WHOOP Podcast - Unlocking Your Last 20% To Perform Your Best with Military Test Fighter Pilot Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

This week on the WHOOP Podcast, WHOOP SVP of Research Algorithms and Data Emily Capodilupo sits down with best-selling author, military test fighter pilot, and former Airforce Chief of AI Test and Operations, Tucker “Cinco”  Hamilton. Tucker shares his experience operating at the edge of human performance – from life-or-death situations in the cockpit to navigating the future of AI development, he breaks down why it's essential to unlock elite performance. Tucker presents his idea behind tapping into your “last 20%”, marking the difference between good performance and fulfilled performance to unlock strong clarity, purpose, and character. Emily and Tucker break down the evergrowing tech industry and the impacts of AI, key leadership lessons from the Air Force, and even acknowledge Tucker’s role in inspiring Top Gun: Maverick. This episode explores the true meaning of resilience, leadership, and why recovery, community, and mindset are essential tools for combatting the high-stakes world of technology. Shop Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton’s Book, Unlocking the Last 20%: Rising to Greatness through Discipline, Balance, and Resiliency here.(01:10) Introduction to Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton(03:09) Becoming A Fighter Pilot(10:01) From Pilot To Leader in AI(16:07) Where The US Military Stands On AI(19:09) Human to AI Connection: Where Is AI Regulation Needed?(24:15) The Last 20%: How to Unlock Human Potential(35:19) When Is Stress Productive And When Are You Just Burning Out?? (42:40) Ejecting From A Fighter Jet: Building Resilience After A Life Changing Crash(54:21) Importance of Community: How To Find Yours(01:01:24) Betty Robinson: A Story On Resilience(01:08:47) Top Gun: Is Tucker The Inspiration Behind Maverick?Follow Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton:InstagramLinkedInWebsiteSupport the showFollow WHOOP:Sign up for WHOOP Advanced LabsTrial WHOOP for Freewww.whoop.comInstagramTikTokYouTubeXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will Ahmed:InstagramXLinkedInFollow Kristen Holmes:InstagramLinkedInFollow Emily Capodilupo:LinkedIn 

There is something fundamentally missing from the conversation with regard to human performance and human potential. A lot of people find themselves wanting to accomplish more, do more, but they hit like a wall. If they don't recognize that there is something that they can tap into, that's the last 20%. Life is really an expression of resiliency. You had this really scary experience where you had to eject from an F-15 during a test exercise. I was a fairly young pilot in the Air Force. I've been flying for a handful of years. and we're 5,300 feet away from each other.

We're seven seconds from impact. I see his jet not move on my canopy, which means you're on a collision course. We collide. It's around 500 miles an hour between the two of us as we hit. It is just mass chaos. I'm getting thrown around the cockpit.

I don't know what's going on. My mind is not with it. Sometimes you only have a split second to reflect on your life. We need to understand preparation and how we're treating ourselves and how we're treating our community. And that's what helps us in that moment of chaos.

Sometimes we experience failure and we don't have anything to do with it. But you still have to deal with it. And you need to be centered on who you're trying to become. You can have failures and you can still feel like, oh, I'm growing towards something. Hi, everybody. I am Emily Capitaluppo, Woop Senior Vice President of Research Algorithms and Data. And today's guest is someone who has operated at the absolute edge of human and technological

performance. Tucker Hamilton is a retired U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, an F-35 test pilot, and leader in AI-enabled autonomous system. He flew combat missions, graduated from the U.S. Air Force test pilot school, ranked in the top 1% of officers in his peer group, and went on to serve as an experimental test pilot, helping shape the future of advanced fighter aircraft and autonomous systems at the intersection of national defense and artificial intelligence. Tucker and I met in January in Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum. When Tucker was brought on stage, he was introduced as the guy Maverick from Top Gun is based on, and that may or may not be, fully accurate and we will definitely come back to that later in the pod, but it gives you a sense of the caliber and mythology around his career. Beyond the cockpit, Tucker has become a thought

leader on high performance, resilience, and character-driven leadership. In his upcoming book, The Last 20%, he argues that most of us operate at about 80% of our potential, and he draws from life or death aviation experiences, performance psychology, and disciplined preparation to explore how we unlock that final 20%. Tucker's book just came out. So definitely check it out and we will chat more about it later in the episode. Despite us meeting in Switzerland, Tucker, it turned out, was not only local to Boston where whoop is headquartered and where we are recording this podcast today, but he's also buds with my brother-in-law who is himself a retired Air Force pilot. And once I realized that we'd all these

fun connections, I knew I had to have him on the podcast. This conversation is about operating under pressure, building sustainable excellence, and what it means to remain distinctly human in an AI accelerated world. I am so excited to bring Tucker to you. Tucker, thank you so much for being here today. Emily, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. So I want to start off a little bit about you. What brought you to the Air Force? And how did you become a fighter pilot? Well, first off, yeah, thanks for allowing me to share some of my perspective, my biased perspective, but nonetheless. And I hope that this conversation, and if people are able to go pick up my book, that they can garner something for them in it. I do want to mention real quick.

before we jump too far into it, that my opinions are, you know, mine alone and not of the U.S. government or anything like that. So that's just me sharing some thoughts. I kind of found myself as an accidental fighter pilot, is what I would say. I went to college at the University of Colorado and I, on a whim, tried Air Force ROTC, and never planned to join the military. I fell in love with it. The people were amazing. The discipline was really helpful as I was getting into college. And I never planned on flying either. And then right before graduating college, I found out that I could pass a previously failed eye exam because I had a depth perception problem.

And so I ended up passing it with some classes. It was as simple as that. They're like, hey, you know, if you put on glasses, you could pass this test. And I was like, okay, I'll give it a try. And I passed the test three months before, four months before I graduated from college. And then about three weeks later, after I passed the test, they offered me a pilot slot. I was like, all right, I guess I'll give this a try. I wasn't really passionate about what else I was going to do.

I knew I just wanted to serve. And so I ended up in pilot training. I went through Navy pilot training, even though I'm an Air Force pilot. There are a few of us that got to go through that experience. And I actually almost quit pilot training numerous times. Funny enough, found it somewhat monotonous. And it wasn't as thrilling as I was expecting. Well, and mind you, I had to balance that with an expectation that I'd be doing this shop for 10 years

as a 10-year commitment back when I went through. So I ended up listening to really important voices of my life, primarily my wife, and I stuck with it. And then I fell in love with it once I got to my fighter aircraft of the F-15C. Because of the people primarily, the mission was exciting, the technology was cool. And it's been a fantastic career, you know, flying fighter aircraft and testing them. But I never really planned on it. And it just, It goes to show that we don't always know how things are going to unfold, and we don't have to have everything planned out. Yeah, it's funny. So my sister and brother-in-law were in the Air Force, and when my sister joined all of her friends, because nobody growing up, we didn't know anybody who had gone to the Air Force. Everybody assumed that you go to the Air Force and everybody's a pilot. And it turns out that actually it's like single-digit percentage of people that are actually pilots. There's loads of other jobs in the Air Force. It's incredibly competitive. So what did you think you were going to do?

So I was originally slated to go be a navigator because my, whatever test I failed for pilot, I had passed the portion that I needed to be a navigator. And I was not thrilled about that or excited. I was expecting to probably just not do that and then go into engineering field. My degree was in aerospace engineering. So I'd be an engineer for a couple of years and served in whatever capacity I could. I mean, I genuinely went into the Air Force wanting to be a leader. Right. Like the movie is a brave heart. Like totally inspired me when I was a teenager. I think the first movie I remember like crying at. I just was so like impassioned with like you got to fight for freedom. And then it really came together in 98 when saving private Ryan came out because this was

right before I went to college. And that that idea of like serving something greater than ourself and my parents were firefighters. My mom was a paramedic and they imbued in that idea for sure, but like serving something greater than yourself to fight for freedom and to represent, you know, values that we care about, really set me up to receive a brochure, like a week after I saw that movie from Air Force ROTC. And I gave him a call and I was like, hey, what is this all about? And I remember because of that, that arc, I ended up joining ROTC. I love that story because it's like your parents are first responders. So in some ways you fit the profile. But it's a kind of cool example of how just being open to

you know, new experiences or new information and you get this brochure and all of a sudden your, you know, your whole life changes from one brochure. Yeah. All right. So you just became a pilot, right? And maybe didn't plan on it, but that's where you find yourself. How do we get to the place where John Warner's spreading rumors in Switzerland that you're the guy that Maverick from Top Gun his face off?

It was a 24-year gap between you becoming an officer in the military. and this amazing mentor of mine, John Werner, he's fantastic. So what's that story? Yeah. So, I mean, ultimately, I will give a cliff notes. I became a single-seat air-to-air fighter pilot, so F-15 Cs. And I did that for a couple years. From there, I became an air liaison officer where I'm the person on the ground

coordinating airstrikes. So I'm the one talking to the aircraft, but I'm integrated with the Army troops that are on the ground. And while I was an air liaison officer in Germany, I have a lot of the air liaison officer in Germany, I had an opportunity to become the initial cadre of a brand new aircraft called the MC12. It was an intelligence surveillance reconnaissance aircraft, and I stood it up in combat. There were about 10 of us that were boots on the ground first. We were literally like building desks and creating internet cable in the middle of Bogram Airfield in Afghanistan. And we made

this aircraft, I think, really impactful. And we are the eyes and the ears of the special operators on the ground. From there, because actually that experience and my fighter, background. I got picked up for test pilot school, a very competitive process. And we're the first ones, we go through a year-long school, but we're the first ones that fly aircraft or aircraft systems.

We make sure that it's safe. We make sure that it contractually meets the specifications that the U.S. government has paid whatever company to deliver. And then we handed over to other operational test pilots, we call them, who develop the tactics behind it. But we're the first ones to fly things.

And so, special school for that, I become a test pilot in the F-15C and F-15E, which are fighter aircraft. And then I do some programmatic work in the F-35, where I was overseeing in Washington, D.C., how the F-35 was being tested and developed. But then I had an amazing opportunity and I became the commander of F-35 development, where now I was overseeing a thousand-person organization flying the F-35A, B, and C variant to make sure that it was ready for the warfighter. From there, I jumped. to become the director of the MIT AI accelerator, which was a first of its kind AI unit for the Department of the Air Force, working alongside MIT, all for common good, all dual use case.

We were just researching things together that we thought would be beneficial for society. So how did that leap happen? Because pilot training and AI training are very different training. So what was that leap? Yeah, I would say that becoming a test pilot taught me a lot about acquisition. And of course, I had a technological background. I have a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, a master's degree in aerospace engineering, and a master's degree in flight test engineering that I got through test pilot school.

So those degrees are kind of what's needed or like science STEM degrees. We needed to be the ambassador for technology. And so as I was here at MIT, I was doing a fellowship right before I became that director of the AI accelerator. there weren't many people of my rank that had the technical background and I was in the right place of the right time kind of thing. And the test experience is really beneficial. And so they were able to put me in as somewhat of a program manager. And while I was there, I was at that point learning about AI. And this was back in 2019 when these decisions were made. And I'll tell you, I planned on getting out of the Air Force earlier than I did. So I did after the AI accelerator,

I became the chief of AI test and operations for the Department of the Air Force. So I oversaw the operationalization of machine learning from generative AI all the way to AI-enabled autonomy. And I was down at Eglon Air Force Base as what we call the operations group commander. So I oversaw all the operations down there, which is overseeing the flight test of 18 different platforms and all of our weapons. And then part of that was the first AI-enabled autonomous systems, which we can talk about, which was pretty thrilling.

And I flew at that assignment, the F-15C, F-15E, and F-15-E. X, the new F-15 variant. But why I bring all that together is because I continued to serve at Egglin because when I showed up as a director of the MIT AI accelerator, I didn't know much about AI. And I became extremely concerned about our national security, the vector that we were taking as a military and as a society. And I wanted to serve at least one more time because I was, I had never before in my entire career been concerned about where we were going as a nation until I was in that role and realized that the technology was moving much faster than we were prepared to accept it. I should pause and just say again, thank you for your service. What you've done is absolutely incredible and just sort of grateful that there are people like you who are staying in the military to keep all of us safe. So thank you for what you did. And, you know, I think the story you're telling is really important because so many people think that, like, AI started in 2022 when chat GPT3 was announced.

And people have had these aha moments at different times. But if you really start to understand it, you realize that, like, if we don't pay attention, this is a little bit of a scary moment that's going to happen to us, whether you're aware of it or not. So I want to dig in a little more. So this is before chat GP3 made AI cool when people think AI was invented. you have this moment of this is a really terrifying national security threat. Was the military ready to hear that message? No. How did you get buy in?

Because you end up leading this really important and totally novel like AI integration effort. But most people aren't really aware that AI is more than just sci-fi or if they think it's real, think it's much further out than it actually is at that point. Yeah. No, absolutely. So I will say that there were leaders. in the military that understood the importance of it. And they're the ones that stood up like the AI accelerator.

I was there to be like the person standing it up, but they're the ones that said make this happen, this sobriety, we're going to fund it. So they're leaders that understood that. I think the difficulty is our bureaucracy and our acquisition process, it's all very legacy. And it is not really set up for us to be able to adopt technology at the speed of relevance. And so it was extremely difficult and frustrating because back in 2020, I knew large language models, and I was a nube in AI, but I knew large language models were going to be revolutionary, transformative.

And so we're going to senior leaders saying, hey, we need to figure out right now how we're going to adopt this. And they're like, yeah, this is interesting. This is right. And they're trying to fight against this bureaucracy too. They're not as empowered as people sometimes wish they were or imagine they are. And it was, I think the most frustrating was like we saw it coming. We didn't do anything about it. And then ChachyPT, the moment happens where everyone's like, oh, my goodness.

And then it starts taking the nation or society by storm. The military is still not doing anything about it at that moment. And then we're at that point almost reactive saying, hey, we really need to adopt this. And we just keep going month after month. And it seems almost year after year. And we've just now recently started adopting large language. model tools years behind. And so I'm thinking like, well, what's the next thing that we're not really focused on, you know, trying to lay the foundation to adopt, which it just takes time

to adopt that type of technology in the military. And so if it takes time, you have to be more of a visionary and say, okay, what is coming? And I think, for instance, like robotics, it's basically here. And what are we doing to adopt it ethically, responsibly? And so it's always been a challenge because our system is not able to respond to the technology acceleration that's been happening. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com.

It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable. in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guests. When you say that the military was behind on AI, are you saying like relative to the tech industry and where the tech is? Are you saying relative to other militaries around the world? I would argue relative to the tech industry. And where would you rank us kind of in terms of globally?

I would say the U.S. and China are leaders in artificial intelligence development. I think we as a military, I won't get into all the details. Yeah, but we as a military are adopting tools, and I think we're mindful of how to best apply them initially. The thing is we don't control how other people are going to adopt them. And so there's a tension, like we need to go fast, but how fast do we need to go, what kind of things are going to trip us up? on that our own acceleration. And I think we also are concerned about non-state actors, right? So it's not just an adversarial threat that we may find from, you know,

someone out there that we're concerned about. It is no kidding. People that can get these tools and do things, maybe it's the biological weapons. Maybe it isn't just infrastructure, cybersecurity, you know, and that's a real, real concern. So I think we are getting there, but I'm thinking we're getting there too slow. And I'm also thinking because we're now being reactive, we're not being proactive to that next thing. Yeah. And I think that's probably true in so many places. I think a lot of what you're talking about is relevant even to companies that are trying to figure out how do we adopt this technology, although more consequential with the military. Yeah. Well, and we, so I'm on a U.S. delegation with the Brookings Institute in dialogue with China on the ethics of AI and autonomy. So it's bilateral discussions we meet. It's been.

very rewarding sitting across the table from them and discussing their perspective and the importance of us working together as a human race to ensure that we're thinking through like what are the implications of, for instance, AI being a part of the nuclear decision making, like launch decision making. None of us want AI. No one, and I don't think of the world, except for maybe people that want to see the world destroyed, want AI involved at that level. But the difficulty and complexities of AI become, okay, so we don't want AI involved with nuclear launch decision making. Well, we have leaders then and people that are going to be responsible for that. Where are they getting their information from?

Are they getting their information from AI systems that are maybe summarizing or targeting or providing some type of prescription? And maybe where are they, you know, the next level down, where are they getting their information from? So the complexities are real, and I think that that is really important conversations for us to have as a society, as America, with our partners and even with, you know, people from other nations regarding the safe and secure adoption of this technology for the human race. You know, I think you're bringing up such an interesting point of like, it feels really obvious when you say, you know, you don't want AI to have the autonomy to just ship nukes, right? that feels really scary. But if all the humans who are actually pushing the button are more or less just being told by the AI, you know, all things point to we should ship the nukes, it's almost the same thing, right? And so how do you create a system where we get all the advantages of being AI enabled without losing the really important stuff? And, you know, kind of going back to this

concept in your book of the last 20 percent, like as AI is taking over a lot of execution, heavy tasks, the definition of what elite performance and what sort of the role of humans necessarily shifts. And so if machines are operating at this, the 80%, and then the humans are offering this critical last 20%, how does our role change? And how do you retrain humans in a world where AI does have this really, really important role? What's like the humanity piece that's left? and how do we work with these in a way that's effective? Yeah. I mean, ultimately, we've had a relationship with technology

over, especially over the past 100 years, as it's been advancing. And we've had to figure out how we're going to use technology for the betterment of humanity, or some people maybe for nefarious reasons. But the idea is we need to be able to work together. AI is moving so fast that it's sometimes hard to know what that's going to look like, what it's going to disrupt next.

I do think the machines, I mean, machines are going to do what machines do best, and we're going to create them to do what they do best, ideally. And so they're going to always be executing, you know, at their 100%, if you will, like they're made for a reason and they're going to do that reason. I think it's really important for us to make sure that we have governance over those systems, that we have guardrails in place, that we are aligned with those systems, so that they're not doing something that we were not expecting. expecting. And there's ways to do that, and there's ways that we've developed that technology in

aviation, for instance, is we're testing AI agents and their use in a cockpit. I'll be clear to the listeners. We are not deploying that, but we are testing what that would look like. The idea, the kind of the premise of the book, too, and I think what you're getting at is, you know, humans often have a desire to accomplish things, right? We, for the most part, want to win the race, we want to ace the test, we want to get into the college, we want to, you know, get the partner, you know, whatever it is. We're like a, we're trying to attain. And I think at times we don't fully know how to exercise our full potential and be present and be balanced and have an impact that is ultimately going to bring us fulfillment. And I think it's

because we get either distracted or we're underprepared or we're kind of buying into what our society's telling us, which is just you got to work harder, you know, go out and grind and wake up at 4 a.m. And be the first person at the gym. And like there's some truth to that in the sense of like grit is really important. But I think for a sustained, fulfilling life, we need to be more engaged. And it's about character development more than it's about attaining anything in particular. So I, I would venture to say that I think a lot of people find themselves wanting to accomplish more, do more, but they hit like a wall, if you will. They don't recognize that there is something that they can tap into.

And it's not necessarily what they've always been told. And I think it's like being able to be focused on like a holistic life, right? Being focused on where you're trying to go. So having a very clear purpose and then driving towards that purpose in a way that you're doesn't disregard other aspects of your being. And why that's all important as we talk about technology is the future is going to be us working alongside AI-enabled systems. It's going to require human machine teaming. And that means we're going to have to bring the best version of ourselves. And we're going to make sure that we have our own character that is strong, that we're

pursuing virtue so that that last 20% is about human agency. And it's about us working alongside but being the best version of ourselves as we try to adopt technology to help optimize our performance. Yeah, and I think that's such a great segue into your new book, because you talk a lot about how the ability to unlock that last 20% doesn't come from pushing harder or grinding harder, right? But it's it's prioritizing recovery, prioritizing sleep, which are inherently very whoop messages. So thank you. We're on the same side here. And that you actually do need to include rest in order to go further. And, you know, in a lot of ways, that was the insight that led to the creation of whoop 14 years ago was that, you know, you actually

sometimes need to do less to two more. And so hopefully I've teed up your book well. But if you can give people, who's this book for? Why should they read it? And where can they find it? I wrote the book, I mean, just candidly, I wrote the book for my kids initially. I lost my father to cancer and he was a smoker and he died when I was 21 years old. And we had a great relationship as I grew up from that age and was married shortly after he passed and then started having kids. There are these questions I wish I could have asked him. And so I just captured some lessons learned that turned into more of this idea of fast forward several years as I was putting these stories to paper. It started in this idea of like, I think that there is something

fundamentally missing from the conversation with regard to human performance and human potential. And so that kind of built, built basically the thesis, which is we need to figure out a purpose in our life. What are we living for? And I would venture to say, and I'd try to make the argument there, that it needs to be about who we're becoming and not what we're attaining. Right. So there's that part of it, which is great, being prepared and being disciplined, being resilient. What does resiliency really look like? And then I kind of turn some of the whole human performance in a direction that I think is powerful but not talked about enough, which is like our community.

Like it's really about our connections and our relationships and how we're engaged with the people around us from our family to our faith communities, to our local community, to our nation, right? And that to me has to be a part of this equation of who, are we trying to become? Because at the end of the day, you can go get the best time. You could go get the RX and CrossFit. But who are you becoming when you do that? And what are you trying to attain at the back end of that? Because you can have a goal and accomplish it, but then what? Right. Oh, I'm going to something bigger. And I think at times we go along that path and we forget

that we were only there because of the amazing people around us. We were only there because of certain opportunities that fell into our lap. We were only there that we took, you know, that we took advantage of opportunities. And so how are we prepared to fully do that? And I get into technology as well, like, how do we adopt technology? And what kind of legacy are we leading? And we talk about generational resiliency too. So that is like the premise of the book.

It's, I think, for people that either want to hear like really crazy aviation stories, which I have several in there, and or, you know, people that are, you know, interested in, like, maybe there's more to becoming a, like, the best version of myself than simply, like, this individual effort that I just need to, I just need to try harder and do better. Like, no, it's for people that feel they may be stuck. I do think that a lot of people don't realize they're stuck. And at some point in my life, I was the same. I was a young fighter pilot. And I was working 12-hour days, five days a week, Saturdays, 10 to 12-hour days, Sundays, preparing for that week's missions.

And I would have worked even harder, but we have something called crew rest. Yeah. Where you only can work 12 hours. You can work more than 12 hours, but you have to be off for 12 hours after you leave work before you show back up if you're going to fly. And you're supposed to get eight hours of unenrupted rest in those 12 hours of uninterrupted rest in order, we call it crew rest, so that you're no kidding able to perform. And I was doing all those things.

And I had a good marriage and I had a good faith, like, foundation. And in the book, I talk a lot about balance and our four pillars, our physical, social, mental, and spiritual pillars, how important that is. But point is, I actually, like, found myself just grinding and grinding and not feeling like I was fulfilled, not feeling like I was accomplishing what I wanted to. But from the outside, it looked normal. It looked great. But from the inside, it wasn't there.

I hope people are reflective and they're self-aware of how they could possibly be doing more. right, how they could be rising to their own greatness, like the subtitle, rising to greatness. I mean, the idea is everyone has, I think, a level of greatness that they're trying to pursue and go for it, right? But I think you have to go for it in this other fashion. So it's for them, those people. And I think it's such an important message. And I think definitely what I've seen with my siblings in the military and with, you know, I went to Harvard to have lots of high performing friends and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, we normalize for each other that grind culture and we celebrate it. And grind culture leads to all the kind of external things that

give you those dopamine hits and make you feel like you're doing the right things. And it is so important and hard because it is legitimately countercultural to say, I'm going to not grind this weekend or I'm going to take tonight off. It's like, yeah. Oh, so important. Yeah. That's where, you know, like I celebrate what you guys are doing here, right? Like giving people data. I feel like this type of technology is super empowering. You're giving people information about, you know, and this is not a commercial for a whoop. But the idea, right? Like, I love that idea. It's empowering because you're giving them like tools to allow them to recognize, maybe patterns that they were previously unaware of. And then they have to deal with the underlying, yeah, what's the impact that I am maybe only

getting four hours a good sleep every night? And I should be getting eight. So why is that? And I hope that they're being reflective, like, oh, it's because I'm super anxious and why are you anxious? Like, these are the conversations we need to have with our community and the people that surround us, you know, but I think if you want to perform, yeah, you need to have good sleep. You need to have a good diet. Okay, great. You also need to, like, have good relationships and you need to be centered on, like, who you're trying to become and being fulfilled even through the failures.

Like, you can have failures and you can still feel like, oh, I'm growing towards something. And like that comes, I think, from like this, once again, this holistic mindset, this approach. Yeah. And I think, you know, that's in a lot of ways, whoops, origin story. So Will Ahmed, our founder, CEO, overtrained his senior year of playing squash at Harvard and just kind of had this moment of how come nobody realized I was working too hard. And like, you know, Fitbit already existed at this point. And, you know, the Nike fuel band. And they were trying to get people really going after the couch to 5K crowds of how do you encourage people to do more. Most people aren't moving enough.

And sort of Will saw this opportunity on the other side of, you know, in these high performance cultures, people don't have the confidence or maybe even skills or psychological safety to say, hey, I need to rest today. And they're so afraid of being lazy or being seen as lazy that they would never say, actually what my body needs is to sleep in and skip practice. Like that would be so completely unacceptable. either to them or to their coaches. And I remember a couple weeks after I started at Woop,

there was this national story about a hockey player who died on the ice. And like it wasn't feeling well. And before practice, like had a heart attack or something crazy like that. And it was just like it never would have been acceptable in that, the culture of that team to say, I don't feel well. I'm not going to practice. It's literally like if you have a heartbeat, you know, get on the ice. and just that idea that, you know, how could you give, like almost, you know, take that pressure off the person, get this objective third party.

That's what we wanted to be was this objective third party that could just say to you and to your coach, like actually the best thing we can do right now is nothing or sleep or, you know, eat or something like that. Because people are, you know, at this end of high performance, they don't need to be told to do more. they have too much motivation, too much ambition. And so how do you like help them temper that? And not that surprisingly, given everything you're saying, but like the military adopted Roop really early. And we had a lot of success throughout the military because it's that same issue. It's that there's, it's, it's just not acceptable. And a lot of it's, you know, people are very driven and they're super mission oriented, right? And they're trying to do the right thing and to show up for all their people. But you do need that permission. And so I think it's so beautiful. And, you know, I hope people do

read your book that you're trying to remind people that, you know, it's a long marathon, not a sprint. You have to be in it for the long game. And you do have to protect yourself. And it's not selfish to do that. Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate that, that story about the hockey player. And I do think at times there's something in us that we sometimes do need to push harder. But I think that comes down to the self-awareness and being kind of in tune with our body. and also being mindful of like how we're fueling our body and how we're preparing, you know, for those moments. And I think when we're harmonized with that, we have a better feeling like this isn't right. And then being in the right culture where we feel like we can actually say something about it.

And the fighter pilot community is extremely competitive, like in a really rewarding type of way. Like we're always pushing each other to be better. And I've never seen any kind of like backstack. or it's not like corporate world. I mean, it's just really competitive. It's hard to get into. It's very hard to get into. And it's very supportive to a degree. Like we're very hard on each other in a like loving fashion. Like we will we will debrief every mission. Like we have a very tried and trued effort of making sure that we are just always trying to do better than the time before. In our culture though, it is grind, grind, grind. It's the same. Right. Like no, yeah, you want to be

good. You're going to have to show up every day and work 12-hour days. And like, who cares about your family? Who cares about those other relationships? Your relationship is here. And that, too, I think, is something that we can sustain for a period of time. But in the end, we'll leave us wanting. Because those relationships are, they're going to be there. Like, I'm still friends with those pilots that I was in the, you know, squadron with. But there's something more, right? And then how do we take that and be a positive influence in our community, right? Like those are the relationships that are going to matter are beyond, you know, those tight-knit competitive moments.

And I think that's where kind of mental health is also a really important aspect of who we're becoming because it can feed itself until you find your, you know, until you find yourself in a really bad situation. Whoop Advanced Labs is now offering specialized panels, an all new way to dial deeper into your health. No subscription required. Learn more at whoop.com. One of the things that I think is different between the way the military really pushes you

in these sort of like very intense ways versus say corporate culture is a lot of times in the military because you might end up in high-stake situations that actually really require you to go to the absolute limit of your physical. abilities, you kind of need to know what that feels like to know that like you can be there and be okay, which is different from corporate culture where we're not training for life and death sort of intense physical things. So I'm curious, like most of our listeners are not, you know, are more corporate or athletes and they're not in, you know, these very intense situations. But what advice would you give to the listeners in terms of like how to take a lot of what you learn from the military and maybe some of what's in your book, too, to sort of balance

stress and think about when is stress productive? Like, I have to be uncomfortable to learn that I can do this hard thing, and that's adaptive versus what's a place that you're probably, you've crossed over into like a maladaptive stress state and you're just burning out. How would you think about that? Yeah, I think you rightly pointed out it's definitely different in the stressful environments that we're at, and a lot of military members experience this, certain career fields in the military experience this. I think fighter pilots probably experienced it arguably more than a lot of others, because every time we're taking up that jet, right, like we're doing things that are

very aggressive and we're doing things that happen very quickly. And maneuvering in three-dimensional space against another aircraft is very dynamic. And so it does feel like every time I jump into that jet, I say a prayer, I stay focused. I take a breath and then I go do my job and it is intense because you have to be 100% present in those moments, which means you needed to have the good sleep beforehand. You need to be working out so you're physically prepared for what the jet's going to demand of you. You have to be clear of mind and you have to let things go because like no kidding,

microsecond distractions when you're in the heat of something could lead to your death or someone else's death, right? So it's very intense. And even the training missions are just as intense. There's a lot, though, for corporate America or people in that world to learn from. And some of it is, as you would expect, how do you time manage and how do you compartmentalize certain information? I think compartmentalizing can be healthy in like micro, but not like in reality.

We don't want to just bury everything. And then like what's that going to turn into a mess? You know, we don't. So we want to be able to compartmentalize certain things. We want to put ourselves in situations where we're aiming. emulating even more stressful things. Like, for instance, we will do exercises that are very intense in the military, in aviation world.

We call them red flag exercises. There's a movie made about them so people may be familiar. But that kind of prepares people for combat. And so you can do that. I think there's some other really important lessons like chair flying. That is universal. So chair flying is something that you actually could see too. And I guess a lot of movies have some of these documentaries about the Blue Angels or the

Thunderbirds. But the idea is fighter pilots do this all the time. Pilots in general, you sit there and you visualize and imagine your entire mission that you're going to do. You even close your eyes at times, but every single movement you think about and sometimes you'll even mimic. So I'll sit there with my eyes closed and, okay, I have an engine firelight. I'm going to, you know, pull this engine back and I look up over here where the firelights are and I'm going to recognize if it's a flashing light or a solid light. If it's a flashing light, I'm going to check this over here.

If it's a solid light, I'm going to press the button here. And then I'm going to turn the third. Right? So you're going through every, and you do that for, you'll sit there and chairfly for, you know,

10 minutes and hour, whatever it is. Yeah. And you can actually apply that same lesson to preparing, you know, for certain exchanges or meetings you're going to have. I think you can also have, like reflective conversations at the end of something like pilots,

fighter pilots do is. debrief, hey, rank is off. We call it like, hey, rank is off. I don't care what rank you are. Like, you could be a general officer. And I've flown with three star generals where they were in the cockpit with me in the MC12. And, you know, I had to debrief him on mistakes that he had made. Right. And so how do you do that? If you're sitting next to the CEO and you're like, hey, boss, like, you could have done this better. But that's the type of culture that we develop. And I think that's really powerful for companies to be able to adopt. And I think there are other tools as well of like you really want the most from your people, well, you actually have to lead them,

right? That's one thing that I think we often like to talk about is how leadership's important. No, like actually go exercise leadership by leading people, which means looking out for them, recognizing when they may have more to give, recognizing when they may need mentorship or they may need autonomy or where they may need, you know, certain feedback mechanisms to help, you know, guide and direct them towards the best version of them. themselves. And so all those things are fairly universal, and I think it could be really powerful for corporate America. And I fear that the culture is hard to change. And when we do change that culture, I think we're actually empowering organizations to be more successful than what we're

kind of throttling them back to be when we're imagining like this kind of grind culture and we just got to get it done. And so that's kind of, you know, what I would say. I like that a little phrase that you just gave everybody of rank is off and the like reminder to invite people to maybe say something that might feel inappropriate if you're respecting the hierarchy, which is generally so important in the military. But. And something else, I'll like, you know, add to that a little bit. You as a leader, you have got to fight for that feedback. Yeah. Right. Like it's not going to happen. And as you go up and rank and I, um, I got out of. of active duty air force as a colonel.

And so I'm overseeing eight organizations that each have a lieutenant colonel underneath them and they have 100 people to 300 people in their squadrons. And I'm the group commander at this point. They're not going to tell me the truth. No one will. Like it's not that they're going to lie to me,

but they're not going to come up. Like imagine so many times where you like go complain to your friend or your partner about like you're someone at work. It's not like you'd go up to that person. So how do you get that information from that? Like you as a leader have to go give them so many different angles to allow them to give you feedback so that you can actually optimize performance of the organization and yourself. And I do think that so many leaders kind of forget the self development part. Like, yeah, you're in charge, but like you have a lot of work to do.

We all have a lot of work to do to be a better version of where we're currently at. Yeah. And I think just the importance of creating that psychological safety so that your team understands that like you're asking for a gift and not like the uncomfortableness of criticizing your boss. Your feedback is absolutely a gift. Okay, I'm going to use that language. I like that. So rank off. Rank is off. Rank is off. Love it. You had this really scary experience where you had to eject from an F-15 during a test exercise. I'd love it if you could tell that story and also talk about like how did you build the resilience to get through that moment and then what did

you learn from it. So back in February of 2008, I was training in F15C. So this is before I was a test pilot. I was a fairly young pilot in the Air Force. I've been flying for a handful of years, three years. And I was out what we call BFM, basic fighter maneuvers. It's dog fighting. And we were doing something called high aspect BFM. So we pass each other initially, like totally nose to knows. And then we start from that merge. We start maneuvering in relation to the other to try to get to a position of advantage. And that position of advantage is usually a control like area where I would be employing a gun or my wingman would be employing it. You're trying to fight to get to that position where you're kind of controlling that engagement. And so it was a normal training day.

We had the first engagement that we were doing. So you usually do multiple, multiple engagements. during a training mission. And this is the first engagement. We pass each other in this high aspect BFM fight, and we're a thousand miles an hour of closure. And then we turn towards each other to try to get to this position of advantage. And I, in this merge, I'm this aircraft.

And for those that are just listening, you can go check it out online, I guess. Yeah, we'll be on you too. Basically. But we merge and we turn towards each other again, and we merge again. At this point, I start going uphill a little bit. And my wingman is curbing around.

to get ready for our next merge. And we find ourselves here, and this is the farthest apart we are before this collision happens, and we're 5,300 feet away from each other. We're seven seconds from impact. So I see his jet not move on my canopy, which means you're on a collision course,

but we're always on collision course to each other for microseconds because you're flying around and, you know, you look out, and then you notice a plane, and then it starts moving on your canopy. So when I say it's moving on your canopy, you can imagine if there's a spot on your canopy while you're flying. And for those who don't know, what's a canopy?

Oh, the canopy, the windshield around you. Yeah, no, thank you for that. So there's a spot on the windshield around you. Okay. And if it's moving left or right or up or down, you're not on a collision course of that. Right. Right. As it's growing and getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it's not moving, you're on a collision course. Right. Okay. So we're 50, 300 feet away from each other.

And I remember here being like, this feels uncomfortable. like we're, he's not moving in my, my canopy. And I have this, this thought for maybe a second. And then at 3,000 feet, there was nothing either of us could have done. So from 5,300 feet, and we're going hundreds of miles an hour to 3,000 feet. So just like about a second or so, when I had that thought, it was too late for us to avoid the collision. And so we get closer and closer. I see the impending collision about to happen.

At the very last second, I go belly up and pull just as, much as I can, but there's not as people, you don't turn instantaneously with these aircraft, right? You're moving very fast. So you're still moving through space and physics kind of had us at this point. And he ended up impacting about 20 feet behind my cockpit. So we collide. It's around 500 miles an hour between the two of us as we hit. And it is just like mass chaos as I'm getting thrown around the cockpit. I don't know what's going on. My mind is not with it. I lose my vision right away, but I don't lose my consciousness, which is called graying out. Blacking out is when you lose your consciousness.

Graying out, lose your vision. And then I remember getting my vision back, and it's not a fluid memory at all. And I'm like stuck up in the seat. I don't know why it's a weird, almost like a dream state. It's because my aircraft is tumbling through the sky and it's pulling me up in my seat. I didn't know that at the time, though. So I'm just like, I have the stick, the control stick, but I'm trying to move it around. It just says no control at all, just flapping around.

The engines are telling me they're overheating or they're on fire. So there's an audio tone saying, engine overheat left, engine overheat, right. And so I'm reaching down to my throttles as my firelights are all going off to try to turn off the throttles. And you can't see anything at this point. No, I have my vision back at this point. But it's all like, it's not a fluid memory. And then very clearly, I have three rearview mirrors in the F15C. and I remember looking up and for a split second, they're completely engulfed in flames.

So at that point, I realized like this jet is done. I can't stay with it. So I reach down and I pull the ejection handles and I ride this, you know, rocket, basically the ejection seat up at 20 G forces straight up. And I go from this mass chaos to complete eerie silence as I find myself under parachute. and my mind is like not with it at all. And I start going through the ejection checklist. Canopy visor mask, seek it LPU four lines steer. And I start saying it, canopy visor mask, seek it LPU four lines steer.

Canopy visor mask seek it LP four lines steer. I don't do anything. I'm just saying it out loud. So I got the training and I knew what I was supposed to do. And I knew it so well that I was just repeating it. But I was not prepared to actually go through it. And so now I start doing the checklist after maybe 20 seconds of like, is this real? Like am I in a dream state?

What's going on? And I start doing the checklist and I have to restart the checklist and I have to restart the checklist. So my mind is, as you can see. And I get to seat kit, which is the fourth canopy visor mask seat kit where I'm supposed to just make sure my seat kit is beneath me. And that's like the emergency gear. Yeah, we sit onto our seat has a seat kit in it that when you eject comes with you and has your life raft and it has all your survival equipment. It has your radios and signaling devices. Well, I'll tell you when you emergency ground.

egress from a fighter aircraft, there's also seat kit in that checklist. And that seat kit action is to detach your seat kit so you can run away from it because you're on the ground. Well, I'm under a parachute and now I've ejected. And seat kit is not to detach your seat kit, but that is exactly what I did. I reached down and dropped my seat kit with all my survival equipment. And I don't even realize until I hit the water that I got nothing. I have a life preserver unit LPU. I have a life preserve unit around my neck, you know, just like you'd see in an airliner. Yeah. A little more robust than that, but that's what I have. And I hit the waters, six foot chop. Waters are in the 60s. I'm freezing right away. You lose your body temperature 25 times faster in water than you do in air.

So I'm really cold. And I remember, I'm looking for my sea kit. I'm like, oh my goodness, I don't think I have my sea kit. And so now I am in the middle of the Gulf waters, we're 70 miles south, Panama City, Florida, and these waves that are actually pretty aggressive. And I see my parachute about, I don't know, 30 feet away. And I see one little string from my parachute snake through the water, and it's about a foot away from my hand. It's the last thing that I could possibly grab. And I'm like, maybe I should grab my parachute. I'm like, nah, I don't need my parachute. And then I have a thought within like five seconds as it's drifting away. I'm like, I'll just grab my parachute. Like, what's it going to hurt? So I grab my parachute and I pull this one

lanyard. I'm able to get the whole parachute. I pull it in and I wrap my hands with it, try to keep myself warm. I'm just very cold right away. And the parachute's making you a lot more visible, right? So that was a pretty critical move? So the parachute has different colors on it that you can use to either conceal you or to highlight you. So there's an orange part of the parachute. There's a white part. There's a brown part. So it can help you in situations. So I have the parachute with me and no one can find me. So I'm in the water for hours, thinking I'm going to die, freezing. And I remember bobbing up and down in the water and I see a fishing boat coming towards me. And I bob up and down in the water and it's getting closer. And I bob up and down to the water at the top

of the wave, it starts turning away from me. It starts going away. And I'm like, oh my goodness. I'm like, I'm not going to make it. And at that point, I get that parachute and I start throwing the orange part in the air to have it try to catch some of the wind. And it starts flapping. And it starts flapping in the air just a couple feet over the water. And that boat captain was on a 30-foot fishing vessel out for the day, 70 miles south of Panama City, saw that parachute flapping, turned around, and they drove up alongside me. And they're like, hey, man, you want to ride? And, like, through my shivers, I'm like, yes, you know, please. And they pulled me up and I survived. And it was miraculous, right? And I, like, there's so much of that that I had done wrong to get rescued from, like,

dropping my survival equipment for one. And being in the situation, I was in flying. Tragically, my wingman, he died. He died on impact. And here I am, right? Like, he was an amazing American serving his nation. He was a fantastic pilot, wonderful wingman. And I survived and he didn't. And I think, you know, we talk about, well, how do you move on with that type of failure? I mean, sometimes we experience failure and we don't have anything to do with it per se. Like, it just happens. You're like, oh, man, but you still have to deal with it. And then sometimes, like, it's our own fault, right?

Like, we caused the failure that is going on in our life and the shame that's associated with it. And how do you move on from that? And I feel like what we tell each other is you've got to pick yourself back up. And I think it's a lie. Like, we don't pick ourselves back up. it's not an individual sport. Resiliency is a team sport. And that's where I feel like when we, when we think about resiliency, it has to, it has to be something that we prepare for. Like life is really an expression of resiliency because nothing happens necessarily the way we want. Almost nothing

happens the way we want. I mean, half the time when we look back, we're like, oh, that happened way better than I would have ever wanted, right, which is, you know, another lesson. But I think that we need to understand preparation and how we're how we're treating ourselves and how we're treating our community and all that. That's what helps us in that moment of chaos and in that moment of despair. And I didn't pick myself back up. It was the people that came alongside me and were there for me. And I think that when the time is right, we turn to the left and right and we see who else is struggling. We try to help them up because we need to be in this together. Right. And that's the message of resiliency. And that's why it leads into my book, you know, talks about the story.

That's why it leads into community. Yeah. Right? Because like that's what's important as we're dealing with the challenges of life. And by the way, there's a lot of parallels to like, how are we going to adopt this technology? You don't think we have to be like resilient as a nation, as certain communities. And that doesn't mean being blind to the technology and saying no. It means like how are we preparing to help each other to be a part of this together and collaborate and work together.

for that human machine teaming to work or whatever it may be. And I think that there's just a lot of beauty in us focused on being together and working together as much as we can. Well, thank you for sharing that incredibly powerful story. And, you know, I love that takeaway around community. And I remember, you know, everybody talks about this is such an unfair parallel because it's way lower stakes. But like even like when you become a parent and everybody says like it takes a village. and you don't understand that until you become a parent and you're like, it takes a village. It takes a village. And, you know, all these things and recovery takes a village for sure.

What advice would you give people about cultivating their village? I think that we hear it a lot. And, you know, I know so many people who like, you know, didn't leave the house during maternity leave and then they wonder why it's so hard. And like finding that village or, you know, something horrible happens to them and, you know, they stay home. and I think there's a weird human nature to hide from your village, but how do you cultivate a village so that when sort of the unthinkable happens and you need the village, they're there? I think it's a really important question for people to be able to reflect on,

and my answer will be different than someone else's answer, especially as you get into specifics. I do feel like character matters so much. the people we surround ourselves with, they become both an influence to us and we, an influence to them, and then the us together, an influence to the world around us. And character matters, right? Virtue matters. We should be finding people beforehand, right?

The people that we want to be around, that we want to be a part of. and that means that we need to be mindful of who we ourselves are trying to become. Like, what is important to us? And so first and foremost, I think that that is really important for us to identify, like, what values do we want to live by? And then finding people that share those same values. And I don't mean, like, they love video games, so I love, no, that's maybe the next level. I'm saying at a deeper level, we need to make sure that we are.

are surrounding ourselves with the right voices because those right voices will influence in such a way. And it's the same, like, I have four kiddos. They're amazing and challenging and, you know, all the things. And I want them to be surrounded by the right voices so that when they are struggling and maybe they're struggling with like, you know, someone on their team that's pushing them too hard, right? Or maybe they're struggling with another temptation or another thing that is like pulling them away from something that they are desiring to do. Right. Like, you never know. what that may be, but we want them to become, like for my wife and I, we want them to become men and women of character that have virtue. And so we want them to be surrounded by people that have

that. That doesn't mean we disregard people that don't necessarily. Like we're all in this together. We're building each other up as iron sharpens iron. But I do think that that is probably the most important, like making sure that we appreciate that character, that we search for that and that we try to bring that in. Now, I think there's a lot of other conversations like, yeah, once you have some of those ideas, those concepts in your mind, they're out there. The people are out there. And I would say they're not on your phone.

The phone has an amazing way to connect us. And I think it is a remarkable tool that I'm glad that we have to an extent. But we have to actually have real connections with people. And so then I would say there's a lot of amazing opportunities to get out there. professional organizations are great. I'm a member of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Really appreciate that. I'm a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

There's a small organization that allows us to get together and share lessons learned. But then I'm also a part of my faith community, right? And being engaged with that and being able to struggle with some philosophical or theological things. And we have to put ourselves out there, is my point. And we can't let the world distract us from those type of relationships. which, by the way, the world is constantly trying to distract us from those type of relationships. And even technology, I worry, is trying to distract us, right? And that's where, you know, we were chatting right before we started recording. But like, whoop did not go the way of other watches

because you want to provide people information, right? And that's the focus. And so I think that, and I'm not like, I'm wearing an Apple watch right now. Right. So I don't think it's horrible. I'm just saying, like, how much do we allow it to play? a role in our life we need to be mindful of so that we're not consumed by it. Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. And I think the in-person stuff definitely COVID taught us is irreplaceable and so, so important. And, you know, I think your message is coming at a really important moment where, you know, whatever you believe about AI and how fast it's coming, it's impossible to deny that it's coming. And life as we know it and work as we know it and all these things as we know it is going to

shift quite a lot. And there's going to be an element of destabilization as we get used to that. And we figure out what does it mean to work alongside AI. And the thing, you know, I think that you're bringing up so beautifully is, you know, the best thing you can do to prepare yourself for this moment is not go learn to vibe code, although I support that. But it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Go learn to vibe code. I support that very much. But it's actually go strengthen you. your humanness and go build these relationships and don't lose sight of the deeply, deeply human important stuff. That's the last 20%, you know, what you were alluding to the beginning.

Like that human aspect of it, we need to be better humans, right? Like we need to understand aspects of what makes us unique and what makes us connect and allow us to thrive in that space because AI and robots, they're going to help fill those space. It's going to be cool. Like, I'm optimistic, you know, but we need humans to be humans, which means we need them engaged with, like, liberal arts degrees. I mean, I'm a STEM person. My wife's a STEM person. I think STEM is great.

But, like, liberal arts are really important, right? And those struggling with conversations about Dante, like, oh, my goodness, right? That actually is more human than I think we've ever appreciated because that's what's actually going to keep us connected, you know, in a interesting way. to like our future is actually being like engaged with who we are as a as a race. Yeah. I think it's so important. So we'll add to our list. So there's the learn to vibe code.

Invest in your human relationships and study liberal arts as the third. Yeah. I have that. I love that. All right. There's two things I want to cover with you before we wrap. The first is, you know, you've told us a story on. already about just incredible physical resilience. And you actually come from a long line of

incredibly incredible physical performers. So your grandmother was actually an Olympic gold medalist. Betty Robinson was the first ever female to win the Olympic 100 meter dash. And in winning that gold medal, she actually tied the world record at the time. And she remains to this day the youngest person to ever win Olympic gold on the 100 meter sprint. And she did that at 16 years old. Is that right? Tell us about this incredibly cool woman. Oh, man.

She is amazing. And I usually don't tell people she's my grandma until the very end. And I'm like, oh, that's my grandma. But it's really exciting to be able to share her story because she was 16 years old. And you can go to the book for like actual more details. So I'll try to get through it quick for time's sake. But she was 16 years old. She was late for her train going home from school.

She makes the train. And it turns out the track coach watched her sprint to make this train. And the next day in school was like, hey, Betty, you're really fast. I'd like to time you. And so he like took her down into a hallway and like put out 50, you know, like made marks for 50 yards. And then timed her as she's wearing like her school shoes and was like, oh my goodness, you're really gifted. And it was like, have you ever thought about competing before?

And she's like, no. You know, the year was 1928. like women were just at that point learning or being allowed to compete in sports, which is a travesty that took so long, but whatever. That's what it was. And so he's like, listen, there's a meet coming up. You need to go to it. She does amazing at the meat.

He's like, all right, we need to train now for the Olympic trials, which happens like in two more months. She goes out to the Olympic trials, makes the U.S. Olympic team finishes number two in the 100 meter dash. So they get on a boat right away. They take that boat across the Atlantic. They end up in Amsterdam. And then the first track event for women ever in the Olympics, modern Olympics, is the 100 meter dash.

And she goes out and wins the gold medal. And so she's the first woman to ever win a gold medal in track. The story, though, is really more powerful than people realize because she comes home, an Olympic champion. She's training for the 1932 L.A. games. And she goes up in a plane with her cousin in 1931. So a year before, she was really hot and that was away. He's like, yeah, let's go cool out, you know, before air conditioners. They nose dive into the ground from 500 feet after they lost their engine and completely out of control, like straight into the ground.

And they take her dead body from that wreckage. They put her in the back of a truck and they take her to the morgue. The mortician is like she's not dead. Take her to the hospital. He found a very, very slight pulse. she's in a coma for three months. She wakes up. The doctors are like, Betty, you're never going to run again.

You'll probably never walk again. They had to do all the surgery. They had to shorten her leg. They put pins all on her knees. This 1931, right? Medicine back then was not quite the same. But still, like, they did remarkable work from, you know, the retelling of it, or from what I can appreciate or understand.

And then she starts excruciatingly, like, learning to walk. And then because of her community and the people she's around, she begins to run again. She can't get into a starters block because of all the pins in her knees. But she's able to run and she's actually really fast. And so she makes the 1936 Women Olympic team as the third leg in the 4x100 relay because she can accept a baton without getting in a starter scratch. So she goes to the Berlin Olympics. This is a famous one, right? Like Jesse Owens, Louis Zamperini was there.

Like she knows these people. She knew these people. And she goes out and wins a gold medal. And the arc of that story is remarkable as she, you know, is going through this crazy experience of ups and downs, Olympic gold to never walking again, to being back on the podium. And she was a remarkable lady. And that's a really important lesson I'll tell people because at the end of my collision story, when I'm in the water thinking I'm going to die, I would have never known fast forward five years. and I would have been in the first people testing automatic air collision avoidance technology. That's when planes know they're going to hit each other, but they take control away from the pilot to avoid the

collision. I would have never known, fast forward a couple years from that, that because of my automatic air collision avoidance technology work, that I was a part of automatic ground collision avoidance technology, which is when the plane knows is going to hit the ground. And because I was in the position of command and I had this whole background, we accelerated automatic ground collision avoidance into the F-35 platform, seven years earlier. early. And because of that, we actually saved pilots' lives, right? And the point is we don't know where we are in kind of our stories. We know that there is this moment that is difficult and challenging

and hard, like Betty, trying to learn to walk again. And we don't know what that end state's going to look like, but we know we have a responsibility and an ability, not just respond, but like an ability to keep pushing ourselves and that there's hope, basically. But that hope, once again, comes from the people around us. So how much were you like telling that story and channeling that energy of her recovery when you were in the water and in your own recovery? Because there's remarkable parallels there. It's really powerful. I will be candid. I don't remember. I don't think I thought about her when I was in that moment. She passed when I was 19 years old. We had a great relationship. So she passed about 10 years before this collision happened. I think I spent most of my time thinking about my family,

and I at that point had one kiddo, five months old, you know, thinking about my amazing life and reflecting also on like what have I been living for and what was important to me. How did I prioritize my life? I mean, sometimes you only have a split second to reflect on your life before it's over, and sometimes you have years as you're battling cancer or something, or sometimes you have, you know, a couple hours in the Gulf water sinking you're going to die. And I think the reality is like being mindful, reflective, present in our lives beforehand, prepare us for that moment. And there's a lot that we can appreciate, too, of kind of the blessings of the small stuff that kind of really matters in those moments.

And also it gives you perspective on what's really important in your life. there's a blessing in that too, even though it could also be coupled with tragedy and failure and this other aspect of it. But it's all there to try to help us become, once again, you know, better versions. Well, thank you for sharing Betty's story with us. That's so incredible. And, you know, I always love telling stories of amazing female athletes because they don't get told enough. And yeah, definitely that kind of resilience and kind of will together. back to what she loves is really inspiring and just such a cool family legacy for you to have. Yeah.

Before we wrap up, I would love it if you could address the rumor of being the inspiration for Maverick in Top Gun. Yeah. Well, thanks. I guarantee you I was not the inspiration for Maverick. I mean, you know, Mav has been around for decades. I think he was like six years old when he first hit the screens. Ah, so the timeline doesn't quite line up.

I know. But I met with Joe Kaczynski, the director, Top Gun 2, and Jerry Brookheimer. This was back, I want to say, in 2017, but before they had written Top Gun 2, they came up and there was a roundtable. I was the only military member there. There were a few people from Lockheed Martin there. And we were talking about what Maverick had been up to for the past couple decades. And we talked about being a test pilot. And we went through some ideas that they had.

and I don't want to take any credit for anything they created. But it was a great conversation. I will tell you, I think as I went to the movie and really enjoyed the movie, I mean, several things that I roll my eyes at as a test pilot as a fighter pilot. You know, but several things from our conversation that are in that final cut. So, yeah, it was really cool to be a part of that. And I'm even friends with the lead videographer for that. So he's an aerial photographer, aerial videographer.

or amazing guy. But yeah, his stories about the production of it. Like, it's almost all like real, real footage of Fighter Paws flying around. So it was really cool to see that come to life. Well, that is a cool project to have gotten to work on, even if the rumor's a little bit, not fully true. Before we wrap up, I always love to leave our listeners with a couple of concrete takeaways. So if there's two or three things that you just really want everybody to take away,

either from our conversation or from your book or your career, what do you want to leave them with? Three things for your listeners. I'll try to capture a few ideas, succinctly. Community matters. Who we surround ourselves with. And the person we're trying to become matters, which means character matters.

So community matters, character matters. and what we're going through as a nation with the challenges that are both political but also technological and also international relations and also, right, you add on to it and the challenges we're facing. We need desperately to understand the importance of our engagement with our family and our community so that we are not on the sidelines. as other people are deciding what the future of democracy, what the future of America is going to look like. Because this experiment of America is a beautiful experiment

born from the challenges that come with being human. But it's not guaranteed. The future of what we have here is not guaranteed. And I think that if we really want to be the best version of ourselves as a nation, that we need to be the best version of ourselves as a individual and then try to imbue that in our community, from our family to our local community, and be a part of that conversation,

which means we have a responsibility. And that responsibility is trying to avoid distractions, being prepared for what the future is, developing a purpose for ourselves, figuring out how we're going to ethically adopt technology in a way that's actually empowering and be mindful of our legacy. and then once again, the community and the character, all coupled together to allow us, I think,

you know, to be fulfilled and to succeed when the real challenges, I think, that we're going to be facing are right around the corner. Well, Tucker, thank you for that because what I just absolutely love about what you said and it sums up our conversation so beautifully is here you are sitting in front of me as somebody who has led some of the most high stakes and consequential AI deployments, you know, in the country and our military. And yet you're giving us this beautiful message of humanity and the importance of not losing sight of that. And I just really appreciate and respect that balance and that perspective. And if you did, please check out Tucker's book. It's available on

Amazon and online. And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question to answer it on the podcast, email us, podcast at whoop.com. Call us 508, 443-9552. If you think about joining whoop, you can visit whoop.com, sign up for a free 30-day trial membership. New members can use the code Will, W-I-L, to get a $60 credit on Woop Accessories when you enter the code at checkout. That's a wrap, folks. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green.