Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - This Is Why Your Team Isn’t Listening to You - DeDe Halfhill

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

What if leadership isn’t about having the answers…but about understanding what’s happening underneath the behavior?In this conversation with the amazing DeDe Halfhill, we go deep into what most leaders miss:You can’t fix what you can’t seeAnd what you can’t see is often emotionFear. Uncertainty. The question every human is quietly asking: “Do I still matter?”This episode challenged me in the best way because it’s not about being “soft”…It’s about being effective.Because when leaders ignore emotion, everything gets harder. But when they learn to name it, hold it, and lead through it…everything changes.This is the kind of conversation that stays with you.Listen in if you care about:– Real leadership (not performative leadership)– Emotional intelligence that actually drives results– Leading humans… not just managing outcomesAnd maybe the most important reminder of all: We don’t lose our ability to be great, we lose access to it.Follow DeDe Here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dedehalfhill/https://www.instagram.com/dedehalfhill/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

to sit in front of you, Colonel. I cannot imagine what you've seen and experienced and felt in this body. And now you're translating this into what we need in the world of leadership the most these days. And you start anywhere you want. I want, I'm going to give you the floor in terms of like, as humans, what in the ever-loving fuck do we need to think about in positions of leadership right now? You just, you give us the go and I cannot wait to follow your lead on this because you I mean, what you've done in this lifetime, D.D., is I'm in awe.

Oh, well, thank you. You're too kind. I might say that's my favorite beginning of a podcast ever. Listen. Any podcast that starts with the F-bomb is going to be a good time. Where do I begin? Here's what I tell leaders right now. There is so much on our plate, right?

There are so many demands on us and so many demands during a time when there is no solid ground for us to stand. on. And there's a lot that's being expected of us. And I tell them, in all of that expectations, you can't address what you can't see, meaning like the problems that are in your organization. You can't address what you can't see, but what you can't see is affecting everything you can. And so you have all of these heightened expectations for revenue, for profit, production timelines, everything, and you watch those almost psychotically, right? Like you're obsessed with the numbers of what's happening. And yet there's this undercurrent of emotion that is going on in our organizations.

But our inability to tap into that space with a degree of confidence and comfort, our inability to tap into that space is actually making all this stuff over here we track a million times harder. Okay. Tell me about that space. What is that? What are we talking about? You know, I'll give you, I'll give you an example. I was working with, I was working with FEMA recently. And one of their internal organizations was going through a huge transformation. And I'm sure you've seen this in any organization. We, we're in organizations. They have these big grand visions of reorganization. And they come out and they lead us through it in one of

of two ways. They come out and they say, this is the beautiful picture of what will be. This is what this reorganization is going to give us. This is the vision of how it's going to be amazing and wonderful and fabulous. Or they communicate and lead us to it by saying, get on the bus or get out. So you have these two extremes. One is this rosy vision of what will be. And the other is almost, you know, it's an ultimatum, a shaming, get in or get out. And the reality is no one is hearing any of those messages because, what? Neither work. Is that what you're saying? Right. Right. Well, they're not, they're not even hearing them. People aren't even hearing your rosy picture because they are so stuck in fear about what this means for them as an individual. And we were

talking a little bit about Bray Brown and she has a quote that I use all the time. I don't if it's a quote, but it's what her research shows is that the number one shame trigger at work, the number one thing that makes us dig in, fight against, opt out, all of those things that are unhelpful behaviors, the number one shame trigger of that is fear of irrelevance. And as a leader, if you are going through any kind of change, if you can't speak to that fear of irrelevance, will I matter? Does my work matter? Does what I've done matter? Right. Am I going to still be relevant? If you can't speak to that, then everything else you're trying to do is going to take 10 times longer. It's going to be 10 times more painful because you as a leader can't just say

something as simple as, I want to acknowledge change is hard. I want to acknowledge that all of us when we go through change. Have a degree of discomfort. We wonder, am I going to matter? Is my work going to matter? And I'm here to tell you, I don't have all the answers, but you do matter. And what you do here matters. And we're going to support you as we go through that.

And then bam, then you can go into the rosy picture, but you have to at least acknowledge the human experience that is happening. Oh, my God. So, Dedi, I talk a lot around here as a psychologist, this idea of collecting before directing. So it's the neurophysiology behind getting access to the best of us. And I often argue that, you know, we haven't lost our ability to be great as humans. We've lost access to it. The more divisive, the more overwhelmed, the more sleep deprived we become.

We don't lose our ability to be great. We lose access to it. And so what I hear you say is that you are very clear on the importance of accessing that first, that there is really a two-part process, especially these days in leadership, that we have to bring people back home. and then we go. It's almost like slowing down to speed up. Is that fair?

Yes. Yeah. And I don't look at this. You know, I think some people might think talking about emotion is such like a soft, like, oh, you're, you know, so hug and touchy-feely. I actually had one of my assistants one time. My replacement came in and my replacement said to my assistant, you know, I'm not going to be like Colonel Halfill.

I'm not all touchy-feely. And my secretary, my assistant was like, you do not know Colonel Halfill. because I'm very much like we've got shit to do. We've got things we're responsible for. We're about results. But as a leader, what I realized is this is not about touchy-feely. This is about the fact that I've been charged to deliver results.

And if I am not tapping into every opportunity to do that more effectively, faster, more, we call it force multiplier, right? Like things are more results than we had wanted. if I'm not tapping into every opportunity to expand that, then I'm actually not doing my job. Amen. I'm actually not leading. I'm not saying get out there and lead in a soft way.

I'm saying freaking lead. Yes. And the best way to do that often happens in a two-stage approach. Listen, if safety's an issue, all bets are off. I'm going to fucking take charge and everybody's going to be okay. But the vast majority of the time, we are not in a code red or a 911 or a massive of emergent state. But our bodies think we are in this season.

So the idea of being kind and not tolerating bullshit in that order is something that Brunay taught me. And I, okay, we got to, I got to just pause on the Brunay word for a minute because I shared with you before we got on here that if you, I mean, much of this audience will know, I, like the sun shines, rises, shines, does all the things from me on Dr. Bray Brown. And I, I was reading about, you know, you are. are obviously very trained in her dare to lead model.

And then I asked you, did you meet her in real life? And like, I just about died when she said many times. So can you tell me a little bit about like how you connected to her, her model, her research, and a little bit about take me through that process, what you've learned the most in that experience? I will say the biggest lesson I've learned through her work and I'll get to how is that everything comes back to the language we use. As a communications expert, that's got to just wringing your bones. And maybe that's my lens.

Maybe that's how I saw it. I love it. I love it. So everything we say, say that again? I would say everything I learned about her work and how it affected me as a leader comes back to the language we use. Okay, comes back to the language we use. I love that.

I've never said that so succinctly before it might have to incorporate that. I'm writing that shit down, girl. I got it. Language we use, okay? I'll give you an example. So I first, I first came upon Brunay's work in 2010. And I was a commander at, where was I in 2010? I was a commander at Balad Air Base in Iraq.

I knew I was in Iraq. I couldn't remember I was at Balad or in Baghdad. Wow. Metapause. And so I was a squadron commander at Balad Air Base in Iraq. And it was when we were going through the drawdown, but we were still, experiencing a significant degree of mortar attacks and going through the drawdown. Can you explain to us what that means?

The drawdown was when we had initially started the process of leaving Iraq. So you're in this weird space where in theory it's safe enough to leave. Okay. And there is still a significant threat. So you're not like we can't just cut and run. We got to figure out how we transition. It was a really, it was a hard moment. There were a lot of people there who were wondering if they still mattered, if their contribution to this, you know, this war that we'd been in for 20 years had mattered. And there was still, there was still fear. There was still uncertainty. So there were all these mix of emotions, right? And I was watching it and I could see how different emotions were affecting people differently. I was seeing a lot of, behavior that was requiring a lot more of my time.

Okay. To something I think we mentioned earlier, which was like just, man, the drama that I was seeing between humans. Say that clearer because I think, okay, so that increased, the more the uncertainty and the fear increased, you saw a direct connection to the drama. And we use this term so much in leadership. We're like, everybody's dramatic. People are losing their mind.

Everybody's got to be in menopause. Like, why is everybody so like, you know, shitty and asshole-era-ish. And I'm like, fuck, that's a sign. Bitches. Yeah. It's a huge sign. It's a huge sign. And now I, you know, now I understand why, right? But then I didn't. Then the leader in me was like, oh my gosh, why do I have to deal with this? Like, aren't these people adults? Like, they should just be adults. We're dealing with, yes. And we're ready. This is life or death. And you're worried that you didn't get your fucking carrots for lunch? Oh my gosh. Don't even get me started. I, speaking of lunch, I, sorry.

I tracked, I owned the dining facilities. We had six dining facilities that each served a thousand people each. To give you an example of people getting upset about not getting their carrots for lunch, we had to change the takeout policy because we realized by contract we were violating the contract because people were taking out a ton of food but only scanning in once, right? The like reasons, the policy behind it doesn't matter. Anyway, we changed it, which meant people couldn't come to breakfast and also get their lunch. And I saw people freaking out. People threw food at my young airman at the door. People through milk at my young airman who was there to make sure they scanned their ID cards. These were adults. These were people in their 40s. Serving their country.

Serving their country. Right. The people who are supposed to be leading the people serving our country. The young people. Was there ever a moment where you were just like, we're screwed? Like, if we can't navigate milk, like, I don't know that we're going to navigate major military ops in this moment. Isn't that funny? I mean, again, I just as a pause as well, and we'll jump right back into it. But I think that this is so true that so many leaders are just, they cannot believe the pettiness, the things that they have to deal with on their plate when like, when people are dying. when, and I think about this often as a mother as well.

Like we're having these conversations that seemingly are so asinine in the grand scheme of things. And I think it really takes such wherewithal of leaders to understand that those little things don't appear to matter, but they are the biggest. They're everything. They are the biggest. And when you see it for a signal of emotional dysregulation, not as pettiness and immaturity and like a waste of your time, when you can read.

tell that story, it regulates your system so that you can walk them home. And a five minute intervention of like, okay, babe, let's let's figure out how we get to more milk. Okay. Because if you get more milk, I know you're going to be able to stop a war. I, you know, that's what we're going to do here. So yeah, explain. I'm glad. I just wanted to hammer that point because I think we really, really, really lose sight of that in our biggest moments because you're right. We have we have billions of on one hand and then I am I am wasting quote unquote 25 minutes seemingly of my precious time to lead this country and now we're talking about whether you're going to get your milk and sometimes it is in those micro moments that the macro shifts.

Huge. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it too, you said so much that was so powerful and relatable just there because the degree of dysregulation was so. rampant, right? The pilot who threw the milk, he was dysregulated. If he gets dysregulated over the fact that he can't take Cheerios out from breakfast, what is that doing to his ability to perform the mission? If his dysregulation is now projected upon my airman, and that airman wonders, now, do they matter? What am I doing here? And they then take that same dysregulation and project it onto someone else.

And as a leader, if I'm watching all of this dysregulation and I can't regulate, like, it just, it just becomes this contagious cesspool of dysregulation where nothing good is happening. And so where do we enter into that scheme, which I think has long been the question. And for many of us in organizations, we start at the bottom of the river, pulling the most dysregulated out. So spending some time worried about that guy who's thrown the milk and what we're just really missing. is the larger process of who do we have to catch, right? Conflict is a part of this process. You should be overwhelmed when you're navigating such massive things. So when we expect that to happen, the question is, what do we do? How do we hold that? Is that fair? You, I mean, take us next. Yeah, I think so. And then I'll get to, like, the language part of this is that,

you know, where do you begin? My perspective is, like, if I can regulate myself, then I'm in a better place to catch. Then I am in a better place to hold space. Then I am in a better place to stop the contagious spread of that dysregulation. And doesn't that feel selfish as a leader when you're in this place? I mean, again, I think this is why it's taken such a long time to transition this conversation, right? Because I agree 150,000 percent. But when we start to say to leaders, you matter more than anybody else. What we sort of then have heard over the last decade is, okay, that means self-care. So I'm going to implement more bubble bass and shit. No.

Why you matter most is because if you're not okay, the people you serve don't stand a chance. And so what does that mean to you when we start to say, we have to look after you first? What does that look like? How does that sort of operationalize in the field? Oh, I mean, it looks like I have to be really, really good at understanding my tells,

understanding when my tells for dysregulation happen. I have to get really good at getting curious. about what's really causing this dysregulation, not that Bob through milk, but that Bob's throwing milk makes me feel like I'm inadequate in protecting my people. It makes me feel like I'm inadequate because was the contract violation my fault? Why did I not catch the contract violation? All of this comes back to the story I'm telling myself, which is I'm inadequate, which just amplifies my dysregulation. So now I have to reality check that story. And then I have to, you know, that's why I say when people say like, oh, it's so soft and touchy-feely, I have to have

a little compassion for myself. Like, I'm not superwoman. I am superwoman, but. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, we want to get really honest. But there are moments where even superwoman needs to rest and sleep and reflect on the fact that like you're going to fuck it up. And I think that that you can't tell anybody how to be great. You have to show them. I love curiosity is such a powerful word. Yeah. So when we think about self-care, like that's what I think about as self-care. Because me taking a bubble bath, which was never my idea of a good time, me taking a bubble bath is not helping me do my work. It's not helping me understand the tells. When I'm working with leaders most often, the most transformational moment

is when I can get them to recognize that the shame is rising. What do you do? What are the stories that are going on in your head? How does that feel in your body? Right? And then you get them to really listen to what they're saying to themselves in that moment. Oh, my goodness. Can you?

Okay, I love that so much. and there's, I mean, I'm scribbling notes like it's my job here, which it is, but I want to take you back from the beginning. So can you take me, I'm so interested as I sit here listening to you, you know, how you got here. How as a woman, did you grow up in Texas? No, I'm from Iowa originally. From Iowa, even sexier. You know what I mean? When, when how did you become such a high ranking official? How did you, you know, can you just take me through the story of your life, if you don't mind? I just want to know how that evolved. I just want to know how that evolved. and the lessons that sort of like brought you to this place. You know, I mean, I joined the military because I'll just really quickly. Yeah. I was the first person in both sides of my family to finish college. And while I was in college, I needed to pay for it. You know, I didn't come from a family who could afford to take care of that for me.

And I really, I don't know why, because my parents were supportive no matter what I wanted to do. And they didn't overtly push college. But once I was in it, I like to finish what I start. And so I was like, you know what? The military gives me an avenue to do that. So I joined the military thinking it'll pay for college and I'll have a job as soon as I'm done. I'll do a couple years. I'll get out.

I'll go on to the civilian space. But then I entered this organization where, especially in the Air Force, I can't speak to the others. But the Air Force was constantly about up-leveling. Okay. It was you put yourself in a space where you were surrounded by people who saw in you what you didn't see in yourself and held you accountable to achieving it. And so it wasn't just that they saw in you. They said, not only do we see it, but get in there and do it. And the number of times, as a woman in the military, I share this a lot, because one of

the things we see about women in leadership is that idea of opting out, right? We self-aliminate. Equias, yeah. Yeah. And the military never allowed me to do that. the moment I had a fear, I was surrounded by men who mostly said, that's bullshit, and too bad, figure it out. I don't care what you're afraid of, figure it out. And so I did. And over time, that just really built a level of confidence. So that's one, right?

Like, how do you stay in an organization? You know, we laugh sometimes because we say the men who join the organization are, this is very, very, very much a generalization. but men who join the military tend to be traditionalist right it's my job to be the protector to stand up to defend yeah women who join the military tend to be um trailblazers right like we like to uproot a system we're more i think uh i can't think of the word i'm looking for right now but like we're not badass no you're not you're not there to follow suit actually you're there to to crush it and And I never thought about it like this. This is so true.

Yeah. So the women tend to be like, we like to push the limits, right? We're like, let's change this. And I don't mean like go into a system and change everything, but go into a system and say, you no longer get to tell us we don't deserve to be here. Now, I had no one tell me that. I had a very lucky. I was very lucky in my career.

I worked for amazing leaders, almost my entire career. But anyway, but it wasn't without struggle now. This is the part I don't. really tell people a lot so you're getting the inside story um i spent most of my career single and but really wanted a partner you know but didn't have a lot of luck in dating and i found myself reading this is such a trope um i found myself reading a lot of relationship books you know because like what am i doing wrong yeah i can actually save the the the united states of america but like fuck how do you talk to a yeah my god i love this because if the expectation is you have to be tough and powerful and you can push limits

and boundaries you know it's so interesting as you were saying this i mean i had some of the best experiences as a civilian member in our national police force which is a very tiny experience compared to your massive one and i felt very lucky to be surrounded by very strong men who were wonderful leaders and did nothing but supported me and i mean multiple experiences that i would say were maybe not that good but the vast majority i was lucky to be aligned by people who who saw a vision and respected women. Yes. And that was instrumental in navigating my confidence in a space.

But it also then made me very defended in ways that I knew was important later on in my career, like vulnerability, curiosity, all of those things. Because I was badass. And I saw myself in that way. And that's really difficult to approach, I would imagine, particularly in 1995, you know, when we're navigating the sense of like, where do we fit? surrounded by very traditional, you know, men who want to care for potentially. And you're like, I got it. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because the relationship books, I wasn't reading them to be

able to navigate the system. I was reading them to understand where's my own disconnect in the relationships I was having, right? But I started to read things and I would be like, huh, that's interesting because I see that not only in my relationships, but I see that, I see this interact. playing out around me. So you saw the parallel. Yeah, I'll give you an example. I'll give you the moment I really saw it. I really saw it when I was I was the deputy of an organization.

I was, you know, and so I had mostly operational responsibility for the output, the results of the organization. And there was a guy on the team who when I first got there was wonderful, very kind, very generous. Hey, if you need my car to get around, you know, I was. somewhat overseas. And so he was very kind, very generous. And I thought, oh, this is a great team.

And over time, I watched how our relationship just started to just deteriorate. And I couldn't figure out why. Like, what is going on? And I read one day, I can't even believe I'm saying this out loud, I read one day the book, Why Mars and Venus Collide, which was the second, like a follow-on book to men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Yeah, yeah.

And it said, I can't even believe I'm saying this out loud. Oh, my God. I'm going to be so embarrassed. This is a throwback and I love it. This is how far we've come. Military leadership by John Gray. And so it's said in there that in relationships, when wives question their husbands too much, when they ask too many questions, the husbands start to feel like it's an interrogation and that maybe the spouse doesn't trust him. And for some reason, I thought, oh, that's interesting that that plays out as trust. And I thought to myself, I wonder if this guy thinks my asking questions to understand, because mind you, I'm responsible for the team, and I'm responsible to reporting out to the four star. What's going on? What are we, like, what are our updates?

And so I have to take what's happening here and I have to translate it when I'm out in the four stars meeting, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I'm asking a lot of questions for my understanding so that I can repeat it with a degree of like knowledge and real concrete depth. And so I thought, that's so interesting. I wonder if he feels like I don't trust him, like if he's mischaracterizing my questions. So I went into work and I thought, I'm going to play a little. I'm going to see what happens. So before I would talk to him, I would say, hey, thanks so much for doing this.

Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions? Because I really respect the work you've put into this and I want to understand it with a degree of depth that I can really explain it to the boss. But right now I don't have that depth. And so I'm just hoping to understand it more. And he's like, oh, yeah. And then every time I did that, I watched as he stopped fighting me and now he felt like he was helping me. You got back to the best in him.

Oh, my God, what's brilliant are you? Yeah. But it was a moment where I realized to use the language we were using earlier, like there was a story he was telling himself underneath it. My questions. Yeah. She doesn't trust me. She's, why isn't she just let, you know, I did the work.

why doesn't she just leave it be? I don't know what story he was telling himself. All because of John Gray. All because of John Gray. God damn it. Thank you. Thank you, John.

And then tell me, tell me then that led you to Brune. Well, that, I had, no, I had already been aware of Brne's work. So I think I already had some understanding this, right? You know, but it was like this moment where I realized. Yeah, that insight. Yeah, it's my job as a leader to pre-shape the narrative, my team might be telling themselves on any issue. I love that, to wonder, to be curious about that.

You could be right, you could be wrong, but what if? What if that's the case? Yeah. Yes. And to, like, and that comes back to probably my communication experience, right? Yeah. What is my messaging that pre-shapes a narrative before the narrative is established? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you've spent a lot of time sort of talking about that this emotion is being terrifying of really sort of being able to almost translate as a leader how you sort of take the emotional language and put it into this place of like getting the best out of people. What is some of this stuff? You know, how are you supporting leaders and building their emotional skills in a way that remains in alignment with their authority? because I love how you just described that there, that you know, you didn't have to acquiesce.

You didn't. We're like, I'm sorry, I don't get it. Could you help me here? It was really like presented in a way that anyway. So can you take us through that? Because I think that's the biggest skill set that we're going to see in a gap between the transition between current leaders who don't, and have an emotional language because they had much more proximity to their people

in a time where you can't show the next generation, you can't tell the next generation to do it how to show, you have to show them. and that skill set of being able to show really we don't have. And a lot of your work is really talking about how we do that. So can you take us through that? Yeah, if I understand your question. That's a great. Actually, that is a, you know, I don't have a communications degree.

And so you did, I mean, whatever the fuck you think I said there, you just, you just take it, really. I think what you're asking me is how do you get leaders comfortable with emotion without thinking it's drama. Yes. Yes, ma'am. That is exactly what I mean. Because people, I think people would have thought historically the leader should have said to him, like, what's going on? I'm getting a lot of resistance from you. I don't know why I'm getting a lot of resistance and that I have to go into his emotional drama for me to resolve it. But that's not at all what I did. What I did was I made a guess at what might be going on because I understood a little bit of humanity. I'd done the work. I had studied Bray's work. I had read relationship books, which are all about this undercurrent, what's going on

behind the behavior and the things we say, right? So I took a guess. Like, maybe he thinks I don't trust him. What would it look like if I communicated up front that I do? Yeah. And by just taking a wag, right, a wild-ass guess, by just taking a wag and pre-communicating the negative, the opposite of that wag, right, that he doesn't, that she doesn't trust me, communicating the opposite of that, completely neutralized his story. And it turned out to be right. But here's what I tell, like, so that's what I tell leaders, like, you have to just, one, you have to just start using the language.

And can I tell you a quick story? I mean, I'm all about stories. That's all I ever do is tell stories. I love it. In 2014, I was doing some research for the Air Force, and it was on leadership. And I thought, I should probably see what the Air Force has to say about leadership before I turn this paper in, right? Like talking about emotions and leadership. I think the title was like, leadership, you've got to feel your way through it.

And, but I'm not a paper writer, so it was horrible. But I was doing some work. And I looked at our most current manual on leadership. And it was talking about how our current core values, service, integrity, excellence are an evolution of these seven leadership traits that were in our very first manual on leadership, which was written in 1948. And of those seven that were the origin to the three we have now, of those seven, one of them was humanness. And I thought, what might these men in 1948? What might they have meant by humanness as a leadership core value? core value, yeah. So I went and looked up the 1948 document. And here's what was crazy. It was

filled. I mean, filled. And they're the same, the page, the documents were about the same length. I think it was like 89 and 94 pages. It was filled with words like feel and feeling. It was filled with words like fear. It was filled with words like shame. It had confidence, self-confidence, mercy, kindness. And it even had the word love. How many times do you think a 1948 document on leadership written by the men who had just come out of World War II? How many times do you think they talked about love as a leading core value?

What? A lot. Did they? 13 times. Yeah. And so... We know how to do this. We do.

It goes to what you said. Like, we're just going back to it. We've forgotten it. We've lost access to it. We haven't lost our ability to be great. That does me so much hope in humanity, you know? People often ask me like, why? Because I share this story.

I share that, you know, I share that research as a part of my keynote for two reasons. Because one, these were men. These weren't women coming into the military saying you got to be more touchy-feely. These were men who understood. You better love your people. And you better tell them you love them. Like they didn't just say that. They didn't just say that to one another.

They put that in writing, which means if they can put it in writing, they're saying it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. This is, I mean, literally, this is the manual. So in order to sort of speak something, I need to be able to show you the directions on how to do that. And love is as 13 times. Yeah.

And people often ask me like, why do you think, the long story short, the current manual didn't have any of that. Not one. Not one word of love. It had no, not one word of any of that stuff. Feelings, kindness. Feelings, fear, kindness. It had tactical, strategic, operational leadership. Wow.

And so people ask me why? Why do I think that transition happen? And here's, I don't have any, you know, could I tell you for sure or no, but here's what I think. I have two theories. One, in 1948, we had just come from the United States Army. We had just become our own service. Okay.

And so if you think about it, The army, we left the army because we believed air power was a better way to conduct warfare. And we left the army so we could focus solely on air power. Because there was so much resource tension, right? Because the army is all about holding ground. And the Air Force is all about air superiority. Yeah. Yeah.

And so if you think about it in 1948, we had just left the army. And if you think about what the Army's weapons system is, the Air Force's weapon system is, the Air Force's weapon system is air power, aircraft. The Army's weapon system is people. And I often say if you're a fighter pilot and you have to be able to maneuver that fighter jet better than anyone else could, you have to know that fighter jet inside and out to get it to do everything it can possibly do. You better know that jet like the back of your hand. And they do.

We train to it. Yeah, yeah. If your weapon system is people, you better know people inside and out so that you can maneuver people. And I hate to even say that because sometimes I even accidentally use the word manipulate. I get it. I understand what you're saying. I understand.

Yeah. If your weapon system is people and you need to maneuver that weapon system to the best of its ability, you have to understand all of its wiring, the exact same way a fighter pilot, understands its wiring, that jet's wiring, that jets capability, that hydro hydraulic system. I'm not a fighter pilot. But and so I think what happened was they knew that then. But over time, we became so focused on the technology of air power. We didn't focus as much on understanding the people weapon system as we focused on the technological weapon system. Here's the second part of this. So I think that's one. Okay. The second part of this is if you think in 1948,

I don't know how, I don't know if Canada was the same, but since 1948, we've become a much more secular society. Whereas in 1948, more people were regularly going to some type of faith community gathering. And if you think about faith communities, the language of love and kindness and mercy and fear is all around you. And when you are hearing a language that is all around you, you use it. Yeah. Yeah, you do what you know. You do what you've been exposed to, right?

Which is, I mean, basically exposure matters, representation matters, you know, what you sort of give the next generation your employees access to. All of that stuff is so much more powerful than what you say. Oh, my God. Yes. Tell me more. So, yeah, they were together more. They had proximity.

They had to understand humans. They didn't have to sort of fight the anonymous person in the machine next to them. They had to fight each other. Wow. And if you're hearing stuff like, you know, I share sometimes a little joke. Like I had one of my squadron commanders come to me one day and he said, ma'am, I'm going to need you to stop saying the word fabulous. And I was like, why? I said fabulous a lot.

I still do. And I said, why? And he said, because I was out with my bros and they were like, hey, dude, how's the TDY going? And I was like, fabulous. And he's like, man. I can't use the word fly. It was tricky for me. Then after that, oh my gosh.

And that he noticed that is so like, come on. Yeah. But here's the funny part is, right? Like he naturally picked it up because he was hearing it. Yeah. It just came out. Right. And so the same thing in 1948, the language just came.

out because we were all around it. And so I tell leaders today, if you can't say the words, you can't lead through that, those words. You can't lead in that behavior. So that goes back to what we never got to because I went off on a tangent, which is, what did I learn from Bray's work? Is that when it comes down to it, everything is a product of the language we understand, the language we use. If we want our organizations to feel connected, if we want our organizations to feel connected, if we want our organizations to feel safe, we have to use the emotional language that is the precursor to those things. I think you just landed that plane.

Oh my gosh. Okay. Colonel, I learned more in this 40-minute interview than you've made me think about things in a different way than I've thought about for a very long time. And I just, I so. I so admire. So admire all of this so much. Can you, I mean, again, you've heard in the, you know, audience you'll hear in the, in the, um, intro.

But I, I'm just so interested in, you know, your let's do this candor. You now are, you know, do a lot of key notes. What, what's next for you? Is there a book? Are you continuing in this leadership? Like, are you, are you left the military? Is this right? Or where are you at in your life?

Okay. Yeah. And so. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. What's next? You know, I think my experience has taught me, I think that as we are watching society change, as leaders are hearing, and I do think they are, leaders are hearing that they need to be more human themselves

and they need to understand the humans they are leading better. And I do think they're hearing that. I meet so many leaders when I'm out on the road, when I'm doing a keynote, I meet so many leaders who come up and they say, yeah, I get it. I want to do it. And the leaders I'm coaching. I want to do it. They get stuck on how to say it.

They don't know what empathy looks like in words. They don't know. How do I start an empathetic conversation? How do I start a curiosity conversation that doesn't turn into an interrogation? How do I give feedback in a way that doesn't shame? How do I start that conversation so I don't end up shaming someone and just creating more work for myself? So I think what I'm going to do, and I'm very in the very early stages, is I'm putting together some materials that are basically scripts that people will be able to download on what it might sound like. When you find yourself in this situation, what does it sound like?

Because if you can hear what it sounds like, it makes it, I think it gives you, I often call them like training wheels. Yeah, yeah. But if you can hear what it sounds like and you can see it. on paper that it doesn't disconnect you from your authority and it doesn't disconnect you from your position, it feels so much safer to use it. It feels like I can do that. Oh, I hear you. I hear you. And you know what? I think that's a brilliant approach. I think it's so necessary because I think it also mirrors what you've said this whole time is that we can't tell people how to be great. We have to show them. And in this world where we've been so overwhelmed, it feels a little bit condescending.

It feels a little bit like I assume I'm going to make it too easy to, you know, to use a very potentially offensive term, like dumb it down. And I think it's never been more important to get back to the thing we always know to be true is that the more simpler, simpler we can create it. The more easy it's going to be to digest right now. And so when you are sort of saying what I think the world needs is really some very clear direction on how to do this in a world where we've never had a script for before. in a time where we've never been this overwhelmed.

Of course, every new generation is writing a new script. We are doing it in a time where there is never been this much uncertainty, fear, and no end in sight. Those are the three ingredients for emotional dysregulation. And so what we need from our leadership, from the leaders, the thought leaders in the world of leadership, which, you know, as you have said, and, you know, I feel too, you know, Brene, some of our leaders of how to do this have perpetually always said, right? is how do I show you how to do this in a very clear way so that when you get dysregulated,

you can have some place to land. Yeah. Love it. We need it. I cannot wait to watch what you do. I think you're just getting started, even though you've had a frigging career that I, it's going to take me a long time to do this intro. Amazing.

Amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for continuing to sort of use what, um, this globe is. taught you and continue to do good in this world because we need it now more than ever.

Thank you. This was so much fun. Can we do it every week? Yes, ma'am. Yes, I will be right here waiting for you. Oh, and everybody else, I want you to take care of yourself, take care of each other, drop those shoulders today, lean in. We were never meant to do any of this alone, and I'm so glad you're here. I cannot wait to meet you right back here next time. You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement and every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on the land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be

of utmost importance to me and this team. So everything, thing that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Sikika, the Kainai, the Pekina, the Titina First Nation, the Stony Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better, and stay connected to the good. The Unloanly podcast is produced by three incredible humans, Brian Siever, Taylor McGilvery, and Jeremy Saunders, all of Snack Lab productions.

Our executive producer, my favorite human on this planet, is Marty Pillar. Soundtracks were created by Donovan Morgan, Unloney branded artwork created by Elliot Cuss, our big PR shooters, our Desvinoe and Barry Cohen. Our digital marketing manager is the amazing, Shayna Haddon. Our 007 secret agent from the Talent Bureau is Jeff Lowness. And emotional support is provided by Asher Grant, Evan Grant, and Olivia Grant. Go live! I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada.

The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and the one thing I think we all need the most, a safe place to land in this lonely world. We're all so glad you're here.