Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Jim DiMatteo, Retired US Navy Captain

Episode Date: April 18, 2018

This week’s podcast is with Jim DiMatteo.After graduating from the University of California Berkeley in 1986, Jim followed in his father’s and brother’s footsteps and joined the US Navy where he began an unprecedented Naval Aviation career.He retired as a Captain and has amassed nearly 5,000 hours in 5 different fighter aircraft (F/A-18, F-16, F-14, F-5, A-4) in over twenty-five years of service.After extensive combat flight time in Desert Storm, Jim was recruited into the prestigious TOPGUN Adversary squadron. It was there that he accumulated more TOPGUN Adversary flight time than anyone in the history of the US Navy and Marine Corps.He was awarded numerous accolades, including US Navy Fighter Pilot of the Year and US Navy Adversary Pilot of the Year.After retiring, he became the first Race Director in America for Red Bull and the U.S. Director of Aviation for Brietling.Jim was recently inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame for his lifetime achievements in aviation.In this conversation, we discuss how he prepares to make decisions under duress, the role visualization has played in his success, and the most dangerous moments for any fighter pilot.Jim has lost many loved ones and peers due to the nature of how dangerous his craft is.He has a refreshing perspective on the things that matter most in life and I hope that rubs off on you in this conversation._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and started to think too hard about it, you're going to fail. Same thing with a free throw or a last ninth inning at bat or something like that. So at least that's how I had a, I wouldn't say cavalier, but I had a attitude that said, Hey, I'm going to do my best. And if it's, if it works great, if it doesn't, then c'est la vie. We move on to something else. All right. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast.

I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist licensed in California, spending a lot of time working to understand how the best in the world operate and working with them in sometimes hostile, sometimes rugged, and oftentimes consequential environments. And the whole idea behind this podcast is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, to better understand what they're searching for, to understand their psychological framework, which is a fancy phrase for how they make sense of the world themselves and events in the world. And then we also want to dig to understand the mental skills that they've used to build and refine their craft. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true.

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protein goals with something seamless i'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. All right. This week's conversation is with Jim DiMatteo. And let me give you a quick little history of him. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, Cal, as it's often known back in 1986, he followed his father's and brother's footsteps and he joined the Navy. And that's where he began this incredible, unprecedented career in naval aviation. He retired as a captain and he amassed nearly 5,000 hours in five different fighter aircraft. Some of you might've heard of F-18, F-16, F-14, F-5, A-4.

And he did this over 25 years of service. That's not easy to do, to have that many hours in a seat across that many different airplanes. But that's just the beginnings as a telltale, as an artifact of what he's done. And so after extensive combat time in Desert Storm, Jim was recruited into the prestigious Top Gun Adversary Squadron. I'm sure you've heard of it. It was there that he accumulated more Top Gun adversary flight time than anyone in the history of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, period. That's rad.

He was awarded numerous accolades. We could go on. But the one that we'll highlight here is including the U.S. Navy fighter pilot of the year and the U.S. Navy adversary pilot of the year. Again, like, okay. So I like to share some of the credentials that people had and some of the accolades just to give a flavor if you don't know what they've done. It becomes apparent in the conversation that he knows what he's talking about and he's got a rich perspective and just a way about him. But sometimes the context is

important here. And then after retiring, he became the first race director in America for Red Bull and the US director for aviation for Breitling. So Red Bull has an air race that they put together. And so he is the race director for that. And he was recently inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame for his lifetime achievements in aviation. In this conversation, we discuss how he prepares to make decisions under duress, the role that imagery has played in his success, and he describes the most dangerous moments for any fighter pilot. And in that context, Jim walks us through how he has worked with grief. He's lost many loved ones and peers due to the nature of how dangerous his craft is. I have incredible respect for what Jim and his peers that are fighting for a noble cause for us. And so he has an incredible perspective on the things

that matter most in life. And I hope that that rubs off. It certainly did with me in this conversation. It's a great reminder of the importance to be present, to be connected, to be in the moment that you're in because you never know when it's going to end. And with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Jim DiMatteo. Jim, how are you? Good, thanks.

I got you loud and clear. Cool. That sounded very much like a pilot. Did you just go into pilot mode just now? Yeah, well, we always do communication checks. Oh, you do? Okay. So I've been looking forward to you and I diving in and having this conversation. We have mutual friends. At the same time, I have such a respect for what you've been able to do and understand and humbly i have really very little understanding of what it takes to be one of the better pilots uh in america and i i know you'll want to say you know no that's not the case but to be able to you know be at top gun and be a commanding officer at Top Gun, I think that you've earned some sort of that accolade, I would imagine. Well, yeah, a lot of stuff goes into that, but thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's start with, did you always know that you wanted to be a pilot? Well, I was fortunate to be born into a family where my father was a career naval aviator. And so I grew up around aviation when I was younger. I was the youngest or second to youngest of seven kids. So I, my father had already retired from the military when I got in high school. So it wasn't later in life that I saw it, but I did grow up with, with that and hearing stories. And then my older brother, which was a big impact as well. He was a, also a naval aviator and flew off aircraft carriers as well. And so he had a big impact. And so I did in high school, I think

in some, some place somewhere it says, what do you want to be when you grow up or something like that and at a pretty young age i had said a fighter pilot so it it's i wasn't crazy fanatic about it uh and i think part of that was because of uh my father and brother tried to calm down my uh emotional side because they had seen way too many people people get disappointed because it's not easy to do and get into. And so they kind of lowered the expectation bar. But it was something that I did want to do from a young age. Did you realize that that was their self-esteem saving mechanism as a youngster? Or was that just later in life looking back and saying, okay, they were trying to prevent me from feeling, or maybe not prevent, yeah, maybe just prevent, prevent me from feeling disappointed because the margins are so thin

to actually become a fighter pilot? I think they both know such a small percentage of those who apply and want to become actually become. I think they were just setting me up to handle the disappointment should I not make it. And so they were very excited for me too. It was not like the great Santini. If you remember that movie, it was – my the great santini if if uh you remember that movie it was yeah yeah my dad and brother weren't pushing me if anything they were kind of pushing me a little bit away from it to make sure as an older person looking back on it i think the psychology of it was you know hey this is this is the younger son, the little brother, his dad was a big fighter

pilot. His older brother was, he wants to be, is it really, he wants to be one or is it, he feels pressured, pressured to be one. And so, uh, they kind of set up an easy escape door for me to go out. Yeah. Should I not want want to or fail to be one. That's really cool. Looking back, it feels like it was a great way, just hearing it, to take care of you. Absolutely. It was a true come-from-an-Italian family,

so there was a lot of love and camaraderie as a big nine-person family. And everybody took care of everybody. And that was their way to not put pressure on me. And if it happens, it happened. If it didn't, then no worries. We go on to something else. Okay. So it sounds like the framework for the family was more about relationships than outcome.

Yes. the family was more about relationships than outcome yes uh father mother and then five sisters and uh and then my one brother um very supportive typical big italian catholic family uh that was there to support you in any way possible regardless of what your outcome was. Now, as it happened, the seven kids all went to college and became successful in their own right. But it wasn't a prerequisite. It wasn't that you were driven, driven, driven to succeed. It was more of a success in life is beyond just your paycheck or your title okay so then so as a as a very successful on paper i don't know the quality of your like internal life but on paper um wildly successful in what you've been able to do

during your career as a fighter pilot u.s.S. Navy fighter pilot, as well as post career? I think you're done with your duties with the U.S. Navy, but I don't know that for sure. Yeah, for the most part. For the most part, yeah. If they call me back now, then we all got a lot to worry about. Okay, all right. You're never really done, are you? Never really done. Okay, all right. So is it fair to say post-career?

Is that still fair to say? Yeah, I would say that. Okay. With the Red Bull Air Races and being the director of that program as well. Absolutely. Yeah, that's my swan song career, I guess. It must be a lot of fun. But before we get into that, I want to go back to

the family structure and the message. And so looking back now, you identified one thing that they did is they took the heat off of you to try to sort out a soft landing and also try to sort out like, listen, you don't have to do this, right? If this is your passion, we're going to support you if you fail, but you don't have to do this. And so looking back, do I have, right? Like if this is your passion, we're going to support you if you fail, but you don't have to do this. And so looking back, do I have that right? A hundred percent. Okay. And then so looking back, I've got two questions I want to ask you. One is how did they send the message to develop seven successful in their own right to use your language, siblings or sons and daughters. And at the same time,

that you got that relationship and the integrity of family and relationships to be so important. So how did they structure? What were some themes that they would spread throughout the family? Because my antenna are perked up because it feels like that's very akin to the way I want to structure my family and loving relationships as well. So my intent is really up on how they did that or what you've taken from how they did what they did. Yeah. And, uh, as a father of two, uh, teenage kids right now, I wish I had a simple answer because I've asked myself that a lot. Um, it wasn't, uh, too structured of a life that meaning like you had to do this, this, and this, um, I, I, I referenced things like tiger moms or something like that. I've heard other characteristics of, uh, other styles.

Uh, it wasn't so much of that as much as it was establishing, I think, just a solid work ethic of, hey, if you want to do something, whether it's flipping burgers or being a fighter pilot, just be the best that you can and try uh, try your hardest, uh, and then accept, uh, whatever comes from that, but don't ever look back and say, I wish I would have tried harder. Um, so that, that kind of, uh, just kind of permeated through every aspect, through sports, through school, through any other hobby that any of my sisters or my brother took up. It was just try your hardest, never regret that you didn't give it 110%. And then whatever happens, be happy with it and roll with the punches.

Okay. And that was the second part of my question, which was, are, how are you raising your family now? Like, are you, I'm imagining if it's, this part is clear that you're saying we're doing much of the same. Yeah, I think, uh, it's a little more advanced now because, uh, I mean, education's more complex. My wife and I are probably a little more structured in our approach than my parents were. Obviously, we have two kids. They had seven kids, so it was a little bit different. But I hope to be able to replicate their efforts. Again, success wasn't just a paycheck or a title um it was uh being a good

person being you know giving back to your community or your friends or your church or whatever um there was a uh in total uh of uh we come from a catholic uh background so it was much more than just uh success on paper um and i think that that support then uh helped you know lift everybody so they found whatever they liked and they were good at and uh you know whatever that saying is is find something that you love to do and never work a day in your life or something like that and all my brothers and sisters kind of have found that so i hope that i can pass it along to my kids as well okay so living out the idea that passion comes from being connected to things that fuel passion. And if you end up doing that for a long time, good stuff happens for us.

Yeah. And roll with it. You know, part of it is, I know, I know a ton of people that want to be something and then they're disappointed if they don't become that and uh happens a lot in aviation do a lot of air shows and you see lots of parents coming up with kids and the kids are adamant that they want to be a fighter pilot it's the biggest and best thing in the world and if they don't become one then I can see there's going to be massive disappointment and a letdown. And I never had that feeling. It was more, I think I want to do this. I think there's a natural ability inside my gene pool somehow.

But if not, then we'll roll on to something else. Okay. So if we think about another sport, not that what you do is anything close to a sport, but it certainly involves talent and athleticism and cognitive decision-making under duress. So there's some parallels. But if we had a six foot five athlete that was fast and could jump 42 inches and had great eye hand coordination, you'd say, oh, okay, he could probably do a bunch of different sports. And maybe we start with basketball. And so there's a, now it's a mystery of whether he's

going, he or she is going, well, he probably in my mind right now, he's going to apply the effort at the ridiculous level to refine that talent into some world-class skill. So that's, he's going to apply the effort at the ridiculous level to refine that talent into some world-class skill. So that's, that's like, there's a lot of questions inside of that formula, if you will. What were the things that you were born with and what were the skills that you relentlessly worked to get better at to be, I guess, accepted or nominated to, to be a fighter pilot and then also to excel once you're in that field? So the military, both Air Force and Navy, initially, how do you become a fighter pilot? I mean, everybody applies to be the fighter pilot side, or that's their ultimate vision,

99% of them. Did you just want the brown shoes on the carrier that's a good analogy i got a story about that later okay yeah for sure but uh i don't think that you really know how you will do until you're put in that position. And some kids go out and their parents pay for a lot of flight lessons and they come in with a, uh, a lot of Cessna flight time and it gives them a little bit of a boost at the beginning, but that does not equate to, um to those who have become the most successful by the end of their career. That just happens to be something that their parents gave them lessons, if you will, early on, and they were passionate about it. A lot of times people ask me, well, what does make a great fighter pilot? And I have struggled to come up with the perfect answer because there isn't necessarily one thing. And most guys, and there's some women now, but for the most part, it's in our, not necessarily at the NFL or MLB level,

but they were the coordinated, well-rounded athlete that was smart and did well in school and pushed himself to be excellent at whatever he did. Often they were the captain of the team or something like that as well in a leadership role. So I would say if there was a common denominator, that's what 90% of the fighter pilots that I know are all those kind of people. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and

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ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout again that's felix gray you spell it f-e-l-i-x-g-r-a-y.com and use the code finding mastery 20 at felixgray.com for 20 off okay many on the world stage and i'm talking tip of the arrow stuff like the 0.01 percent of folks are let, let me actually soften that up, the 0.1%, no, I'm sorry, the one percenters, is that they, there's some sort of neurotic drive for many of them, like, that is so unsettling that they work out value and meaning and purpose by working so hard that, and it's sometimes clouded. It's like either they're working so hard to escape something or they're working so hard to get favor of attention. And then there are the even more rare breed inside of those one percenters that have transcended

the need for external motivation or external reward. And they've transcended the need for relief from neuroticism and they've really been on this path of wisdom and the internal arc to to experience growth and the love that comes from being fully engrossed in anything any craft so that's like this really really rare breed inside of a very rare breed. And what you just shared with me sounded like that really, really rare breed. And would you nod your head to say, yeah, most people I know feel pretty healthy? Or would you say most of them are neurotic or narcissists or, you know, ego is as big as you can imagine. And if it wasn't for the brown boots, you know, I'm, I'm not sure that they'd be doing it. And you know what I'm talking about, like the pecking order inside of any organization. Sure. I, I think, uh, you summarize that most, most of the kids

come from pretty good families and are pretty just squared away kids. And they didn't have those struggles that sometimes I see on TV where you have this super athlete that had a difficult childhood and he jumped in the swimming pool and then swam for 80 million hours and that was his relief of that. And then he transcended into this Olymp yeah olympian or something like that it you rarely see that uh i mean sometimes you do um but uh most the time uh they're they're kids that i would think they're going to be successful at something and they were drawn to this and uh the way that uh again i'm talking about now the fighter pilot of the fighter pilots the best of the best type of uh the group

so once you get into that uh area uh there's been a lot a lot of weeding out. The process is quite extensive to go through to achieve that level. I think it's like 1% of those who even apply get to the real kind of more elite fighter pilot roles. And so that's a lot of wickets that you have to go through that wash out a lot of the other competitions. So those that remain standing or flying in this case tend to have common denominators that have helped them through this entire process. The other thing that I think, because you mentioned athleticism, and I think I describe a good dogfight as when I finish it, I'm literally exhausted, both physically and mentally. And I say it's a combination of taking a physics final exam and playing a rugby match, where both physically and mentally, you've spent 100% of your capability. And I didn't necessarily find that in other sports that I played.

I would have the physical aspect of it and some mental, but not to the point where it taxed my ability at 100%. And so there is an athleticism quality to it, and there's the desire to be the best. It's not just winning. It is a survival aspect, too. And sorry to be so blunt, but it's life and death. It's more of a gladiator. You're honing your skill to someday maybe fight somebody to the death. And so there's really not a failure option. There's not a second place, at least in your mind.

You're driving yourself to victory is survival. Um, and then, and then kind of over masking everything is you're, you're doing it. And again, I'm comparing it to a sport. You're doing it for a greater good it's not for my own achievement i think most fighter pilots and most military people in general but especially the fighter pilot tip of the sword kind of guys um they realize and they understand that their actions, although personal and individual, are actually for a team that ultimately is trying to win a battle that will make the world better. I want my kids and your kids and our grandkids to be in a better, safer world. Uh, and, and we think what we're doing is establishing that. So it, it does have athletic and game type of analogies to it,

but it's, it's, it's got a life and death component to it, but there's also a bigger – this is much bigger than all of us individually competing. the potentially binary outcome and the real test that you and your partners go through to be able to, to, to excel at your craft to, for noble cause. And so in sport, yeah, there's ties and the losers oftentimes go home and still get to kiss their kids and, and their wives, you know, or, or, or husbands. So yeah. The, the appreciation I have for what you just said is really high. That being said, how, Jim, do you prepare, how did you prepare yourself to be able to be fully present, to have great skill, to be able to make great decisions under duress? Like how did you prepare mentally and physically and craft wise or technically to be able to do so well everybody probably much like a an athlete

everybody probably has their own pre-game warm-up or or how they motivate themselves to be prepared for their challenge. And I had squadron mates and wingmen and buddies that did different things to prepare or how they mentally got into this. What was incredibly unique, I think, in aviation, unlike sports, is – I don't know. Pick a sport. Say golf. Golf is – you and I could play golf, and you might have a natural swing and you might do well. And then you go out and you practice a hundred million hours to perfect that.

And part of your success often is how much dedication and commitment you did to prepare yourself and to practice how many you know these golfers play 36 holes a day kind of thing the really unique thing of of being a fighter pilot is first of all you have to keep with the golf analogy you have very very limited time on the course. And everybody has the exact same amount of time on the course. So when you fly a fighter jet, you go through a program in the military over the last hundred years through a lot of accidents, through a lot of mishaps, through a lot of blood, through a lot of, uh, experience, you can imagine the tens and tens of thousands of flights that, uh, the military has had has perfected a program of what they know. Uh, if a kid makes it through, they're going to get the product at the end of this training program exactly what they want to achieve the mission objectives that they need as a fighter pilot. In my case, an aircraft carrier fighter pilot. what's unique is that they, uh, it would be like saying, okay, nobody can play golf until they're

out of college. And, um, those who want to play, we're going to come in. We're only going to, we're going to let you study it as much as you want, but we're only going to let you on the golf course and swing in a club. Um, you know, one hole a week, and then we're going to see who's the best. And so there's really not, and this is where, uh, you've probably heard the term, the right stuff. Uh, that was, uh, a phrase that they use back in the day because this is the it just you can't just take a jet out and practice practice practice it they're not available it's too expensive etc and so the military's approach is we're going to make a you know flat playing field here everybody has the exact same amount of time and those who do the best we're going to advance you

and then we're going to fire everybody else um and what is that percentage of people that make it well the typical i mean for example i think the typical starting class is a hundred for example i went through aviationation Officer Cannon School. We had 100 people that started, 99 people that started. I think for everyone that made it there, there was probably 50 to 1 applications. Now, out of that 100, about 23 finished in my class. And out of the 23, 10 became jets. 13 went on to props and helicopters.

And out of the 10, maybe two or three ultimately were what I'd say the top commanding officer kind of quality so i'd say about one percent out of the hundred that starred and that's probably i don't know one out of 50 that ever made it to that section okay so then how did you prepare you know and let's not do like the technical stuff like um you know like the studying the book studying and the conversations with people that have been there. Well, now let me take that back. Let me just open it up. How did you how did you prepare yourself to meet that that one hole, so to speak, if we go back to the golf analogy? Well, part of that.

And that's why I said part of it is it's like a mix between athleticism and taking a final exam. So this final exam part of it, you have to study, right? You have to know your systems. You got to know your procedures, that kind of stuff. So that was a standard cram, just like any kid would study for any course in school. The other side of it was the way I prepared. Actually, some people laughed at me, but when we first started, I would use just little flashcards. And we had about a half an hour drive from where I was living to the airbase.

And to me, I would drive. This probably sounds bad, but I would drive and then I would use the flashcards. You can hear it. Now, dad, you tell me not to text and drive, but you were flipping note cards studying for it to be a fighter pilot to save our country. Looking back on it, it's probably dangerous. But the way I rationalized it was that I was having to think at the same time doing something physical and observing something outside. So driving, the road, everything like that, using flashcards as I went up through driving. I guess the analogy would be texting. That's a good one.

I'm going to say that that's why I can text with my kids. You are the 001% that are truly qualified to be able to text and drive. The rest of us are just a mess. I'm not going to work because I don't want to even jinx myself. But I think that – so my point is being that you really only had that one hole to play. And so it was how do you emotionally and psychologically – the education part is pretty straightforward. How do you emotionally and psychologically get prepared to not only perform on that one round but also to get the most out of it. Because tomorrow you're going to come back and play one more hole. And each flight is graded. Each hole would be graded. And you establish yourself right from the beginning. How did you do it? How did you

get in there? Like, what was your, what was your framework? Like, how would, how did you see that one hole? And then did you see that one hole? And then did you have any mental skills that you were playing with like breathing strategies or self-talk or whatever, whatever? But like how did you do that? Well, I think, again, this goes back to that right stuff comment. just if you think your analogy of that that guy that was six five and super athletic you know he had some of the characteristics that were going to propel him in that sport uh there's something within a person that is able to handle dynamic movement through space and uh this is like a 3D kind of analogy where my mind, I don't know why, but my mind was able to just slow down and comprehend the 3D movement in a cockpit. And I'm not just talking aviation, I'm talking about maneuvering aviation. So a

fighter pilot type of stuff where you know that, and I'm using hands here, but if you're dogfighting somebody and if, if, if I roll right, he's at my three o'clock, uh, high, if I come back around to the left and pull up, he should be up at my 11 o'clock. It just is 3D, uh, spatial awareness. And what, uh, what I would do is try to, um, like close my eyes, not driving, but close my eyes and try to visualize that. And sometimes that and sometimes i see for example uh watching the basketball championships now um there's a muscle memory aspect to showing to throwing um or to shooting free throws and there's also you can just see the guys as same with a kicker my son's the kicker in rugby now um and the the super great kickers say you know play out what that what your kick is going to be like and where that ball trajectory is going to be you know play that out in your mind and then act on it and then live that that that uh thought process that you just had. And that's where our, to me, I think it worked

that that worked for me is to envision it and then play it out when I, when it happened. Okay. So how much time would you spend seeing it or feeling it in your mind before doing it? Is that like one minute a day 20 minutes a day like what type of mechanical um process would you go through to do that yeah i would uh so in a in a again i'm talking kind of at the earlier stages when you're going through all the training and you're people are making it or not making it and flights are being graded, et cetera. You do the educational side of it, hydraulics, electrical systems, et cetera.

Then I'd sit and just for 10 or 15 minutes, just close my eyes and think through the play, if you will, of how I envisioned it working. Would you see it in color? I guess, yeah. And would you feel it as well? Yeah. You could feel the throttle. You could feel the joints moving in the airplane.

You could feel like that rattle? Yeah, because a lot of what you do as a fighter pilot is, you've probably heard this too, you fly at the edge of the envelope. If you've ever heard edge of the envelope. The way that came up is if you look at – in the textbooks, if you look at aerodynamics, an envelope – it will give a flight envelope. And so it would be lift over drag, G-force versus drag, et cetera. And there's this chart. There's like an arc, a line. There's an x-axis and y-axis

and that's this mathematical uh envelope and say and so the edge of the envelope is flying the closest you can to perfection and the analogy i would say is uh to a non-fire pilot is if I said make this 90-degree turn in your car at the fastest you can, there's going to be that point where if you're too fast, your back wheels will just skid out on you. If you're too slow, then you're leaving chips on the table there, right? So at that one speed, whatever it is, 42 miles an hour, you can do a right 90-degree turn, and you're just feeling the back tires just feel like they're going to come off and start to skid that's what we call the nibble of buffett and so it's it's very much intuitively like a feel of the airplane and uh often when you're dogfighting you're not looking at your instruments you're looking outside often sideways or backwards.

So everything has got to be like a feel, if you will. And so to your point, yes, I would think of it in color and I would feel or envision what I was going to feel in the actual dogfight. Okay. And then what was the nibble? I get the nibble concept. What is Buffett? So Buffett, when you stall the airplane, if I go back to my little envelope that I talked about.

Yeah. Okay. If you go beyond that, then you stall the airplane and the airplane, the airflow is disrupted over the wing and you get Buffett. It's a violent like shaking, if you will, of the airplane. Okay. All right. So you would work to get to the edge of the envelope, feeling the nibble of Buffett. And that's when you know that you're locked in during your imagery sessions, right? Like that's when you're feeling as much as you can a successful. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Flight pattern, I guess. Correct. How did you think about the one shot that you had and then the next day having one more shot, if you're so fortunate? Did you see that in a certain way? And I'm thinking about there's lots of ways to think about psychological framework, but what are the ways that you were thinking about that thing? Was it like, oh my God, oh my God, I got this one chance. I got to get it right. Or was it more like, hey, listen, I'm prepared. Let me go see what i got you know or somewhere in between uh so this goes back to i think my

upbringing of saying try your hardest work your hardest and then say lovey you know yeah yeah yeah and i had a lot of friends thataling you know disaster of a flight because because they they just psyched themselves out they they made too much of it and and to me this is analogous to any sport if uh if you're a golfer and you gotta drain a putt if you really looked up and looked at all the people around you and and started to think too hard about it you're gonna fail uh same thing with a free throw or a last ninth inning at bat or something like that so at least that's how i i had a i wouldn't say cavalier but i had a attitude that said hey i'm gonna'm going to do my best. And if it works, great. If it doesn't, then c'est la vie.

We move on to something else. Now, as you start to do well, very quickly, we graduated into kind of three categories as fighter pilots. There were what we call the pack players. They were like the guys who were doing things right. They made a couple mistakes, but they did things right. They were solid, good, great fighter pilots. There were pack minus players. Now, again, we're only talking the top

one or two percent right so it's the pack minus player might be the 98 percentile but yeah the pack minus players that were like maybe not quite the the average if you will and then there was pack plus players and if you if you happen to be in the pack plus category again kind of a little more uh um right stuff is uh if if that's a phrase um then you you tended to have a little more confidence. And if you were in the pack minus, you had a little less confidence. And I think it translates to any sport that I've seen that if you want the ball to sink the final three-pointer at the end of the game to win the game,

you have to be confident that you can drain that shot. Same thing as a fighter pilot. And yet there's, albeit maybe different in the movies or the TV shows, you have to be confident. But where I think the military, especially aviation, has no tolerance is for arrogance. So confident, yes. Arrogant, no. I mean, in a bar or whatever, hitting on some girls okay whatever you're doing maybe but within a squadron there was no place for arrogance so you were just part of a team

and you did your best like everybody else because we all know any one of us could die tomorrow um so that when I see the basketball players or the athletes pointing to themselves, lifting up their shirts and jerseys and that kind of stuff, there was zero of that. On a scale of one to 100, that's like zero in a fighter squad.

I love this. Seriously, I so appreciate what you're saying. Okay. Now, I've got two questions and I don't want to lose the order of these. So this feels almost like a trap of a question because I've spent so much of my life trying to understand what I'm about to ask you. And so I don't want to trap you in any way. I really want to learn how, where do you think confidence comes from? And again, you know, I don't want this to be a trap, but I really want to know how you think about generating confidence. I can, I, maybe I, my mom will be happy to hear this, but I think part of it is just how you're raised and having self-confidence, not for success, but just that you're doing your best and that your best is sufficient. It might not be ultimately sufficient for what you're trying to do, but it's sufficient for your effort. And if it's the best you can do, then your particular challenge that you have at any given moment, um, that you have a certain, uh, like, I don't know what the percentage is, but let's say 50% is just before I ever even got in the plane was, I already had 50% in the bank because of the way I was raised. And that I knew I was just,

I was going to be able to give it my best. And that, um, that was, that was a certain additive property of this confidence level, um, that the next would be preparedness. So I don't know, 50% is in there by how you were raised. Maybe another 25% or maybe 35% is, and I apologize for not knowing these numbers. This is the first time I've ever had to articulate any of this stuff. Listen, you got me on the edge of my seat. So I love how you're framing this. And I'm going to offer some thoughts in a second about it. I love how you're framing this. So maybe some percentage, 25%, 35% is how did you prepare for this and the confidence that I prepared properly.

That gave me confidence. And I can tell you that if you don't prepare properly, that actually can work against you, right? That could take that 50% initial amount that was deposited in your confidence level, and it could drop to 40% if I knew that I had not prepared for this flight or for whatever this mission was. Um, so, uh, preparedness was, was, was, was big. Um, but, and then I'd say, uh, the last part of it is, is your your experience like what you've done up to that point and if i knew that i had 50 going in i had another 25 because i was well prepared

and then the last 25 i knew because of my last flight or my last year of flying or whatever level I was at, um, that I was fortunate and blessed, uh, to have had some kind of natural skill at this. Uh, and so that, that kind of in totality, the sum summation of those, uh, to me equaled a confidence level. Okay. So I, okay, remember, I said, I had two questions. And the other question was, how did you know, because part of your statement was that I knew that if I did enough work, that I'd be okay. And that's not a, that's a paraphrase of what you said. And my question was going to be like, how would you know you prepared well enough? Because the neurotic, the anxious, the overthinker starts to question whether the work that they've done has been enough. So I think you just answered it in your

question. So thank you for that. But I want to see how you would think about this concept. So let's go 50% and easy math, 50%, 35%, and then a 15%. Uh, no, let's go 14%. So the 50 is the space that your family and your upbringing provides that you matter independent of achievement. So you don't need achievement to cover the 50% of being okay. And that's a big base. I love how you frame that. And then that 25% or let's go 35%, 25 for easy math, 25% was like, okay, now I just got to prepare correctly and I got to like really do the hard work. And so that leads us with 25%. So the way that I've seen this, and there's, this is not in any book. So you and I are talking on the frontier here about this a bit, is that 24% was about past

success in history. I'm nodding my head to that as well. But there's 1%, there's this last filter. And I saw this over and over and over again in combative sports and folks that are in very dangerous and hostile environments, that this was just magnified. And I think it stays true for any sport, whether it's something that there's no physical harm on the line and just ego is on the line and sports where if you make mistakes, loved ones die. No, I'm sorry. Environments where if you make mistakes, loved ones die or you could lose your own life.

So that complete range, that 1%, what is it? It's the last filter that everything that you just described has to push through. And that filter is essentially what you say to yourself the moment in which you're about to do something. So I call it self-talk, right? So that self-talk, not I call it, we call it self-talk, but that self-talk, that inner dialogue that you have can wash away the other 99% if you start to really second guess and become overwhelmed either mentally or physiologically by the sensations that are taking place. And this is what I saw in MMA and the UFC is that they did, they had the 50% done. They had the 25% of preparation done. They did a great job.

They had that last 24%. And then they would walk up the three or five steps to get into the cage. And when the cage door closes, all of a sudden they had a completely different framework. And it's like it washed everything away. And all of a sudden they would get stoned just like stone to the moment where they're looking across the cage and seeing another large alpha competitor that's equally as skilled and they start to second guess everything and then from that point they can no longer access any of their craft and so I wonder if you could help me understand that little 1%. And if you say, nah, it doesn't work that way. No.

Yeah. I, uh, I totally agree with it. And, uh, to us that final three steps, if you will, when you're looking at MMA, it's some monster across the cage from you, uh, to me is combat. Is that like climbing up the ladder to get into the jet yeah combat is uh you know where it everything was training up until that point and now it's on and it this is it and there's actually people shooting at you and trying to kill you so how did you do that? How would you ready yourself? I want to know what your ideal performance mindset is, you know, and it's, it's performance doesn't do the work.

I hesitate because it doesn't do justice to what you do, but what is that ideal state that you have to get into or look to get into? You don't have to do anything, look to get into, to be able to go do the thing that you're trained to do? Well, I think that final 1% or whatever that wicket that you have to go through, the filter, the wicket, the gate that you have to make through, to me, is trust your training. And trust is a big word here because if you start to question your own skills or what got you to that point, then for sure things are going to unravel quickly. Okay, so what level of awareness do you have of your inner dialogue? If we could measure it like how what you say to yourself how aware of you well we have a joke because we talk to ourselves in the cockpit

all the time uh and there's there's a joke inside uh you know like the angel and devil on your on your shoulder animal house House or whatever. You've got other voices in your head telling you different things. When you're going through the training portion of things, you always have instructors, right? They're that voice that's chirping at you. Sometimes, some fighter jets, when I first was flying in an F-, for example, you've got, um, a guy in the back seat, uh, a wizard, a weapon system operator, a radar intercept operator type of thing. And he might be that external voice, uh, slash internal voice that's talking to you, uh, as well. Um, But devoid of that, if you don't have anybody else, you might have a wingman

or a controller that's talking to you. But the reality is at the end of the day, it's your own voices in your own mind. And I would, I did, there's times when I remember having to positively reinforce myself and tell myself, you know, trust your training, believe in your training, trust your skill set, trust your, your wingman. Um, there's a, you know, trust in yourself that got you to that point. And to me, that was that extra momentum or that push to get through that final gate. Yes. Yes. Often found myself saying that in, in either, uh, in a, in a combat situation or what happens much more than combat is just it yeah I think what separates us from everybody else on the planet as far as fighter pilots or anybody else is landing an aircraft on an aircraft carrier at night, that tends to be more challenging than often some combat scenarios. And I've lost a lot more friends in standard night carrier operations than I ever did in

combat. Um, so you, you get put in this situation quite often where you have to tell yourself, yes, I can do this. Yes, I'm trained. Oh my God, this is, I feel like I'm upside down the pitching deck, the black night, the horrible sea state. Um, but you don't have an option. You have to push through that gate. And that's where you rely on your training and all those people, the supportive nature of the military that's gotten you to that point. Beautiful. Okay. So I was fortunate enough, Jim, I think it's relevant to bring it up in this conversation. I was fortunate enough to spend a little bit of time on the U.S. Truman somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. And it was beautiful.

It was wartime prep and a handful of years ago. And I got to spend time with one of the two. I don't want to disclose any information that's inappropriate. So it was either the XO or CO. And I'll just leave that, leave that open. And, um, and anyway, so what I learned is I asked like, what's, you know, okay. So then the flight deck is the most dangerous place. One of the most dangerous places to work in the world and heads are nodding.

Of course it is. And it, I asked what it's like. And the response back was, you know, people have asked me this all the time. What is it like? And I've lost the ability to really translate what that's like until something that I think you can relate to is that I was tired. I was on a long drive. I had my family in the car, my son and daughter and my wife. And I was hauling, I think he said like nearly everything he owned because they were moving houses and he wanted to do a road trip with the family. And he was tired and

it was late at night and he got a little hypnotized by the oncoming traffic. And he realized that there was a semi coming in his lane. And so he blinked a couple of times to make sure that he wasn't overreacting. And sure enough, the semi was in his lane and he was in the right lane. He said, so I made a maneuver to get into the oncoming traffic lane because it was the only option I had, but I turned too quickly, forgot that I had the trailer behind me and the trailer started to fork and come right up kind of next to my cabin or next to the car. And I've got this oncoming rig coming straight at me. He said it was the first time in my life that I had, did he say left or right? You'll know better than me. His left leg, I think he said, started to tremor. Is it left leg or is it right leg in a cockpit? I don't know if

that matters really. But, but so he said, I think he said my left leg started to tremor. He said, it was the same thing that would happen when I'm trying to, is it called chasing the ball? Yeah. When you're trying to land on the carrier at land on carry at night uh in hostile environments and he said it was it's the same experience but i'd never felt it until i saw my family in a car i'm having to make a decision and there's a semi coming straight at me and so i said okay got it like holy like does that sound right uh it's. So we call it like there's an involuntary shaking or muscle movement where when I land – basically when you land on an aircraft carrier at night, there's a guy about a minute behind you. Yeah. That is coming catches you.

You stop. You've essentially crashed, but it's the best feeling in the world because you're alive. They did it to me on a cod, which was awesome, right? Like just getting hooked by a cod. I mean it's totally different than what you would do. No, but you know that crashing feeling. But it's the best feeling in the planet when you're flying at night. Oh, I can't imagine.

It's a tough – I mean it's literally just – somebody just saved your life, right? Somebody just grabbed you at that point, saved your life. You have that incredible relief sensation. But then the carrier will pull the cable back a little bit. You'll lift your tail hook to get away from the cable. And then you have to taxi off. You've got to get the plane off the landing strip very quickly. With all of those neurochemicals flooding through your body. Yes. And because the guy behind you, your wingman, he's going to get waved off and have to go around again if you're still in the landing area. So you have to get out

of the landing area. Otherwise, you really screw over your wingman. And so there's this, you know, from the doctor's side of it, the what you just said the neurological aspects of things the way you uh taxi an aircraft and turn the nose wheel is you you push your rudder pedal down and think of it like a gas pedal if you will but there's the left and a right it's called our rudders. You engage in those wheels steering, you push it down. So for me, I'd have to, you push your right foot down and there, and everybody does this. They might not admit it to you, but I would have to grab with both hands. Yes, yes, yes.

And I had to, it was shaking violently and I would have to push my right foot down with my hands because I didn't have the muscle control to actually handle that muscular movement with control. And so the analogy that you just gave is is uh that's that's a good one i'm gonna not that i won't say that i did it but that's a good visual of being able to say that you know you're shaking uh even though you're you survived right but you gotta get out exactly yes you know the other part and i've been remiss so far not to say it because it sounds like I'm talking about just myself is that we are for every pilot. I mean, we're like the quarterback of a team. There's there's a hundred guys making my life safe and operationally successful, uh, for every fighter pilot. You know, there's maybe 60 fighter pilots on an aircraft carrier and there's 6,000 guys. So, you know, it's a hundred to one, uh, just on an aircraft carrier to make this work. And so

we just happen to be the ones that, uh that get to go on nice shows like yours. We wouldn't be anywhere where we zero success rate if it wasn't for the 99 other people that make this possible and do God's work and prepare the jets and prepare us and prepare the carriers and everything else to make this work. That is the right approach to be connected to how grateful you are for other people. And I want to extend it as well, saying I'm so grateful for all the hundred people that you just mentioned in that type of operation that, you know, people that risk their lives for noble cause so that we get to have this nice conversation. For sure. That's not lost. Jim, I could go on and on and I don't want to, you know, like seriously.

So I want to honor your time. And then I want to also ask, is there a philosophy that guides your life? Is there a phrase or something that is at the center that guides your life? Wow, that's a thoughtful question. It's right out of left field, isn't it? That guides my life. It could be as simple as whatever comes up right now for you. It doesn't have to be the absolute. And I hope I'm instilling it in my children is that

really try your hardest and do your best, but then accept what that is. And life is too short to to not uh enjoy life and you know i see some people that you know i've been blessed i was just lucky things i really have just had the stars aligned for me. There are many, many, many, many friends that probably are as good a fighter pilot but didn't have things aligned or even aren't with us today because of mishaps that occurred.

And it's not lost on me that i've been extremely lucky so uh try your hardest do your best prepare the most you can and then deal with what's uh given to you and enjoy it at that point okay all right cool And in the same vein of questions, is there a word or phrase that cuts to the center of who you are as a man? Um, who I am as a man. Wow. Again, not used to answering these kinds of questions. Uh i hope uh i hope i have some thoughts of who i hope i am as a man yeah yeah yeah let's go there i hope i'm a a good father a good friend, and a good American military naval fighter pilot. I think there's a well-roundedness that I think is important in life as a whole. I tend to, and part of this maybe is because of all the people that sadly I've lost 50 plus

friends in naval aviation. And that's a lot for a person to lose that many close friends one by one, right? Not all at the same time, but one by one. And so when you have that extreme risk associated with it and you see my friends' wives and kids that no longer have their father, it gives you an appreciation of how fragile this life can be and therefore to enjoy enjoy it and maybe that's why you know i i do take the mindset of like do your best but then you know roll with the punches because too this could all end tomorrow. And, uh, and just, uh, hopefully they, my friends or my acquaintances or my family think that I lived that, uh, philosophy. Golly, love it. As a reminder of how fragile life is, you have sorted out through numerous deaths, it sounds like, as reminders that today's a gift. And so it sounds cheesy, but that idea of carpe diem, make today the best that you possibly can, sounds like a wisdom that you've come to really embrace. Well, and again, I think it's a large part of that is, um, is the luck that, uh,

that has been shown on me. So, um, so what does that, yeah, what does that mean? Luck? Uh, I think some part of it is, uh, you make your own luck. You hear that phrase all the time, and I agree with that. But then some other – I don't know if it's something religious or philosophical or destiny. But there is that portion of guys that I know that – some mishaps that have killed friends of mine i think to myself you know i would i never would have made that mistake um or um uh now that i know that he made that mistake i'm not gonna ever make that mistake going forward uh and get the most out of the tragedy that occurred with him. But then there are situations that, you know, we're flying mechanical things that do break. And there are other people

that have been close friends of mine that are not here with us today. And it was really not through any fault of their own. And so I don't know what to attribute that to, whether it's luck, whether it's God, faith, destiny, I'm not sure. Okay. And do you have a practice that you would want to pass on to others? Like your insight with losing so many people, not at one time, but losing so many people, do you have a practice that you have found to be really valuable? And I'm thinking about like a way that you stay connected at a deep level with people that maybe you see on a regular basis or that you don't see very often.

Do you have like an insight you can pass on, an applied insight? Well, I do think that in naval aviation or in fighter pilot aviation as a whole, we say all our rules are written in blood. And that phrase meaning that the rules that we have are because somebody before us had something bad happen. And so there's an incredible bond. Now, I love giving my Air Force brethren a lot of grief. As I say, they should be very proud to be the second best in the world. That's nothing to be embarrassed about. They love you for that, don't they? Plan B is better than plan c for sure but uh right up to the point if somebody else picked on them because we then have this bond

right any fighter pilot has a bond air force navy marine whatever it is and uh because we've experienced all of the very very similar um scenarios uh, I'm sorry, what was your question? No, I think you nailed it in a really cool way, which is, you know, just be, I was asking about, like, is there an applied practice that you have to help, um, you stay connected to loved ones? But I think you just said it's well, what I took from it was like, listen, just do difficult things with people and stay connected to them. And the story writes itself. Yeah. And then just enjoy, smile, always remember the fun times. And psychologically, our doctors, our flight surgeons is what we call them.

They're not psychiatrists, but they get trained in psychiatry, obviously, out on the carriers or whatever. When we lose a close friend, it's sometimes hard to get back on that horse. And you're away from your family, you're away from your loved ones. You have a very close call, especially if you have a wife and kids, uh, things start, you start sitting in your crash or whatever, is in true respect for him, is try to do something or change my life in a way or learn something from his passing that makes me a better person or a better fighter pilot. And it's a tribute, if you will,

so that his death is not in vain or lost on something that I can say, I do this now as my normal sequence of events, my checklist, my in cockpit, you know, way that I prepare, get something set or, you know, say something to myself, uh, because so-and-so this happened to so-and-so and he's no longer with us. So there are things that all of us, uh, have that, uh, I think tied to think tie to that, that we make ourselves better because of the traged for you guys? It's not a game, but how important is the mental skills for being a world-class fighter pilot or a successful fighter pilot? At some level, world-class and success doesn't much matter, right? Yeah, I think the mental side is huge. Um, the, you know, the mental side to me, the mental side is part preparedness and then part of that, that confidence, like mental and confidence actually, uh, go pretty hand in hand,

uh, to me. So, um, if I can tell you the mental side is so important that if you look at the other side, if you're not prepared mentally and if you're not able to handle this mentally, for sure it's guaranteed failure. So it's not whether you need it or not or how important it is. It's so important that if you don't have it, you will fail. It's not like you can coast through something type scenario. What a great – okay. That's a really good way to put it. And when you speak, like my antenna, again, it's like, okay, that's right. I'm glad that I've had the same thought, but I've never had it that way coming from the environments that you've been in.

So I appreciate that a lot. Just as a sidebar real quick, we have a process. Anytime there's a crash or a mishap, we do an investigation. And we have a mishap board that investigates why this happened mechanically, pilot error, whatever. And then every single time, we look at what's called human factors. And a board will look at the human factors of the pilot. And it's amazing, I mean, in the 80, 90% category, when there are pilot error involved, how 80 to 90% of the time, there's some kind of human factor going on in that pilot's life. It could be a fight with his wife, his mother died, the dog died, they got married, they just had a baby. We train to recognize human factors because they're so prevalent in distraction inside the cockpit. Yeah, good reminder that it's all connected.

Yeah, it's all connected. Are you a risk taker or a rule follower? That's a good laugh, Jim. Well, it's because I think I'm both. And I work for Red Bull now as well. And so I run what's called Red Boyer races. And people often say, you know, hey, Red Bull, those are those crazy risk takers, right? You have a death wish.

You're just adrenaline junkies. You do all this kind of stuff. And it's interesting because I think tactical aviation or extreme fighter pilot type aviation or Red Bull Air Race kind of stuff, it's as if you are taking crazy chances, but you've mitigated the risk so much that you really are not taking a crazy chance. And it's kind of like you get the reward of the adrenaline, let's base jump off outside of a mountain kind of thing. But then you've mitigated the risk or lowered the risk so much because of your preparedness and how you've approached the safety aspect of things. So it's really like, it's the best of both worlds. Awesome response. What I've learned from the time I spent working with Red Bull folks as well

was that they don't see themselves. I'm talking about when you watch them on TV or whatever, video or whatever, and you look at them and you say, what? How could someone do that? They must not love their mom. They must not love their children. But when you really get under the hood, most of them don't see themselves as risk takers. They see themselves as taking the next natural step to add to their body of work. And it just happens to be pretty dangerous in the environment.

But it's not like I'm trying to jump off a 10 foot story when I haven't jumped off in nine foot story. This is ridiculous. Like I'm not, most people can't make a hundred foot fall, but you know what I mean, right? Like 10 steps versus nine steps, whatever. So I think we're probably sussing the same thing. Yeah. Okay. Do you have your sleep and recovery program? Do you value that? Sleep is very important to me. I tend to not function as well off of little amounts of sleep. So I enjoy the luxury, I guess, and hopefully it stays with me,

of being able to just put my head down and fall asleep and then sleep pretty soundly until I wake up. So I'm lucky that way. That would bother me if that didn't go smoothly. And then do you have any sort of mindfulness practice or meditation or prayer even that you engage in on a regular basis? Kind of all of the above. If I do start to get worked up before, like last night, getting really nervous about coming on your show.

I'm sure. No, I was. I didn't know what to expect. So how did you manage through that it so i when i put my head on the pillow i i'll put my if i if i start to sometimes i can get myself worked up if i just start to think too much about whatever uh and then i just take i mean this might sound corny but i'll take myself to a happy place or think of something that's like not important. And I didn't mean not important. Not difficult. You know, whether it's a happy place in the world or I think of my family or I think of a vacation or a holiday or something.

I just try to very intentionally think of something that is relaxing. And that usually does the trick and I'm asleep for, I think, too much. Okay, nice strategy. Okay. Are you more self-critical or more self-positive? I try to be very self-positive, but I come from a culture of, as a fighter pilot, every single flight we take, we come back and we do an extensive debrief. And so I really, truly value constructive criticism to a fault. It's not the normal culture of normal people and my other businesses. I might say things that people are not normally confronted with. It's just what our mantra is. We want to be the best of the best. At Top Gun, it's just, you know, what our mantra is, is we want to be the best of the best at Top Gun. It's all about best of the best.

And it's, we're going to debrief something today that makes you a better fighter pilot tomorrow. We take the who out of it and we just throw it out there so that you can improve tomorrow. And so I am self-critical, but in an effort to be very positive. Okay. Wow. Cool. And then if you fall in the spectrum somewhere between optimism and pessimism, where are you when you think about, like, that's the lens that you see the future through. So where are you on that spectrum? Very optimistic. Yeah. Like ridiculously optimistic?

No, I think there's some naivete if you're too optimistic. I, you know, I'm not a the sky's falling kind of person. And, you know, the sun's going to rise tomorrow and um especially in today's culture as we sit here today you know there's there's some some anxiety around our country right now with it's like things are some in some people's minds falling apart well uh i am i am not that at all uh But I'm not overly optimistic to where I think there's some naivety. Okay. All right. Jim, last question, unless you've got some for me, which is only always fair. But like last question I have, like, how do you articulate or define or even think about the concept of mastery? Mastery. So if you're a master of something, in aviation, at if that's a word, it's when it was part of me.

I wasn't thinking of aviation. It was, it was so, I was so finely tuned and honed that, um, that plane was an extension of my body, uh, for example, and I wasn't thinking about, uh, things. It was, it was just happening. And, um, so from a mastery perspective, I think if you get to that level, Nirvana, whatever it is, where it is 100% of your cells in your body are going to it and there's a sense of confidence um that everything is is going in the right direction and that you have you have trust in yourself and your wingman and the systems that got you there that you can succeed in any scenario that is presented to you. That's probably when I would say that I felt I had mastered it as much as I could. Now, we talk in aviation a lot. I told you about if there's a mishap, we do a mishap investigation and a mishap report will tell you in aviation culture that many people have died or crashed or become involved in mishaps because of overconfidence. And so you really have to be careful, um, in aviation, at least about being overconfident. So, um, when you ask about mastery, there's, there's a, it's not just thinking you're

God and you know, everything is perfect and you can do everything, that there's a top limit to that. And if you go over that edge of the envelope, if you will, and you're overconfident, that often results in something bad happening. Wonderful. So your thoughtfulness is duly noted and your experience is so rich. I hope that I've done some justice by asking you questions that try to get to the center of how you are you and how you for the time and thank you for your service and thank you for your body of knowledge that you've refined over the many years and how you've inspired others to do the same. And also how exciting it is to watch the Red Bull Air Race. And I was fortunate enough to go to one of those races a number of years back.

And it's a full assault on the sensory, you know, human experience. So I love what you're doing there. And so thank you. Well, no, thank you. This has been a very interesting conversation. And you've asked me questions and made me think about things that I've never had to articulate. So I hope I haven't rambled on too much. And this is just from the gut, from the heart.

I just pushed the transmission key and started talking. That's what's up. I love it. Yeah. And at first when you said this has been a very interesting conversation, I thought to myself, oh, no. Interesting is the word people say when they don't have anything real to say. Oh, that's interesting. No, no, no.

But then you said, no, these are hard questions. And this is not meant to be like hard. This is meant to be curious. And like, how do you really work to become one of the best fighter pilots in the world? Like, what is the framework and how do you get better? And how do you relate to other people? And it sounds like, you know, kind of in a quick hit,

like your trust level's high, your awareness level is high, your nobility of what you're doing is high, your framework that your parents gave you to be able to know that you matter beyond a lot about, you know, something greater than yourself and the responsibility that you have to do an excellent job in those environments is evident. So, yeah, you know, wow. So, Jim, thank you. And I want to thank Kevin Lake as well for putting us together. What's up, Kevin? Absolutely. Yeah.

And we didn't even get to talk about your time with the legendary Jack Clark at Cal Berkeley. Yeah. So maybe we'll do that some other time. And I know you got some conversations about brown boots, which is so apparent on top of carriers. So anyways, Jim, thank you. And then where can we find, where can we follow you and find out more what you're doing? Is there a best place for us to do that? Well, with the, I guess the Facebook, if, if, if you want, I mean, part of the, the culture of fighter pilots and the military is, uh, and why I've really enjoyed this conversation with you, because you've asked me questions that I've never in my life had to articulate. The thoughts have always been there, but we don't tend to talk about ourselves very much, because that's frowned upon, at least as a military officer or fighter pilot. And so these questions that you've asked me, it's made me—it's been fun to actually try to articulate it.

Yeah, cool. But we don't have a lot of – today's culture is slightly different because there is a lot of GoPros and websites and Facebook pages and stuff like that where self-promotion now is part of life. It is exactly opposite of what really the military and the fighter squadrons are all about. So it's an interesting dynamic right now. From a cultural perspective, the kids all want to show everything on on facebook and instagram and everything um but from a military perspective it's it's kind of frowned upon so um anyways i i digress a little bit but uh i'd say either facebook or red bull air race Either Facebook or Red Bull Air Race. If somebody wants to get a hold of me, I'm happy to chat that way or even LinkedIn. And we can find your name.

It's all Jim DiMatteo. Yeah, D-I-M-A-T-T-E-O. Yes, sir. Brilliant. Okay, and those still listening, we thank you. And I know you love this conversation. So head over to iTunes, write a review, help us out that way. Find Jim, all the fun things he's doing with Red Bull Air Race and otherwise.

And then, you know, find us on social. And the Facebook page is facebook.com forward slash finding mastery. Our website is finding mastery.net. I'm on social media, at michael gervais and you can also find us on instagram at finding mastery okay so thank you jim thank you sir this has been great this has been a fun experience for me thank you very much thank you kevin like all the best take care take care Take care. Take care. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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