on your dashboard. when you have that visual reminder, it drives your decision-making to do the most valuable work and start not doing the things that are sucking your attention away. And their time sucks. We all have them, whether it's social media or Netflix or micromanaging. And this goes back to what you were talking about, even delegating some. What is it that you can do to control that performance needle and what's the most important work? Otherwise, you know what we simply don't have enough hours in the day to get done what we feel like needs to get done what does that lead to burnout overwhelm disengagement and from a leadership position

now you'll have 80% of your workforce that's showing up for work but is semi disengaged it's a train wreck it's good all right now I mentioned wingman accidentally I was thinking about this next question because we all again we go back to top gun and we you know we don't know anything but we know what we see in the movies. How does that play in? Because that's one of things you do talk about is finding a wingman and that's so important. So give us the analogy

that we all kind of think we know from Top Gunn and how does that apply to us as leaders? So having a wingman is critical because of what a wingman does is it protects you and it provides mutual support because what a wingman can see and why we fly with them is that there's a blind spot behind you

that in a fighter jet you simply cannot see. you're blind because in some airplanes, you physically can't even turn around and see everything behind you. And when you're operating in a hostile environment or you're going to a hostile environment, which would be every day, right? People showing up day to day at the pace of change. Every day feels like it's a hostile, uncertain environment with a lot of ambiguity. So when you have a wingman, it's somebody who can look over and check and see what threats are either behind you or around you and then tells you about them.

And that's the key there, because too often what you'll find with leaders or even in leadership teams or executive teams or in middle management, you'll have a breakdown in trust and where people aren't sharing the problems that they see or they hold on to that piece of information because they think at some point in time they'll be able to elevate it and then look like the hero instead of being a great teammate and a great wingman and calling out a blind spot. So all of this works when you have an environment of trust. When your teammates and your leadership team, your executive team, your management team, your individual contributors or people who are working remotely, all trust each other and believe

in what it is you're doing. When you have those two things, when you trust in each other and believe what your team is trying to accomplish, then you can have those really brave, really fierce conversations or say, hey, I notice this. Because at the end of the day, all of this is about, it's not about who is right. It is about what is right. And how can we successfully achieve our mission objective that supports our purpose, right? It's so much fun.

And when people get it right, when you watch cultures change or people growing their cultures because they're able to start having these critical conversations from a team perspective, It's amazing. What you can accomplish is amazing. She is Carrie Lorenz. The book is Fearless Leadership High Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck. This is just, I mean, just the surface of all the great leadership content, incredible stories throughout the book. We're so excited to have you with us at our premium event, Entree Leadership Summit, April 28th through May 1st. It's going to be fun out in San Diego. Carrie, this was fun. We're just getting started. And we appreciate you being with us.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. That went by Fast and Furious. Mock 2. Okay, so the guys had some fun with this. I was talking to Dr. Henry Cloud recently as well, and he started telling me a story about him getting the crazy opportunity to get up in a fighter jet and do a mock dog fight for his amazing product called Leadership University. And so we wanted to include this story, it's very relevant, and it's just fantastic.

Air Force took me up in a fighter pilot's, you know, a fighter jet. Please tell me you threw up. Did you throw up? All right. Are you ready for this? I went in an actual dog fight. It's all there on Leadership University. You can see this.

This guy takes me up in an actual dog fight where they're training and, you know, seven Gs of force. And I'm going to tell you this because you're asking. I love it. He said in all these, you know, he's flown, what, a thousand missions. He said he's only taken up five civilians. in his whole career, and I was the only one that didn't pass out or throw up. I was very impressive. Very impressive. Slow clap for my friend Henry Cloud. So that means the next time I see you,

and I hope you'll remember this, you'll probably forget. But the next time I see you, I'm just going to call you goose. Goose, there you go. Goose. Yeah, and then tell you, I feel the need, and then you need to say to me, I feel the need for speed, and we'll just do a goofy high-five. Seriously, did you feel like you might pass out and you gutted it out, or just never even affected Did you? Oh, you can't go so. That's what I thought. Beyond abject pain, you know, it's not like, no, it's not like pain and like a knife sticking in you. But I would say if you take that part and put it over here.

It is the worst physical experience I've ever had in my life because you're, I was up there for an hour and 15 minutes in this dog fight. And the G-forces, so they put me through a day of training. Oh, my gosh. In G forces and ejection. And you've got to learn ahead to go through a hypoxia class. And you've got to learn the symptoms because you only have 10 seconds once you experience a symptom of hypoxia to manually adjust your oxygen level. And so I started to feel that and had to, you know, dial in the oxygen back and forth to kind of get stabilized. How these guys think flying airplane and shoot at each other while under.

seven G-4s, they are unbelievable. It takes a lot of training. I know that during the training, I would have lasted 10 minutes and would have spent the next two days in a fetal position with a blankie. I mean, that just sounds so intense. All right, folks, so I told you that you're getting a little bit of three of our Summit 2019 speaker lineup. And I want to make sure that you know we have a special podcast listener offer for our

Grand Hall experience. So the main room is sold out. Someone is such a hot ticket. That's already gone, but we opened up what we're calling the Grand Hall experience. Now, the event itself is April 28th through May 1st, 2019 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, California. 3,000 plus other leaders going to be joining us. Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Sarah Blakely, Jesse Itzler, Simon Seneca, Peyton Manning, Carrie Lorenz, Pat Lynchoni, Marcus Buckingham, Dr. Dr. Henry Cloud and yours truly going to be speaking, my first time speaking from the Summit stage. Boy, oh, boy, there's some bonus content for you if you haven't decided. So it's going to be a lot of fun.

The Grand Hall experience will have the stage from our live from Summit bonus content. That's where the speakers come out and join me. And so we're going to do that inside this Grand Hall experience where you can watch that and all of the sessions. Going to be piped in on massive screens. So you're really not going to miss anything at all. Now, we've got a special deal just for you podcast listeners. Nobody else has access to this. The only way you can get it is by visiting the link in the show notes and purchase your Summit 2019 pass.

So go right now. Click on the link for the special summit podcast listener offer. It's in the show notes. Go right now. All right. We're going to keep it rolling. Pat Lynch-eoney and I were talking recently. And you're going to hear a portion of the conversation.

As I talk with Pat about some of the interesting information, I got from Kerry. Really interesting stuff. Pat has great perspective on anything. Here is a bit of that conversation with Pat Lynchione. The average age of a sailor on a aircraft carrier, the most powerful, most dangerous ship in the world. Aircraft carrier, U.S. aircraft carrier. The average age is 19 and a half. I was going to say it's probably, yeah. Now listen, average. I know. I can't wait to tee you up on this. Like, I'm so excited about this. I hear this all the time at our entree events. I had a call or call on my show the other day and say, Ken, I can't find good people.

He's in the trades. He's hiring young people. Can't find good people, Ken. It is impossible. They are all gone. It's like needle in a haystack. And I said to him, I go, you know what? The average age of a sailor, I couldn't wait, is 19 and a half.

If the federal government can train 19-year-olds, to do a job well on the most powerful vessel in the world, you can not only find other good 19-year-olds, but you can train them to perform the way you want to. It's a leadership issue. And quite frankly, Pat, I'm kind of tired of this whole, well, millennials, you just can't train them. They're no good. All right. Now, there it is. Now, you can disagree with because we're friends. But I'm throwing this to you, the leadership guy. What's the problem here? I would disagree with you. Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you on one thing. I would not call the Navy the federal government. I would not call the Navy the Fed.

Because the military does things really well that if the federal government gets in their way. But other than that, I totally agree. And the thing is, it's about leadership. And it's about understanding how to, and it's not just about picking the right people. That's critical. But these kids are coming out of high school

because this is not coming from the military academies, 19 and a half means. But they know how to develop them, manage them, clarify their expectations, and then weed out people who shouldn't be there. But most of them self-select themselves in and do great things. It is absolutely. Now, maybe what this guy should say is I can't find great leaders. That's probably, but you know something? He thinks his job is to go out and find

great employees. What he needs to find is a few great leaders who know how to develop the right people. That's exactly right. Well, big thanks to Kerry, Henry and Pat, love, love, love, our friends that are going to be with us at Summit 2019. Hope you're going to be there. Don't forget the special podcast offer in this episode show notes, it's because I'm a man of the people. And if you don't take me up on this offer, then I have nothing else to say to you other than on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey folks, I want to make sure that you're aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions.

Here's a sample of the Chris Hogan Show. I am so excited to be able to talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to talk about your money, your life, your dreams, and your goals. goals. You know why? Because I'm your coach. Whether we're talking about building wealth, paying off your home early, investing, paying for college, and guess what? How to become an everyday millionaire. We're going to focus on taking your calls because you matter to me. Together, we can do this. This is the Chris Hogan Show. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search the Chris Hogan Show in Apple Podcasts

or go to chrishogan 360.com.