#28 Brandon Jenkins - Retired Naval Officer and Founder of Tier One Life Insurance

Brandon Jenkins has served 23 years of service, 4 years USNA, and 19 years active duty as an MH-60R pilot. Brandon also is a real estate investor, private lending, WR Mastermind, Tier One Life Insurance-specialize in helping investors and entrepreneurs become more resilient with Infinite Banking. He wants to help build resilience in his teammates by inspiring them to lead a life of personal development through Infinite Banking.  

👉🏽How to Contact Him: 

-Website: https://tieronelifeinsurance.com 

-LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-l-jenkins 

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SPEAKER_01 0:49

You're listening to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader, what I like to call PAL. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership. Welcome back to Tells a Leadership. I am your host, Josh McMillian, the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching, and an active duty Army officer with over 16 years of leadership experience. And I am on a mission to create more purposeful and accountable leaders. My vision is to end toxic transitional leadership practices in both the military and civilian workforce by promoting transformational stories and skills. Well, in today's episode, I'm going to be interviewing Brandon Jenkins. Brandon is part of a veteran-only mastermind group called the War Room that was created by David Pierre and Stu Grazier. He is a Navy officer with over 23 years of leadership experience, a MH 60 Romeo helicopter pilot, a real estate investor, and the founder of One Life Insurance LLC. His mission is life is to help promote resiliency within the organizations that he leads. As always, stay tuned to the end when I go over the final three takeaways you should have from this episode. Let's go ahead and bring Brandon on. Brandon, welcome to the Tells of Leadership Podcast, brother. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, Josh.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I think I always like to start off with kind of who you are, but you and I have uh a common, uh, a common shared war room, so mastermind group. So I think that'd be kind of a cool place to start, is that we're both part of a veteran-only mastermind group that kind of builds on building financial independence. And that's one reason that I wanted you in here because I think that's really your your niche in terms of leadership and your and your and your passion. But also you're a naval officer. So I would love to kind of have you explain to the audience who you are.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah, absolutely. So, like you said, I am still active duty Navy. Uh, just finished up my last tour in Jacksonville, Florida, uh, where I was a commanding officer of HSM 46. So I'm an MH60 Romeo helicopter pilot as well. And I'm in my 19th year after graduating from the Naval Academy. So uh I like to count the Naval Academy as as time in. So, you know, going on 23 years now about of uh service and branched over to the war room or that experience I decided to sign up for because of real estate. So real estate investing is a passion of mine. Uh, it's how I prefer to invest my money. And I also love being on teams, right? And so joining the War Room Mastermind allowed me to have a team, I have my team in the military and allowed me to kind of branch out and have a team interested in investing in real estate and and small business and things like that too.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, it's I always love getting people outside of the army on the podcast because one of the first questions that I love asking is kind of define leadership in your terms. So the army has, because the army is very doctrinal in a way of they have an ADRP or an FM for everything, they have a way of defining leadership. How how do you define leadership, especially like how you've grown through the Navy?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Uh well, this is the definition to me, I think, is evolving or is always evolving, right? Uh, I would tell you though, that right now the idea of being on a team, being part of strong teams is so important to me. Uh, and I've always looked at the best leaders that I've had uh have been people that just make others around them on the team better. Um however small or great that might be, they just whether they find opportunities to allow their people to grow, uh, whether it is just listening for 15 minutes, you know, while some leaders I've had, I would just talk and they would listen for 15 minutes. And I think it's about making those around you better. And when you put that in the context of the team and the mission, if everyone on that team is making each other better, then naturally the team is going to be better and the team is gonna be better able to accomplish the mission. So I'd say that's it for me right now, but um it is it is evolving like everything, we're always learning. And I don't think it's black and white. I mean, you ask a hundred different leaders their definition of leadership, and they'll probably give you a hundred different answers on it, even in the army where the army has defined it. Yeah, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

No, no, you're so true. And so I've always been a fan of one word and it's inspire. Uh, I think at the core of leadership, what a leader does is they inspire people, inspire people to take action, inspire teams to work together, exactly like how you said is working towards a common goal with a shared vision and shared core values. And the the other way that I've always heard it, and it kind of falls in that same boat, the Marine Corps has it, you know, John Maxwell has it, the Army has influence. At the end of the day, uh, a leader is is gaining influence over the team and the people. And really, what does that mean? In my eyes, it's relationships. So I think at the end of the day, uh at the core, if you can develop relationships as a leader, then then you're going to be effective.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, I think you're you're spot on with that. I like to the reason I'd like to take it to making others around you better, um, it's because you can't be, as a leader, you can't be everywhere in your organization at the same time. And so you need to figure out ways to, like you said, inspire and influence. And I look at that as inspiring, influencing, but helping them, helping somebody right take your job and helping other people learn to be better and and kind of take the vision and philosophy of the organization themselves and start to kind of you know proliferate that out, if you will, so that there's a whole bunch of people invested in the overall vision and philosophy, other than just the leader, right? Or the the one person that maybe in the Navy, for instance, or in the in an army unit, the commanding officer, you know, the one person who has the responsibility uh and accountability for the organization. I think you're have a better team if everyone on the team is aligned, right? And they can carry that message forward.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, I think you you beautifully like encompass that. So the army, they have a concept. I don't know if the Marine or the Navy has this, but they call it mission command. Yeah. So an ADR ADP 6-0. I used to be an NCO, so I remember I saw those things.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

You're getting deep there, Josh.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

I'm losing it now, though, man. Like as I as I've gained more authority, I'm losing all those um NCO skills that I had. But it's it's essentially being able to delegate authority down to lower levels to allow them to make. I always think of it in terms of uh TOES, the acronym tactical, operational, and strategic. So you want to get the tactical level decisions pushed down to your subordinate leaders, depending on where you fall within the leadership spectrum. If you're in that operational space, I'd like to think operational is probably like um, you know, on my side, a battalion commander or maybe higher, but like company level and below, you want to push down authority as much as possible and manage risk, but allow the team to execute because that's that's how effective teams win. Because at the end of the day, I think you know, 19 years in, as you grow in your leadership journey, there's one fundamental fact: your responsibilities increase, and the amount of decisions and authority that you have increases. So you have to figure out a way to balance that. You can't just be a one-man team. You can't, what worked in the past, you know, for Josh does not work for Josh right now because I will fell absolutely on my face if I can't have the ability to delegate, but delegate well. And I'd love to hear like your thoughts on this too, is because I've I've seen leaders throughout my career delegate authority, but they delegate it because they're trying to deflect their duties in a way. So delegating authority based on individual team strengths to accomplish the mission, if that makes sense. Do you see that in the Navy, Navy?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Well, yeah, I mean, you hit it on the head, right? The the longer you're in and the the higher up the chain of leadership you progress, the more responsibilities and decision making you have, the less time you have to do all of this stuff. And so it is actually detrimental to your organization as a leader if you are not delegating and um properly distributing kind of what needs to happen to the right people, you know, based on their strengths, yes, but also in the military it's kind of unique, right? Uh it's not like a civilian job where we go out and and uh we do recruit, of course, but where you have a specific set of strengths you need to fill a role and so you can go outside, right, to find that. No, we in the military, we develop our our leaders from within. And so part of delegation is making them better because you're kind of you're passing the responsibility off to them with some guidelines, right? With some left and right boundaries. But then it's like, hey, this is your job. Here's the boundaries. You bring your diversity, bring your creativity, bring your strengths into the problem set, and you come up um kind of with the solutions or at least get the ball rolling, then you feel like part of the team. Um, you feel you have that buy-in. And oh, by the way, it frees up the leader, right, to use that his or her strengths um and focus in on that instead of focusing on you know whoever you're delegating to, focusing on their job, right? Because that's their job, that's not your job.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

You said something um that kind of resonated with me is strength. So I think something that I've had to learn a very long time is that, and I I really honed this in on my second command that I had, is every individual person on your team has their own sets of individual strengths, and they have weaknesses that could be your strengths. And I think as an effective leader, you have to first understand who you are, confident in your abilities. Like, okay, as you know, as Brandon, what are my top five strengths? What am I going to bring to this team in terms of adding value? And then who is already on my team and what strengths do they have? Because there's a um a term in the infantry when we're doing a range card or we're developing an engagement area, it's called dead space. So that's that area on a battlefield that is either too thickly vegetated or just like a terrain that is almost in unmaneuverable. And in leadership, it's the same kind of concept is that you have this dead space. It's just a natural weakness to you, or it's a blind spot, but someone on your team, it's obvious to them because their strengths align with it. And then when you can do that, focus on the team's strengths versus trying to cover weaknesses, uh, cover your weaknesses, you can you can create extraordinary results. I'd I'd love to kind of shift it over to, you know, as your leadership journey started, where where did where do you believe your leadership journey began?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Well, at the time, you probably don't even realize it, but I think your leadership journey begins outside of, you know, you could make the argument that your your whole life, right? Everything you're learning your entire life from childhood on, um, you are in some way incorporating that into how you're gonna lead, right? That's part of your blueprint, that's part of who you are. Uh, I would say as it pertains to the Navy, um, the Naval Academy, right? That there's a lot of focus there on leadership. And that's where you really start to have like classes in leadership, just to start to learn um that, hey, there is this thing called leadership, there is this kind of art to it. Um, it it is not a step-by-step process per se, but there are some tools that you can use. I would say there you really start to understand it as something. Oh, okay, leadership is a thing, other than just, hey, I was captain of my captain of the baseball team or president of the National Art Society or something like that, right? Leadership positions. Um, but you start to learn that you can actually study it, you can actually develop, you can actually become a better leader. It's not all just natural-born leader, right? Um, so I think it probably at the Naval Academy level, it started, but then just man, and this is what this is what if I could tell uh a new leader, someone just starting out in the Navy, they just graduated from their school or they just went into their commissioning program or they just enlisted. You know, if you are interested in in leadership and and eventually having that responsibility, it is to be humble. Um, it is to have a learning uh mindset and understand that the more you learn, the more there is to learn. And that you are not going to know everything ever. And when you get put in a position of leadership, you're not going to know everything that you need to know about that role in order to have all the answers. You're just not. And so you need to be, in my opinion, you need to be humble, have a learning mindset, and and kind of along the way, it's what can I, you're asking yourself, what can I learn? What can I learn in this job? What can I learn, you know, making coffee for the ready room because I'm the new pilot in the squadron? What can I learn from my chief, my NCO, right? Um, because I'm the brand new ensign. And this is the first time I've ever had any type of real leadership role in the military. What can I learn and where can I add value? And if you're asking those questions, then you're gonna you will constantly be learning. You will reflect on it, you will think about how you can apply those lessons, you will then apply them, and then you will start the whole cycle over again. It's just a continual learning process. And embracing that, I would say, is the number one thing that I wish I would have kind of known, right? When I graduated the academy and went to my my first, really when I got out of flight school and went to my first squadron. Um, you know, I think that I would have I would have done even better my time in the Navy.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, uh I think that at the end of the day, like what separates me from my peers being in a combat arms infantry in the army is I lead with, I call it hugs. Sounds probably funny, but uh huh humility, understanding, gratitude, and a servant heart. So at the end of the day, at the base of my house of leadership, and it's something that I kind of walk through in terms of the coaching that I do for the army, I help leaders develop their house of leadership. Like, who are you? Who is your leadership philosophy? But at the base, my foundation, it's built on meekness. And, you know, I define meekness as humility, understanding, gratitude, and having a servant heart. But at the end, really, if you bubble it down to one word, I think it's love. Love for what you do, love for the job, and loving, bringing value to the team. Uh so you you joined the Navy, what and then you took over your first squadron. What were some of those challenges that you faced just starting off on your leadership journey? And how did you overcome them?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Well, uh, so the squadron it, you know, is at the the 18, 18 year mark. And so I had a long, a long I so I got to my first squadron and I was the new guy. And and this is a this is gonna be a great example of kind of my philosophy um, which is you have to start with yourself and your own personal development first. In order to, it's not selfish, right? It's in order to be able to make your team better, to make your teammates better, to raise them up. You have to start with yourself. And the perfect illustration is to go back to my first squadron where I was not the CEO of that squadron, I was the brand new pilot there. And you I think about that time, I just you know take myself back there. And it's like, sure, I knew how to fly a helicopter, but man, you get into a squadron and now there's different ground jobs, there's training officer, there's writing schedules, uh, there's legal officer duties, there's detachments, you know. I'm gonna be on a detachment and I'm gonna, and you're just swimming, right? And so at that point, as the new person, right, you it's you're gonna have a hard time helping raise other teammates up because you don't even know, you know, where where's the head at? Where do I go to the bathroom, you know? And so, um, so when I take it back there, it's I gotta learn my aircraft, I gotta learn my job. It's man, I just have to absorb and work on myself. And those are kind of technical aspects of it, but part of it, gotta work on myself, gotta be an expert on my platform, gotta understand my job, right? I've got to start with myself. And then as you're there longer and you get more experience, now you start the next new guy that comes in, you can grab their hand and you can help raise them up. And so that's what I mean. Starting with yourself, it builds your capacity, and then you are naturally able to help your teams and your teammates get better. So then fast forward, you know, 19 years or whatever to uh being the CEO of a squadron, it's kind of the same thing. And it's unique in the aviation community in the Navy because you go in as the XO and we fleet up to the CO. So I know a lot of services uh you don't do that. But in the Navy aviation world, the XO is already a screen CO, right? So I get to go in as the XO and I have a CO who's already done the XO bit and now is the guy in charge or the girl in charge. And I get to kind of get in there and all right, I gotta figure this out, right? I've been in squadrons before, but I've never been the XO. I've never been the one who, wow, I have a huge team under me now. And so I need to be able to effectively figure out where I fit in. And so you you get there and you get to kind of use the PXO time and then the XO time to learn and absorb and figure out how you can best serve your team. And and then you do that for about 15 months, and then I went to the CO uh role. And so it's all the same concept, Josh. It's all it doesn't matter if it's the first squadron I went to or if it was going back to be the commanding officer of a squadron. It is how can I work on myself to make sure I'm prepared for the job? So continuous, right? Off duty time, personal development, huge. And then when I get there, all right, what can I learn here? What how can we do this better? Where do I need to fit in to break down a barrier? How can I help develop my team? And you're not gonna get everything right, you're gonna get a lot wrong, but I think it's the mindset you show up with and just that willingness. And and you, I like how you put it earlier, just a kind of a love, a love of what you're doing, a love of your your teammates and your team, and just figuring out how you can best serve them. You know, you mentioned servant leader too. Um, I don't know. That does does that answer your question? I feel I do feel like I hit a a a long, a big range there.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

No, I I I hundred percent love it. And I wrote it down. So everything in my eyes, because I'm kind of like an analytical brain, is it's a loop. So I journaled a while ago on six phases of leadership, but kind of how you said it soak it up, learn, lead, teach, soak it up, learn, lead, teach. And it's just a repetitive cycle. And so I I really reflected on all the all the positions that I've had, and reading John Maxwell's five levels of leadership, I've kind of boiled it down to I see like a military operation in a way is the six phases of leadership. And the first one holds true regardless of what phase you're in. So self leadership. Everyone, regardless of you know, position or authority or title or time. Is a leader because you have to learn to lead yourself. You can't lead others well until you master yourself, understanding confidently who you are, getting up at the morning when you said you're going to get up, getting dressed, feeding yourself, like you have to learn to lead yourself. And then that transitions to situational leadership. And I think that beautifully encompasses what you're talking about is you take over a position of authority, and then it's temporary. Authority is temporary. So you have to learn to build relationships. And the second phase in my eyes is the easiest to get, but should be the quickest to exit on to phase three, which is strengthening relationships. I think that's the decisive point in the battle, uh, at least for me, is that you either succeed or fail as a leader if you can gain a strong relationship with your team. Because if you can gain relationships, build strong relationships, you begin to earn trust, which is insanely important, and then learn to gain the respect of your team. Because you you need trust, which I think comes from two ways is frequency and the operational environment. So, like if you deploy with someone, for example, Brandon, I know you've done that before, is that it's just you naturally build a bond because you're with them one for a lot, and two, it's probably going to be some traumatic experiences that you have to overcome as a team. And then how you talked about next is succeeding together. So take over a position, you build relationships, then you start to tackle goals. And then the fifth phase for me is you start tackling goals, then you need to start shifting your time to develop other leaders, shaping other leaders in your formation. And it's just a cycle. It's just a cycle of leadership. But what holds true, I think, and regardless of our positions is being able to lead ourselves well. It starts with ourselves. But yeah, I love your, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, I I I like how you break that down into the different phases of leadership too. And you, you know, you're at an organization, that's what you want, especially in the military. But I would, I, you know, I think in any organization, it kind of goes back to what I said earlier. I want to make the XO better. I want to make my department heads better so that they are going to be able to be the XO when something happens, and that they're going to be able to eventually write be the CEO. And that development is so critical, I think, to uh an organization that's playing an infinite game, right? To steal from Simon Sinek. I didn't make that up. And Simon Sinek even took it from uh someone else, I think. But but you know, I his book's fantastic. I love all his work. Uh and his books start with Why Really Change My Life. Um but it's an infinite game. And so we're not in this, we're we're not in the military playing to, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna beat this, we're gonna meet this goal and and win the game in 2025, and then we're done as a military. No, it is a continual, infinite uh process. And so in an organization like that, I think that man, as leaders, you're just a blip. You've got uh a short time in that place to make a difference and to get in there and help make people better and help everyone under the under you, right? Help them develop to the point where they can just take over when you're not there, because guess what? You're not gonna be there pretty quick. Um and that's the type of organization kind of the military is, right? And so uh you hit it, you hit it, man. That last phase, you have to be developing other leaders, making other leaders uh in your organization because that's the only way that we're gonna continue to thrive.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah, I think redundancy. Um, and I learned this a valuable lesson when I was a platoon leader in Afghanistan. So I took over a platoon. They deployed with 44. When I took them over, they only had 28. So think about that as that you you train with someone, and why is it important to have redundancy? Because I think you just hit the nail on the head. Is that in a perfect world, yeah, you have all your team players. If you're in the business world, if you're in the military, but life is going to get a vote. You know, Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. Uh and it's true, the enemy is going to vote, and when they do, teams that have redundancy and have the ability to cover down on multiple jobs are the ones that win. The teams that fail, and I've seen it before, is the teams that when that leader goes down or the the subordinate leader goes down and no one knows what to do, that is when catastrophe strikes. Because Lord of the Flies, if you ever heard of that, um, it's it's just chaos. It's it's absolute chaos.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, you're you're you're calling it redundancy, which I see. And I like to think of it as resilience. Um I love that so man, planning is extremely important. It's funny because I'm at the war college and I just finished a a course that was predominantly planning, right? Operational art.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Congratulations on that.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Thanks. Um so planning is extremely important, right? It helps you kind of just get after, you've got a vision, you've got a goal, and then it just helps you think through everything that could happen. Super important. But to me, it's even more important that you know, as you're planning, that you're building in resilience. Like you have to be resilient because you said you've got a great plan. Everybody's got a great plan until you get punched in the face, right? You just you just quoted Mike Tyson there. And once you get punched in the face, which it's going to happen, factors that you cannot think of right now in the planning phase are going to be introduced, and you're gonna have to pivot. You're gonna have to flex. And that to me is resilience, and is why being resilient, building resilience in your teams is more important than the plan just the plan itself, right? You need them both, but you have to plan in how are we building resilience right now on a day-to-day basis? Um, it's it's critical in my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Team, I want to take a quick break from this episode and personally invite you to join our tribe. Are you looking for a community of leaders? If you are a leader at any level, join our purposeful accountable leaders private Facebook or LinkedIn group. We would love to have you at the team. My mission is to create a community that allows leaders to ask questions, celebrate women, and share living with people. All I ask is that you follow them to be willing to be respectful of the people, be humble, be present, and add value to the community. You can find the link in the show notes to either join the Facebook or LinkedIn group or simply just search purposeful, accountable leader back to the podcast. So I think you have probably a depth of knowledge that most listeners don't have in terms of coming in, taking over teams. Could you share maybe one of the most successful practices that you've had to leverage as a leader coming in and getting everyone on the same page? Because that is the crucial part in my eyes. It's the most dangerous times in an operation. And I couldn't find an operation is even taking over a team, is when you first come into a battle space, first take over a team, or when you're leaving and then that battle space or there's a new leader taking over. So when when you when could you talk to me like how how do you handle those transition points?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Oh man, it's so I'll start with uh it depends, right? Depends on which organization you're taking over. I think that you mentioned it earlier, situational, right? Situational. And so if I'm taking over a team that's already in the middle of a deployment and they've been there for six months, versus I'm starting up a brand new squadron, and really it's just about building the systems and processes, and I might not even deploy to somewhere in the middle, right? Like my last command. Um, I took over and we were in the middle of transitioning from one base to another about 40 miles away, right? So that's a big, that's a big hurdle we had to overcome. Um, we were had just, I was XO when we transitioned from being an expeditionary squadron, meaning uh core home squadron stays at home base and we send out detachments on ships to a carrier air wing base squadron where the whole squadron now deploys on the carrier. And we still have detachments on ships in the carrier strike group, but the whole squadron itself is out on the carrier during the deployment, right? So that's as you can imagine, a quite a culture shift and a different way of doing business, right? And so I guess it it it doesn't, it almost doesn't matter. So the steps that I took, and and hey, this is just what I did, and and you would have to ask my team, right? The squadron, the the people that were on my team while I was there, uh what they think about this. Because I don't I don't know, but here's what I did. It is A started with myself. I got very clear on my core values, on my philosophy, and the kind of the vision I had for the for the command. So I started with myself, but then and I didn't just implement that, right? Then I I brought in my XO, I brought in my senior enlisted, and I shared this with them and I got their input. And then I had them go to department heads and the NCO, we call it the chief's mess in the Navy, right? And they kind of shared it and just got some feedback. Um, now I don't know what that feedback specifically was, but then you know, we call it a triad, the XO and the senior enlisted, and they come back and hey, yeah, this looks good. I think this is you, this isn't you, uh, it's gonna be hard to make that stick, blah, blah. All these things, right? You're collecting the input. So you start with yourself, but now you're bringing in your team and you're developing this approach. Because, like I said before, right? It's not, it's not just leadership, isn't just a bunch of technical answers to questions, or I have a problem, break out the checklist, boom, boom, boom, I'm done. Um, leadership is more operating in the gray area. And so to me, it's about a philosophy, approaches. And so that you're bringing them in to develop this approach, this vision, this philosophy for the command. And it's it's not how you're gonna run things, it's how you are going to show up every day for the command. And that's why it has to start with you as the leader, and then you have to get inputs, right? To understand maybe where some friction is gonna be. But then it's about just showing up every day. And so to get a little tack more tactical for your audience, uh, one thing that I did was it I knew it couldn't be a piece of paper on the wall, a vision, a philosophy, right? That's not what it is. Sure, I posted it and we had it posted around the squadron. But what I did was I made it my goal every day was to get out of the office and walk down to the shops in the squadron at minimum one a day was my goal. I tried to do more, but I just that's how I made it. Hey, one a day I can do that. And you just get in there and just kind of live out being there for your team and helping your teammates get better by getting down there and asking questions, trying to figure out where pain points are. You know, as the as the CO of a squadron, you're always wondering, hey, what's going on in the command that nobody's ever gonna tell me? Right? Nobody's ever gonna tell me because they want for a number of reasons, right? There's a number of reasons. And so you got to get out and talk, talk to people, right? You you mentioned it's about relationships and building trust. And the way you do that is you got to be a little vulnerable. So you know, I go in, I talk to folks, and I let them know, hey, I this policy or that policy, yeah, that that's the policy. Uh, you know, I this is we may not all like it. And I'll tell you, here's my here's my thoughts on it. Here's how, but here's what we need to do to get after the mission, right? Here's what we need to do. Um, you just show some vulnerability. I think that's a way to to build trust. And uh yeah, so that's a that's a that is a tactical thing, but I'll tell you, for me, it was more about just the overall approach. I brought that philosophy and vision that all that hard work I did with myself and then bringing the triad in. I then try I brought that to work every day. And when I would talk to the team, there were elements of that that I would bring into every conversation. You know, it was and it was things like being humble, it was things like having a mindset of A, two ways, right? You bring the mindset to the game that you show up with that mindset, you choose that mindset, whether it's positive, whether it's negative, whether you're looking at all the the challenges as you know, there that's what they are, their challenges and obstacles, or are you looking at it as how can I learn from that? How can I use that? How can I leverage that? It's just the mindset you show up with. And it's also when it comes to mindset, it is understanding your sphere of influence, what you can control and what you cannot control, and kind of honing in on those aspects that you have some control over, like how you respond to adversity, your actions, the decisions that you're making. Those are the things you can control versus the external circumstances that are just coming at you, that life's throwing at you, uh, that you have no control over. So right, if you hone in and you focus on those your decisions and your responses, uh, I think that it that it just it just helps you, it helps you operate in those gray areas where there is no checklist.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

I love that. So leadership operates in the gray. I wrote that down in a lot of the other points that you had. And and one, I was thinking about this today, actually. So it requires feedback. So the last guest I had on Jordan Montgomery, um, he's kind of a civilian uh leadership uh coach, same space as I have, but he has the same similar passion. And I asked him the question hey, is what is one common thread you see with the professional athletes that you coach, the business executives you coach, the entrepreneurs that you coach? It was like, hey, as they gain more influence, more authority, more time and position, their feedback diminishes. And that is so critical. You have to be able to get a pulse on your organization real time and have people on your team that who, you know, put it in Kim Scott's words, the author of Radical Candor, be radical with you with feedback. Because if you don't get feedback, you can't, you can't see the smoke that's going to take in form into a fire until that fire is right in that 50-meter view and it halts your entire organization. I think as leaders, we have to be able to find that smoke and put it out. But you said another thing that was beautiful, and I call it levership, getting off your tushy and not reading email and go walking around. And I think there's so many, so many times that I found an issue that was an issue before it would have been uh a fire because I got off my email, I walked around, I went into the supply room, you know, talked to my team. I would go down to the motor pool, I would do PMCS with my crew, I'd figure out issues with you know the maintenance team of like, hey, they're not getting the correct parts, they're not actually putting the parts on correctly, which could have been a safety issue, or go into the barracks on the weekends, my own time, not to be like, hey, you guys better not be drinking in the barracks, but like, hey, like, hey, you know, let's play a game of pool, you know, build some relationship. And then through those authentic conversations, the naturally they're they're going to open up, their walls are going to come down, and they're like, hey, sir, like let me tell you about this, something in the the organization that I like or I don't like, or I would even hint to is like, hey, you know, how am I doing as a leader? How can I be better? How can I add service or value to you? And and then that's what separates great leaders. I I love that. So I'd love to kind of transition to, you know, how you found your spark. So you're you're in the Navy, you're an officer, you have so much authority, but you also love real estate, financial freedom, passion. And that's what I love about leadership is it's not just one, you know, pin the tail in the donkey thing. I think leadership comes in many facets. And I think one of the which that you control is helping other service member and people become financially free. So when when did that spark come to your life?

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Oh man, um, I would say, you know, it's about 10 to 12 years ago, give or take. And it was just a personal um situation where, you know, I and my wife wanted to buy a piece of real estate. And I realized at the time that I the way I was running my finances was my money was kind of locked up in accounts that are meant for retirement, right? And so while I thought I was doing a good thing, and I'm not saying you're not doing a good thing when you, you know, by doing that, but I thought that I was doing a great thing. And then when it was time to buy real estate, my wife and I looked at each other and was like, well, I man, I can't really access all of that, you know. And so that was the spark for me to, all right, hey, I want to change how I do things because we're all individual, we're all unique. And so what works for other people wasn't working for me and my wife at the time. And so I first again start with yourself. Um, I made a change in the way I was, you know, just storing capital, essentially. And and by doing that, exploring those options, the more I learned about it, the more I was like, man, I want to help other people kind of do what I'm doing. And so it just kind of morphs morphed from that, right? You just start with yourself, you find a new way of doing something, it's uh working for you. You're like, man, I want to help other people do that. So then you start going down kind of that that rabbit hole or that road, and it just evolves from there, I think. Um, and so the spark, you asked this what the spark was when it comes to the financial side. The spark was a personal experience, um, not getting what I wanted out of my financial strategy at the time. And so then being open to learn new concepts, right? The humble mindset and then acting on that. And then that just morphs into wanting to help other people do it, I think. And of course, there's a natural connection being in the military to to want to help other uh folks in the military kind of understand as well. That's why I love the war room so much. Um, man, I three years in the war room, and I've met with a bunch of guys who before that never knew, and we have met every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. for the last three years, you know, give or take, onesie, twosie times when and really I think the meeting has happened, even when one or two of us maybe couldn't make it for whatever reason. Of course, you know, that happens. But the the war room, the group of veterans that are in there, so a lot of active duty, a lot who served a couple years and some retired, right? The whole spectrum, it's just like-minded folks getting in there and holding each other accountable. So the valuable part, the value for me at especially at first, was just those calls every Saturday, and just we set some minimum things we wanted to do that week, and then we held each other accountable to do it. And showing up, we hit it or we didn't hit it, and then you're like, ah, you gotta explain why you didn't do it. And then just over three years, you develop that trust, like we talked about. We're vulnerable with each other, we share what's working, what's not. And that of course, that is just morphed now into if I don't do that call on Saturday morning for whatever reason, man, I just feel like I feel like something's missing, you know, for from the rest of the week, then and uh yeah, so it's an evolution. I I gave you the spark, and then it's just an evolution, man. And it's just wanting to be again part of strong teams and just how can how can I fit in? How can I make even 0.1% make my teammates make the teams that I'm on better? And that so then that just continues to drive me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yeah, you you said something there about the mastermind group. It it's so true, especially as we gain influence, um, or if we go into things that are challenging and hard. You have to have an inner circle, you know, mastermind, an accountability. System. I broke it down to another acronym because I'm weird and I just create acronyms for everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

But if you want to you want to be a rad leader, you have to be routine in your actions. You have to be accountable and have systems, processes, or people hold you to a standard. And then you have to be disciplined. And I think discipline comes down to having a big enough why. If your why is big enough, it'll demand a response. It'll push you through those hard times. But I always come back to accountability as an accountability tree. And my mastermind group, you know, Erickson, Trevor, all those uh weirdos that meet with me on Sunday at eight o'clock at night, is they they push me to be better every week. We come up with our list, and a lot of mine isn't even necessarily real estate focused. It's more focused on my passion in life of developing a coaching company and pushing out content and even family stuff, you know, work family self. But this week I'm going to devote one daddy-daughter date with my daughter because it's important to me and it's a season of life that I'm in. And having that group there that is deeply rooted, that doesn't want to hear your excuses. It's they're they're unbudging, but also having the ability to provide you shade when when okay, time's tough. Hey, it's okay, you missed that. Life gets a vote, right? But how are you going to hit it next week? And have having those people kind of hold you to it. Because in life, if we don't have that, you just forget that, oh yeah, I was supposed to do that. And then today's problem enters and you forget about what you wanted to do. And then that's when I think life becomes out of harmony between work, family, and self. I think that's the triad. We have to figure out a way to balance work commitments, family commitments, and self-commitments. I I love that.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Yeah. You know, you you mentioned the balance piece to it, and I want to kind of rewind a little bit to right before command. Um, and uh, and I mentioned I, you know, I started with myself. I had to get clear, very clear. I mean, I'm an introspective guy, right? So I've always kind of delved into the personal development realm, and I thought I knew myself pretty well, but it was so important to me to be clear on those core values, core principles that I hired a coach and I still work with you know a personal coach, and that coach is who helped me take all of this introspection and be an outside party, kind of looking in and just helping me see it in a different way and funnel it down so that I could be more clear on it. And I had mentioned too start with why, how it changed my life. Well, start with why reading that by Simon Sinek was the spark. You mentioned spark earlier, was the spark that kind of threw me down this path of man, I've got to really narrow this down and find my why, right? I'm doing the air the quotes here, find find my why, because that's how Simon puts it. But man, so that sent me down a rabbit. It was so influential that I loved it, I read it, and then I happened to be in an organization at the time where somebody else had read it and was trying to kind of form the team around a why, like trying to figure that out, right? So that was my first exposure to man, you it's not just black and white, it's not super easy just to figure it out and know it and write it down on paper, you know. My why is to do this in order to do that. Like, that's tough. And I don't know that you'll ever like really narrow hone that in without making tweaks and changes along the way because it's like everything else, everything changes. But having the coach then to take all this stuff, work I was doing, introspection, and narrow it down was just life changing. And then to circle it back to what you said, having the purpose, being clear on those core values. Now it helps you align everything you're doing with your work life family balance. I one of my things when I started working with my coach was I don't want to be a different person when I go into work and I'm the CEO, and when I come home and I'm a husband and a father, and when I'm showing up for my team on Saturday mornings, develop, you know, investing in real estate and talking about that kind of stuff. I don't want to be a different person. I think that is no way to live. I want to be the same person, and that requires that you get clear on your purpose and your why and those things most important to you.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

That is beautiful, and you hit the nail on the head. And I didn't, I didn't discover that until I went through the coaching class that I did to kind of certify me. I thought I always thought I knew who I was. Uh, and then someone challenged me hey, develop your house of leadership. Hey, what areas of life are you wanting to grow in and be intentional with? What's your 10-year plan and how are you going to get there? And I was like, oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Yeah, it's that's a good question. And and that's the beauty about coaching. And and they call it like miracle almost in a way, miracle of coaching is that there's no secret sauce to it. When I do, you know, leadership coaching with with civilians, even, I'm not going to give you an amazing wisdom. I'm going to ask you powerful questions, and I'm going to have you reflect on those questions. And then eventually you're going to have that deep in awareness, elicit the response within yourself to find the answer that you have. Because we all have the answers inside. But I think it comes back down to the ability to think. We don't spend the time to deliberately think. And then when we do think, I think our time is focused on the wrong things. Okay, this happened, you know, move to the next thing. Okay, this happened. How did it happen? How are you going to prevent it from happening again? And then move to the next thing. Because if you don't do that, you'll never do it. And one powerful thing that I've always learned with coaching is looking for those hints we call whispers. So when you're having a conversation with someone, you ask them, like, how was your day? And they're like, oh, my day was perfect. And then I kind of like digging into that. Like, okay, well, let's let's really jump into that a little bit deeper and being able to go back and go back and go back and go back. And it goes into Tommy Cabot's by James Clear, his um process of why people fail. And it's a it's a simple diagram. I'm a simple guy, so that's probably why I remembered it. Is uh like an onion and the inside identity processes and then the outcomes. Most people are focused outside in, outcomes, processes, identity, who you want to be. But the simple truth is that you need to who you want to be, who are you trying to grow to, what are the processes to get you to that person, and the outcomes will naturally come. So be focused inside out. Um, I love that brother.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Yeah, I do too. I do too. The ability to think, man, that is a if you could and I'm kind of I'm I'm studying this right now. Um I'm part of the Stockdale Leader Development Concentration at the War College, which is just a it's kind of a branch certificate, certification program, not certification program, a graduate certificate that's kind of attached to the program. And we're studying vertical development. And uh it really struck a chord with me what uh I believe we should be teaching our leaders in the in the Navy and I would think any organization is how to think you said it learning how to experience something, but then reflect on it and think through it and extract everything you can from it to then be able to kind of come up with maybe another approach if it wasn't working, or double down if it was, and then get back into the loop like you talked about too. I think that uh we don't get that kind of training for the most part. I think that for the most part, in a career in the Navy, I most of the training that is given is technical solutions, checklist, follow the checklist. How do you start the aircraft? How do you fly this maneuver or that maneuver? Here are the tactics to use for this whatever you're doing. And which is important, but I think that we really need to focus on teaching leaders how to think and how to learn. How to learn, how to think, because whenever humans are involved, it is very complex. You never, even if you think you know exactly how something's gonna go, something's gonna change. Somebody's gonna make a decision that you weren't expecting, they're gonna do something you weren't expecting. And okay, now what do I do? You have to be able to think. You have to learn how to think. And I I would tell you, I'm probably not the greatest at that, right? It's because I, you know, I don't feel like I spent enough time doing that in my career either. And so I'm pointing the finger right at myself, you know. I'm using this opportunity this year to learn how to think better and how to vertically develop, expand the cup rather than just continuing to pour more tools into the cup. And I didn't coin that right. My uh, you know, I learned that from my teacher, but um man, it really resonated with me. How do we teach, how do we help leaders and other people, how do we help them expand their cup rather than just continuing to give them tools and pour water into the cup, you know? Yeah, the the way my professor explained that really uh hit home with me.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

I think the army is really identified that because then the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force all have this coaching program. And I think you and I have talked about that before. But the the way to do that, the way to get people to think is that you have to instill a coaching culture within your organization, being able to ask powerful questions, actively listening, being okay with a pregnant pause. So pregnant pause is six seconds. So if I ask you a question, I'm just gonna shut up for six seconds, and then I guarantee you at two seconds in, you're gonna start getting really, really antsy and then just start talking. Uh and then reaffirming with empathy, like, okay, you shared a story with me. This is how I think what you were trying to say, and then asking another powerful question, looking for a hint, and it all comes back to you thinking and helping you through that process. So developing a coaching culture with within the organization in my eyes, uh, I think is absolutely critical. And John Maxwell, in one of his books, I can't remember what it was, and this is just stuck with me, is that what we think determines our beliefs. Our beliefs could be, you know, our core values that we hold dear to us. And then our beliefs drive our daily actions, what we do in a day. And then our daily actions defines our legacy. So if you want to be uh have a specific legacy, it all goes back down to this little you know, squishy three-pound meat sack you have in your head is that you have to figure out how to think right because that's where at the core of everything, and I love that um it comes down to how we think as a leader, and then how can we get other people to think the right way? And in my eyes, I think it comes down to being able to establish a coaching culture. But I kind of wrapping up um before we get to the final show segment, I'd love to ask you, you know, where where are you at right now on your leadership journey and and where do you want to take it?

SPEAKER_00 57:43

Well, I think that's I think what we just talked about is a good segue. Um I think that I'm at a point where I want to learn how to not only think better and how to think through complex situations, but also how to help others develop in the same way. And so um learning how to be a better coach, for example. Um you just mentioned the coaching culture because I I'm with you, I agree with you. I think that that could be extremely beneficial. I think back to some of the units I've been in, had the culture been more like that, where even like a peer coaching culture where we just have the training where we understand that the benefits of coaching and help and asking questions to help people think. So I want to do it for myself and I want to be better at helping others develop like that. So that's I think that's where I am in my uh leadership continuum journey.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

I love it, Brandon. It's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone. Question one. What do you believe separates an ordinary leader from an extraordinary leader?

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Humility.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Question two. What is one resource that you can recommend to our listeners that helped you on your leadership journey?

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Start with why Simon Sinne. Read it. I knew you were gonna say that.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

I just I just finished reading his book, Leaders Eat Last, and I love his stories. I love how easy reads they are. I I couldn't even get through like a page without highlighting most of it. So I'm gonna I'm gonna buy that book next and read it. I'm reading um Jordan Peterson right now, 12 Rules for Life.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

I've read that too. That's a that's a good book. That's a little uh a little more dense, Simon. I I love it. I love Jordan Peterson's book. Um, I think Simon's book's a little easier to read. And the reason I pick start with why is like we talked about a little earlier in the segment, you've got to get clear on who you are and what's important to you. It'll help, it'll affect every decision you make in your career because you will try to align those decisions with who you really are.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

Yeah, I love it. All right, so third question if you had the opportunity to go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

It would be focus on the learning mindset and asking what you can learn from every situation and then applying that to help make your teammates better.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:35

That's powerful. Um, final question. So, how can our listeners find you and how can they add value to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

I am active on LinkedIn. So the best way to find me at first is probably to go on LinkedIn and just look for me, Brandon Jenkins. Um, I think my I think my LinkedIn tag is Brandon L. Jenkins, but uh find me there, interact with me. I post daily. And so interact with me there, interact with my posts, DM me. Uh you can find every any any contact information you'll be able to find it there.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

And then is there any specific way that they can add value to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

Interact with me. Find me on LinkedIn. Uh, if you find something that I put out there that you like, interact with it and reach out to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

Awesome, brother. Brandon, thank you for being intentional with your time. Uh, I know that Saturdays are precious, especially with your family. So thank you for spending an hour with me. All right, team. It's time for after action review AAR for this episode. What are the top three takeaways you should have from Brandon? First, I wrote down was Mission Command. Not necessarily important when you're just starting out in your career, but if you can implement this practice, it will pay off so much as you continue to gain more authority and more responsibility. And what is mission command? Mission command is having the ability to delegate authority down to the right people with the right skill sets that they should be managing. As you grow in your leadership journey, your responsibilities are going to increase and your direct involvement. Remember, I've talked about this before in leadership intelligence. It's a blog that I'll be developing. You're not going to be able to do all of the work. You're going to have to require and lean on your team to do the work. And you do that through mission command, delegating based on the right people with the right skill sets. The next big takeaway is leaders operate in the gray. Leadership is messy. It is a journey. So always remember there is never the right answer to a problem that you're facing. One of the transitional leadership practices that I see toxic leaders have is they go by the book. What does the FM say? What does the book say? What does the textbook answer? Life is not a textbook. Books are a way to understand the tools that you have at your disposal, but it's up to you on how to maneuver and work through those problems. So to operate in the gray, one of the big things that Brandon talked about was it requires feedback. And now think of this as a y-axis and x-axis. On the y-axis, you have feedback, and then on the x-axis, you have time. So the longer you're in position, the more influence you gain, the more responsibility you have, the less feedback you're going to have with your team. So if you want to operate in the gray as a leader, not having a textbook answer, you have to have a pulse on your organization. You have to figure out ways to move towards your people so you can get real-time information from your team. What is the final takeaway? The biggest one that I had from here is understanding who you are. And it's a theme that I've continued seeing throughout this tells of leadership and my leadership journey is it starts with yourself. If you cannot confidently define who you are as a leader, what are your core values? What areas of life are most important to you? What is your passion? What is your purpose? What brings you fulfillment in life? You have to have perspective. And if you can't answer those questions, if you're going into a leadership position, especially if you're just starting out, you're going in blind. The best way to do that is to find a coach. And if you're listening to this and you're in the military, Air Force, Army, Navy, I don't know about the Coast Guard, I don't know about the Marine Corps, there are free coaches to you. This is a DOD policy, a system that they've set up to provide free coaching services to soldiers. So that's out there right now. You can find it. And if you're in the civilian workforce, there are so many coaches out there that you can find that'll help add value to you. All I would ask is that you find the right coach that works with your goals. Not every coach is created equal. All right. If you got any value from today's episode or any of my previous episodes, do me a favor. It would mean the world to me if you left a comment, left a review, subscribed, but most importantly, share this podcast with someone who is just starting off on their leadership journey. Remember, my mission in life is to create a better leader, a purposeful, accountable leader. I'm your host, Josh McMillian, saying every day's a gift. Don't waste yourself. I'll see you next time.