Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Rear Admiral Danelle Barrett (Ret.) On Leading with Integrity, Humility, and Humor EP 180

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

After 30 years in the US Navy, retired Rear Admiral Danelle Barrett has learned a lot about effectively leading at the highest levels. She is insightful in everything that matters most if you want to learn how to lead with integrity, humility, humor, and compassion. Today, Danelle Barrett is a sought-after board director, speaker, and leadership coach. During her time as an Admiral, she served as the director of current operations at US Cyber Command and as the Navy Cyber Security Division Director and deputy chief information officer on the Chief of Naval Operations Staff. In her last role, she led the strategy and execution of enterprise IT improvements, cyber security efforts, and cloud operations for over 700,000 personnel across the globe. She is the author of the new book Rock the Boat: Embrace Change, Encourage Innovation, and Be a Successful Leader.  ► Purchase a Copy of Rock the Boat: https://amzn.to/3Agv71z   (Amazon Link) -► Get the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/danelle-barrett-leading-with-integrity/  --► Subscribe to My Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles --► Subscribe to the Passion Struck Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/passion-struck-with-john-r-miles/id1553279283  What Rear Admiral Danelle Barrett and I Discuss: We spend an hour discussing what it takes to have a successful career. …We discuss how to lead when the PRESSURE IS AT ITS HIGHEST and the clock is ticking. Her guidance is precise, and she offers countless sea stories throughout the interview, including poking fun at herself, that illustrate the core pillars of servant leadership.  We explore the following topics: Why mentoring matters How to manage expectations The keys to effective communication Work-life balance Finding inspiration Overcoming biases Guarding your reputation as a leader How you learn from jerks and so much more Where to Find Rear Admiral Danelle Barrett * Website: https://www.danellebarrett.com/  * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentoringwiththeadmiral/  * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mentoringwiththeadmiral1  * Twitter: https://twitter.com/mentoringwitht2 Show Links * Want to hear more leadership advice about how to handle risks, check out my interview with Admiral James Stavridis: https://passionstruck.com/admiral-james-stavridis-to-risk-it-all/  * Do you want to learn how to be a leader with moral courage? Listen to my episode with VADM Sandy Stosz: https://passionstruck.com/admiral-sandy-stosz-leader-with-moral-courage/  * Are you interested in learning the keys to personal growth? Listen to my interview with VADM Ted Carter: https://passionstruck.com/the-key-to-personal-growth-ted-carter/  * Have you ever found yourself in turbulent seas? Check out Read Admiral Tim Gallaudet's advice: https://passionstruck.com/tim-gallaudet-leading-in-turbulent-times/  * My solo episode on why micro choices matter: https://passionstruck.com/why-your-micro-choices-determine-your-life/ * My solo episode on why you must feel to heal: https://passionstruck.com/why-you-must-feel-to-find-emotional-healing/   -- John R. Miles is the CEO, and Founder of PASSION STRUCK®, the first of its kind company, focused on impacting real change by teaching people how to live Intentionally. He is on a mission to help people live a no-regrets life that exalts their victories and lets them know they matter in the world. For over two decades, he built his own career applying his research of passion struck leadership, first becoming a Fortune 50 CIO and then a multi-industry CEO. He is the executive producer and host of the top-ranked Passion Struck Podcast, selected as one of the Top 50 most inspirational podcasts in 2022. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  ===== FOLLOW JOHN ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesjohn/ * Blog: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_sruck_podcast  

Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. There's going to be failures. And you have to teach people how to fail with grace and to look at failures in an opportunity to learn. And I think that the way that people look at work today as an individual society is that you're rewarded and promoted based on your work. When the reality isn't a lot of places in the world,

the nail that sticks up gets hammered, right? Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts

to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 180 of Passion Struck ranked as one of the top health and fitness podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly. Listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world. And if you're new to the show or you're not familiar with our YouTube channel, please go check out JohnRMiles and subscribe. We have over 370 different videos, both long form content like this podcast, as

well as shorter videos which give you bite-sized chunks from the podcast. And in case you missed my interview from earlier in the week, it featured Ellen Stein Jr. who's a sought-after speaker and performance coach, and he is the author of the book's Razier Game and Sustain Your Game. And last week, I interviewed I let Fishback, who's a professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, and we do a deep dive on her new book Get It Done, which is all about the science of motivation. I also interviewed Ari Wallach who's a futurist and the co-founder and director

of Long Path Labs and we unpack his new book Long Path, which is all about how do you create an intentional mindset that's focused not only on yourself but also how do you create a better world not only for this generation but for our ancestors to come. In a case you missed my solo episode from last week it was on the eight techniques that you can employ to stop making excuses. I also wanted to thank you for all your ratings and reviews. Those go such a long way to helping our rating and improving the popularity of this show. Now, let's discuss today's guess. We're Admiral Danielle Barrett spent over 30 years in the United States Navy. While on active duty, she served as the director of current operations

at U.S. Cyber Command, the Navy Cyber Security Division Director and Deputy Chief Information Officer on the chief of Naval Operations Staff. She is the author of the new book, Rock the Boat, Embrace Change, Encourage Innovation, and Be a Successful Leader. She is one of less than 200 women in history to achieve the rank of Admiral. And today is a sought after public speaker and writer. We discuss her path to joining the Navy. We go into the meaning of the phrase, pick the

hill that you want to die on, and how you can apply that philosophy in your own life. Why we need to understand the sign of the wolf and its impact on tackling communication. We discuss a funny story about how she got schooled by a three-year-old. We do a deep dive on the importance of work-life balance and your commitment to it through actions, not words. How you can pet the cat, comfort fear, and overcome it, and so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide

on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. Danelle Barrett to the Passion Struck Podcast. Welcome, Danelle. Hi, thanks for having me, John, some honor to be here today. Well, congratulations on your amazing accomplishment of being one of only 200 women who has reached the status of being an admiral and wanted to start today's episode to understand what made you take this path. episode to understand what made you take this path. Yeah, so service interestingly enough, I don't have a lot of service in my background, my family, my grandfather, who I never actually knew was in the army way back in World War II that those days, but yeah, so in, and I grew up in Buffalo,

which there wasn't a lot of active duty military around here. And so when I was looking at going to college and things like that, I wanted to do something where there would be some sort of service involved. So I did look at the Peace Corps and things like that. And I decided I'm a Navy for a couple reasons. One is, we leave in the great, great country. And we need people to be able to protect this country.

And as we saw just last year, so the democracy can be fragile and we can't ever take that for granted. a great country and you know we need people to be able to protect this country and you know as we saw it just last year so the democracy can be fragile and we can't ever take that for granted. So it was important to me to do something that was more than just learn a paycheck basically. And so the Navy struck me as the best service having no other frame of reference at that point because it was during the Navy and see the world which is very true and I love being by the ocean and on ships and things like that. So I thought that would be very interesting career. And at the time when I came in, there was combat exclusion.

Women could not go on ships other than sort of a couple of support ships and stuff. And that changed thankfully. Well, I was on active duty and then I was able to go to ships and things like that. But when I first started out, there wasn't really a lot of opportunities for women at sea. They were mostly shore-based jobs. Thankfully, that changed here. One of the things I wanted to follow that question up with was in chapter nine, you give us saying that many of us who are veterans or who are in the military today would understand, which is, pick the hill you want to die on, what does that mean and how can you apply it to everyday life?

Yeah, that's actually that's a phrase that you can use. That's agnostic of community or organization or industry or anything. When you're in leadership jobs and you're doing the management portion of leadership, you have to prioritize what's important to you. And you have to make sure that your expectations and your priorities are clear to your support. And I know you've probably had this genre where you work for a boss who everything's their number one priority, right? I need everything right now and yesterday and it's really unrealistic and it's really kind of a failure of leadership to then say, hey, these are my priorities and I am

willing to take risk in these areas that are a little bit lower on the list or that I'm just not going to do it all even though they may be really important. Because this one thing at the top, or these two things at the top are so important that if we fix these, a lot of these other problems make a way, or if we fix these, this is the most important thing for our no-fail missions, those things that our organization, whatever it is, whether it's the military or banking,

or an NGO or whatever, whatever your no-fail mission is, you've got to do this right, this thing right, to get the mission right, right? The overall mission, the organization. So you really have to pick the hill you have to, you want to die on as a leader, and you have to talk to people about the context

to that why is that so important? And what is their role in that? They need to see how they're contributing to that and how their efforts are taking that, moving that forward to accomplishment, to the finish line, not just to admire the problem. Because we see that a lot sometimes, too, people say, okay, this is my most important thing. And then you'll have a schedule of meeting to have a meeting to talk about it at another

meeting. And nothing ever gets done, right? And so you really have to be action oriented with those hills that you want to die on and make sure that you come to closure on whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish. In that same chapter, you talk about finishing near the bottom of your Navy Rotsie class. How did you go about when you were in college picking the hill that you wanted to ride and what would be your advice to others who may be considering a similar situation that you went through. Yeah, so it was interesting when I went to college, I think my most important life lessons in college were not what I learned in college academically. They were about how to manage your life

and how to pick the hill you want to die and how to prioritize, how to figure out what's the most important, how to be tenacious, how to be gracious when you fail, those kind of things. And so when I got to the ROTC unit, the RAC unit where they do your officer training to be gracious when you fail those kind of things. And so when I got to the ROTC unit, the ROTC unit where they do your officer training to be in the Navy, I didn't have a scholarship. Like all the other kids in my unit, I'm small, and I think had scholarships, full scholarships, so that their tuition was paid for, and they had stipends and things like that in their room and board. I did not have a scholarship, so I went to the ROTC unit and I asked, I said, hey, what would it take for me to get a scholarship?

And they said, well, come your first semester. We'll check your grades. If your grades are good, and you take out those physics, then we, and your ROTS class is then we can consider you first scholarship. And to me, I don't know about you, John, but I am mathematical and time matter. I mean, I do not be public math whatsoever. And so, and I was in international relations history major at the time. And I was, I was like, okay, so I had about a half a scholarship from university and I thought to myself, okay, if I take out some physics, then the odds are that my GPA will get lowered and I'll probably lose my university scholarship. And I won't even get the rocks of scholarship and then we're relatively, right? And so I was trying to be pragmatic about this. I said, okay, how about I take all your classes, you're, you know, your Roxy classes, naval engineering, and all that kind of stuff,

but I don't take out those physics, but I don't expect you to pay for my education. I'll figure out how to pay for my own education, but you give me a commission as an officer at the end for years, just like everybody else in the unit. And they were like, okay, yeah, we'll do that. And so I was like off to the races, right? And so I had to find a way to figure out how to play

for college other than the Navy paint for it. So I ended up working as a nanny for my room and board. And I managed to rest around 30 hours a week. And I took 21 credit hours to semester for three and a half years. And I graduated with everybody else. One semester late, they graduated in May. I think I graduated in August. And so I was just a few months behind everybody else.

But, and I was not at the top of my class because frankly, I didn't have a lot of time to do much of anything, but work and go to school. And so I did what I had to do grade-wise. You know, I was not trying to get a 4-0, I was trying to get whatever. There's a minimum for a reason, right? And I was trying to make sure I could make sure I could get everything I needed to get done

so I could get to that final goal. And so my only point in telling that story is when you're looking at an objective that you want to have whether it's personal or work related, think about the outcome that you want to achieve. In my case, I wanted to become a commissioned officer. And the straight and narrow path that maybe some others were left enough to get, good on them. I'd never begrudge anybody anything. And I'm really happy for those other people who have had full scholarship. I didn't have to do all that extra stuff, right? But I will tell you that I learned so much having to do all that extra stuff, just about

how to manage life, how to manage time, how to work projects and stuff. And that you can achieve what you want, even though your path may be more circuitous, that's okay. Don't look at that as a bad thing. Look at as an opportunity to learn a whole bunch of stuff. You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't had to do that. And so I was very grateful for all the people. And I will tell you too, I did not do that journey alone. Years later, some folks who had then looted it, said the unit who were our instructors. One time I came across one of them and we were both captains at the time. It was interesting. came across one of them and we were both captains at the time. It was interesting.

I sort of caught up and we were both captains. And now he said, when you were at the ROTC unit, we all get together at the beginning of the week and say, okay, who's going to help tutor to Nell this week on Navel Engineering, but she's kind of like, oh, I don't have a dance, right? And so they were always looking out for me and making sure they knew how hard I was working

and I never do that. And they were always looking out for me and trying to help make sure that I could achieve my goals because they were really supportive. So there's always a team of people behind you, John, no matter what you're working on that are supporting you just like when you learn how to ride a bike when you're a kid. And you think, hey, look, we have riding a bike, right? But behind your dad's holding a bike and your mom's plowing things out of the way so you don't run them over. I mean, that kind of stuff's been happening to me my whole life, my whole career. I'm very grateful

for that. And so you never, never think you do things alone because even if you don't, you're not aware of it, there's people who help you out. You and I ended up spending our careers in a very similar spot. We both did a lot of work in cybersecurity and information technology. And We both did a lot of work in cybersecurity and information technology. And what I found as I got senior was that there were really two types of leaders that ascend to those jobs, those who are extremely technical, focused, and kind of make their progression because of their technical chops. And those who kind of see the bigger picture are more strategic and understand whether it's the goals of the military or the goals of a civilian company

you're working for, how do you see those and then translate them into a digital transformation that'll create them? Is that something you also found in the military? I did, but what I will tell you in one of the things that I always strove to do was to do both. Because I really feel that there's a lot of people who don't keep up on technical skills because frankly, technology is changing so fast.

I mean, it's a full-time job just to keep up with technology, right? I mean, by an iPhone, you walk out of the store, it's already obsolete. I think that the best leaders I've ever seen in this field are very technically smart because they make it their mission their job They understand keeping up with that's really important because you can't make those strategic enterprise kind of decisions Unless you understand the technology and see both the opportunity and the risk what technologies are merely novel or interesting and what are Game changers, right? And so I like to use the analogy if I could give you kind of an analogy to when you're in those kind's happening, you look for those virgins points because those are the true transformation points. That's where that's the hill you wanna die on.

It's not something that's just interesting or novel. So if you look at Uber, the electric car, autonomous vehicles, each of those three things in their own lane was transformational, right? Like Uber, I mean, nobody ever Uber 10 years ago unless you were German and everything's Uber-Fontastic, right? Now everybody's got like Uber on their phone, right? You got a little nap, you know, nobody even calls a taxi anymore in most places, right? But think about how that changed the taxi

industry. I mean, they used to have a little structure of buying medallions and big cities and getting preferential areas. I mean, this was a whole big thing, right? That's all the window now. That's transformed it. And each and those other industries, the electric car yet, it's been around for 34 years now, but it really took off in the last 10 years, right? With Tesla and Prius and a lot of those other things, right? And so now we have charging stations and things all over the place. It's just different. And then you look at autonomous vehicles and what's happening there? Pretty soon, the different way to deliver packages or deliver yourself, right? And so when you look at all three of those, those each of those are very, very important and transpecial. But now you converge them together.

And that point of convergence is really important. And so as a leader, you want to look at that and say, people, what does that mean? What that means is that kids born today will never learn how to drive a car. They'll never own a car. There won't be pet boys. There won't own a car. There won't be pet boys. There won't be car insurance. There won't be car rental companies. All that stuff that we know today around that whole infrastructure of transportation

will be completely different, trucking. Right? And so what does that mean? What are the opportunities for your business or the military in that? And what are the risks? Right? And so sometimes when people, when I say that,

people kind of crazy like I like to drive a car a really good driver I'm like yeah well guys who rode horse and buggy when the car came along probably thought they were really good horse and buggy drivers too I mean you could still do that the Amish do it every day you could absolutely do that I could choose to but it's not gonna be your primary mode of transportation when I walk out of my house in the future I'm gonna walk up to my curb and there'll be something there, a hover pod, a car,

who knows what, and it'll scan the RFID tag in my head or my hand, it'll charge me two bucks, and it'll take me to my workplace. If I'm even going to a workplace anymore, like a physical location, but based on my heuristics, like what I do every day, it's gonna take me there. And if I want to do something different that day,

like go to the airport, I'll be like, oh, no, I'm going to the airport today. And instead of charging me two bucks, it'll charge me 10 bucks. But that's the world that's not so far off-john. And so to your point of, should I be technical or should I be strategic? I think you need to be technical to be strategic

because you have to find those points of convergence in this world where technology is moving so fast that are game changers for your organization that will provide you some competitive advantage. I wanted to ask you one more question along these professional lines and then we'll go back to your book. But your last position in the Navy was you were the US Navy's Cyber Security Division head and so what I wanted to understand from you for the listeners is being in that job, you got to see some of the biggest threats that were hitting us as a country. So what is your advice for listeners around this topic,

the things they need to be aware of and some simple steps that they could take to protect themselves better? Yeah, I think it's a really challenging environment because it can get really they could take to protect themselves better. Yeah, I think it's a really challenging environment because it can get really overwhelming to folks pretty quickly and it feels really daunting, right? All we hear about is cyber attacks and ransomware and protect your information. Sometimes you're like, ah, how do I do all that?

Should I buy a password, online password programmers that really save? Should I keep my passwords in a little black book and my safe? Should I make sure I don't use social media because then everybody knows everything about me, right? So I think you just need to understand that everything in this world now is going to be digitized. And once it's digitized and available, someone could use that for good or bad and they will try to do both, right? And so you just have to be judicious about like how you protect your personal information, the infrastructure to be protected at the

big companies that provide your cloud or your Google or your, you know, metal your Facebook, whatever Instagram or your banking, the big companies, they do a pretty good job of protecting their stuff, but they're not without problems as we saw with the solar winds attack last year and others. I mean mean big companies got into big trouble because they didn't, in a lot of cases, do things as basic as patching their systems with known vulnerabilities. And so some of the blocking and tackling of the basics,

you just need to make sure that the companies you're working with are the banks that you where you put your money and stuff that you know, how good is their cyber security posture? You kind of check in what statements they make to the Security Exchange Commission or if it's the military to Congress about what their cyber security postures or if they've had incidents and things like that, and put your money and your effort into those places where they're doing a pretty good job. It's a full zare and

to say that I'll have an impenetrable network. I mean, that's no, we're going to happen because it's always a cat and mouse game and adversaries are either nation states or criminal gangs, criminal gangs are like the third largest employer now in the world, you know, crazy as that is for cyber attacks and stuff. So, and they're becoming increasingly kind of corporatized. They, there's some places on the dark web that you can get cyber attack assistance, like ransomware as a service, they call it. So what they do is they'll break into somebody's system then they give it turn over to you and you're off to the races right as a hacker. So I think that people just need to be aware that it's going to get easier and easier because the tools available to do the bad things that people want to do on the internet are going to

get more increasingly easy for people who are novices to do use. And that can quickly get out of control. And so you just have to do the best you can to protect your stuff, to protect your information, know where you're putting your critical data, know who you're giving your information from. When you buy something and they ask you to click here to sign this huge big thing that you don't even

want to read, nobody ever reads it. Read through that because it talks about who they're sharing their data with, right? And you don't have to accept that. So, you know, you might not be able to buy that product then. So you really have to make some tough calls, but don't just accept everything like that. And then on a personal note, you just be really careful about what you do with your personal cyber hygiene. A lot of people will click on links or PDF files and it'll look like it's coming

from USA or their insurance company or whoever guy co and it's really got some, it's from a bad guy with some malicious code in it and then once they get that, they're off to the races and a lot of times they're not as interested in the small potatoes of you. They're interested in using your account to escalate and get into the bigger system of that organization and escalate their privileges and maybe get access to larger databases or larger amounts of information. So a lot of times the cybercrubs are not actually going after you, but they'll use you as a vector to get in. So you really, it's like an all hands effort for our nation to be secure and try to do the best we can with our own personal cyber hygiene and having discussions with, you know, your mom or dad if they're older. I have this discussion with my dad all the time. Just on phone fishing.

Don't give your social out on the phone, right? And or your kids. Kids, yeah, everybody's like, oh, kids are so good with the digital. Yeah, and they may be good at texting and being on Instagram or TikTok. But doesn't mean they know anything about Cyber Spirits, you're paying attention to that, right?

So there's different levels of understanding. And it's just the education process. And you just have to kind of keep up with it and be diligent about it. And when something looks or smells a little weird, don't be like, wow, that was weird click and then move on. No, look into it a little bit just to make sure, you know, that there's nothing else going on. Yeah, a couple months ago, I had one of the most sophisticated fishing attempts I've seen to date to hit me. I got a call claiming to be Duke

Energy, who is our energy company down here saying that I was the link when I might bill. And I told them that's not possible because I paid it and I have proof here in my bank account. And they actually had exact information on what I had paid previously, what the amount I owed was my address, everything else. I kicked it up to a supervisor, they had that in place. And then it was always in the back of my mind

that something just feels off. And so I started to ask them more detailed questions about the account. And that's when I realized that this was a fishing expedition and they were trying for me to give them payment information. But I was shocked by how knowledgeable and how sophisticated this is starting to get. Oh, yeah. You are 100% right. And when you think about the Internet of Things, where everything is going to be digitally connected, your TV, your toaster, your bank account, your car, your everything, right? Your brain eventually, you'll have a chip in your head

or something that'll be connected to you, right? It's insidious. And so you really have to be aware, like for example, it's no coincidence when you buy a new TV today and you're sitting there at home watching TV with your spouse and you're talking about taking a trip to Greece at the next day or later on that evening, you're going to start getting appetizers for trips to Greece that the next day, or later on that evening, you're gonna start getting advertisements for trips to Greece and things to do in Greece

on your Instagram feed or your Facebook page or something like that. Or getting spam emails about taking a trip to Greece. That is not a coincidence, okay? And so people need to be aware that every single thing is going to be connected and listening in some way. And I don't mean to be paranoid about it, but it's true. That's how things are developed and put out now by default. They're trying to connect to the internet to gather the kind of data that

can build the picture you're talking about. And usually, I mean, they're building it to sell you something. They're not building it to be nefarious. But the minute they have those databases, someone else can get them. And now they've got all that information, if they're a hacker, right? I joke about it, but like I'm a sailor, so I'm not above having a point every now and then, but my point is again is it's Hagen Doss right. I have some Hagen Doss on Friday night and then I get an email from my doctor on Monday morning that says, hey, bear it. Lay off the Hagen Doss your cholesterol's through the roof right. I'll be like, well, how does he know that? And then I'll think about it. I'll be like, refrigerator, dime to me out, set him an email,

saw the point of Hagen Doss go out not to went back in, slide it, right? So my point is we joke about that, but that's what's happening. And so like you gave the example of all your data, you need to know where your data is and be smart enough when you get those kind of calls or whatever. Normally, when I get a call or an email or even a letter nowadays, I will call the company myself using the phone number I look up on the internet for that company. And then I will talk to them about my account. And if they confirm that, oh yes, you have a problem, you're kind of, it's you initiated the call to them on a number that you got yourself not or an email that you got yourself or whatever, not something that came to you in a link or a PDF file or a phone call or something like that.

Those are always, a lot of, most companies won't call you. IRS is not going to call you if you're with them money, for example, they're going to send you an official letter. I mean, so people just need to be really cautious when they get that stuff. Okay, well, thank you for that great advice. And it's going to be very practical. So a lot of the listeners can take key to some of your

cautions and what to do about it. For those on the video, I'm going to put up a copy of it right here so people can see it. It's called Rock the Boat. What was the thing that compelled you to want to write this book? And what were you hoping readers would take from it? This yourself has been a military focus that we always get kind of tapped to be like,

hey, we need you to talk to this group about mentoring or leadership or you always kind of end up having discussions with folks about leadership. And it always comes up the same kind of things, John. What do I do if my boss is a jerk? How do I have a work life balance? I mean, everybody has the same questions, and frankly, I have found since working with industry,

I work on several corporate boards now too, and I had jobs before I even got the military that were in the commercial sector, right? And everybody always asks the same question. So it's kind of agnostic of industry. You know, it's not anything unique to the military. And so I wanted to write a book that focused on those kind of lessons that anybody could use in any management position at any level. And then put it in language that's kind of accessible. I don't know about you, but I've read some leadership books where I literally get a bruise on my forehead is the book slams into my forehead at night when I'm trying to read it,

I'm laying a bed or whatever, right? Because it's just so heavy. You'll put in mathematical forms on there, all of a sudden I said, I'm like, just stop, just give it to me in English, like we're having a conversation. So I wanted to write a book that was more sort of like we're having a conversation today, an easy read, but that if you get some practical advice out of and some funny stories, because I've always found too that the best leadership lessons I've gotten from people were through storytelling. You know, they would tell you what happens to them, and as either as a cautionary tailor, as a, hey, this is a good way to think about doing it. And I remember their stories long after I would remember them giving me a leadership lesson on time management or something. Then telling me a story about how they managed the time was more impactful. So I tried to pepper

the book with a lot of stories that might be useful for folks to understand sort of conceptually what I was trying to express. I will make sure that I put links in the show notes where you can get the book, but it's actually an Amazon bestseller in three categories. And some of the things I liked about it, is that the end of each chapter, Dan L, gives a C story from her time in the military, but she also gives three positive takeaways from the chapter. So to me, it was very easy to digest.

And a number of these C stories are very humorous, but I wanted to talk about one that has to do with work-life balance. And that is how did you get schooled by a three-year-old? The story, it actually makes me really sad to tell it sometimes. You'll see that when I tell the story, but I was an important lesson. So when I was in the Navy, my daughter used to go to the Child Development Center like daycare down the road from the ship I was working on when she was like three years old.

And I would drop off in the morning real early and I'd pick her up at night. And then I'd go off to work on the ship. And for those of you who aren't in the military, when you're in the Navy, the ships are mostly in port. And so you work on the ship during the day and then you have a normal where you go home at night. And then there's times when you're deployed

where you'll be gone for six, eight, 10 months, whatever the deployment like this, where the ship is completely gone. But in this case, I was working on the ship and we were getting underway the next day, where we were gonna go out to sea for a big exercise, where we were gonna be gone about six weeks. And so it was kind of complete chaos on the ship that day.

And so I was driving my daughter, dropping her off and she said, hey, mom, mommy, it's hat parade day. You're gonna come to the hat parade, right? And I said, oh yeah, I'm gonna be there for that. And so hat parade is literally where they take some paper and they put like 40 pounds of glue on it, whatever they're not eating when it comes to glue. And then they put color it

and then they walk around the parking lot with it like on their head and, hi, mom, hi, mom. And all the parents act like, you know, they're seeing up the castle, or something like this. It's some great work of art and they clap and then it literally takes like 10 minutes and the kids go off to play, right? Um, so I said, yes, mommy will be at half day and it was at 10 o'clock.

And so I dropped her off. I went over the ship and it was completely chaos on the ship. We had about 600 people, additional people coming on the ship that day and they weren't Navy people. So they were like a lot of Army and Air Force people coming aboard for this exercise. And you know, they're like, you know, what's a board? What's a starboard? Who's fans of my wire? And then they're completely confused being on the ship and maybe ship, right? So there's all that going on. And I was in charge

of the network. So I was trying to get them on the networks with accounts. And it was just crazy chaos. And so I was got out late to go to the hat crates. So I was probably about, you know, five minutes late, go to the hat crate. And when I got there, the part of the game was empty. And I looked out and all the kids were on the playground. So, hat parade was over, right? I missed it. And I was like, ah, crap. And then I was saying, well, you know, I always try to make these things. It'll be okay, right?

So I walked up to the fence. And my daughter was across the playground. And you know how you can see things from outer space and satellite imagery, like the Great Wall of China or the Grand Canyon, right? That's what my kids mouth is. And I was like, well, I'm going to have to do this. fence and my daughter was across the playground and you know how you can see things from outer space and satellite imagery like the Great Wall of China or the Grand Canyon right that's what my kids mouth looked like as she started to cry and she opened her mouth really wide and she was just crying really hard and she ran over the fence and she puts her little fingers to the fence like this and

she says mommy you promised you were gonna be here and you weren't and at that moment it just kind of ripped my heart out. I was like, man, I'm not going to be that parent. And this happened when I had about six or seven years in the Navy. I had been in the Navy that long. And I was like, God, I don't want to be that parent. I don't want to be that person. And so I made a point at that time that I was not going to do that again. And that's not to say if the ship was getting underway for deployment, I was going to be like, Hey, I got a birthday party on Saturday. I can't go. No, but our initial reaction, anytime it worked, a lot of times, when someone asks us to do something, is to

immediately say, Okay, I'll do it. And cancel or stop whatever else you were going to do at home that might have interfered with that, right? And so say you're going on a cruise with your spouse, you plan it for six months, and your boss concept you says, hey, we gotta send you this training course next week, super important. Your initial reaction would be, oh, okay, well, let me reschedule my crews and it's our universal plan, where instead, you should go, let me look and see,

go look and see, do they offer the course the next month. If they do, let me go tell my boss, hey, boss, I had this cruise plans for six months, I'd really like to take the course next month, can I do that? And nine times I'll tell you, boss is gonna say, yes, because cruise plans for six months, I'd really like to take the course next month, can I do that? And nine times a 10 year boss is going to say yes, because they don't know you going on your cruise or whatever, you got to open your mouth, you got to think about it, you got to make some choices and take a little professional risk because your personal life, at the end of

the day, you want those people around who love you. And people who always put prioritized work or everything else, find themselves very lonely at the end of the day. And I will tell you six months to the day, almost that instant with my daughter, it was her birthday and it was almost the same situation. We were getting underway the next day, we had all this crazyness going on.

And it was again, a time that I needed to get out and go do something for her. And I remember going to my boss and my boss at the time was not a communications person. He was getting a lot of heat from the animal because the communications were down and we're having problems. And I said, look, I got to go for an hour to my daughter's birthday. I have melting cupcakes in the car.

I'll be back in an hour. He said, you can't leave now. It's crazy. You know, we got all these commas. I said, sir, it's going to be crazy in an hour. It's going to be crazy all night. I'm getting underway with you guys. We'll get it solved.

It's going to be okay. I just need one hour. He said, okay, but you be back for one out. That's it. So I went off. We did the little party for my daughter. Happy birthday. She was all excited. Cupcakes came back to the ship.

And it was crazy. We got all the problems worked out. And the exercise was fine. Nobody dies all now. The crisis that every thought. But my thought to myself, when my selection board for the next higher rent came up, maybe three, four years later. Do you think anybody in all in that room was selecting officers to be Lieutenant Commander said,

oh Lieutenant Barrett, she missed an hour of communications checks on this exercise three years ago. There's no way she can be able to take a man. No, no one's going to say that, no one's going to remember that, but wouldn't my daughter remember that Mr. Burkay yes she would. And so it's okay to take professional risks like that. Understand what those risks are, but don't always prioritize work over your family because it's not, or your life, it doesn't even have to be a kid related. I'll give you another really quick story

because there's many in the audience who may not have kids, right? That's fine. I was on an exercise in Thailand called Cobra Gold, which is a great exercise. It's in Thailand's beautiful, fun place, right? That's fine. I was on an exercise in Thailand called Cobra Gold, which is a great exercise and Thailand's beautiful, fun place, right? But when I was there, the only place we got to see was the crappy place where we were living and then the crappy place where we were working and they would kind of take you back and forth. And so at the end of the exercise, our Colonel, who's Army guy,

gets up and who us, you know the who us, Army loves their who us, it's a verb, it's an adjective, it describes everything the Army guys right. But he got up and he said, hey we're N and N size the day early, we're going to leave day after tomorrow. But tomorrow is what's called the hot wash, which is sort of like the lessons learned, everybody gets together and shares their lessons learned and talks about what went under the exercise and things like that. He said the hot wash tomorrow is required for 05 and above. And 05s in the military are either commander, or excuse me, 06 and above, are either kernels or tactics. And so it was optional for people below that.

And so I raised my hand right away. I was like, I was a commander. I was so I was below that. I said, hey, not required for for commanders. And my colonel was like, well, commander bear, not required, but certainly good for your professional development. I think you'd wanna come to that. I said, well, sir, I said, honestly,

I'm gonna go write elephants and bank ocumeral, but thanks anyway. And that's what I did. And I had a whole bunch of other people actually went with me because they all just felt like, okay, well, she can do it. I can do it too. So, do people junior to me looked at me and said,

well, if she can make that kind of choice, then I can make that choice too. Because I didn't want to get to Thailand and never see anything of that beautiful country. I mean, never get back. You know, and so what was really good, though, is I knew that my colonel knew me. And I worked hard.

He knew I worked hard. And he caught me some slack on that. And he said, okay, I'm gonna let her be that, you know what I mean? Because I get it. And he was really good about it., I'll ever be that. You know what I mean? Because I get it. And he was really good about it. And so you really, but you have to stick up for yourself and do those kind of things and say, I'm gonna do that balance.

And I'm gonna take some professional risk sometimes to do that because one, it's good for me, but it also sets an example for people who are junior to me that it's not just lip service that, hey, people are my most important thing. If they are your most important thing, then do those things that make them your most important thing. Give them the opportunity to do those things without feeling guilty about it. Take care of their performance appraisals on time. Give them awards and bonuses and benefits in a timely matter. If they have a problem, take care of it that day.

When you ask them how they're doing is you walk by, stop, and wait for the response. Don't just keep walking, expecting, oh, everything's fine. You gotta connect with people. You've gotta make sure that you're taking care of people. And one way to do that is by taking care of yourself too. Well, I think that is some great advice. And two of my most recent solo episodes I've done

are all on this topic of creating a balance life. And I did one on work-life balance. And I then did one on this topic of creating a balanced life. And I did one on work life balance. And I then did one on the concept of learned helplessness. But something I wanted to ask you is, why do you think so many people today, regardless of income level? A lot of people want to say that this balance issue is something that people who are making $35,000

or less are facing. From my experience, it's really everyone, regardless of how much money you're making is facing this. Why do you think it's become such an issue today in society? In our society, we're very individualistic, right? And everybody wants to excel and exceed. And in the age of social media, that's even amplified with really vacuous influencers who show this glamorous life,

right? They're doing all this glamour stuff, they're doing this, that, I think. And I think that's an insidious message for young people, particularly millennials and zears and those folks, they feel like they have to compete with that and they feel like they have to achieve sort of this glamorous or perfect or exceptional life that is not the way reality is, right?

And there's going to be failures. And you have to teach people how to fail with grace and to look at failures in an opportunity to learn. And I think that the way that people look at work today as an individual society is that you're rewarded and promoted based on your work. When the reality isn't a lot of places in the world, and they all let sticks up, gets hammered, right? That's an expression they use in us,

traveling in in Japan. It's true. There's so much of a collective into what we do that you have to think about it as the collective. And you think about your contributions to the collective or the team. That's more important than your own individual contributions. When I mentor people, I say, hey, you should be looking for opportunities to make somebody more successful in yourself. Because if you do that, that's a good leader, right?

And people will say, hey, that guy's a good leader. He's a good shipman. She's a good shipman. They look out for others. And so I think it's just a mindset that you have to develop and maintain and make part of your core values as a leader that it's not about you. It's not about that. And so when you look to the decisions you're going to make it work, whether you're going to have a work life balance, remember you have a family or you have hobbies or friends or people who love you outside of that job. And they're just as important and their dreams and aspirations are just as important as yours. And so as you look at what you need to do to make you successful, how is that aligning or helping or supporting

others to be equally successful as you? And so does that require extra effort? Sure, it sure does, but it's important. And I'll give you an example. My daughter now is actually a professional ballerina. She's been a ballerina for nine years now. I always made sure that she could get professional training no matter where we were or that I would take orders to places that she could get that kind of training that she needed because her dream was just as important as my dream. And my dream was never to make animal because that's sort of quite, that's a, it's a rarefied era that is just like 90% luck and 10% hard work, right? I mean, everybody works hard, but it's like 90% luck to get picked for that kind of thing. And, but I was just wanted to be a good officer and to be a good leader,

as best I could, you know, and that was my goal. But my goal was not more important than her goal. And so, or my husband's goal. And in his case, he's from South America. And he wanted to finish his degree. And so I took orders to Puerto Rico so he could study in his own language, because it's just easier. Yeah, could he study in English? Sure, but if you study medical texts in English, it's a lot harder than if you can study in Spanish, right? And so you can find ways if you work it to make sure that you're, can make you successful,

but others successful as well. It's not a one or the other. Yeah, well, one of my favorite things that you bring up repeatedly in the book is a concept that I refer to as people speak with their feet. So another way of saying this is, don't listen to what I say, watch what I do. And when it comes to work-life balance, why does speaking with your feet matter so much to those who you lead, whether it could be in your job or it could just be in your personal

life? I think that, and we're seeing more speaking with your feet now with the great resignation whether it could be in your job or it could just be in your personal life. I think that, and we're seeing more speak in what you've seen now with the great resignation, you've probably heard about that in sort of HR circles, particularly during the pandemic, people just quit working. And some retired early, left the workforce earlier than expected. Other people just shift to jobs or some people just didn't stop working, not their pain of bills. But I mean, but for the most part, that great resignation and the competition for talent is huge. And so as a leader or manager, you really have to think about, what is it about my leadership style that can help promote an environment that is a good environment? It's not a toxic environment that I know how

the managers underneath me too, not just me, but how the managers underneath me and leaders are managing and leading. It's not enough for you to be a computer. To be a good leader, you have to know what people beneath you and the organization are doing too, because that's where you can come into some toxicity if it's not coming to new hopefully. You have to be aware that you have to root those people out like the cancer, right? So your values have to be really clear. Your expectations have to be really clear.

Your priorities have to be really clear. And your standards have to be really clear. Your expectations have to be really clear. Your priorities have to be really clear. And your standards have to be really clear. The standard you walk by is the standard you accept. So if I'm on a Navy base and I walk by a piece of trash, I've just said that it's okay to a trash on my Navy base. I don't care what rank I was, I would stop and pick up the trash, you know what I mean. And so the point is you need to think about those things and be clear about your expectations and communicating those as a leader. So people know where you stand.

And then like you said, then you live by it. Don't do things that undermine your own credibility or your own commitment to your those values. Every time, all the time, no matter the personal cost to you, stick to your guns and do what's right at whatever cost that is. And if that means at some point that your values don't line to your organization then move on. Work somewhere else, do something else. You know if you can't change the corporate culture or whatever that's there to be better, don't become let yourself become a victim to it and worse. Don't let yourself continue

to do things that are against what your grain is as a leader and what you think the integrity of your values are. I think that's some awesome advice. I know another huge area you've talked about it a couple times already, but I want to do a deeper dive on it is the topic of mentorship. And one of my favorite things to do when I read a book is instead of going to the beginning of it, I typically go to the author's acknowledgments. And when I went through years, it's just a laundry list of admirals and generals that you list who were great mentors to you. But I thought it was interesting that in the last chapter of the book, you titled it Learn From the Jerks.

And so you have this impressive list of people, including two of my personal friends who gave you endorsements, Admiral Stavridas and General Laurie Reynolds. But why is it so important to have confidence, but not arrogance or entitlement. Yeah, that's a good, really good one because that's aligned it can be easily crossed. And like you said, I have so many people to thank it. Honestly, a lot of those people on there, there's invested on there, there's civilians, I mean, there's a whole slew of folks on there. Because people influence you positively, so many ways ways and you take bits and pieces of leadership and you throw a new toolkit. And as you go along, you can't be so arrogant.

You can't be arrogant to think that you know all those answers to leadership, that you know all that. That's why that list is so long for you because, holy cow, if I didn't have all those people, and then 10 times probably about people I'd forgot to mention, I would have never made it to Captain or Commander Admiral admiral. I mean, all of those people helped to mold and shape the midshipment and graduate the bottom of her rotsie class, right? And I couldn't have done what I did at all without the support of all those people. And so I was smart enough to know that, but by the same token,

we can't let your confidence in yourself bleed over into arrogance. Now, I've always felt that I've been a pretty confident person. I'll try things, I'll take risks, 40% of the answer, I'll go for it and figure it out if I don't, but screw it up and that wasn't right, I'll figure it out at the end or figure out something their way. But I think it's important as a leader to show confidence. But it's confidence in your own belief in your abilities, your belief in your vision, your belief in your expectations and your values in your vision, your belief in your expectations, and your values, communicating that to others, right?

And getting them aboard like the pipe-piper, how can you be confident if you get people aboard these transformational things you may want to do? But then you're not so confident that you can't admit failure, that you can't be humility. Lori Reynolds, like you mentioned, she's a great leader in Amelst Javri, is both very, very humble leaders. And there's something to be said to that, Colin Powell, another great mentioned, she's a great leader and Amelst Javri is both very, very humble leaders. And there's something to be said for that, Colin Powell, another great leader, a humble, very humble.

And these people are in positions of huge authority, of hundreds of thousands of people working for them, yet they're smart enough to know that they're not the smartest person in the room. And that they're smart enough to know, I need to ask for help, I need to ask for advice, I need to consider, listen to what these people are saying and consider their thoughts, because maybe I'm not right.

And you need to be able to admit when you fail. I remember a time when I was in charge of current operations at United States Cyber Command. So that was, that command does all our offensive and defensive operations on Department of Defense Networks. And so it's a big, busy, as you can imagine, never sleeping job, right? And so I remember when I got there to that job the first month that was there, it was almost like drinking out of a fire hose because I had, well, though, had done

networks and cyber security for years and years, I'd never done offensive operations in cyber. I've never done signals intelligent, which is what NSA and the National Security Agency did with us and they were always in and our morning meetings and things like that. And so I used to have this, we used to have this morning meeting on behalf of our four-star admiral who couldn't attend most days. And so we would have a meeting on his behalf in our joint operations center, which is sort of the operations for. So there was probably a hundred people working on the operations for, and then there was probably, I don't know, three or four hundred more out on BTCs, video telecom

efforts that were coming into this meeting every morning and the meeting would last, you know, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever. And we get updates on what's happening around the world and what things we need to do next. And we could give out words, okay, we need to do this, we need to do that, we need to do that, we need to do that, we need to do that, we need to do it in the network, whatever. And so I remember a one meeting that I was at, one of the first ones, they were briefing me on some operation that was going on. And the operations always had these crazy names, like operations, stinky monkey or pumpkin head, or I mean, you know, they put all these crazy code names

on things and so I was, and usually they're always associated with an actor, a bad actor like a nation state or whatever, right? And so they were briefing on some operation and I can't remember what it was, but I said, hey, what actors that, don't remember, what bad nation or actors that one that's doing that attack right there. And they would say, oh, man, that's, you know, Russia, Iran, China, whatever it was, right.

And I said, okay, thanks. And immediately after that, you know, like two seconds later, somebody out in the VTC said, oh, she doesn't know that. What else doesn't she know? And at that moment is it, you know, this is my first job as an ad, that was excruciatingly embarrassed. And at that moment, you have like 10 seconds to think, okay, how is a leader am I going to react to that?

Right? Because everybody's looking at you at this point. And so in that split second, you know, I thought, well, I could go completely game with Throne and be like, yeah, what is it? Right? Or I could make it a teaching moment. So I went game of thrones. Not like it. I said, no.

I said, there's a ton of stuff. I don't know. I said, I need you guys to help me learn and learn what's most important. I said, I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I said, just need to be patient. And then I said, and oh, by the way, you got a hot mic. And everybody laughed and that sort of diffused it a little bit.

But, you know, people came up to me later and they were like, wow, you know, we never heard an animal say they were wrong before, you know, or whatever. And I'm like, hey, you just, you just got to own those things. And you got to fail with some grace and show people how you can fail with grace, but that it's okay, you know, you're learning that. And that guy learned from the two, right? And everybody in that room learned. So I think there's ways that you can make those teaching moments where It is possible to cross over from conflicts to arrogance really easily and then as a leader You're gonna lose those who follow you when you do that because nobody wants to follow an arrogant leader

We think seeing all the answers are it doesn't need help because we all need help and we all need answers. Yeah, those are great examples and some great advice for the listeners and many of my solo episodes, I did last year were around humility and the importance of having a managed ego. And one of the most humble leaders I've had the fortune of meeting and his mutual friend of ours is retired Rahron-Roll Tim Gallaudet who was on the podcast a few

weeks ago. His way that he handled effective communication had a lot of parallels to your chapter in the book. Because one of the things I would hear from a NOAA facility that I was in was he would reach down into the organization. It didn't matter if you were a director in finance or a scientist. If the admiral saw something that he appreciated, he would find a way to contact that person, whether it was leaving him a voicemail, sending him a personal letter, or acknowledging them in an email or to their boss. And so many people who, when I mentioned I wanted to interview him, were interested in hearing

the interview because they told me this was the first time in their entire career, some of them 30 years at NOAA that anyone had taken that step. Now you cover that topic, but you also go well beyond it. Can you give some examples of why and how you perform effective communication? Yeah, so you have to remember each time you're in a job, there's communication, internal through organization, and then external. So let's talk about folks kind of like the internal communication. Because external communication is strategic communication. How are you communicating what you're doing, making sure shareholder,

stakeholders, anybody involved, it feels like your transparent, knows that you're transparent, and your communication all that. But let's focus on internal communication because that's sort of and your communication element. But let's focus on internal communication, because that's sort of a personal leadership to other people. And so what I've always found is that people often will avoid a tough conversation. Nobody likes competition,

especially if something's not going well. But there's ways to have tough conversations where you don't come off being a jerk, right? You're not sarcastic, you're not judgmental, you're not all those things, but you go in with your ears open, your mouth close, you call that sign of a wolf, right? Yours open mouth close. Do more listening than you do talk. Don't assume that you know answers for context or why somebody behaved a certain way.

Ask questions, ask a lot of questions, and listen to the answers. Right? And so that kind of communication and transparency in your response. Now your response maybe that, okay, I understand now and I still think you did the wrong thing. We need to talk about that or we need to make sure that doesn't have began or overcome it or whatever. Or maybe, hey, I see what you did now and I think the organization needs to shift what we're doing because what you did was actually the right thing to do, right? And so it gives you the opportunity

to make some leadership choices. When you look at the interpersonal level too, it's really important for people to know that they're valued. It takes nothing to make somebody feel special. Honestly, it's a blip in your day, it's a minute in your day, but you gotta make sure you do those things. Because a lot of times we can focus on the number of emails we're answering and things like that and reviewing documents

or all the other kind of administrative and loose sight of the people piece. And I used to, because your schedules do get busy the more senior you get to, I used to actually when I was in the command, commanding officer of a communications station, we had about, I don't know, 800,000 people working there, but I would make a point to have my secretary or my assistant put time in my calendar

where I would just walk about and do a walk about it. It sounds kind of cheesy, but I would just walk around and start talking to people. And you know, you walk up to the cubicle and it wasn't about work. I would ask them, oh, hey, what'd you do last weekend? Or hey, we just start having a conversation. And then you learn who your medieval fair nerd is and what all they love to do. And then once they start talking about that stuff, they go crazy, they love it. They love to tell you about what they do or whatever.

Or sometimes someone, the command one command I was at, we used to have a lot of pregnant sailors because if you're pregnant and on a ship, you get pregnant, you have to come ashore and do like eight to 12 months ashore or whatever it is while you have your baby and your recovery time and stuff like that. And so I used to tell people to send their sailors

who were communications people over to my command because they could still work in their specialty field and not lose their skills while they were waiting on their baby or whatever. And then they'd have their baby and then they'd go back to their ship afterwards after that. But anytime that someone would have a baby or be in the hospital, I would make a point to go to the hospital and see them. And you know, did that add to my 12 hour day and extra two hours to drive the hospital and do a quick visit or whatever. Yeah, but I felt it was important as their boss, their ultimate boss, to make sure they were getting to good care and they were okay. Just to show that people cared about them at their job, you know, and they weren't just a number. That's just an example. You know, and then other little

things like you said, tempted, you know, notes to people, the drive by, the calling them out, you know, meeting or email or article or give them an award, looking for ways to recognize good behavior. And it's better to, you know, you gotta do both. You gotta recognize good behavior quickly, publicly, and making sure people know that they're appreciated. And it's a fine line too. You have to reward, you can reward a competition

you can recognize effort. Because someone could spend a ton of time on something and still not get it right. And you don't want to reward them for that. You want to recognize their effort and tell them, hey, I know you've been working really hard on this and keep that up and we'll get to the end game and that kind of thing. But you reward the results that you want repeated. So be careful about that piece too a little bit. And there's ways to do that, whether it's formulae or informale, as you discussed, Tim did some of those excellent examples. Okay, and earlier in the book,

I think it was in chapter one or two, you have a saying called, HETT THE CAT. And I was hoping you could relate that for the audience on how do you acknowledge fear and overcome it. Anytime you're doing transformational change, the hardest part about any change're trying to do. So one of the things you can do is leaders be very good to communicate that, right? And to communicate and acknowledge their concerns, what they're worried about. And I call that cat the cat. It's like, you got a

skish cat. You're going to be okay. Come with me. It's a good journey. You're going to be fine, and so you really have to make sure you understand and you hear what they're saying to you that they're concerned about. So after you've done all that, you look at your team and you say, okay, hey team, we got about 20% of do a little public math for you, which I vowed I wouldn't do if I'm gonna do it. So about 20% of the people and any kind of big change effort, they're gonna be all in. They're like, oh my god, this is great. This is what we've been hoping for. We've been trying to push. We tried this and it fell before. We're all excited to go back in or hate is brand new. It's gonna be great for organization. Whatever. And so they're all in. You want to lionize those people. You want to make sure they have a resource to stay support those people and you make sure their bosses know how well they're doing. And everything.

And then you'll have about 60% in the middle who are on the fence. They like your idea. They're not so sure how they fit in, they're not home about the context. Or hey, this may mean my organization actually goes away or shifts or does something different. So they're concerned.

Those are people you gotta pet the cat with. And then there's like 20% at the bottom. And the 20% at the bottom, what you'll find is those are your hardcore institutional resistors and institutional inertia group. You know, they have their PhD and the Dr. No. And they are looking for any reason to turn it off, to sabotage, to actually whatever, or your effort.

And so I usually give those people, I tell my team, we'll give those people two chances. Have a discussion with them, hear their concerns, see if we miss something. We might have missed something that's important. Or let's explain to them the greater context and how we need them important, how they're part of this effort that can be successful.

If by the second chance, the second time you've had that discussion, they're still hard over-nosed, then you cut them off. They're you're done. Don't waste another minute on them, because they're gonna get, they're still hard overnosed, then you cut them off. They're your done. Don't waste another minute on them, because they're going to continue. And I see a lot of people feel like they need consensus. They need everybody to agree.

You don't need that 20% to agree. Let them go. Let them wallow in their own institutional inertia, because the reality is you're going to focus on it 60% in the middle. You get this 60% in the middle and 20% at the top before moving forward. You're going to drag those bottom dwellers along,

whether they like it or not. And they'll either come along or they'll leave your organization. But either way, the effort's going to continue. And so don't waste another minute on them. Just be aware that they may have influence with people who they can talk negatively about. And you need to just make sure that you know who they may try to influence so that you can go and talk to those people in advance of them trying to undermine you.

So, it's important to have those kind of discussions with your teams about, you know, how to do that kind of effort and how to overcome that fear, how to pet the cat, right? Overcome the fears that people may have and get them to see their part of the solution and you can't do it without them. You need them. Okay, well, thank you for that. And I'm going to ask you one final question, but before I do, I wanted to give you the opportunity to tell the audience if they wanted to learn more about you. What are some of the ways that they can reach out to you and I'll make sure these are also in the show notes.

Okay, yeah, so I'm on the, I have a webpage to kneldupair.com and then, but I put out a mentoring nugget every day, a little piece of mentoring advice on both LinkedIn, they can reach me on LinkedIn, and I have a Facebook page called Mentoring with the AdRoll, and an Instagram page and a Twitter page, although I'm less active on Instagram Twitter most days because I'm lazy, but, but every day I'll put out the mentoring nugget I call it. I think there's about 430 of them out there now.

Just a little kind of daily leadership, kind of mentoring, advice, little nugget. So they can check those out if they're interested. OK, thank you very much. And the last thing I wanted to ask you is if you had the opportunity to go back Okay, thank you very much. And the last thing I wanted to ask you is, if you had the opportunity to go back to your alma mater Boston University

and give the commencement speech, what would you do it on? I would do it on fine ways to make a difference before you make your rights, right? Because we all have a shelf life, whether it's at work or just in life in general. And find those things that are most impactful to you and the people you love and the people around you

that will matter the most to others, not just yourself. And do those things. And allow yourself the ability to fail as you try to be those things and then find other ways to get there but ultimately get there. Be forgiving of yourself and others when there's failure. Don't take no for an answer.

One of the things I've always kind of found in my life was to be tenacious. Always find a way. There's a thousand ways to skin a cat. Don't just focus on wanting to give up if you don't get it that way. Just be tenacious and find another way to get where you're gonna get

because then you'll get there. Well, thank you so much for taking your time to do this interview and for all your amazing advice. I know it's gonna be so impactful for our listeners. Well, it was nice to be honored to talk to you. It was really fun and hopefully I'll come across those books in the future and we can have a discussion and be fun. A big thank you to Rory Admiral Dan L. Barrett. Links to all things Dan L will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you buy any of the books from our featured guests.

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do here on the show. Especially now that we have over 180 episodes. Please go to passionstruck.com, slash starter packs to get started or you can find them also in Spotify. And if you'd like to know how I booked all these amazing guests for the show, it's because of my network. Go out there and build yours before you need it. You're about to hear a preview of the passionstruck podcast interview I had with Dr. Dominic Dagostino, who is a professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida, and research scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Dr. Dagostino is an expert on metabolic therapies as well as the keto diet with the

goal of improving metabolic health. For the large majority of people just wanting to use the ketogenic diet for weight loss, it is highly effective for that, but more importantly, it's very effective for weight loss maintenance. So a lot of diets will allow you to lose weight. It's harder to sustain that weight loss. So you could potentially use a ketogenic diet to get down to your ideal weight and then gradually add some carbohydrates back in, ideally not in the form of sugar or processed carbohydrates or even starch, but add carbohydrates back in in the form of vegetables and maybe a small amount of fruit. And then you can gradually tweak the diet to maintain that weight loss and to preserve

the benefits that are associated with that weight loss. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends or family when you find something interesting. If you know someone who needs some leadership advice, definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is when you share the show with those that you pair about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life- passion struck. you