Living The Red Life - 27th U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: Power, Leadership, and Life-or-Death Decisions

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Mark Esper is a seasoned national security leader who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Defense. With a foundation built on decades of military service, Esper's career spans pivotal roles in both government and corporate sectors.The conversation kicks off with Esper sharing his memorable journey—from a small coal mining town near Pittsburgh to leading the U.S. Department of Defense. Underlining his story are themes of service, public duty, and the rigorous training that shaped his leadership style.The episode delves deep into what makes an effective leader, particularly under high-pressure scenarios. Esper emphasizes the importance of integrity, discipline, and accountability—traits he honed throughout his military career and now applies in the business world. As Esper reflects on his time as Secretary of Defense, the discussion shifts to the challenges of political navigation and maintaining authenticity amidst public scrutiny. Through engaging anecdotes and practical insights, listeners are offered a rare glimpse into Esper’s ethos and strategic thinking, both in the field and in corporate boardrooms.Key Takeaways:Leadership and Integrity: Effective leadership begins with authenticity and a strong moral grounding, as conveyed through actions and communication.Discipline in All Aspects: Whether in military training or business environments, consistent discipline forms the backbone of success.Lessons from Team Sports: Experiences in team sports or military units teach grit, resilience, and the importance of teamwork, all valuable in business settings.Navigating Politics in Leadership: Balancing integrity with political savvy is crucial in high-stakes roles, ensuring that core values remain intact against external pressures.Accountability and Responsibility: Accepting full responsibility for actions and decisions is a foundational principle, mirrored in both military and business leadership.Notable Quotes:"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.""Leadership always begins with integrity.""Accountability and responsibility are very big things.""To me, that is the mindset you have to take into it—to think every day you're training.”"Nothing wins like success."Connect with Mark Esper:WebsiteInstagramConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

What was it like getting the phone caller to become the Secretary of Defense? I was always about public service serving my country, the military and national security. So to kind of get that call from the president and says, I want you to be my Secretary of Defense, yeah, it's one of those moments you don't forget. Mark Esper is a disciplined, experienced, and strategic national security leader who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Defense. Drawing from decades of military service, policy leadership, in global defense strategy, he has led the Pentagon through common

through complex geopolitical challenges while shaping modern military readiness, innovation, and national security priorities. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. You've got to work hard, you've got to go hard because we're saving people in the long run. We'll be far more successful in the mission and bring far more people home if we train as hard and as realistic as we possibly can, you know, in peacetime. What makes a good leader under high pressure situations? To me, leadership always begins with integrity. But when you run big organizations like the Department of Defense, which is, what, 2.8 million people, So much it then has to be conveyed in other ways.

One of the hardest moments of your career and where you had to make tough decisions and how do you handle it? You know, I had a number of those situations arise, but to me, and I say this to CEOs today. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the Red Life, ditch the Blue Pill, take the Red Pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hello and welcome back to another episode. I'm sat here today with former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper. Very excited for this show. I've always been fascinated by the military and the core guiding principles of leadership and correct execution.

And as you probably know, there's not much room for error in some of those situations. And that's just like business. So here we go. Very excited for today's episode. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Rudy. Great to be with you. So I want to start from the top.

And this is always hard with people that have these crazy lives. But can you try and summarize, you know, what you've been up to the last, you know, a couple of decades and your life achievements? We'll go back a few decades. You know, I grew up south of Pittsburgh, a small coal mining town. And at age 18 left and went to West Point. And I spent four years at West Point, graduating in 1986. I commissioned as an infantry officer and then went through all the various schools and programs, parachute airborne training, ranger training, pathfinder training.

I found myself in 101st Airborne Division as my first assignment as a platoon leader. I worked my way through the ranks there. I went to the 1990-191 Gulf War and came back after eight months. And then from there, I transitioned to an overseas assignment in Italy. And my wife and I spent three years there. I came back home. Went to school at Harvard, graduated with a master's in public administration, and was assigned to the Pentagon as an Army fellow.

At that point, I was 10 years in my career, and I decided I wanted to spend more time with my family, focused on that. And so I left the service. I joined the reserves. And then at the same time, began a series of jobs on Capitol Hill, working in the House and Senate. I did a two-year stint as a deputy assistant secretary of defense. And then after I left Capitol Hill in the mid-2000s or so, I went to work at a couple of associations like Aerospace Industries Association and the Chamber of Commerce. I eventually found myself in corporate America working for the Raytheon Company. And then in 2017, and I was asked to become Secretary of the Army. And I served as Secretary

of the Army for two and a half years or so, and then was picked by the President to become Secretary of Defense. I was confirmed with 90 votes and did that for about 18 months. And now I find myself in the time since the first administration, Trump administration, ended, working in private equity and venture capital and consulting. So that's what I'm doing. That's what I've done. And good to be with you here today. Yeah.

And I'm excited because, you know, I want to dive into that sort of the military mindset, the discipline leadership side, but you've obviously got, you know, the business side and the business side and seeing how they cross, right? And, you know, as I was talking to you and most people listening, no, I came from a family of pro athletes. And I see such a massive crossover. Actually, one of my senior execs is an old, a previous. Olympic athlete in triathlon that was under my dad when he was the manager.

And I hide him because of his core values, not so much his experience in what we do. And I have some amazing staff that are ex-military too. And they don't have marketing or media experience, but they've got amazing core values. So I would love to start there, like to summarize, you've been with some of the most powerful people on the planet, right, and seen, you know, some crazy situations. what are some core guiding values that those successful people have? Well, you know, in many ways you hit the nail on the head for me. I was always involved in athletes and sports.

Fitness has always been my thing. I think one of the key factors that helped me get into West Point at age 18 was I was a three sport letterman. And of course, I played sports at West Point as well. But I came to learn over time that, particularly in civilian life, the people, when I would interview people for jobs, I always looked to find, were they members of a team? Were they an athlete?

Did they play sports? Because I find that athletes tend to have teamwork mentality. They understand grit and determination and focus. They understand the discipline needed to achieve a goal. And as important, if not more importantly, they know what it's like to get knocked down and to lose and to fail and then get yourself back up, dust yourself off and go back at it. And whether it's a business pursuit, a public sector pursuit,

nonprofit, you name it. I think those qualities are key in any domain. And so I always look for that in people. And to me, the key was always finding did they have this type of sports team background in their past. Interesting. Yeah. And what about, you know, you see so many, like,

little videos online and memes and speeches about, you know, one thing I always talk to my team about is like the saying of how you do one thing is how you do everything. And I love the speech from the Admiral about making your bed. I have to recite that and make my team watch it. and I'm such a big believer, like my best staff are the ones that don't forget the little reports at the end of the day and the little check-ins, right? So do you see that in like really successful people out of the military as well? Absolutely, but you know, my experience with that came in the military.

Yeah. One of the maxims, the sayings we would always use is train as you fight and fight as you train. And so we would train all the time in the 101st Airborne Division, you know, a deliberate attack, a raid, a defense, you name it. And then, you know, we got called up to go to the Gulf War in 1990 and eventually combat operations in Saudi Arabia. And I got to tell you, the combat operations, as dangerous as they were, as unpredictable, it felt like training because we trained the way we would fight and then we applied that on the ground.

And so to me, that type of approach serves you well in any endeavor. And so to me, that's the mindset you have to take into it to think every day you're training. And at some point in time, you'll be called to action. something will happen. And you wanted to become second nature, instinctual, that you respond, you react, and you perform. And let's break that down for everyone listening, right? Because I actually kind of teach my team this in a different way.

Like, when we're super profitable and everything's going well, I see people get lazy for us. And I'm like, guys, you got to pretend like we're losing money. And everything's. And they're like, really, why do you need it today? Why do you, why are we rushing? Because I'm like, it's the little things that add up complacency over time that then turns you from profitable and successful to not. So can you kind of talk about that little?

Yeah, and sure, I'll extend it because when I worked in corporate America, I had a great CEO and he used to say, we got to be careful the disease called incumbentitis. Yes. In other words, you get to a position and you feel too comfortable. Yeah. And you stop innovating, you stop pressing hard, you stop working along hours. And what he would say is if we don't get that edge, keep that edge and disrupt ourselves, somebody will come in and disrupt us, and now we'll be second and third and fourth. Well, I always sound that, it was funny earlier, like, it was a lot of, like,

in my 20s, I was always pretty successful. So I would get, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in my bank from business. And I would actually get worse because I'd be like, oh, I've got plenty. So now I invest, like as soon as money comes in, I try not to keep a lot of money there. Yeah. Because it gives me the hunger, like when I had no money. You have to be hungry. You know, it gives me that.

And I think that's kind of what you're saying, like, you know, in training, you'd treat it. You know, it's easy to go, oh, it's just training, right? But you would treat it like it's real. So when it becomes real, everyone's pretty. prepared. And I don't know if, you know, the regular police and stuff do that because you hear about these stories where people freeze up, right? And I imagine more special units and forces are trained a lot more intensely to get them ready for that. You know, in the military, of course, the stakes are no higher than your life is on the line, right? And more importantly, the lives

of your colleagues, because in many ways, that's who you're out there for, serving for, trying to make sure you can live up to their expectations. And, of course, in the military training, I mean, recalling back my days. I mean, it was always, it was always real in the sense that we were in helicopters at night with night vision goggles. We were, you know, moving along a ridge line. We would do live fire training both day and night with live ammunition. So there was always that element of danger.

And you try to mitigate that, but at the same time not compromise the realism that you're trying to put yourself in. So you had that added stress level that, yeah, things can go wrong. There have been accidents in the past. But the view was always, I'll throw another phrase at you, we used to always use it. And that is, the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. I like that. And so that was another factor.

You've got to work hard. You've got to go hard because we're saving people in the long run. We'll be far more successful in the mission and bring far more people home if we train as hard and as realistic as we possibly can, you know, in peacetime. Yeah. So let me ask you a question around this sort of work ethic, right? because that's what I keep hearing, this constant work ethic, never giving up. And I think I enforce that in myself and people around me, my teams.

And I've been brought up that way. You know, everyone says, Rudy, zero to 100 always. And I think because I came from a family of pro athletes that train three times a day. It's all I knew. But there's a lot of people in life, you know, general people, they're not where they want to be in life. They're not their dreams, they're financial. And obviously, a circumstance and environment does have a factor.

but I mean a big part of it is people are afraid to put in the work sometimes right and they're afraid to stay consistent and you know some of the you know you see the clips in the movies of hell week and stuff right it you know depend on how real it is but it shows what it takes to become a seal for example in the top 1% and I see that crossover in life you know you see the millionaire but you don't see the 20 years or 10 years behind it so do you think that's like a massive key principle for any all in life absolutely I mean even in hobbies You and I talked beforehand about being triathletes, running triathons. You obviously have done far better than I did. But to me, the simple acronym of fit, you know, frequency, intensity, and time. And to me, the challenge is always intensity. I go to the gym every day. I see a lot of people in the gym, but they're just hanging out, right? You have to be there and you have to have an intensity to either, whether you're lifting weights or on a bike,

to constantly pushing yourself as hard as you can, get that heart rate up. And because, again, you're training for a race. If you want to win or improve yourself, it's, there's, no shortcut. I mean, hard work is really the only path, certainly in these types of endeavors. And that is a challenge generating that type of intensity on a daily basis to achieve a goal. More many years, too. Many years, right. It doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're, look, unless you're extraordinarily gifted. And there are people out there that have been given those God-given gifts. But for the most part, for the average person, at least for me, it's a lot of

hard work, a lot of effort, a lot of successes, a lot of failures. And you learn more often from those failures and successes. I love that. So, And talking about success and failure, I wanted to branch into this more leadership, right? Because obviously we talked about your early life and training and stuff, but a big part of your life's been more in higher ranks leadership roles, right? And, you know, something I just so fascinated by in people like yourself in the military is I'm a CEO, I have 130, 40 staff. And I make decisions that can impact those staff and my life and everyone's life. but it's never to the level of you, right, or someone in the military where, like you said, lives are on the line. So what makes a good leader under high pressure situations?

Yeah, look, to me, leadership always begins with integrity, and that is you have to have a core set of values that begin with honesty and putting your people first and folks understanding what is truly your goal, your aim, the ability to articulate ideas, empathy, judgment, extremely important. And when you're in a smaller organization, you have your company now, 130 and 140 people. When I was a company commander in Italy, a rifle company commander, I knew everybody.

And they could, on a daily basis, get to know me, talk to me, judge me, and vice versa. But when you run big organizations like the Department of Defense, which is, what, 2.8 million people, so much it then has to be conveyed in other ways. It's your presence, your appearance, at certain sites or operations or exercises, or facilities. It's how you convey that publicly. And it's, it's conveying a sense of, a sense of

your integrity and your goals and your interests and your concerns and how you place those priorities so people understand the authentic you. At the end of the day, it is actions speak louder than words. And so, uh, you have to not just talk about those things constantly and, and persuasively, but you have to live that life and demonstrate it. Because otherwise, when times are tough, when maybe the situation is unclear, you want people to know who you are before those situations happen. So they have trust in your authenticity and to who you are because they're going to have to rely on you at those points. Well, and I think you have a much harder job too because I'm a private company and I answer to my 130 staff and ultimately my customers. But at the end of the day, you know,

you have to answer to the public judging you, the two million people in your department. But then there's all the politic games behind the scenes that you have to appease. I built a life where I don't have to appease anyone really, you know, except for for maybe the free letter words in the, in the country, but I play by the rules, so they're okay. So it's like, how do you, how do you juggle all those variables? Yeah, and politics is doubly hard because you have politicians who, who are trying to gain political points. And, and so they'll kind of try and attack you, criticize you, pull, pull a threat of something that is a quarter truth and kind of portray you as something else. And to me, I've always found that very frustrating, very troubling, because I like to play

above board, be honest with people, be up front. But that's the nature of politics. And unfortunately so. But I think you have to just kind of try and stay above that and stick to your core principles and be very clear about what your priorities are and who you are. And again, I grew up, grew up in the sense of beginning West Point at age 18 and was taught a core set of values and fundamentals from the West Point motto of duty on our country. But to the basic things, we talked about some of those, you know, trainees you fight earlier. But always it was put your people first. In other words, in other words, make sure you're taking good care of your people, which means hard training and discipline and all the other stuff, but also making sure they're cared for.

And as long as people understand you have their best interests at heart, I think they end up trusting you. And it can kind of sift through all the noise, all the politics, all the criticism. Yeah, I've always been fascinated by politics. I think I'd do pretty well. well at it because I'm like good at business and structure and and and I'm very level headed. But what I would hate is the game of chess behind it because I'm always like a pretty blunt person. I say British. I say it how it is and I do the right thing and I just move forward. But yeah, behind it there's a game of. Yeah. And in politics, the truth doesn't matter. It's it's you know, how can you advance your goals through whatever means? How can you elevate yourself?

How can you promote your own, your own reelection or promotion? And so, you know, you know, you have that at play to, which again is not typically a military ethic at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The military ethic is about promoting and enhancing the team even to the point of self-sacrifice. And so they're very different environments to operate. Yeah, you cross over, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

And as Secretary of Defense, you have to have a foot in both camps. You have to protect the military and the institution. But on the other hand, you have to be smart enough, clever enough, adept enough to play in the political environment. And, you know, you can get caught between. be twixt in between on some of those situations. Yeah, I imagine that's tough. So talking about, you know, leadership in military,

I wanted to ask you one thing. One thing that I think really changed my look at leadership. I was very fortunate about 10 years ago, a friend took me to an extreme ownership seminar. I think it was Jocco's first ever seminar or second, and there was only like 50 people in the room. And I read the book, and I've installed that into my business for every,

ever since, right? In every business, every department, every person, how much of that exists in the military in terms of taking ownership and responsibility? And, you know, I always quote to my team when it's like the tech team hands off to the design team or the legal, right? It's like, hey, in the military, if you're, you know, moving for a combat zone, you can't just, you know, the guy covering the flank can't just forget, right? So I always use that sort of acronym and analogy is, is that something you see a lot of people? No, absolutely. It's a core leadership. leadership attribute, which is accountability and responsibility. You know, at West Point as a plea, you were allowed for answers to any question.

Yes or no, sir, no excuse, sir, may ask a question. Okay. The third one, no excuse, meant that whatever you did, whether right or wrong, whether yours or not, it's your responsibility. And that you'll see that today at the highest levels or military and in some degrees with civilians. What it means is no matter what happens, you're the one in command, you're responsible for it. You may not have done it.

but you have to fix it. And that was my view as both Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Defense. When you're in an organization, it's a million people, even if one percent of people do something wrong, because 99% if not higher, of all our service members are every day trying to do the right thing and are doing the right thing.

But 1% or half of 1% is a lot of people. And so then the responsibility for the commander, because you are responsible, is you've got to take action and decide how are you going to deal with this, punish it, remove it, wherever the case may be, but make sure you send the message to everybody else.

These are the boundaries. This is what we expect in terms of moral, ethical behavior, proper behavior, and continue to lead your organization in that way. So accountability and responsibility are very big things. Love it. And, you know, last few questions I have now, like bridging into business, right?

Now you do a lot of consulting work with big companies, CEOs, et cetera. And we've talked about a lot of it naturally, but what are those big bridges you see, you know, between the successful CEOs and when you come in and help work with companies, what do you bring from that military service? Well, you raised it earlier. It's, you're leading large organizations. And typically, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people. And so, again, it's a, it's a clear articulation of who you are, what you believe, and emphasizing that. And doing so not in terms of sending out memorandums all the time and speeches. Those things are important and notes to the and notes to the company, but also going around talking to

employees, getting to know them, walking factory floors, things like that. So to me, communication, articulating a clear set of principles and ideas that guide you, accountability and responsibility, right? There's no harm in saying, I made a mistake, or we made a mistake, or I'm responsible. Too often in DC you hear you're not supposed to say those things. And some leaders are kind of, I think, courageous enough to do that. So I think taking responsibility for your actions, but then also having the courage of your vision to take the company maybe in a different direction. And you see that happening at times. And what you often find out is that you always have a minority of folks who are on board with you,

another minority who are opposing you. And who you have to persuade is that big mass in the middle that you're doing the right thing. You're on the right path. And we will be successful. It may not be easy, but ultimately we will be successful. If we put in the hard work, the intensity, the focus over a sustained period of time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just myself in the last 10 years, we've pivoted our business three big times, three different directions.

And, you know, every time you take a step back for a few months or a year in revenue, but every time, luckily, I've done that, the business has doubled or tripled over the next couple of years, you know, and it's, you know,

I'm a very, I guess, I just go for it, you know, I just move forward. But yeah, I think a lot of the time, you're right.

you have that group that are like, yeah, let's do it. And then most are just like watching, right? They're watching and they're seeing the way the tide goes, the rainblowers, you know, and swaying them. And, you know, I do think a big thing that sways them beyond obviously leadership giving speeches is results, right? Like I always talk, results talk. Nothing wins like success, right? Yes. So, you know, when people start to see the proofs in the put in and I think another good thing that I do as a leader, I think good leaders do is I'll always, I'll do whatever I make my staff do.

So I have Airbnb properties and real estate and I'll paint the walls and move the box. Another military principle lead by example, right? You have to be willing to do what your soldiers are doing. You have to be able to live their hardships, live their lives and, you know, if need be, help them clean the latrine or put up a tent or whatever the case may be. Good. So a couple of last questions, more rapid fire for you. Number one, I've always kind of joked around.

Like, I mean, if everyone in the population had to do a couple of years in the military, the population would be better or, you know, like more capable and more disciplined and obviously a lot of people would go back to their old ways, but do you think like within a couple of years it does really teach some great core values for life? Yes, I think it would be bad for the military

and expensive for the country. But I think if you did it, I think it would be tremendous in terms of building social cohesion. Trying to install a core set of principles of people understanding teamwork and what it takes. But again, for me, it's at the social level. You would finally, you would get back to where you had people mixing with ethnicities and genders and religions

and communities that they otherwise might not see in their entire lives. I mean, for me, that was very important to me to get to know people from all different races and walks of life, rich, poor, black, white, you name it. And to me, the military is that great melting pot. So at that level, I think it would be great. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not thinking more realistically. But like, I think it would be fascinating. And I think it would wake a lot of people up, you know. Shared hardship tends to find people in strange and important ways. And, you know, when I go through hard times or I push people, I always quote, you know, I grew up and my parents would tell me my grandma made hand grenades during the war. And my granddad was serving and fighting and they were living on bread, you know. And I think now a lot of people are too afraid to put in the work, like I said earlier.

And that's kind of where this whole idea came from. But yes, the second question, what was it like getting the phone call to become the Secretary of Defense? Yeah, you know, I talk about it in my memoir. But it's, look, it's overwhelming, particularly for somebody who kind of grew up in humble beginnings and went to West Point. And to me, it was always, I was always about public service serving my country, the military and national security. So to kind of get that call from the president and says, I want you to be my Secretary of Defense. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, very awe-inspiring. and it kind of takes you back.

And it's one of those moments you don't forget. So you get a call, you walk away, tell the family, hey, I got a job. Well, you know, there were kind of rumors percolating around times, but I was at actually a conference. And I got the note that the president wants to talk to me, which was not that unusual, but I got ushered away into a private room. And there was some suspicion that this was happening. And then I was in a room by myself, just kind of pacing around when he said to me. And immediately, at that moment of time, you're now the nominee.

And my security detail took me out, pulled me out of the conference, took me out. We immediately started driving back to the Pentagon. And that's when I called my wife and told her what it happened. Yeah, life change. Life change immediately. It's good. And then, of course, it gets out quickly. And you become, now you get insecurity.

All types of things change. And it is, it upsets your life in different ways. In different ways. But some cool moments. I'm sure to. Oh yeah. No, look, it's there's to me there, with my background, there was no greater privilege than serving the country, particularly at the highest level. And, you know, look, being responsible or leading the greatest military in history, not just today, but in history. And all these fine young and young men and women at serving uniform is just incredible. It's quite

an honor. Good. Next question. If you, so if you could instill one like core value or trait into, you know, someone young, hungry that's getting into business in the world and wants to be successful? If you could only pick one or two, what would it be? Discipline. I like that. Would be one. And I define that pretty broadly, but probably discipline and focus. Yeah, I think discipline can bring almost any goal to life if you stay.

Right. You have to apply the right way. You can't go too extreme. You have to balance that out some, but discipline in all things, whether it's your fitness program, your nutrition, you know, your business focus, your family. How do you interact with your family? Yeah, you need the right plan. That's right.

As long as you're on the right path with discipline, you've become pretty unstoppable, I think. Good. I know some of these you probably can't share, but one of the hardest moments of your career and where you had to make tough decisions and how do you handle it? You know, I had a number of those situations arise, but to me, and I say this to CEOs today, go back to your core principles, go back to the, the focus, the mission of your organization, if you're in business, and certainly with DOD, it's about, you know, fighting and winning our nation's wars. But when it comes down to your

personal beliefs, I think you have to go back, be true to who you are, fall back on your key principles and morals and beliefs. And for me, it was duty, honor, country, service to country over everything else. And then be comfortable with your decision. And I would ask myself, you know, a day from now, a month, from now, a year from now, 10 years from now, can I, can I look myself in the mirror and feel like I made the right decision? Can I look my kids and my wife in the eye and think that I made the right decision? And I also used to say my West Point classmates, who we want to believe we hold ourselves to a higher standard. Can I look them in the eye? And I've, to me, that

kind of helped solidify my decisions. Yeah, that's great. And last question, I've kind of asked some of it already, but let's imagine you strip away all the, you know, the titles and the success and everything. You're starting out 20 years old, in the world to become an entrepreneur or successful, chase dreams and goals. What are a few things you would do? Differently? Yeah, yeah, or just in general, yeah. You know, I really have a lot of admiration for the generation today who's willing to be a lot more entrepreneurial and do stuff like getting to venture where I work now venture capital. And I applaud that. I think there's a lot to be said for that, which I didn't really, I didn't

feel that when I was 18 years old, right? number one. Number two is I think don't don't get focused too early. Go broad. Experience a lot of different things before you pick the path that you're really going to become an expert. And there's a great book I recommend to people called Range. It was written a few years ago about that topic. So go broad. And then third, I'd say build a good network. Be be unafraid to meet new and different people and talk and network and get to help them and help others out. In D.C., Washington, D.C., you don't see much of that, but I have some good friends, and I want to believe I'm the same way. But try and help people out, and it'll come back to you in time. May not be, you know, tomorrow or the

next month, but help people out. There's, there's, it'll only help you or help, you know, help others certainly in the long run. Love it. And where do people find you if they want to read, learn about you, take content? Oh, I, so I have a website, www.w.w.m., Mark T.esper.com. And as I mentioned earlier, I wrote a book, a New York Times bestseller called A Sacred Oath. And you can get to know more about me there. Yeah, love it.

Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed that episode was full of tips, tricks, leadership, and all the crazy things in between. It was one of my favorites. Check out, obviously, the site and the book. I'm sure the book's full of a ton more stuff. And the book talks, I know, about kind of bridging that gap

between, you know, making decisions, leadership, morals, and core values, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's a great read. And as always, keep working hard. Have big dreams and I'll see you guys soon. Take care.