The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Million Dollar Influence: How to Drive Powerful Decisions through Language, Leverage, and Leadership by Alan Weiss, Gene Moran

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Million Dollar Influence: How to Drive Powerful Decisions through Language, Leverage, and Leadership by Alan Weiss, Gene Moran Genemoran.com Amazon.com Even senior people, business owners, and board members are unaware of the nuances of influence on a daily basis. They think in a straight line and try to "strike deals," use hierarchical power, make "trade-offs," or bargain as if at a flea market. They unwittingly sacrifice vital needs to gain minor and temporary bright, shiny things. Influence is not about fast-talking, it’s about fast-thinking and carefully constructed language that one applies within a specific context. Influence is thought to be programmable—that is, it can create scarcity or consistency of positive responses. In reality, it’s about accountability, innovation, and leverage. No pre-pandemic strategy is worth a cent in a post-pandemic world. There is no "new normal" or "return to normal." There are only new realities. In this book, one of the boldest, most aggressive, most successful consultants in the world makes his predictions and provides recommendations that may frighten and stun, but ultimately can lead to market domination. Million-dollar influencers understand that influence doesn’t mean kissing up to everyone. While we may all be equal as human beings, not everyone has a stake in the outcomes in the business of influence. Some will resist change for the sake of resisting change. They lack imagination or let fear hold them in place. Recognizing actual stakeholders will guide your positioning of stakes in the ground that will mark critical positions leading to your desired outcome. Features How consensus building is something to live with, not something to die for The fundamental difference between accountability and authority The need for innovation and even improvisation in wielding influence The scientific and magical contrasts of language How to effectively maneuver within political environments How to rally the right stakeholders at the right time The powerful role of consequence About the Author Gene Moran, founder and President of Capitol Integration, is the foremost expert on federal defense and security lobbying. He guides and advises defense companies of all sizes to dramatically improve federal sales through funding and policy change in Washington DC. Thanks to his strategic advisement and proven methodology for success, Gene’s clients enjoy extraordinary returns on investment. With 10+ years operating as a highly successful independent consultant, lobbyist and advisor, Gene’s results for his clients are measured in billions of dollars. The extent of his impact has seen Gene’s policy initiatives implemented by Congress (in law), The President (in Executive Order), and the Executive branch (in agency policy and contracts).

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. To the Chris Voss Show.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. To the Chris Voss Show family, the family that loves you but doesn't judge you. The podcast that hosts billionaires, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and newsmakers,

and all the hottest, newest authors to come on the show and talk shop that make you smarter, more sexier, more brilliant, more mindful. And, you know, you're going to walk away from the show going, Darn it, I know almost everything there is to know. resilient more mindful and uh you know you're gonna walk away from the show going darn it i know almost everything there is to know there's over 15 years of podcasting that you can take and do you know we just got done doing 655 podcasts in the last year what more do you people want from me damn it anyway this is the guilt and shaming part where we lead into uh why you should further show to your family friends and relatives because you know you want them to be as smart as you do in the upcoming holiday season

when you have to sit around that Thanksgiving table and they start talking shop like politics or, I don't know, conspiracy theories, or they start talking about, I don't know, the fact that the earth isn't flat, it's square, you know, whatever the shtick is, man, you're going to have to put up with that. So if you haven't listened to the Chris Voss show, you might not have that problem, or you might have more of it. I don't know. Pick your wheel. Go to goodreads.com for Chris Voss. YouTube.com for

Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com for Chris Voss. And TikTok, Chris Voss 1. We're trying to be cool there. We have an amazing gentleman on the show, and I'm excited to talk with him today. He's actually a retired captain of U.S. Navy ships, and I love our military because the leadership, of course, is my wheelhouse. And what they teach our military folks on leadership is just astounding.

And I always find it fascinating. We've had a number of other captains from the U.S. military on the show and all those people. So we love having them on the show. We love appreciating them for their service we're going to be talking to him about his amazing books and he's got a new one coming out and a few other ones we'll be talking about uh his latest one is called million dollar influence how to drive powerful decisions through language leverage and leadership uh gene moran is on the show with us today.

He'll be talking to us about this amazing book and his other books and what he's got coming up and kind of the state of the union as you were. He is the president of Capital Integration, an award-winning defense lobbyist and consultant. He's a retired Navy captain and former corporate lobbyist. He now guides companies through the complexities of federal sales and his client results measure in billions, billions, as what's-his-face-should-say-the-scientist, of dollars.

Gene's initiatives have been implemented by Congress, the president, and the executive branch. They like him over there. He's got a PhD in public policy focused on Congress and defense, and he commanded Navy ships that led global congressional delegations, joint staff during 9-11 and the aftermath, and former congressional staffer. Welcome to the show, Gene. How are you? Chris, thanks for having me. I'm doing great. Great to be here.

There you go. It's wonderful to have you. Thank you very much, sir. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? JeanMoran.com will take you to everything that I do. There you go. There you go. So let's lead off with your book, Million Dollar Influence. I know there's a new one. When is the new one coming out so we can get a tat up on that?

Sure. The next one comes out in November. That one is called Government Deals Are Funded, Not Sold. And we're going to talk about Million-dollar influence here for a minute. That was last November. I co-wrote that with Alan Weiss. Alan is a globally recognized business consultant. I'm a recognized and award-winning lobbyist and expert in the defense part of the federal government. And we recognized that we had a lot of information between us about how people

miss opportunities to exercise influence that is immediately within their reach. And they sit on the sidelines and assume a position of frustration as opposed to exercising influence that they could. There you go. And this is important for companies that want to do business with the government, want to influence them. I want to influence a few people over there, mainly for them to leave my job.

You want to see my Mitch McConnell impression? Bring it on. That's about it. I don't want to do the full 30 that's it yeah you just stand the screen and just go numb uh which is uh interesting anyway people we can talk about the age of some of my congressional audiences if we want there you go we'll get into it uh let's uh first dig into your book give us a 30 000 overview of the book, Million Dollar Influence, and what's inside, if you would. Yeah, what's inside?

It's about 120 pages of golden nuggets drawn from experience of engaging audiences around the world. Alan Weiss is a, as I said, expert business consultant, worked with top countries with both U.S. and global footprints, public, private, you name it. My focus is on the Washington arena, executive branch, Congress, Senate. So that executive branch is big. I try to focus on defense. Sometimes that brings me to the White House. But what we collectively recognized was that a lot of people really don't even know how to approach these situations that make them a little uncomfortable. They never quite figure out how to deal with ambiguity. So they come up with a script. They rely on a script.

And when real life makes contact with that script, they lose their way or they might have a freeze-up moment like you just demonstrated. And so what we try to show is the many different ways that you can prepare before you ever have an encounter with somebody with whom you're trying to influence or whatever organization you're trying to influence. There you go. And you talk about several facets of language, leverage, and leadership, how to utilize them. You talk about how consensus building is something to live with, not something to die for. What's going on in that company if you're dying for it? What's that about? Yeah. We don't live in a world of absolutes, although sometimes the political dialogue may

lead you to believe that, or the media representation of political dialogue may lead you to believe that or the media representation of an issue may lead you to believe that. But really, you're not ever going to get everybody on board with your issue or your proposal. And you really shouldn't be trying to. And to that end, that means there are people that you should be ignoring that may be on the other side of whatever your issue is. It could be a local commission, city commission or council or county government. It could be the big federal government. It could be a specific agency. It could be a business counterpart with whom you're negotiating. There are people who don't have

authority or the ability to make a decision. And so it's easy to say no, and you'll find that many people will say no. But being able to recognize who matters and who doesn't matter is a big part of the game before you ever make the approach. There you go. And you talk about the scientific and magical contrasts of language. Why is that important in gaining that consensus? Because, you know, like you mentioned, consensus is probably a big deal in government because you have people on sometimes two political sides and you've got to try and somehow figure out a way to get, you know, government to work down the middle somehow.

You know, I used to use a phrase on active duty when I was commanding ships and teaching leadership by actions with my subordinate and team that would be rising to new leadership positions. And I would say words mean things. And so you have to be thoughtful about what you're even saying. And many people have a habit of just sort of thinking out loud and hoping they're going to get to the end of the sentence the way they want to. The comedian Jim Gaffigan has a great little setup on this concept. But too many people think out loud as opposed to thinking and then speaking with authority and with clarity and with brevity. Alan Weiss, who was the co-author, he is a master of language and has worked very hard throughout his life to develop his vocabulary. And I'm not suggesting that you have to be somebody

who drops all sorts of word bombs on people to show how well educated you are. But your words have to be tight and they have to have meaning in the way that you intend. And ideally, you're going to be able to tell a story with your words in a way that allows people to come to their own logical conclusion, as opposed to you having to sort of beat them over the head or push them into a situation or a corner. And language is important because I think you're always, as a CEO, as a leader, whatever you're doing, I mean, a leader can be a parent. The way you communicate and how you communicate and its effectiveness is really important. Like, you know, I, I had to learn that as a leader where if I told someone to do something

in a certain way and they did it wrong, I had to take ownership and go, I probably instructed them wrong, or I didn't follow through to make sure that they fully understood the communication I give them. Uh, and many times that was it. They, there was some sort of failure breakdown in my communication to them. Maybe their level of interpreting data might be auditory, kinesthetic,

or maybe that somehow it just didn't fit right to them. And some people need more communication than others. Some people need a lot more, like a pink slip and thrown out the second window. But that's another story. What you just did there was you took accountability for your part of the conversation. Accountability. And accountability is a critical part of leadership that is often lacking in the corporate situation. We know what authority is. Do I have the power to make a decision or to control an outcome?

Accountability is the ownership of that decision and ownership to include, was it somebody two or three layers down within your organization that was acting on your behalf? Are you accountable to that? In the military, particularly in the Navy, command of Navy ships is the perfect example. A captain has absolute authority within certain boundaries that they have to run the ship by, but they also have absolute accountability. And we see captains of ships relieved every year, probably a dozen or more, for some sort of failure that takes place under their command. It could be some mechanical issue. It could be some procedural violation. It could be a personnel issue. It could be a personal indiscretion. But those shortcomings are meted out through

a very strict accountability. And that's a part of uniform military culture. I don't see that as clearly defined and as strongly enforced in corporate America. I'm not hearing you, Chris. There we go. That's why we need more people like you and me uh telling people uh in teaching leadership uh you more better than i because uh you you you it's astounding to me and and the more i've studied it and learned about how our military teaches leadership and how we

you know have the best military in the world you you really see the difference when you see like a war with a different sort of a military structure management structure per se in the world, you really see the difference when you see like a war with a different sort of a military structure, management structure per se in the Russian war with the Ukraine and what a difference it makes, you know, in the structure and then being able to have that, you know, where teams can command on the ground or can take command and lead if, you know, there's a breakdown in the chain of command in the theater of war, the fog of war that a unit can take command and lead if you know there's a breakdown the chain of command in the theater of war the fog of war that a unit can take and act on its own and so it's really amazing to me how we teach leadership in our military and and and how what a difference it

makes in the quality you know i think like china is still trying to figure out our perfect model and and i think part of it comes down to the human will and the human spirit of, you know, what people fight for. I mean, uh, our, our,

our military and our people in our military, you know, believe in freedom, uh, the, the, the American way there's an idealism there. And you don't see that in Russia with the people,

you know, who've been conscripted for that war where they're just like, we don't want to go do this. We don't care. Um, and it's very different in the getting the hearts and minds of the people behind the principal difference the principal difference chris is that the uh u.s soldiers sailors marines airmen uh guardians they take an oath to the constitution and within our military, we see a very robust enlisted force that also values leadership skills. And so our enlisted force is able to operate independently within boundaries and within a commander's intent. You don't see that in the militaries of the other countries you mentioned.

There you go. And you write about the fundamental difference between accountability and authority. What's the separation between being self-accountable as a leader and wielding authority, I guess? Yeah, I think self-accountability comes down to how have you imbued values? How have they been passed to you? What is your understanding of where you are in the organization? There's a certain amount of self-discipline. And we see people fail for personal foibles.

It's a Shakespearean concept. It goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years, where sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. But learning how to put an organization or a goal above self is a critical aspect of understanding how authority fits into the overall leadership construct. There you go. The other thing you talk about in your book that I think is really important in today's world, because even though the world's moving faster, we have these fast-talking people that are just trying to close deals fast, not build relationships. And so you talk about people are making unwitting sacrifices that are vital needs to gain minor and temporary bright, shiny

things. They're looking for small wins over big wins and trying to influence fast talk. And you talk about constructing your language that applies within a specific context. Tell us a little bit about how that works and how to not lose the game over the quick and easy shiny things, you know, and look at the long ball. Yeah, you know, a comparison might be, and this is not to knock car salesmen because there are some expert car salesmen who have lifelong customers there are many car salesmen who don't have lifelong customers and don't stay in car sales as a career because they treat it as a a quick sale and they might they might bend parameters of the deal to make the quick sale my day-to-day work in lobbying and exercising influence in government to try to shape better outcomes that will lead to good government requires a long view, in part because it's a long process.

The budget process takes as many as three years to move through for any given year for a budget to develop. And over time, I will have to come back to the same people sometimes, multiple times over the course of my career. Some people stay put in government for a very long time. And I don't just mean elected officials. We can argue that point about term limits. But there are unelected experts who sit on committee staffs who are senior executives within the government. These are people we want there for continuity of government. But I can't go in there one year with a bag of bolts of a story and then go in there the next year and say, hey, I've got even a shinier bag of bolts this year. I have to protect

my own credibility as somebody who's able to tell a coherent and cogent story. But over time, I can actually become a resource to some of those decision makers who are dealing with new issues about which I may have better connectivity with industry. So two ends of an extreme there in terms of how one can manage the relationships for the longer term. There you go. I think that you probably have a great perspective on negotiating and leadership and selling because you're dealing with the ultimate tiger or alligator in the room. Like you said, there is a continuity of people that run our government. Probably thank God for them because some of the people we put in office are crazy.

And we've seen a few. But they're lifelong career people that are there running the Pentagon or running different formats of the federal government and stuff. And you have to go there and not only deal with the politics, but you have to go there and sell stuff. And like you said, build relationships, which is probably just as challenging as any CEO job that has to go do vendor relationships, investor meetings and calls and negotiate

with them and negotiate with unions and all the different aspects, employees, et cetera, investor meetings and calls and negotiate with them and, you know, negotiate with unions and all the different aspects, employees, et cetera, et cetera. You know, as a CEO, you're selling to so many people. You know, I've had people, I've had people say to me, I want to be a CEO because I want to be a boss. And I'm like, you're not really a boss. You're actually in servant leadership and you're spending your time selling to everybody. you have to sell to your board your vendors your employees your you got to sell your vision on everything what you're trying to do how to do it how to innovate uh how to build a healthy organization environment culture um

you're just constantly selling like people always ask me when i'm a big mouth it's because i from 18 when i started my first company i've had to sell to everybody who's involved in the business. Somebody had to sell myself. Like, is this a good idea? I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe we should go sell it. I don't know.

We'll figure it out. You know, it depends on which of my personalities, of course, we're running on as well. There's always that kill, kill, kill one that the judge says I can't use anymore. So, you know, sometimes it's selling between the personalities. Any of your thoughts on that? And, and, you know, I mean, your experience in, in selling in that environment in government is probably the highest order that can give us a good read on what to do in business. Yeah, it's a, it's a great, uh, great setup, Chris. Uh, when I was on active duty, I was one who did not communicate with industry. I, I had, I couldn't imagine myself ever being

in sales. I wasn't really looking outside the lifelines, so to speak. Some of my shore assignments were in Washington, where I represented the Navy to Congress, both the House and the Senate. As you mentioned at the intro, I led congressional delegations with some pretty well-known individuals around the world. But that gave me some exposure to really the real world of how there are, as I call it, three rings of the circus. Industry, agencies, and Congress all have a role in this. And I came to recognize pretty quickly that many people, industry executives don't really understand the government customer to which they're selling. They think it's one person, they think it's one service.

It's really multiple people across these three rings of the circus. The Congress has a role, the president has a role, the federal agencies each have a legitimate role, and it's recognizing where to play those tensions off one another to get to better outcomes. And that's where I've now learned to engage. And it took me a while to first recognize the condition.

I really had it hammered home when I was a corporate lobbyist and I saw industry executives coming to Washington who thought they knew what they were dealing with, but it turned out they really didn't. And that opened up doors for me to, to see, Hey, I can go help people. And that's what I do now. And, uh, that's, uh, leads us into pitching. You're talking about your other book, pitching the big top, how to master the three ring circus of federal sales. Uh, and, uh, let's touch on that a little bit. Let's get a plug in for this book then. Yeah, it's a bestseller. It was me formulating my thoughts after I left corporate where I had come to this recognition that there were many, many companies in the defense industrial base

that didn't understand the process and they needed a simple way to understand it. And the three rings of the circus is not, it's not a pejorative term. It's, it's meant to capture the idea of relative motion. So if you think about a circus tent where there's three rings happen, there's things happening across all three rings at once, that's sort of what you have in federal, except it's happening over the course of three years as well. So there's a third dimension to it. And so recognizing how to plug in when and where, right people, right place, right time with the right message, that is a world of nuance that very, very few people understand. And sadly, too few people take advantage of how to participate more fully in the process.

There you go. You know, you've given me a great idea. Maybe we should paint the Capitol of the Congress in a Barnum & Bailey circus colors. We'll just play music every time they start. I mean, I have respect for government i think a lot of people i i'm i i think one of my pet peeves is people who meme uh do mean politics or understand politics through memes on social media uh no one seems to read anymore about what's really going on um and uh it's it's unfortunate you know i'll meet people you know they'll tell me whatever their perspective is on some aspect of politics going on.

And you're like, where the hell did you get that? And you're like, I saw a meme on the thing. And I'm like, you're consuming your ability to contribute to this wonderful democracy that's still an experiment. And you're doing that off of memes. Like you're making your decisions on voting off of memes. And while they're funny and cute, I mean, they're shtick. You know, there's some comedy there. It's probably not something you want to base your thing on.

I say, Chris, that one of the casualties of this speed of information and these multiple channels of flow of information, a casualty is truth. And that we no longer have a clear way to recognize what is ground truth. And so it's too difficult to get to sometimes for many people. And if you're only consuming off of social media or, or headlines or, you know, what your drunk uncle said at a party, you know, it's,

it's hard. It's hard to agree on the facts sometimes. So do you know my drunk uncle? How'd you know? I think I am that guy now to some of my family. What's good. I think it's designated by law that everyone has to have that one drunk uncle. That or he's the one who hugs all the women too much at every Thanksgiving. I'll talk about defense and national security.

There you go. You know, I was just last night, I've been reading the Federalist Papers. I always call them the Madison Papers, so I have to remember not to say that, but the Federalist Papers. And I've been reading about halfway through it. And it's interesting to see the forethought that our founders went into. And then last night, I got a little bored of it. And we had C-SPAN on Friday to pitch a series where they have the top 10 books that influenced America. And they turned me on to the book Common Sense by Thomas Paine.

And so I'm about halfway through that last night at the gym. And what extraordinary reading and, you know, the vision that people had into what this country is. And boy, if they could see us now. So, you know, Chrisris think about the federalist papers and what they were yeah so they they were you know a way to explain to the people what this new government was going to be about and how it might work and and so they they were the the then version of uh of a tiktok clip you know know, something that was short and digestible in its day that could help people understand what kind of government would evolve. And the vision behind it was extraordinary.

I mean, hearing Thomas Paine talk about, you know, the potential failures of being still attached to Britain. And, uh, one of the things that was really profound last night was he makes the, he makes the play that, um, you know, Britain's an Island. We're a continent. Why the hell are we messing with them? Dude?

Like we don't need them. We're a continent. And it was really interesting. Uh, the perspective of that, I was like, wow. It's interesting that we,

we did recognize though, that we needed to have lines of engagement with other countries so you know ambassadors were designated and and people would take state level messages forward um you know I would encourage anyone in the audience to to remember some of the history I'm not a history history expert, but we didn't just get to this magical place we're at in 2023 as we record this. But for those that are inclined to burn the place down because they think that we can do something better, I would just remind that nothing better has been found by any other in mankind to this date. So as challenged as we sometimes are, a lot works right. And I've been to over 60 countries as part of my military and congressional

travel. I've watched our senior congressional leaders interact at the ministerial level with partners and allies. And those relationships really do matter. And you can't just sever them without severe consequences. So I would ask of those that are intensely frustrated about the issues of the day, if you burn the place down, what do you think comes next? Yeah, and you're going to lose your democracy. I mean, and these things are fragile. People don't realize we're really spoiled here in America.

They're like, yeah, we always have McDonald's, so I guess the government's always going to be there. And a lot of people want to throw rocks at government, but I tell people, you get the government you vote in. You get the government you deserve. Tell me if I'm wrong, because I'm always curious if I'm wrong. I've written some short blog posts with that exact topic. We're challenged right now with all sorts of things

fighting for time in the legislative world in Congress at the federal level right now. And you have to have competent people in position to manage these many challenges. Yeah. And we were joking before the show. The other thing I tell people is you get the government you deserve. So if it's a mirror, our leaders are a mirror to the people, to us as electric. So if we're a bunch of dummies putting idiots into office,

it's us, man. It's us. It's right there in the mirror. And collectively, we need to be smarter, care what goes on in our government, care about what things are going. Let's get a plug in for your newest book. Do you have the title cemented?

I do. Title is cemented. There's an Amazon page there. This comes out in November from Taylor and Francis. It's called Government Deals are Funded, Not Sold, How to Integrate Lobbying into Your Federal Sales Strategy. It's fundamentally about recognizing, as the old saw in Washington says, if it's not funded, it's not real. I observe many companies chasing federal dollars in ways that will never

find their ways into their company coffers. There's a process. It's a very deliberate process, a very knowable process, but you have to understand how the money flows. And there's multiple aspects to that. I guide people through it. The book is a result of my Ph.D. dissertation that I completed last year that focused specifically on defense executives' perspectives of congress and i can i came to recognize that most defense executives are sort of flying by the seat of their pants they are using their fairly narrow networks and mentors to guide them along but they really lack awareness of how the how the process works in a deep way. And I can take a line of questioning two or three layers deep with most defense executives and find that they really don't know as much as they think they know.

And it's a shame because it doesn't have to be this way. And it contributes to some of the waste that we see, contributes to some of the decision-making that we see. Sometimes we assume people of a certain age or seniority or set of experiences carries with them the similar level of expertise. And I confirmed that that is clearly not the case. Expertise is something very different from experience. So I'm excited about the book. I think any executive could learn from it. You don't have to be in defense, but it's more about how to approach the government more thoughtfully. There you go. And just approaching probably anybody thoughtfully in negotiations and

sales and influence and trying to get stuff done, because that's a lot of what you're doing as leaders. You're trying to influence other people to do their best work. But it's interesting what you talk about because that leads back to how you talk to people when you go two or three different levels down, you find that maybe they're not quite as adept or you mentioned people go to government and don't have quite the knowledge base they need. And you talk about, you know, the shiny things and doing flea market trade-offs to strike deals that are short-term, daily basis sort of nuances. Is that kind of a problem with maybe government where we've just gotten too much on how do we solve things now or you know there there's a small cadre of our of our people in government that you know they're just looking for the headlines and to drive crazy

things so they can fundraise off it and they really aren't interested in in wholesome quality uh legislation i what i'll say is what i'm about to say is, it is not a universal. There are some absolute experts in office, in elected office, who are in defense in particular, are experts in certain areas of defense on the committees within the House and Senate. There are professional staff members who really are expert and they know their stuff and they try really hard to stay as up to date as they're able from that position. That said, there are a lot of empty suits in Washington. There are people who you would think know more than they do. But if you listen to what is sometimes being said, much of it

is scripted. Some of that comes from the party ideologies where there are orchestrated talking points. Just listen to the Sunday shows as an example. If you go from channel to channel, whatever your ideology, you can see exact words and phrases being used repeatedly. And then if you were to engage some of those people in a conversation, you can see that they quickly get uncomfortable with going off script because they don't know the facts, in many cases, behind what those talking points said. It can be uncomfortable. I recognize it for what it is. I had a captain one time in the Navy who said of our situation, you can try to change it, but it is what it is. And you have to accept sometimes that it just is. We continue to adapt this experiment of democracy and how it all works.

But that sort of change takes place very, very slowly at the federal level. There you go. So we're coming up on a negotiation, I think, for the budget once again. And if we don't come to some sort of uh arrangement we'll be in default and we already got a negative credit rating recently uh from a credit rating that that hurt our ability to you know uh borrow money and what we do and it doesn't look good and we we don't need another one because i mean a lot of people don't realize this country's main thing these days is our ability to back our word back our money back our debt and also the dollar and the power of the the dollar bill and how just about

everything in the world trades on it and if we ever lose that we're kind of screwed um because it seems like it's the last big thing you it used to be housing was a big thing that people would invest in this country and around the world, and we killed that off in 2008. What are your thoughts on the upcoming negotiations for all that stuff and what's going on? We will get there. It will be ugly, and it will be a bumpy ride. We have only passed appropriations bills, those that fund the government. We've only passed them on time once in the last 12 years. It's very uncommon for them to pass on time.

The reasons for the disruption vary from year to year. We've had balanced budget acts in 2018, 2021. You name the leader of the House who's tried to make this system work on the House side, and they've been challenged. Boehner, Cantor, Pelosi, for all her opponents out there, she actually did a pretty masterful job of keeping a disparate group together, at least when it came time to vote. I think Speaker McCarthy has a challenge on his hands here. And he, you know, just today, we're announcing that we're going to look into an

impeachment of President Biden. That's different than bringing an impeachment to a vote, which I don't think could be done successfully. But what these sorts of communications do is just cloud the water and stir up the muck so that people have a difficult time understanding what's really happening. Speaker McCarthy came in with the idea that everything was going to pass through what's known as regular order. All the bills would come through subcommittees and committees, be voted on the floor, and then be conferenced with the Senate. So far, that's not happening. He will be challenged to live up to that promise. The Senate, I think, is trying to help him out right now by bringing some funding bills forward. The Senate has I think, is trying to help them out right now by bringing some funding

bills forward. The Senate has, in fact, moved all 12 of its appropriations bills to the floor. They're ready to put some heat on the House, and that should give Speaker McCarthy some leverage to show his more boisterous part of his caucus that, hey, team, that end game isn't going to happen. We need to make a compromise. This will take at least until Christmas, I would predict. Will we have an actual shutdown? A month ago, I would have said no, because leadership was publicly committing that they wouldn't. Today, I would say it could happen. But what I tell my clients is, you know, a shutdown means different things.

You know, all the lights don't go off. You know, the plants actually do get watered. There are communications that take place. There are people who are essential to government that stay in place, but it's incredibly disruptive. And the real calamity is that the decision makers are forced to a place of analysis and isolation. They have to wait for Congress to do something before they can decide on the most appropriate course. Long answer, it's actually a complex issue. We will get there.

It will be bumpy. Yeah. I think we need to all demand, as Americans, a better system, better leadership, better finding a way to reach across the aisle and stuff like that. Back to the old days, pre-Newt Gingrich, you know, the old Tip O'Neill style and things like that, where you try and find consensus. You try and find a way to work together. You know, there's always going to be politics where you have to slingshot, but when it comes down to legislation or disasters or

something like that. As we go out, one last final thought I have on you, because this is really important to me, and I think a lot of people discount it, the U.S. position in the world and our military or lack of military readiness to defend it, why is it so important? I mean, people are like, yeah, we have all these bases on the world. We spend all this money on military. Why is that important? And they just don't get it. So from your mind and thoughts, what is the summation of why it's important? Yeah, well, I think when there is not a leader in the globe, that vacuum will be filled. And it's often not filled with positive thoughts.

We rely on strategic lines of communication for our supply chains. We can say that they were tested maybe to an extreme during COVID and we found some things that we didn't like. But fixing supply chains doesn't mean disconnecting from allies and partners. No one country can do this alone. We are in a position of military readiness. It's my belief that we need our intelligence to hold. We need our soft power of diplomacy to be a critical piece of our overall picture. And we need the economic ties. These are traditional tools of policy, intelligence, military, diplomacy, economics. They all fit together.

Our military state of readiness is documented this year by the general accounting office, by individual service secretaries, by hearing testimony, by think tank war games. We are not as ready as we were five years ago, 10 years ago. We have a readiness challenge. And so if those other means fail, we're going to have a problem. And that problem will definitely strike home. Definitely. I mean, a lot of us as Americans just kind of believe that what's always been there and the safety net that we have,

and we don't understand what goes into that safety net and keeping that power position in the world. I mean, China, to my understanding, has built the largest Navy now in the world. And I think someone on the show said that they're building their Navy at the rate of what Australia is growing at with their Navy or something. It's moving at a very fast pace that they're moving. They're, of course, hacking our leaders. They just hacked one of the State Department people who went over. As she was going over, they hacked her email,

which is extraordinary from the moxie of that. It's just extraordinary to think about. You're like, seriously? But trying to make sure that the Taiwan issue is a big issue with semiconductors. I mean, I think it's 85% or 90% of semiconductors are made in Taiwan. And that's not something we can change quickly. It took us a long time for that capacity to grow and congregate at Taiwan. We have a reliance on critical rare earth material that is just not available in the US. It doesn't exist in the U.S., so it has to come from somewhere.

Much of it actually comes from China as relates to battery architecture and high-end magnets. Those are just realities of the globe that we have to find better ways to integrate China into the solutions as opposed to just retreating from them. This, as I said, and it's no secret, these are complex problems. Yeah. And people don't realize these are important ones in maintaining the safety of you getting

up every day and eating your breakfast cereal and not having it, I don't know, come to you in Russian or Chinese or North Korea. I hope it doesn't take a significant external force to awake us to the reality, but history suggests that it probably will. Yeah. The one thing man can learn from his history, I always say, is man never learns from his history, and that's why we go round and round. But I think hopefully people will take note of, sadly, the Ukraine war with Russia.

I think a lot of people are kind of like, oh, we don't have wars anymore. We don't have to really worry about this stuff anymore. And you can see what's going on over there. And you can see that if it wasn't for the Ukrainians putting up a good fight, certainly I think the intent from some of the intel was that he was going to go after the NATO countries. And that would have, you know, Finland, Sweden, who weren't NATO countries at the time, would have crossed some lines that, you know, probably would have put us back into a world war or nuclear war, if anything. So the danger still is there. And whether it's a young democracy that is still an experiment that zigs and zags, as President Obama put it, you know, we're still,

we're still trying to find our footing. And this thing can go at any moment. We saw democracies like Hungary fail over COVID and turn authoritarian. I mean, these things can disappear overnight. We came very close to that on January 6th and may still. So I'll give you our final thoughts as we go out, pitch your books and your wares and your final thoughts. I'll take two cracks if it's okay. it's okay. You know, the there's a big part of the electorate who has only known a nation at war. And, and those wars didn't necessarily appear to go our way. And,

and they, that, that same part of the electorate is a little bit removed from some of the outcomes of world war two that established this basic world order that we've lived with in, I say, relative peace for over 75 years. So there are many who don't understand what it took to get to that. And that's a shame, I think, to the degree that we can preserve that. That would be very helpful. As you can tell just from the scope of this conversation, Chris, although I help companies achieve great outcomes in Washington and help them bring their products and services to get to a better government solution in whatever the situation is, requires that I maintain a pretty close understanding of what is happening with the budget, with the movements of government, what issues are being discussed. All of these issues

have depth far beyond the headlines that we see every day. And I try to stay in touch with that so that the clients that I work with don't have to track it so closely and that they can know that they're ready to participate at the right place and time. There you go. Well, it's been wonderful and insightful to have you on the show. And people should check out your books from all walks of leadership because leadership training is something I love consuming leadership books. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. Sure. JeanMoran.com.

There you go. Jean, thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Chris. There you go. And thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, FortressChristmas, LinkedIn.com, FortressChristmas. Watch for this on the LinkedIn newsletter.

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