Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Keeping Your Focus While in Conflict w/Master Chief Tuck Williams EP 8

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

In today’s Passion Struck ™ podcast episode, John interviews his long-term friend and navy veteran Master Chief Tuck Williams who shares his wisdom on keeping your focus, conflict resolution, and managing change. Tuck joined the Navy in 1989 and recently retired after 30 years in service. Of these 30 years, Tuck spent 12 at sea. He has served in far-flung places like Spain and Japan and has been decorated with numerous service medals.  You will learn how to overcome some of the biggest challenges that are impeding your progress. Tuck shares some of the most important lessons learned in his three-decade-long service, from steering clear of distractions to swift conflict resolution. Finding the right mentors also helped Tuck immensely along the way. When he was just 19, he was drafted to Japan. An unsure and slightly out-of-sorts, Tuck, fortunately, found a great mentor to lean on who helped him settle down. Be it the military or corporate America; the only constant is change. And if you run away from change, you are committing hara-kiri as eventually your enemy or your competition will end up having a leg up on you. But, how can you prevent conflict and chaos in a dynamic environment? What all can you do to show up a responsible, caring, and thoughtful leader? Other topics discussed in today’s show include keeping your emotions in check at the workplace, tips for handling toxic people, and the importance of making good choices. Enjoy! Questions That I Ask In This Show What exactly is information warfare? Why are we not focusing on the urgent things that can truly move the needle forward for us? How did you keep your focus when you were serving in the Navy? What were some of the daily habits and routines that helped you find success in the Navy? How can you avoid being a visionary arsonist? What are some powerful lessons you have learned from some of the best leaders you have ever worked with? How did you learn to evaluate an organization to unearth the underlying issues? What tips do you have for handling toxic people and ensuring productivity and momentum? What advice do you have for your twenty-year-old self? What is the hardest thing that you have ever done in your career? ------- More about Master Chief Tuck Williams: - Tuck retired after serving as the Force Master Chief Navy Personnel Command. His fleet assignments include Navy Security Group Activity Rota, Spain, USS SARATOGA (CV-60), USS KIDD (DDG-993), USS JOSEPHUS DANIELS (CG-27), USS THORN (DD-988), USS RADFORD (DD-968), USS ESSEX (LHD-2), USS BULKELEY (DDG-84), USS OAK HILL (LSD-51), Navy Personnel Command, Millington, Tennessee, Navy Information Operations Command, Yokosuka, Japan, Navy Personnel Command, Millington, Tennessee, and Naval Support Activity Mid-South. ----- Follow John R. Miles Here: Website - https://passionstruck.com/ ​Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_life ​ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m ​ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr ​ Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles John's Website: https://johnrmiles.com/ - John's New eBook - The Passion Struck Framework https://passionstruck.com/coaching/

And the third thing that I really adopted, that I think that is very, very important regardless of what career aspect that you do is to treat everybody with dignity and respect. It costs nothing, nothing to be kind to everyone. And I promise you that if you just go through life to treat everybody with dignity and respect and taking the high road

because it's a lot less traveled. Not only would you be a lot more happier but you and the folks around you are going to be a lot more successful. Welcome to the Cash and Struck podcast. My name is John Miles, a former combat veteran and multi industry CEO who turned entrepreneur and human performance expert. Each week we showcase an inspirational person or message that helps you unlock your hidden potential and unleash your creativity and leadership

abilities. Thank you for joining us today on the show and let's get igniting. Thank you for joining me today on the PassionStruct podcast. Repired Navy SEAL AdWral, Dome of Craving One said, It matters not your gender, your ethic, your religious background, your orientation, or your social status. Our struggles in this world are similar, and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward changing ourselves and changing the world around us

will apply equally to all. I couldn't have said it better, that your ability to change yourself and change the world around you starts within. Regardless of your background, education, orientation, whatever it may be, we all have the innate power to live a purpose driven life. And today, want to introduce

our guest for the show Master Chief Tuck Williams. He is a long-term friend and mentor of mine from many many years ago when we both served in the United States Navy. And I was able to accompany him on two deployments, one on the aircraft carrier, the USS Saratoga, and another on the guided missile destroyer, the USS kid, where he and I both participated in the Bosnian conflict and other things that were happening in that time. And you will hear so much wisdom from talk today as he shares his secrets of success as he rose through all the ranks to becoming a fourth man, Master Chief. I'm so thrilled to have him here today and believe you

are going to learn so much from his words of wisdom. I am so excited to have Master Chief tuck Williams my long-term friend today on the show. Thank you so much for Tuck for joining us today. Hey, doing great, John. Thanks for having me, ma'am. Well, during your intro, I labeled a ton of ships that you've been on over the years. And I just wanted the audience to get an understanding of how many days at sea did that equate to. So I think I was a little bit over 12 years at sea

when it was all said and done. Out of about 30 years. Oh, I'm here. Man, that is a ton of time at sea, especially for someone whose background wasn't in the surface warfare community. What an amazing ride you had. You know, John, I really, I really love going to see you. I'll tell you, even, you

miss the people when you retire. I've been retired about two years now. You do miss the people, but I tell you the one thing that I really do miss is the ability to go to see. There's something about being out there on a ship and a lot of times when the wind's not blowing it looks like you're just selling along on just like a smooth glass and you can set out there on the fan tail or the folks and the dolphins will be swimming along the side of the ship and it's just one of the most peaceful times I've ever had in my life. Thank you for that background talk. My time at sea was nowhere near as long as yours was. But I remember some of my favorite times ever have been sitting out on the deck of a ship. We're at so tranquil and you're just out there

watching the sunsets and sunrises with nothing around you and it is so beautiful. But not every day is like that and I wanted to remind you of a certain situation when we were both on the USS kid and it happened to be Thanksgiving and the ship was doing a turkey trot. And although it was a fun event, a destroyer is not that large a ship when it comes down to it. And so running a 5K on a destroyer takes a number of laps. And I remember as we were in the middle of that race, we were at the guide ship for airstrikes going into Yugoslavia. And I remember were there celebrating Thanksgiving,

enjoying the moment of doing this turkey trot when all of a sudden a huge allied air raid went right overhead with must have been 30, 40 aircraft just going above us by maybe 50 feet. And I remember that day, like it was yesterday, because you took that tranquil moment and all of a sudden you realized you were in the middle of a conflict. You were in the middle of a war. And I wanted to see if you remembered that moment at all. John, I do remember it was yesterday. In fact, I think if I dug in some pictures, I've got pictures of running in that turkey truck

going around through there. It's kind of amazing when you're out there and you've got real world events going on. The things that you try to do to still improve them around and still fitness and stuff like that when time and mission allows. But I remember it just like it was yesterday. It's same as you, it's amazing that we're able to come out here and do this and get

ready to sell great thanks given and yet all the same time we got all this going on around us. So Tom I didn't want to spend all our time talking about our turkey truck what I wanted to do was introduce you to the PassionStruck podcast because you are actually the first interview I will have done for the show and and what I am trying to do is to create an environment for all the underdog store out there. Those who feel broken or that they don't have what it takes to reach the next level. And I want to give them the wisdom and tools from both interviews and my personal episodes on how they can unlock their hidden potential and live that passion driven life that they have always wanted

to live. So I wanted you to explain the context for our listeners. You are part of the Naval Information Warfare community and when we were both there it was called the Naval Security Group command. Can you tell the listeners what exactly it means to be in the information warfare area? Well what information warfare does the Naval Security Group command. Can you tell the listeners what exactly it means to be in the information warfare area? Well, what information warfare does is we deal with different types of intelligence gathering. And reporting, if we look to safeguard the measures

and the policies of the United States, that's kind of our background. We've been around a long time. Friend of mine just wrote a book called Matzulu. His name's Matzulu, it's called On the Roof Gang. And it talks about the founding of the Comnaf Set Group community. And it specifically talks about Harry Kitter

and how he was the one who taught himself the Japanese code prior to World War II of how to break the Japanese code. And then therefore they was able to develop intel resources and was able to tell that the Japanese was going to attack the island of Midway, which ended up being the turn of part of World War II. And that's kind of where the history will we come from. I realize that there have been tremendous changes since the time you and I were together back in rotispein, such as an initiative that I started, which was the creation of the information war for expeditionary commands. And if you remember at that time, I stood that up with Naval Special Warfare Unit 10, and now I understand that that is a complete discipline within the Information Warfare group,

but a lot more than that has changed. But with all that change that was going on around us at that time, one of the things that I always saw in you is that no matter what was happening, no matter what shift we were on, we were back in the command, you always showed up. And I was recently having a conversation at lunch with a friend and mentor in mine, Steve Allen, where this topic of showing up came up again. And I've recorded a whole episode,

which will be airing in just a few weeks on this topic of showing up. But one of the things that I saw in you, as I stated before, was your innate ability to show up every single time I was around you. And I wanted you to tell our listeners why it is so important to show up and why you think people are doing it less and less.

I have, when I retired, I kind of, I taught for about a year and a half till I had my grandson. So I was very familiar with, I taught in a title one school, which is underpervileed school. I was able to spend some time with a lot of youth and everything. And, you know, kind of like your model passion struck, what I tried to do was sit there and say, okay, how do you motivate these kids who are coming from various backgrounds and get them to want to be something better than what they think that is on the horizon form.

Let them know that opportunity is out there. You've just got to somehow to personally develop that relentless drive in order to get after that opportunity and make sure that nothing or nobody slows you down and then provide a better opportunity for you and your family than what you had growing up. Well, I appreciate that talk. And I wanted to talk to you about this phenomenon that's going on right now that we live

in in this all-digital future. With the advent of social media, so much of us are now focused on what appears to be urgent, instead of focusing on what is most important for us to be doing. And it's those things that are urgent that get so in the way of us doing the things that really could make a difference. And I wanted to see, as you were in the Navy, and now, as you've gotten out, what are you seeing along these lines? And it was something that you had to take action with with those who are under your command. Yeah, I concur with your assessment. I think in 2020 there's too much of, hey, give me the instant gratification. Vice said there and say, okay, let me write down short term midterm and long term goals. And let me, let me, let me get after it, get after it that way. A lot of it

with social media, everybody just kind of puts your business out there and you really don't think about the repercussions that come later. Now, as far as for a military perspective, when I talk about social media or various platforms, I was very, very cautious in telling, telling, telling sailors or any menu that I had a chance to speak to be real cautious with it. Social media can be it is a great platform to get good information out of there. But once you hit send, it's out there. There's no withdrawing it back that's not here. And if you're a military member, then you get held to a little bit higher standard than what a civilian does. So you got to be real careful about what you're putting out there.

Another bit of advice that I gave is I said, I tried to never ever have a disagreement, via email or on social media or anything along that nature why I was on active duty. I said, pick up the time, pick up the phone, go have a conversation with somebody. You know what, if you can do it in person, do it in person because a lot of times

when you write an email or you do it on social media, you know, the communication or your intent gets misunderstood and it leads to a lot more disagreement than what you was actually intended, the consequences to be. John, I kind of agree more with what you just said and I have to admit there are times in my career where I let my emotions get the best of me and I would put them in emails or other electronic forms which is the absolute worst thing you can do because when you communicate in those mechanisms and forms of communication the receiver has no idea of being able to realize your intent how you're really trying to come across. Are you being empathetic?

Are you being sincere? Are you being angry? So they just see the words as black and white. And I think that causes a ton of issues with our ability to dialogue with people instead of just talking to them or picking up the phone, which it seems no one wants to do anymore. And so I tell people all the time with social media, if you don't agree with something, you don't have to comment, just scroll on by and ignore it. You don't have to add to the chaos that's already out there. You know, and that's spot on, John,

I tell people all the time, hey, passion is good. You need to have passion about whatever you're pursuing, whatever you're trying to get after this, that. The minute you bring a motion into a conversation or definitely any conflict, then you're trying to get after this snack. The minute you bring a motion into a conversation or definitely any conflict, then you're gonna lose. You're just gonna lose. With social media, I tell people all the time, you know what, if you see something on there

that you don't agree with, cost you nothing to go ahead and just grow along by it, not even make a comment. Topped that is so funny, you just brought that up. I recently wrote a book called Passion Struck and I have a portion of it in an e-book form Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked to you. Talked of that. So this is like when you go to the gym and you start working out and you feel tired, which is an emotion. And in your mind you say I want to do 10 reps, but you let the emotion of how you feel take over and you might only do five or six. And that's the same thing that happens to us in life. We let the emotion get in the way of progress,

which would have been doing all 10 reps and battling through. The important message here is if you let emotions take over, they will stop you in your tracks and they will halt the momentum journey that you were on. It's a great analogy. I mean, I'm sure like you, like me, there's many of days that I've woken up,

that I didn't want to work out. But then you just kind of put your head down and you know, you just barrel through it, whether it's a run, whether it's a swim or whatever. And then after you get done, you always feel a lot better about getting it getting accomplished. But the easy way out would be the emotion be like, all right, you know what, I think I'm just going to take a day off. And most of the time, if you take a day off, you'll take two days off, you take three days off. Then the next thing you know,, you know, you're not fit to fight. Exactly.

Well, on that line, thank you very much for your long service. It is not easy to do 25 years in any profession, but especially the military. And I imagine along those 25 years, there were many times that you could have lost your passion for what you were doing. And so I think it is so valuable for our listeners of the podcast today for you to talk about what were some of those tricks that you used, what were some of those ways that you kept your passion, and what advice would you give the listeners today on how they could keep theirs? today on how they could keep theirs. I think early on that I had some really good mentors and leaders that I was really lucky

enough, I guess, to stop all engines and pause and listen to and sit there. They turned me into a person that was really unfocused into a person that was going to warrant it. was really unfocused into a person that was go-oriented. I remember when I got to my first command, I graduated, I'd never been really out of the state of Kentucky, maybe over to Illinois or below the border to Tennessee once, but it never really been out of the state of Kentucky. And when I went in, I got to boot camp in Orlando, Florida,

so I went down there that I had a text school in Pensacola. Next thing I know I'm getting orders and they're sending me to Missile in Japan. And John, I'm telling you what, I was a 19 year old kid and I'm like, oh my goodness gracious. And I remember getting on

Missile in Japan. It was in January of 1990 and I step off a plane and there was snow above my waist. And I remember saying to myself, oh good Lord, would I get myself into? But I was very, very lucky. There was a man named Jerry Cantwell at the airport. He was my sponsor and he took me under his wing. And not only did he tell me, he said, hey, look, I'm going to beat you roommate. I'm going to be your sponsor. And I'm going to train you how to do your job. And then from there, I met other people and it really

just positively shaped my career that anywhere that I ever left from the solid Japan Anytime that we had new sailors reporting on board. I took that very seriously because I know that that very first tour Was what really really kind of shaped me and changed me from From being kind of really unfocused to focus to say you know what? I really love being a sailor, and if I'm gonna do it, then let me just get after it and try to be the best sailor, then I can be. Yeah, so at that point, what were some of the habits,

values, activities that you started to put into your life talk that became ingrained in you and something that you used throughout your career? I think this would be something that our listeners find so valuable. I was a person, you know, like I said, I changed myself to a go-oriented person. You know, I developed short-term goals and I learned a long time ago that if I don't ride them down, I don't achieve them. So, you know, I kept the books and okay, hey, what's my short-term goals? Guess what? My next advancement test is coming up in March of whatever.

I'm gonna be ready to take my advancement test. Hey, I've got a physical fitness test coming up here. If I don't stay fit to fight, I'm not gonna be allowed to stay in the Navy. Hey, I need to kinda, you know, as I go from, as I go from an apprentice to a journeyman, I need to start not only working on my technical skills, but I also need to start working on my leadership skills.

So I need to look around to command and see, all right, hey, what are some of the attributes of the people that I'm working with that I want to take on board? And when I become in charge or a leader that I want to say, and say, hey, you know what, I want to do that right there. And then when I'm a chief petty officer in 1999, I really just kind of kind of changed a little bit and said, hey, look, how do I simplify my message?

And what do I want to get after? And because when I made chief, I kind of developed a situation where it wasn't about me anymore. Then you go from a technician. You're still a technician you're responsible for, but you're also more of a leadership that you have a lot of responsibility for people like Quentin.

So I developed what I guess I call for fear of failure for lack of better terminology and said, you know what, hey look, it's not about tough Williams anymore. You know, I've got a division of 30 people. That's 60 parents who can trust me with the lives of their, their sons and daughters and I need to make dang sure that they're trying to do their job.

They're prayer, but go to war if necessarily. And if we have a casualty, what is the best and safe way that I can do? So that's kind of how I just went from an apprentice to a journey meant to a supervisor. And then, you know, when I went on to be a being a command master chief, I just kind of changed my message again to, uh, to fit that, hey, now I'm talking to chiefs, I'm not just talking to, uh,

to junior sailors anymore. Yes, I think that that is such an important transition. I remember like you alluded to going to my first duty station at Red Spain. And even before that, when I was doing my training, before I got there, what they taught you at the Naval Academy and the reality of what was happening out in the real world were two very different things. The way that people showed up was different,

the way that you interacted with officers and enlisted was different than what they taught you. And if it wasn't for senior enlisted and guides that I had, I would have fallen flat on my face when I got there. Because I honestly was only partially prepared for what I was facing and the leadership challenges in the real world that were thrown upon me at such a young age. And what I learned is that you had to put so much trust in those young men and women that you were leading because you only knew a fraction of what you needed to know

and you had to count on them to get the mission done. And what I learned early on was that if you didn't have that trust in those around you, you weren't gonna succeed. And I think that's exactly the same thing that you alluded to in this segment before. You know, you got to be an agent for change and it's tough. I don't care whether you're a sailor, whether you work at IBM, whether you work at Apple, regardless of what your profession is, you have to be an agent for change if you're going to be successful because things are going to change.

And you know, what I used to tell people in the military, look, if you're, if we're not changing and we're not getting better each and every day, then I'll tell you what, that's how you lose wars. You know, the same thing with you're working in a competitive company such as Passion Struck or, you know, GE or whatever, if you're not, if you're not willing to change and look toward the future, well, then guess what, technology, industry, everything else is going to pass you by. And human nature tells us that we don't want to change. We're kind of can tent with what we have and what we can see today. But in reality, if you want to be successful,

and you know, not only do you got to have a personal drive to get out there and just roll up your sleeves and get after it, but you got to take pause and say, hey, you know what, I've got to be an agent for change. I've just got to accept it. And I just got to use it to my benefit. I have the saying, and it's something I am going to talk about in an upcoming podcast, about becoming a visionary arsonist in your own life. And I want to give you an example of this. When I was at Loads, we had 300 plus programs.

These are multi-million dollar initiatives going on at any one time. And across them, somewhere on time, somewhere over time, but generally, they were having a number of changes to scope, changes to timelines, et cetera. And what would happen is the team would be working very hard and you'd come to your weekly or not weekly,

but monthly or six weekweek check-in with the Executive Steering Committee and all of a sudden this meeting would drop and visionary arsonist bomb on that initiative. They would change the timeline, they would change the scope, something would happen in the marketplace and they'd want to add this widget to it or they would want to shift it in this direction and all of a sudden when there seemed to be three or four months left in a project, it would get extended to eight months and this would happen again and again and again and again. and the same thing can happen in your own life. How many times do we undertake personal initiatives only to undermine them ourselves? We are, in fact, our own visionary arsonists. We let people, activities, beliefs, influences get in the way of us

staying on our path. We are the only ones who beliefs, influences get in the way of us staying on our passion or momentum journeys. And talk with you having such a long career, I can imagine there were times that you could have been an arsonist in your own passion journey as well. And I wanted to see if you could give the listeners some advice on how they can avoid this in theirs. Yeah absolutely John. I remember you know some of the some of the big organizations you know because you'll you'll sit there and you have you know in the military we change out leadership every two to three years. So you'll have you'll have the

CO or the ammo of whatever organization or myself as a command marshy for force marshy if I may come in here with this vision right here and say hey look let's head this direction here and then then all of a sudden if I get tagged go do somewhere else and somebody else comes in behind me sometimes that that that will not that vision will never come to fruition. So any any leadership position that I that I ever ever took over from the CMC on, I tried to be really, really kind of small. I'm a little bit of an old school.

I know everybody's got this phone calendar and all this other stuff, but I still had that old desk calendar. You know, I think when you put on there, this got the individual days. On the back of the cardboard on there any time that I ever took on took over command after assessing things for about you know 90 to 95 days because you don't want to come in there and just all of a sudden you know influence a lot of turbulence without looking at stuff but I would write down probably about two to three things that I wanted to get after while was there and I wouldn't add anything else to that list.

Until we got them things done, because like I said, you can all of a sudden, you can have a list of 15 or 20 things, and then you're working on all of them, and then all of a sudden you're walking down the gangway and you're leaving, you didn't really get anything accomplished that tour. So that's kind of how I simplified it for me that I was able from a leadership aspect

to get after and prioritize what I wanted to get done in a short amount of time without introducing chaos to your whole crew. As you know that Forbes Magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development masterminds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, minds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we at PassionStruck are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and mentorship. That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential. Because people doing great things in business and life are just like you,

only they've had a coach along the way and we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach, both minded individuals, to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again. passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. Your point on prioritization is so on point. In fact, it's the number two step in our passion struck personal agility process. After you analyze where you're currently at and where you want to go, the next most important thing you can do is prioritize because if you don't prioritize those actions, you are going to start focusing on things that are not important to accomplishing your journey.

And I think this all starts with the need to continue to focus on the main thing. And I happen to hear one of my favorite pastors preach this sermon many, many years ago and it is always stuck with me. That the main thing about the main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing. And that is what priority is all about. So when you apply that to the military, when you start guiding troops and you start changing the direction that they're going continuously, you create huge disruption. You create massive confusion and a lack of clarity, the where they need to go and the hill they need to take. That's it, John. I mean, you know, it's important for a leader to have to have a vision. And it's important for

It's important for a leader to have a vision. And it's important for the troops for that leader to be able to convey that vision down to the troops and be able to understand what that vision is. And again, to me, I tried to simplify it. I've seen several folks, whether you pull up a company's vision statement or whatnot, that it could be a page or two pages or in it. And I'm like, hey, let's keep the main thing, the main thing.

I really tried to focus on three things. From a visionary perspective, when I was talking to chiefs, whether I was giving speeches and khaki balls or what I was doing, it was really just the three things. Because if you overload people, they're going to walk out there, not really knowing exactly what you want them to get after. So my three things was one, be ready.

You don't know when Murphy's gonna cross your quarterback. For the folks who don't know Murphy, Murphy's laws, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. So if you're getting underway from a sailor perspective, then hey, what do we do if we have a fire? What if we do if we have flooding? What do we do if we have end bound missiles? What do we do? Try to outthink whatever bad situation that you can do and ensure that your crew is trained is being possible. I remember the first time that I heard that, it was George Bush right after we had been attacked

on 9-11 and he directed the military to be ready and what I took out of that was it wasn't a matter of if we was going to get after the terror which it was when so I automatically took that took that quote be ready and I put it put it at the top of my list. The second thing that I said from a leadership perspective is by God you own it. You own every bit of it. Any time that you or your team fails, then you stand up to whoever you are responsible to and you tell your boss, hey, you know what, that's on me. I didn't have my team ready. I didn't have my sailors ready. I didn't have this. You know what, I'm gonna go back to drawing board, but that is wholeheartedly on tuck whims. That has got me. Any bit of success that we ever got down as an organization, then you know what, you deflect that right back to the trips. Troops, but you know,

you leave that to the sailors and the troops. Hey, that's all their work. That's all their stuff right there. But regardless of whatever went on in your sphere of influence, you had to own it. And the third thing that I really adopted that I think that is very, very important regardless of what career aspect that you do is to treat everybody with dignity and respect. It costs nothing, nothing to be kind to everyone. And I promise you that if you just go through life, treat everybody with dignity and respect and taking the high road because it's a lot less traveled that not only would you be a lot more happier,

but you and the folks around you are gonna be a lot more successful. But, well, posed are just awesome points. Over the weekend, I went on a bike ride with a good friend of mine. He happens to be a West Point grad and a Delta Force former member, but as we were on this ride, he talked to me about how he lives his life by the power of three. And he started going into that he was in three

different careers thus far, the military, then he was the founder of Thompson, then what he's doing now, which is a venture capitalist. He's had three kids, he said he's had three, you know, loves in his life, etc. But he lives by the role of the power of three. So those three are great examples to bring forward. Be ready, be kind, and be accountable. And I think all our listeners can really learn something from that, from being ready, being kind, and being accountable. Because each of those are things that we can take action on in our own life. We can choose to be kind, we can choose to be ready and show up, and we can choose to be accountable for whatever actions that we take.

And so those three things actually relate well to the book that I wrote, Passion Struck, because as I have studied hundreds and hundreds of leaders, I keep seeing the same actions and mindsets coming back and back and back again and again and again. And as I think about those great leaders out there, you must have met some great ones while you were in the military. So I wanted to ask you what were some of the characteristics that you found when you examined these great leaders? First and foremost, they was authentic. You could tell that, hey, whatever they said they met

and they was 100% genuine. Most of them had a character trait toward they was servant leaders. What I mean by that is that they genuinely cared more about their people than they did about their selves. And it resonated with their daily actions. They was hard but fair. And then they had an approachable aspect to it

who were they had, they could be hard but fair, but everybody who come into contact with them if they had a problem felt comfortable about bringing that problem to them. So that's kind of the few things that I kind of took away with a bunch of people that said, hey look, you know what, that's the type of person that I wanna to be.

I want to be genuine. I want to care about people because I do. And I just want to make sure that I put, you know, others' needs in front of my own. And if I do that, guess what? Everything else can take care of itself. Yeah, that is a great point. And hopefully I can give an analogy here.

When I was at Lowe's, I got to do hundreds and hundreds of store visits. And so, after a while, you can walk into a store, and I don't care if it's a Lowe's home depot, Best Buy, Walmart, doesn't matter what it is. And within four or five minutes, I can recognize a well-run store and a poorly run store. And it all starts with leadership, and the way that that store is being run, and the guidance that's coming from the leaders that are above that store and how they are checking in to make sure that that store is keeping the main thing

which is supporting their customers the main thing. And as you and I were out there doing our direct support missions, we were having to do the same thing. When we joined the crew of a new ship, sub-aircraft, seal team, framework unit, didn't matter what, we had to immediately show up because you only had 24, 48 hours

to make an initial opinion, and that initial opinion was gonna carry for the rest of the time that you were with them. So it was vital as you and I both know how important that first impression was that you made when you joined that unit. And so, Tuck, I wanted to ask you because you've been on a lot more of these ships than I have. Was the same thing I talked about with Lowe's true with you when you would go on a ship or come to a new unit? Absolutely, I can generally tell now when I walk across the quarter deck and probably within the first 30

minutes walking around a ship or a command, I can get the feel for the environment and realize whether or not hey, we get we got some problems here or whether or not, you know what? Hey, leadership's doing a great job around around here

too. I'll give you for instance because you brought you brought them up here. I love lows. I've been to a lot of low stores. You know, love Home Depot too. We frequent them, frequent them both. I recently went to a low store that's pretty close to my house and tried to find somebody to ask them a question. It seemed like they was running from you down the passageways. And then I kind of, you know, I'm like, oh, man, boy, this lows. This is kind of, leaderships kind of fell off here a little bit than what it used to be,

you know, a few years ago. And then on the flip side, I went to another town over, went to a home depot. You couldn't even make it through the front door by somebody, you know, you know, still saying, hey, look, there's anything we can do for you. Can we help you out? I'm like, wow, this door's changed too, because this used to not be like this either. You know, this used to be here. So leadership definitely, definitely makes a difference in any business, any business that you're in and the way that the people underneath you interact with, with whatever your customer is, then people can readily tell whether or not, you know, hey, that store, that business, that command, whether they've got it kicking on all cylinders or whether or not.

We got some issues here. We need to, we need to kind of do a little bit dig a deeper here. So I wanted to ask you, if you could go back to your young self when you were early on in your career, what advice would you give yourself about getting rid of some of the toxins that you now find are out there? I'll tell you, you got to be careful about toxic people. I mean, I tried to take toxic people and turn them into the last half full people, but there's a lot of folks going out there and I'm sure you know it as well too. They seem to wake up every morning. They drank about a half gallon of hay to raid and they just go all day long and they

just want to blame everybody and anything on why they can't be successful and stuff. And people, you know, who are continually to make bad choices and you see them making bad choices because you can, you know, you can, you start a associate within people and if they're not willing to change, then guess what happens? Then you start, you start changing and adapting to their philosophies and stuff. So when I ran across talks at people, I would sit there and try to help the talks at people, come back and be better people. But once I've seen that, hey, these folks are not going to change, they're not going to change their ways, they're more interested in doing this, this, and this,

by being trying to get after life and be successful, then I just tried to run with the groups that were highly successful, and it really helped me out. I think that that is great and it's one of the concepts that I talk about in the book. But let me ask you a question because I want to see if you give a correct answer. What do you think is the most dangerous animal on the planet? Well, probably for me it's a heart attack. I don't like snakes but I know it's not the most extra shabby on the planet. I don't know.

Let me go, uh, let me go some type of shark. Well, I have to tell you, I answered the same way. I thought it was going to be a lion, a tiger, a jellyfish, a snake. I couldn't believe when I found out that it was actually the benign and Pasquito, that is the most dangerous animal on the planet. And the reason why is because it kills millions of people each year, because it spreads, plagues, and diseases, especially in third world countries. And not only does it do it to humans, it spreads, you know, heartworm disease to dogs, it can get into parasites which then inflict more harm on humans.

But these mosquitoes just aren't these pesky animals. They are these toxins that are everywhere around you in your life. And I recently recorded a whole episode on this concept called the mosquito principle. And why it is so important for you to do a mosquito audit in your own life. If you want to learn more, I highly encourage you to listen to that episode where I unpack the mosquito principle

in full detail. When Chuck, that brings me to the point where I think you were so right. And there are so many things out there that can cause you to move off your passion journey. How many times have you seen that in your own career? Yeah, a lot of them are sculled energy. When I was teaching high school, I spent a lot of time even it was a little bit out of the curriculum talking about social media and talking about who

you choose to align yourself with. If you're a high school student and you are aligning yourself with kids who are using drugs or alcohol, then eventually, before long, you're going to make a bad decision and use alcohol or drugs. If you're a person who are aligning yourself with kids who play sports, then eventually, before long, you're going to probably try to play sports too, regardless whether you're the best athlete or not. Same thing with you're a elected people side, people who make great grades. Well before too long, that's what you're going to start putting in the time and effort to make good grades.

You know, that's the same thing with, you know, you talk a lot of people who enlist in the United States Navy. And most of us come from pretty poor humble beginnings. And a lot of times, a lot of us come from areas to where, you know what, we got to get out of that small rural country town or we're just going to make some bad decisions and end up either dead or in prison. Same thing, you know, I may come from the inner city

of Washington, DC or Chicago, I mean, we come from all all around. And what I used to tell sailors too, was hey, the Navy, this is your lottery ticket. You know, this you really want a chocolate bar. You got to go and tick it. You need to utilize every program and every opportunity that we have to offer to be successful

and fetch weight and set yourself up even your family for life. Because if not and you start bringing what you left behind to the command before two go, you're going to end up back there because they're going to administratively discharge way. And then you're not confiling to the command before too long going back there because they're going to administratively discharge way and then you're not, you know, confiolent to the goals and the, you know, the core values of the organization. You're trying to bring what you was leaving behind forward when this is your opportunity to be successful. So, so I'm with you. I think the people you choose to align yourself

with can have a have a direct impact on whether or not you have the opportunity to be successful. Okay, so I have a couple of fun questions for you. So if you could pick up the phone right now and talk to that 25-year-old version of yourself, what advice would you give to them today based on what you know now? Be smart, pay yourself first, try to align yourself with folks making good choices, and listen to the mentors because they've been there and done that and most of the time they're there to help you out, be successful. And what was the hardest thing you ever had to do? Let's see here. Probably, well, there is no probably.

Probably the worst thing that I've ever had to deal with is, and it still bothers me a little bit today, is that I had a couple of commands that were where I had three sailors commit suicide. And you kind of, you still second guess yourself to this day to where you go back and say, hey, look, boy did I miss something.

You know, what if I happened to just, could I just, went back around through my arms around somebody and say, hey, look here, you know, you money morning quarterback yourself to say, did you miss something? You know, after, you know, what happens and you start getting all the information,

you're like, boy, why didn't you get this? So I guess probably the thing that I would tell everybody that if you're in a leadership position, regardless of what's going on, you command, tell everybody that you love them, because it's pretty important. And yeah, that's probably the toughest thing to realize that, you know, somebody's mom and dad entrusted you with a life of their son and daughter. And on three instances, I didn't get it done. I am so sorry to hear that. And you know, this is a topic that keeps coming up. And that is the number of veterans who are either homeless, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 28% of all homeless or who commits suicide.

And I want to be the first person to tell you because I have had several friends, both veterans and non-veterans who have committed suicide. There are so many different options that you can take. And the most important one to realize is that you may not be thinking it right now, but you have friends and loved ones who are out there who truly care about you. Pick up the phone and give them a call or give the national hotline a call. Let me take this opportunity on your podcast, John, for anybody who's out there listening. Hey, everybody's got issues. Hey, you know, mental health is real. So let me just take this opportunity to implore you if you've got issues, look for some of the way out the net. I promise you, it's not worth it.

Get help, telephone, the member of Telechampling. Tell somebody and get help, because there's people in this earth that love you, and there's nothing, nothing. I promise nothing that you got going on in your life worth that right there. Well, talk, thank you very much for that important message. And now that you've spent 25 years in the military,

ended up retiring as a force master chief, what is next for master chief, Tak Williams? I am gonna tell you, I'm gonna, I'm very blessed. I had my first grandson in August of last year. I had my second grandson in October of this year. So I have elected to fully retire. I draw a decent pension. I've got my health insurance

and I am going to spend time with my two grand sons and not miss a lot of stuff in their life like I ended up missing in my son's life. So hopefully we can get this horrendous disease behind us and in 2021 to be a better year. And then I plan on spending whatever time I you know, God's got left for tuck Williams bouncing grand babies on his knees and having as much influence on them boys before they figure out what trucks and girls aren't. Well, talk, congratulations on that well-earned retirement. And thank you so much and all sincerity with joining me today, taking the Campbell to do my very first podcast interview.

I appreciate you very much, buddy, for doing this and catching up with me and telling our listeners about so many important lessons that I know they're going gonna love, bookline that you talked about today, today's episode. Thank you so much. Hey, John, I'm proud of you, man. Know that you're doing good stuff out there. And if there's anything that I can do for you, for your family, please don't hesitate to give me a call. Thank you very much, Tuck. I'd be happy to. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey

with Passion Struck. And although you're hearing this as episode seven or eight, it was actually the first interview that I recorded. And this has been such a journey and dream in the making. And I was happy to have welcomed my good friend, Tuck Williams, in the positive message that he could share about keeping the main thing, the main thing, his leadership, advice, how to pick toxins out of your life,

and so much more. I'm so grateful for each and every one of you listening or watching today. And thank you so much for being part of my passion journey. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Start podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast at. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes. And you're sharing it with three of your most growth-minded friends so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion start community.

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