#12 Achieving “Top Gun” Success with Commander Jesse Reed

Do you feel the need? The need … for speed? Commander Jesse Reed, US Navy Retired and F/A-18 pilot joins Devin to share how his boyhood dream of becoming a pilot ultimately landed him at the Naval Academy, and eventually as a graduate of the real-life TOPGUN school. Commander Reed also discusses how individuals and organizations can become more successful by adopting the traits initiated by the TOPGUN initiative. So... slap someone a high-five, strap in, and get ready for take-off!

A special thanks to Eggtc. Shawnee for sponsoring this episode!
https://eggtckc.com/eggtc-shawnee

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Two and two, we are live, we are gone. Okay, just think them up. Because later they're gonna be off, so you look for that. Oh, nice. Anyway, okay, all right. Alright, everybody, welcome to the Possibility Mindset Podcast. I'm Devin Henderson, your host, and I believe that something greater is always possible for you. Jesse, my man, what's up?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

You know, I wasn't sure if it was possible if I could eat more hash browns this morning. I think it was. Yeah, you inspired me.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Should we order some more? Is that what you're saying? Like, more hash browns, Sonia. Well, before I introduce who Jesse is, let me just say thanks to uh our sponsor for the second time in a row going here now, uh, Egg Cetera Shawnee. Thanks to Shannon, the manager, who's uh provided us this space and breakfast, and also our server Sonia and Michael in the house. Lorenzo's here, Chris is here, the whole team is awesome. And you you've insane, you've passed this place so many times with me, but you've never eaten here. So, what'd you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

I I thought it was great. I was great. Um the uh the folks are super nice here. The food was amazing, like I said. Possibility. I think there was a possibility I could have eaten more hash browns, but I decided not to. Yeah, it was a conscious decision.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Did you eat all the ones that were on your plate? I ate everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I got a clean plate of Lord to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Do you ever then ask for extra?

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Um I used to. I I'm notoriously, especially growing up, when my dad and I, we would all our vacations were always like traveling and hiking and stuff like that. Yeah. And we'd always come out of the back end of some hike, and then I would eat the whole restaurant, basically, the kitchen sink.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Yeah, you'd be going around after people left, like, I can just have foods over Miami.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I would order, you know, this is like 1995, I would order like the $30 hamburger and fries that was the size of some game plate in my country.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

It was the same way, man. Well, I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but growing up, I wanted, I had every boy's dream of wanting to look like a bodybuilder. And so I at one point I was getting stronger, I was gaining weight, but I was gaining the wrong kind of weight along with the you know strength. Yeah. But I just like would eat. So I would eat Chipotle, just like double the meat on the breed. It was great to do that. I think even Arnold would be like, uh, even for me, too much. But um, but yeah, I and so one time we were at a restaurant at an Italian restaurant with some friends, and I had like a chicken parmesan, and then I was like, I need another chicken breast. And so they still give me flack. It's been like 15 years. Like, remember the time you ordered the extra chicken breast? That was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I think if it's protein, you're okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah, I right. I which I was at the time I was like, why don't they understand what I'm trying to do? My biceps need to grow and they're making fun of me. So uh, but it was, yeah, I probably in my size had had enough. It was probably like, that's probably good. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I think when you tell the server muscles love protein, that if it's you know, yeah, communicating they they just give it a subtle wave flag, you're one of them, and I'm like, yeah, I'm one of those guys.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

But I gave up on that dream because I figured being a bodybuilder, the time that it takes, the the training, and the the chicken. You know what I mean? Like food, a lot of chicken breasts. Yeah, and then you're kind of like, oh, do I uh, you know, do I do the uh I don't know, anabolic steroids? And you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

The creatine, like what how do you how do you find all do I have boil uh uh uh steamed broccoli today or am I gonna boil it and add some salt?

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Yeah, there you go, man. So anyway, so this is the bodybuilding podcast with uh bodybuilder Jesse Reed, who actually what not to do. He looks the way I always wanted to look. I never got there. Here he is. So let me introduce uh Jesse. Let me say command this is Commander Jesse Reed, U.S. Navy retired. You got it. That sounded good? Nailed it, yeah. You know where I got that from?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Um, where did you get that from? I know your dad was military, so you've got some background.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

The reason that sounded so pro just now is because you were on the Dana and Park radio show yesterday here in Kansas City, and Park said, Commander Jesse Reed, U.S. Navy retired, over and over again. I was like, okay, Jesse and I are he's doing the podcast tomorrow, and I I wrote that down like, don't mess this up. You deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

It's on the back of your eyelids now.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

You do because I honestly, if I had heard that, I'd be like, so Navy, Top Gun, Navy guy, flying planes, and he would have been like, oh my gosh, dude. Don't you do your homework? So I'm glad that he did that. So um, is there anything else we can add to the title at that point? Like, you know, because I know you were in Top Gun, which is really, really crazy. He's like the real life uh Maverick here, ladies and gentlemen. You hate that I just said that, don't you? He's like, oh my god. You gotta start somewhere. You gotta start somewhere. Yeah. Uh that's like walking up to a comedian and telling them you're you're doing their bit for them or walking up to a celebrity, like Tom Hanks, hey, my favorite movie of hers was big. Him being like, get lost. Uh I'm sure he wouldn't do that. But uh but anyway, man, yeah. Uh anything to add to the bio there up top?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

No, that's pretty much it. I know we're gonna break it down here and talk a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Um, but no. Okay. Well done, sir. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad that and great job on the show yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

I I appreciate that. That's uh I'll tell you what, that's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

That you know you didn't know Radio Host was in your like yeah, you sounded like a pro. You you've got the radio voice. Um you you you chimed in on the parts that were just kind of extemporaneous when they were talking about, you know, stadiums and laws, and you're just you're just in there. You weren't kind of like, whoa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Uh self admittedly, I didn't know a whole lot about a lot of that too. So I said, uh you know when to speak up and when to pipe down a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Well and I think that's twice too, to know when to back off. Kind of like, oh, these are sensitive issues. I think I'll just take a backseat on this one. But you know, pipe up when it's when it's helpful. And then, of course, who doesn't want to hear a good Navy survival story, right? I don't know if there's a way you can go back and listen to that. It was uh September 20th.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Uh Dane and Parks Podcast. It's a podcast on Spotify and Apple and all that. And uh yeah, what was what's the date today? Yeah, it would have been yesterday. Yeah. And the date on my watch is hidden by the nine hour right now, so I can't even know what day of the week it is today.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Is that a special Navy ops watch?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

This is uh very special Garmin.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Oh min, yeah. Yeah, Garmin. Do they yeah, do they do a lot of marine or or uh um excuse me, like military?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

I mean, you know, I don't think there's no I don't think there's a contract. I don't think there's a contract. I bought this because I liked it. I wish I had a loftier reason than that.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Speaking of not knowing what you're talking about, did you like how it's like Garmin and military and agreements? And did you have I don't know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

It's a fair question with pilots though, because uh pilots in general have a very unhealthy obsession with watches, and I am uh also guilty of that. So yeah, it's it's a little it's a little weird.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yeah. Well I've always because when I think of Garmin, I think of GPS, I think pilot perfect connection, but I I've always I mean I'm wearing like a movement watch. This is just for looks right here, but I kind of like something basic about old school, just knowing the time. I'm like, what else do I really, really need? Right? It's kind of like a my listeners know that Googling, I I'm I'm very careful about what I Google, that I don't just do it compulsively anytime, that it's very thoughtful when I do it. Yeah. Not that I follow my own rule perfectly, hypocritical at times, but but you know, it's kind of like, but I'd love to, I don't know, you know, you have your phone that can track the miles you're running and all that. And the I'm kind of like a watch would be cool to just, I don't know, be able to text, you know. I've even thought about do I go in and get an Apple Watch and just be able to text my wife just like this, like like Night Rider, you know. But but then I'm like, I some people have told me that you're too connected. So when the car pulls up when you talk to it, and the car pulls up, it's not let's go, kid. It's your wife, it's your wife driving it. Okay. She's like, why do you keep calling me kid?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

And if you don't know what Night Rider is, folks, you gotta go. That's classic. It's classic. Yeah. David Hasselhoff.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

David Hasselhoff. And then they did like a reboot recently, didn't they? It's never good. The reboot's good, right? I didn't even watch it. The reboot wasn't good, but how about Cobra Kai, right? I mean, well, that's not even a reboot. That's like a where are they now? Okay, yeah. That's you know what, same as Top Gun. Top Gun Maverick. Okay, yeah, uh awesome, man. Well, uh, hopefully, you know, one day I'd love to get you back to share more about all things Top Gun, TV, movie, like uh misconceptions and all that. But but today, so the reason I really wanted you here today, um, and we're just gonna kind of go through your story, is because this is the Possibility Mindset podcast, and we're friends from middle school, and we got reconnected within the last few months. It's one of those things where it's like you follow each other on Facebook. Your mom and I were friends on Facebook, and she's like, Hey, you remember Jesse? And ran to her a couple times, and we got together and then you shared your story. And um when we first met a few months ago, I wasn't doing the podcast yet. Yeah. And and so many people had told me, Devin, you need to have a podcast. You were somebody who told me. You're like, hey, you just need to do this. And I was like, okay. And then like a week later, I was like, hey, here's the cover, what do you think? And you're like, okay. I didn't mean that fast, but no. You know what?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

That's what I respect so much about you is you just like dive in. You I and I think I told you that when you when you you sent me a text and said, My first podcast is published, and I said, Man, you're just a doer. You just like go for it. Just dive right in. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 8:56

I appreciate that affirmation, but definitely appreciate that final push because we might not be sitting here doing this right now if it weren't for that.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Well, I've it's a privilege on my end here.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

So so when when we got together uh after we hadn't seen each other for 25 years, it's been longer than high school because we really lost touch after middle school because our middle school kind of like fed into two different high schools, Shauna Mission Northwest, Shauna Mission North. But then you ended up going to like Olatha East.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

I went to Olatha, we moved across town, and then when I turned 18, I was out. I peaced out and left the state and joined the Navy. Uh other than maybe a few holidays had not set foot back here in our hometown in a long time.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

So it's so weird to be such good buddies with someone from middle school. And I feel like we went on very different paths, and now we're like at the same place. Yeah, here we are. Yeah. Uh so that's what I want to hear about. I want to hear about this this path, but you have such a such thing. Well, I can tell you the impact you had on me in middle school, man.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

So we met, uh, I think we sat in a science class and we were like front row in front of the teacher, and he's trying to like measure beakers and show us how to do I don't know. I I'm gonna embarrass myself. If you're a scientist, I apologize. Uh titration and all anyway.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

And uh I remember you had these two little foam balls.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Oh, yeah. Is this right, Bell? Yeah. I I didn't miss the ball.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

And I remember sitting next to Devin here and uh and him just doing slide of hand right in front of me. Like right in front of me. Like he's sitting on the right, I'm sitting on the left. And he he showed me, you showed me how to uh how to how to take a ball from one hand, make it look like it went in the other hand, and it wasn't actually there. Wow. You taught me that, and I actually went home and showed my folks and actually practiced that for a really long time, and I I don't think I could do it again today, but I actually got somewhat good at it watching you do that, and that never ever ever left my mind. And then years later, like you said, now I I'm doing my career, you're doing your career, and I started to see you pop up on social media as it became more prevalent and and saw you were doing a lot of magic, and I thought, I remember sitting there next to you with little foam balls where you were like trying to teach me how to do this. Yeah, and um, it was so cool to watch that, and then you started to do this thing, folks. Go check out some of the old videos where Devin teaches you a magic trick on YouTube. I'm I'm I'm I'm like your promoter basically. Do it, keep going, keep going, baby. Uh and I used to watch uh watch those with my kids, and then we would all learn a magic trick together that was somewhat doable. And I think my favorite one was the little sugar packet with the pen. Oh yeah, that was a good one. So to this day, when we go sit at a restaurant and my kids are with me, they go, Dad, do the do the do the trick with the sugar packet. I'm like, the Devin Henderson trick? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

It's funny you you bring up the sugar packet trick. I think of it as the Mindy trick. Mindy listens to the podcast, and she was the waitress who shot that trick with us. Oh, really? Like at La Peep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So um I used to work at La Peep when I was uh a teenager. The one that used to be on Medcalf. If you're a Kansas C person, Medcalf in college, yeah. Okay. Once upon a time.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yep, yep, I'd eaten out there several times. That's the first I had heard about. You remembering about the foam uh balls. Oh, I didn't tell you that. I don't think so. It had a big impact on me. That's a big impact. That is uh that kind of blows my mind, honestly. It's like, wow, because magic was one of those things that was so on off for me over the years. You know, I'd be like all about it one minute, and then like for months I wouldn't touch a deck of cards or whatever. And I was like back into it. I think that's the good thing about starting something young. You have that ability to like put in, pull out, put in, pull out, and over time that you know, you just you're able to grow. Yeah. Whereas if you try to pack something into a few years, maybe you lose the passion or you you can't catch up fast enough.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

So yeah, plus like little little brains are such sponges, and then as I get older, my brain gets more brittle. Yeah. It's like, yeah, do I want to actually try to learn something? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Well, I love that science class. I love your mom's like, you learned a magic trick, then your report card comes in. F it science.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

I wasn't a great student, but I wasn't a bad student. I did enough to stay out of trouble. Oh, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

It's like, oh, he he he he was learning magic tricks instead of learning about science. Okay. Thank you, Devin Henderson. Thank you. Oh, that's later. Well, um, thank you for your service, by the way. My pleasure. Taking it back to the military.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

My pleasure. And uh I always tell when people thank me for my service, I tell them thank you for my service in return because ultimately the taxpayers uh paid me to do a job that was a boyhood dream. I mean, and how lucky am I that I got to do that and I got a paycheck for it? That's how I feel when people uh thank me for my service. So I'm always I always feel very appreciative of their sentiment, but I also am extremely grateful that gosh, I mean, how many people get to say that they have this vision when they're a little kid and then they grow up and they actually get to do it. And uh so I don't I don't uh forget about that ever. That's it's forefront of my mind every single day. Like, wow, I pitch myself. I I got to to do something that I wanted to do. And um I don't know. That that's just that's just one of the best blessings in life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

So yeah, yeah. That's awesome. I love that attitude, man. That's that's great. So let's go back then. Let's take it back to the boyhood dream. We did just kind of share again the possibility mindset. That's what this. I I hope you find inspiration in Jesse's story because it's there. Um so take us back, Jesse. Tell us about tell us the story.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

The story. Uh going back to uh being a little kid, I mean, five, six years old. Uh the the earliest memories I can have of being alive. Yeah, sure, why not? Thank you, sir. We're just pouring coffee here. Uh the earliest memories I can have of being alive are thinking about flying and looking up to the sky and watching airplanes and just thinking that would be so cool to be up in the sky. And um further exacerbated, I'll say, by a 1986, the movie Top Gun comes out, and now I learn about oh, there's these fighter jets, and you can land on ships and go out and fly around and dogfight. As a little kid, I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world. And somewhere in my mind I thought, if there's some way I could actually do that. Those they seem like superheroes to me in that movie. If there's some way I can do that someday, um I would love to do that. Um part of the the difficulty, and I think the good segue here to the possibility mindset and just what this podcast is all about and what your philosophies are about, is that the the the the cards, the deck was sort of stacked against me, I think, at a young age where um life was difficult. We we were uh my brother and I uh were being raised uh a single parent by our mom, and uh to make matters worse. My brother's about a year a year younger than I. When we were little kids, right around the time Top Gun came out, actually, 1985 or 1986, my brother was diagnosed with leukemia, and at the time the treatments were not that great, and so the outlook was bad. So here's a a single mom raising two kids, one of them's really sick and in the children's mercy hospital all the time, and there's not really a whole lot of room for dreams, right? Like, hey, I want to fly airplanes someday. Right, right. So it was just that for the most part. Um, one thing that my mom did, um, and I would encourage any parent that has kids with dreams, you know, um or or aspirations, is to find ways to help them get exposure to that if they can. And so one of the great things that my mom did was take me to air shows when I was a kid. And there's a picture right around the same time of me sitting in a jet. Here in Kansas City, we used to have this old Air Force base that's since closed down, Richard Scobar Air Force Base. Yeah. And they used to have an annual show there, and I'd go to the show, and anybody in a flight suit, I'd go up and talk to them and say, How do I do this someday? And sign me up and where's the recruiting table? Uh and they'd pat me on the head, Oh son, you know, come back in uh 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, you may well have been talking to Superman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, but that's how I felt that's how I felt about it. These guys to me were were suit were the my version of a superhero. And then, you know, and watching the blue angels fly and just all that um all the amazement that comes around with the sound of jet noise, it just really hooked me. And so fast forward uh uh, you know, throughout the years, I uh I made no bones about it. I I I I had no problem telling uh, you know, somebody in my fourth grade class, oh, you know, I wanna I wanna be like those guys in Top Guns someday. And I mean kids are mean, right? Um and uh and so I got laughed laughed out of a lot of classrooms. And uh whereas I started off talking a lot about how I'd like to fly airplanes someday, and then you know, kids make fun of you and all that. Um and it and it's tough too. We moved around a lot as kids here around the Kansas City area, you know, we'd move from one school or my mom would would move in with another roommate or something like that to make ends meet. And so we hopped around schools a lot. We were always kind of the new kid at the school, and then you know, inevitably it comes out, I'm gonna fly airplanes someday. And again, to other little kids, they think that's just the dumbest thing in the world. They're like, that'll never happen. And so people told me a lot uh of the time, basically that'll never happen. And I started to sort of internalize that that that aspiration and not be so open about it. Um and so years later, my mom remarries, and this is probably like my junior high year, so it's right around the time we would have met and uh in middle school, and she married a guy who was a pilot, and uh he was a private pilot, and he was the first guy. So if we went before before my dad, and I call him my dad, he's my adopted dad, he's my he was my stepdad, but uh but he's my dad, he raised me. Um before dad, um, if all these things were kind of aspirations, um, but we were always in survival mode after dad, now it became kind of like our own internal possibility mindset. My dad was the possibility mindset in my life, which was he took me fine, he let me sit in the right seat, he gave me control of the, you know, let me control the airplane and told me, hey, you know you can do this, right? You're doing it right now. There's nothing stopping you from doing this if you want to put the work in to do it. And it was that inspiration in my life, that person who planted that seed, kind of like you do with so many people when you talk, uh, that, hey, you can you can actually put your mind to things. It doesn't mean we can do anything in the world if we just say, hey, I just want to do that. You know, there's certain limitations, right? But I think, and you and I, we've talked about our faith. I think sometimes God will plant a seed in you uh and give you an interest in some area for you as magic, uh inspiring people, uh, for me is flying. Um, and you know, that gets put there for a reason. And so um, you know, you put in the work, you have some inspiration along the way, you have some serivity along the way, and there there truly is nothing you can't do. I'm I'm living proof of it.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

So I mean, let's say, like, let's say the story ended there, and you never went to the Navy. Already that story is so inspiring. You know what I mean? Like, kids kids have dreams, kids believe in big things, and adults sometimes as adults we just lose that magic to be like, what if, you know, to ask that question you ask when you have the possibility mindset, what else is possible? Well, a lot of people might laugh. You know, I mean, I have stories where people are like, hey, that reality check, I love you, so I'm gonna tell you that can't happen. But the fact that you met you know, your mom married a pilot, like the exact thing you wanted to be, and that he believed in you. And I know there's more to the story, but and just how we can, you know, pour into the people around us, like kids, you know, like kids have dreams.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Like, don't don't undermine what somebody wants to do because you never know, they might just grow up and absolutely um my daughter wants to play, she just came home recently and said, I and they they had announcements for in fifth grade is the first year you can do band. And she came home. I want to play the trombone dad. I have no idea if she's gonna be good at the trombone. I hope she is. We went out and rented her one. Nice and and I said, Well, put you in lessons if you want to do it. If you want to put the work in for this, I am 100% behind you. And she may become a world-class trombone player, she may not, and move on to the next thing, but I'm not gonna be the roadblock for that. I'm gonna be her biggest fan uh in in what she wants to do. And I think that's you know, on the other side of it. So, you know, you have the folks that have the the the aspirations they want to have, but you know, when you're the loved ones also, it's almost like you can help with that, right? If I had not had my dad and the tenacity of my mom and the inspiration of my dad uh along the way, I don't know if I would have made it all the way, right? So I'm also not blind to the fact that this isn't just one individual's effort, it's it's there's a lot of people typically involved in and like I said, serendipity, you know. Yeah. Um sometimes I don't I don't believe too much in coincidence these days. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Things happen for a reason. Yeah, and it's I mean, this kind of positive thinking is contagious, you know, to the people in your in your that you work with, your culture, everyone around you, your kids, you know, other kids that you mentor, uh disciple. I mean, it's it's crazy. So so let's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

We and you know, just just another example, uh, there's a a a family at at our church uh that we that we sit next to, and uh a gentleman, you know, is in his early 60s, decided he wanted to be a pilot. He went out and got his pilot's license. So like the possibility, there's no it's never too late for a lot of things, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah, I was thinking of you telling your story, I was like, well, this isn't just a thing for hey, go out and tell all the kids to want to be pilot. It's like, where are you right now in your life? I don't care, I don't care if you're, you know, if you are a kid or if you're you know middle-aged, if you're retired, I mean, it's never too late to be thinking, hey, what else is possible? What could I do with myself? What impact could I make? So I'm glad you brought that up. I was thinking, yeah, I was thinking that too. So, okay, let's go from there then. So um you have now a dad who's a pilot. You're like, oh, like wow, I I now live with a hero. Yeah, so uh so take it from the.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

So yeah, so I get older and I start looking at military service, and my dad, uh who had who had uh applied to some of the service academies, he had actually gotten accepted to the Air Force Academy, which for folks who don't know. All the military services, uh although the Marines and the Navy are lumped together as one service, they're they're kind of co-services, if you will, uh have their own um academy, col uh collegiate academy that you can go to. That's that's a four-year school, and then you have a guaranteed job when you graduate. You you get commissioned as an officer. So uh my dad's the one who who originally introduced that to me and said, Hey, you know, you're interested in going to the Navy, you want to fly jets? There's this place called the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Have you thought about that? Well, now I'm interested. So uh, you know, kind of my first couple years of high school, like freshman sophomore year, I started looking at that. My dad, possibility mindset inspiration again, uh, flew me out to visit it uh when I was a sophomore in high school. So we went out to DC, which is near Annapolis, Maryland, visited the campus, just fell in love with the area, fell in love with the whole eyes, uh, just all the um just the tradition and the history there, and maybe I'm a bit of a masochist seeing all the military stuff go on too, and people you know running around. I I thought that's the coolest thing in the world.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Well, and I just love that you're like, so he flew me out there like, yeah, so he drove me down to Wichita. It's like so he flew me out to Annapolis one day, like, wait, what? Maybe we could commercial for that one, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Okay, okay. Um but yeah, so uh so I really got the the hooks in um on that being the route to to um to getting into the military, maybe flying in the military. And so uh I started the admissions process. Uh for again, for folks who don't know what the service academies, and this is actually something I counsel local high school kids on now, now that I've graduated there, I I helped them through this process. Uh applying to a service academy is not like you don't just go take an ACT or SAT and fill out a little essay and all that. It's it's a very lengthy year-long process. You have to get a congressional nomination from your senator, your congressman, just to even be able to apply. So there's a lot of steps you have to go through. And um I couldn't have done all those steps again without my family. Um there was times where I wasn't motivated to follow through on some things, and especially my dad again just kind of kicking me in the behind, going, hey, you said you wanted to do this, I'm gonna hold you accountable. So uh so good to when you have dreams and you have things you want to do to find people that are willing, surround yourself with people that are willing to hold you accountable as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Rather than do the rather than do the opposite and try to discourage you, yeah, and lower the bar. And I that's just awesome that not only did he believe it was possible, believe in you, but held you accountable. That's like that's like next level, right? That's that's what we're missing a lot.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

I couldn't be, yeah, I couldn't be more blessed to have the the environment that I grew up in there, um especially there, you know, in my high school years. And so got accepted the Naval Academy uh at 18, left Kansas for uh for uh Maryland, and um and began the Naval Academy, which was a difficult four years of school, um, you know, not necessarily academically, but just the all the all the responsibilities they give you and the amount of things that you have to do there.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Were there any magicians in your classes showing you a little magic? You know what's funny?

SPEAKER_01 24:49

I had a leadership, I had a leadership teacher who was a lieutenant in the Navy, he's a helicopter pilot, and he was a member of Magic Castle.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

No way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Nice. And so he would end every class. I think we had like two classes a week with in this it was naval leadership class, my my junior year there. And uh he would end every class with a magic trick.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

And he did one where he threw something up, like a a bunch of cards on the on the on the uh ceiling, and then there was like a coin or something stuck to the ceiling afterwards. That blew my mind. Anyway. Um but uh anyway, he's laughing because he's like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Oh the old coin on the chilling bit, or like, come on, give me something good.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Something better. Um so that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Let me show him the sugar packet trick.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Fortunately, I didn't I couldn't impress him with that. I had not learned. I don't think YouTubers around him. There's YouTube in my junior in college. But um, so yeah, graduated from there, selected naval aviation, and then began the whole flight school process. And I'll go faster here because I could go into all the details of that.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

But essentially Yeah, because I'm bored. Like, when's you gonna like to the good stuff? No, I'm kidding, man. I'm kidding. I love it. Give us whatever you can do.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, moved around a lot, went to Pensacola, Florida for aviation pre-flight. That's where they teach you how to swim with all your gear on and try to drown you and put you in the little things that spin and make you feel sick and all that. Um, and then uh went to primary flight school in Enoid, Oklahoma with the Air Force.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

I'm sorry, but that just sounded a lot like an amusement park. Well, I'll get to that in a second. So there's there's a tie-in to that.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

This is part of the possibility mindset again. Um and so um moved to Enoid, Oklahoma for about six to eight months, started primary flight school there, learning just how to fly the basics Meridian, Mississippi for a couple years. That's where I learned um how to fly the tactical stuff with the Navy, and that's where I did my first carrier landing, is was was at I'm doing it in Meridian, Mississippi. It's landlocked, but we flew out to San Diego as the last thing you do as part of that training, and uh landed on a ship for the first time, which was just what was that like, man?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

The first time where you're like, this is how nerve-wracking was that?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

It's funny, is the first time you do it, you're so dumbfounded that you're staring at the back end of a ship in an airplane, and it's and now you've seen it. It's when they train you to land on a ship, they obviously don't train you at a ship, they train you at a field first because it's so dangerous. Sure. And what they do is it's funny, if you go to a naval airfield, Ace in Naval Air Station, they actually paint a life-size flight deck on the runway at the end of the runway, and then you just practice landing on it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

And then you work up to Colt de Saxon neighborhoods, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

They're like, okay, if you can do that, you can do this, and then we'll uh so you actually get pretty decent at that, but then then when you're landing at a ship, here's the thing. The ship, if you go, if you Google a picture of an aircraft carrier from and you can look at a view from the approach, the the ship moves forward, but the runway is not perfectly aligned with the direction the ship moves. It's slightly offset. Weird. So you're constant, now you have all these little adjustments you didn't have to do when you practiced the field, because the ship's moving away from you, but the airplane the air the the runway is like slightly canted, so you're like, how do I keep stay lined up with this thing? Wow. And now it's 60 feet off the ground. So now you're landing 60 feet higher than you're normally used to landing because the ship is tall.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

From your perspective, does the aircraft carry almost just look like a horizontal line? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Like it looks big when you're standing on it. You go, this is the most massive thing I've ever stood on. And then when you're airborne, you think that is so tiny. How do they expect me to do this? Yeah, yeah, where's the aircraft carry? Further complicated by now, you have the runway and it that also moves in three different accesses based off the sea state. So you got pitch, roll, yaw, and so it's moving around, it's moving away from you. Yeah, and that is why if you watch in the movie The Top Gun Movies, you'll see occasionally on the on the I'll use sailor terms here, port side, left side of the ship, on the sterns, the back left side of an aircraft carrier, there's a little tiny area there with a bunch of guys standing there. They're all pilots, they're all members of the air wing, they all know how to land on ships, and their sole purpose in life is to watch your airplane when you land, and they're all on a radio, and they're getting ready to tell you all the corrections you need to make in your final approach there.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So they tell you, come left, right for lineup, little power, easy with it. They're kind of coaching you the whole way. Um we call them sugar calls in the Navy. They get little sugar calls, like, hey, looking good.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

And are they, is this all just like they're eyeballing? Is someone eyes on you? Is someone eyes on the ship? Are there electronics involved?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

There are some cameras involved, but for the most part, they're looking straight at you and they're watching you, and they they have thousands of hours of training to do this to get to that point. And um they're even looking at the smoke coming out of the back of your jet when you add power. It's a very much an art form. They're called landing signals signals officers. And uh, and there's like a voice inflection aspect to it. So if I'm a little underpowered and they see my jet starting to settle a little bit and I'm getting low, and if you get low with an aircraft car, you run into the back of it.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

It's it's it's it's it's it truly is an art form, so they'll go little power.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

And if you have to stay calm, right? They stay calm and then what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 29:40

And then if you freak out, and then if you don't respond, the next call is gonna go power. A little more curt, right? Like, oh, dad's mad at me. Like that's how it feels, right? Wow, right, right. And then if you do something really scary, they might actually even scream at you, power, power, wave off, wave off. And they won't they want they want you to feel that emotion of like how they're feeling about it.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Yeah, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Because they want you to react to the bigger.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Okay, so it's important to not just be like, oh yeah, you're probably gonna here. You need to you know, it's like uh you gotta freak out in a scene.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

And you can Google all this stuff. There's a very famous LSO, he's he's he he passed away years ago, his call sign was Bug, Bug Roach was his name. And you can YouTube Bug Bug Roach uh videos of him talking on a dark and stormy night to a guy with single engine and his gears, like the worst possible, like coming back with a wounded duck of an airplane and he talks calm and cool and just talks this scared kid, you know, some 24-year-old kid into an airplane on the flight deck safely, uh in kind of like the worst conditions you can imagine. And it's just cool to go watch that sometimes and just see see this other person just inspire, you know, kind of keep somebody calm. Um that's one of the things I talk about when I when I talk to people too, is how you know in combat in different times where your heart rate's going up, sometimes it's another voice in the midst of chaos that kind of calms you, and so another way you can help people. That's what LSOs do.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Is it weird that my adrenaline's like pumping right now? Mine is too.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

I actually pilot it. I have to take my garment off when sometimes when I talk about this because I get abnormal heart rate indications like that, beep beep, beep, and I'm like, oh, that's annoying.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Dude, I'm like, I'm like, it's like thrilling to think about how crazy that is. So just pause here real quick. Sure. What's I mean, I I don't even know what's the application for teens and cultures. Like like people right now, one of the biggest problems when I'm gonna think people are thinking about hybrid for keynote speakers, they're like, everyone's working in silos. We can't break down these silos. I mean, yeah, you can't have silos out there on the aircraft area. Uh you've got to be uh engaged with that.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Well, and you have to be you have to be incredibly open to feedback and criticism. And I don't mean criticism like you suck, yeah. But criticism like that that helps you. Hey, this this is what went well, this is what went wrong.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

People don't realize this also. Every landing at the ship is graded. So the same LSOs, after everyone lands, they walk around all the ready rooms to all the pilots that just landed, and they walk over to and they go, they come up and they go, Jesse Reed, uh your pass was uh a little high start, little uh fly through down on the come down in the middle, uh, a little low flat at the ramp for the OK3 wire. And they they give you a grade, and that stuff gets documented. So your whole cruise deployment, every time you got a chip, you have landing grades. And um you gotta have thick skin and naval aviation. They actually post them on a chart, they put everyone's name on the wall of the ready room and they put a little color symbol next to your name for every landing you have. And if it's green, that's a good one. If it's yellow, that was like meh. If it's red, that's bad.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

And do you give each other flack for this, or is it something that's joked about, or is it like this is very serious? It depends.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

You'll give people a hard time if you feel like they can take it. Sometimes if somebody's genuinely struggling, you don't want them. I mean, ultimately, you don't want your uh your your comrades in arms to be struggling, right? Yeah. But if you had somebody who was like really good and they just threw a bad pass, as we'd say out there, had a bad landing, we'd give them like, oh, hey, what happened on that one, Grumpy?

SPEAKER_02 32:52

It's it's like baseball, football.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Exactly. But if somebody has a legit issue where they're they're kind of psyching themselves out, you want to pull them aside and be like, hey man, you got this. So uh it's a strange, it's a strange world sometimes in the military where you're I'm sure that can make or break your day.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Like you just feel like you're on cloud nine. It's weird green, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:09

It's weird in the navies. You could go and have this amazing mission, come back and have a crappy landing, and just that's all you think about. And this is the blessing and the curse of type A personality is this you did 99% of the stuff great, but there's this 1% that you're like, oh, if only I could change that. Yeah. And it's it's something I struggle with in my life to this day that I'm always trying to get back to. Me too. You and I are right.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

I mean, I same thing on keynote feedback surveys. Okay, 99%, awesome, great job. One person's like, What? You know, and I read some of them on the podcast sometimes with people say, Oh, you kind of missed the mark on this. We wanted more here. I'm like, oh, and that's all you think about, you know, and you forget about the 99 that was that was great. So, yeah, so okay, man, so here you are, you learn to land on ships. Uh, what's next?

SPEAKER_01 33:48

So um, so you land on ships. I got I selected F-18s out of the training from from Mississippi. So you spend a year learning how to fly F-18s, uh, and then you join your first squadron. So now years of training. I'd graduated, I I got winged in September 2004. Uh, I went and learned the F-18, and so in July of 2005, so this is now three years after I've graduated college, I finally am actually showing up to the place where I'm gonna do my actual job for a living, where now I'm not training anymore. Now I'm actually here to go out and deploy and do the whole point of why we have this in the first place, right? Um why we have strike fighter squadrons in the Navy. And um that tour is about three years long. Uh as part of that tour, you do a lot of training, you're away from home a lot, and eventually we deploy. Um, so I deployed to uh on the John C. Stennis, uh USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier, and we uh we flew missions into Afghanistan, we flew missions into Iraq, kind of depend on where we were needed at the time. And uh just crazy, just crazy to do that. And uh mainly what our job was uh, you know, we practice all sorts of mission sets in the F-18. You've if you've seen the Top Gun movies, uh people think it's all about dogfighting. There's a lot of other things we do too. I think the newer Top Gun movie really demonstrated the strike mission, which is there's things on the ground that you have to take out sometimes. Okay. And what our main mission when I was when I was primarily flying was um Oh yeah, sure. Thank you, sir. Goes home. I hate to interrupt you, but you know, uh our our our our primary job was to support ground troops. So we would we would support regular army or regular marines, sometimes we would support special operations folks like uh Navy SEALs, sometimes we supported British and Scottish soldiers, NATO, NATO allies. It was kind of random on any given day, you didn't really know what you were gonna end up doing. You would show up over the country at an assigned area and just kind of wait for something to happen. And uh yeah, so a lot of flexibility involved there, and thinking on your feet. But I did that, uh, and towards the end of that tour, there was a guy who to this day is one of my friends and mentors. Um, I'll call him Rob. Because that's his name. That's his name. I won't fully identify him since I didn't talk to him about this ahead of time. But he was a graduate of Top Gun, and so Top Gun is a huge part of the culture of not only the military, naval aviation, because Top Gun was in was uh created back in the Vietnam War to solve a problem where um we we basically were relying on our technology, we had superior technology to our adversaries, we had the nicest, newest, shiniest airplanes and these things called radar guided missiles, which were kind of new, new concepts. And yet, despite that, and we were we were we were our adversary was a very archaic threat from a technological perspective. We were basically evenly matched. So the first couple years of the Vietnam Air War from 1965 to 1968, we had the best stuff on the on the street, and we could not uh seem to get um advance against against the bad guys, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:48

And is that because we were there? It was well, so no. Because you were talking about some of their technology too, had to be.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Yeah, their technology was was was archaic compared to ours. What I would compare it to, if there's sports fans like I am, it would be like if the Kansas City Chiefs were playing Shiny Mission Northwest in a in a football game, and at halftime the Chiefs were only up like 10 to 7. Okay, I see. And it's like, why is this happening? We have this professional football team that can't seem to really just beat these guys, right? Right, right. Um, and so the Navy, there was a there was kind of a lull in the air war in the in the 1968, 1969 time frame, and the Navy basically um uh basically published a report, did a lot of research and said, What are we doing wrong here? We've had why why are we not winning this war from the air perspective, even though we have all this great technology? And they discovered all these shortfalls, and there was kind of this reliance on technology, and we had lost like our old ways of of um training and whatnot. And so Top Gun was created to fix that problem. And so it was a cadre of aid instructors in 1969. At the time, Top Gun, nobody know knew what it was, brand new concept. They didn't even have their own spaces at Naval Air Station Miramar. They they had they literally had to commandeer a trailer from one of the contractors on base. I think they paid them with a case of whiskeys, how the story goes, to get them to drop off a trailer that they could work out of. They on a weekend came in, painted it, and uh, I think the name Top Gun, which is a everything in the military's got a nickname, they named it Top Gun uh over a beer, I think, one night in the officer club, and uh came up with a patch design that's iconic to this day that all Top Gun graduates wear. And that that was the genesis of it. And so without going in all the details of what it took and and how they stood that school up, but then they started to bring in fleet aviators that were still out there in actual squadrons and teach them all the things that they had put together. And when the air war kind of reconvened and really kicked back off in the early 70s, our um it's best to just use numbers here, but before Top Gun, for every two uh adversarial airplanes that we would shoot down, we would lose one of ours, so two to one ratio. After Top Gun, that ratio went to twelve to one. Wow. So a marked difference. Yeah. And um, and that that was the same for both the Air Force and the Navy beforehand, two to one. And then after Top Gun, the Navy adopted all these new this new mindset uh of how to train and how to do things. Um and their their ratio went up to 12 to 1. Air Force stayed two to one. Actually got worse. Wow. And they did not, and so afterwards the Air Force actually followed the Top Gun model, developed their own weapon school, and now the whole military, every there's not a single part of the military that doesn't have something that's modeled off of the original Top Gun. Okay, and that's why it's so popular now in pop culture. Well, I mean the movie helped that, but uh, even even in corporate America, people are trying to replicate the center of excellence model of Top Gun. They're kind of like the original ones to do it.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Wow, from the military to corporate America.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

That is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

That's why guys like me, knuckleheads like me, everyone to Top Gun are out there talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Well, it makes sense, and then a lot of those people went to the workforce, and that it just it fell that mentality fell. Yeah, right. Wow, that's uh I mean that makes sense. It's it's like it's working. It's working. Why reinvent the wheel?

SPEAKER_01 39:55

You know, but it but it was always it was it was philosophies, and and it's people ask people say all the time, like, oh Top Gun, that's the top percent, you know, whatever the thing says at the beginning of the movie, the top one percent of fighter pilots. And what a lot of people don't know is even though Maverick's fun to watch, right? Uh and he's an entertaining character and compelling and and whatnot, uh, Maverick would never be selected for Top Gun, that personality because because of the arrogance, um the you know, Top Gun, it's assumed you're gonna be a decent pilot by the time you get to that level that you can fly an airplane pretty decently. What Top Gun, uh, and they select all of their future instructors in-house. So all Top Gun graduates pick the next class. It's not the Navy or it's not some detailer that issues orders of your next tour. You have to apply and get selected by the staff to go there. And what they're looking for is is not necessarily just the best stick and rudder skills, as we say. It is, are you approachable? Do you have integrity? Are you humble? Are you open to criticism? Can you teach people? Because that's ultimately what you're doing. Top Gun was not created to wear a patch on your shoulder and go, hey, look at me, I went to Top Gun. Top Gun was created to make life more survivable for the rest of your organization. And that's really what any center of influence is created for. It's to make life better, it's to make conditions better for your particular organization. And that's what Top Gun is. That's their whole thing, is to we want to make life more survivable for our pilots and give them more success. And it's not about personal recognition.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

So when I say thank you for your service, that honestly it holds more weight now. It's like, wow. I mean, that it it really is an altruistic mindset that you're like, you're you're here to serve. Yeah. You know. Um so what I'm hearing, they wouldn't have used Mavericks. There were no flybys done in real life, like the low flyby he does in the first movie. That's kind of like that's a good way to get wings taken off your chest. Right, man. Well, and a couple things that popped out to me, that stood out to me while you were telling the story was you know, was it was I know you didn't mean it like this, but when you said I was done with training, so then I went on, and then there was a lot more training. Well, I I think what it is, we never we're never done training. No. You know what I mean? It's like even though the train, quote unquote training was I'm glad you said that. You it's you get trained your whole life.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

You're always learning, things are always changing. That was a big lesson from Top Gun is we can't rely on what we did in the Korean War, World War II, or World War I, because guess what? Things are different. Yeah, things are always shifting. Um and so part of what Top Gun does is they're constantly adapting to what the environment is, whether it's the threats that are out there in the world that are you know scary that we have to deal with, uh, whether it's the technology that changes, there's always some variable that's changing. This goes for the military, this goes for corporate America, you know. Look look at how much technology what's what's everyone talking about in the last year? AI, right, Chad G. That in the span of a few months has completely changed the landscape of so many things. If you're not adapting and and you're you kind of keep the blinders on there in your life, whether it's professional or personal life, um you you're gonna fall behind. And so uh that is very much yes what Top Gun is doing also is keeping up to date, keeping all of the uh of the naval aviators up to date with how to properly solve problems out there.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Yeah, yeah, that's man. Um that's great. The other thing that stood out to me was just um how how you supported whoever it was, right? Like was it the Navy SEALs, or I mean it makes me think of I I recently spoke for uh and I shared this on the podcast, I spoke for a school district, and one of the feedbacks I got was there wasn't enough about the support staff mentioned, yeah? That it's like how important that that is. And when you and but and that is an important job, and I I and then then I went to the next school district, I was like, all right, support staff, you know, like support staff, support staff, support staff, right? Yeah. I mean, but it it was like um that that's you're you're you're there to support, like you say, you're waiting around. Like, what's what's gonna be the next problem I'm here to serve? Yeah, I got your back, I have the expertise to get the job done here. Yeah, you know, just like um the the people in the school district, like you know, the the food person, the transportation person, you know, custodial people, it's like they're there like waiting for the next accident, you know, the kid to like, you know, get sick during class and they have to go clean something up or deal with you know uh home issues or Whatever it is, it's like they're they're there to help the teachers, you know, raise them up and be able to raise the students up. So ultimately you're there for like the greater mission. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

And it's crazy, you know, there's all sorts of subsets of that. Like to get an airplane launch off the aircraft carrier, it doesn't just take a pilot, it takes lots of people. It takes the plane captain and the maintainers and the flight deck personnel that taxi the airplanes around and make sure the catapult and the arresting gear works and everything's safe. And then, you know, that's all to launch an airplane. That's all, you know, as a pilot, I'm sitting up there in the cockpit on an aircraft carrier and I'm thinking, wow, look at all these people scrambling around my jet to get me airborne. But then now I'm airborne, I'm over Afghanistan or Iraq. My job now is I'm supporting the guys on the ground. Like I am there for them. And uh, if they need me to do something, I'm gonna do it. And uh, and so yeah, it's it's there's it's part of life is sort of recognizing what phase are you in. Um, are you in a more of a supporting role? Are you in more of a leadership role? When do you decide when when do you make that transition from hey, now I'm in the leadership role to now more of a supporting role? Uh very fluid. And and I think that's not just it's not just aviation that would be that way. Um and so I think that's a a good skill for folks to learn as well. It's like, hey, when am I hitting one of these transition points in my daily life or career life? I mean, I even do it sometimes when I come home. I have to go from, well, I'm running this team at work now to now I'm I'm going from work dad to or you know, work work Jesse to home Jesse, right? And sometimes a bit of a transition for that.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Yeah. Both both ways. Yeah, yeah. Drop your kids off at school and then all right, all business. You know, drama, gone. If if you heard that rumbling, I'm not sure what this microphone picks up. That that was not the hash browns talking, ladies and gentlemen. That was, yeah. It's a hot run out there. Yeah. Uh so this this is great. I mean, this is uh the the possibility mindset, asking what else is possible. This is I I wanted Jesse to be on here to inspire you, to be thinking about what else is possible for you. So, Jesse, I know um we we gotta get you cut. Yeah, I mean, you're you're a busy guy. You got a tight schedule. Um, is there you know, should we save the rest of the story for later? Are there parts you want to share now? Should we do a part two, part three?

SPEAKER_01 46:05

We should do a part two. Okay. Yeah. If anything, because of the hash browns.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

I mean No, I I completely understand. Um do you want to talk about speaking at all or should we save that for another time too?

SPEAKER_01 46:15

I'll I'll just briefly say, yeah, I've I've I've been blessed to have interest in this, and I and I kind of I wouldn't say I I I had aspirations initially to do speaking, uh, but um as you know, the good thing about things like movies is they they spark interest in things like naval aviation in Top Gun. And it'll and um and so when the the second the sequel came out in 2022, yeah, may two the May of last year uh as part of some fundraisers and some things that I was doing here um in uh Kansas City, started talking about Top Gun. It allowed me to open the door to to kind of talk about that, and a lot of interest got generated and people started to want to hear more about sort of what I was telling you here just a few minutes ago about hey, what is the real top? That's the question people always want to know, what's the real Top Gun like? Is it like the movie? Yeah, it's not. Sorry to disappoint you. I think it's actually way more impressive uh in a lot of ways. But but it's a little surprising to people of why. So uh I I find that um to this day, a lot of the lessons I learned from that I apply in my daily life in some form or fashion. A lot of the lessons that I learned going through that that process and that experience in my life professionally. Uh personal uh I apply it to my personal life, apply it to my to my professional life today. So um, but yeah, I'm going around and and folks uh want to hear about this. And so I think you were kind of the genesis for me to get uh I remember we met for coffee, uh gosh, I don't know how long ago this was now, and I started telling you all this, and and I this he's talking about me inspiring here for the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Devin's like, you gotta go out there and tell people the story.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

I am greening my my future greatest competitor of all time because he's here in Kansas City. He's gonna be stealing all the gigs. I'm telling you, I mean, there's other um pilots. Um Captain Charlie Plum, you know, who was a P uh pilot, went down in Vietnam, was a POW there for uh seven years. There's Waldo Waldman's a pilot. I mean, these motivational speakers have all these great analogies and metaphors like the ones you just shared that are amazing for the business place, the workplace, you know, to become a top gun in a sense in your field. So I I I just see you take no pun intended, but I see you taking off. And I've told you this, and I mean this, you know, that it's like, I mean, this this could be crazy. So I know you're just kind of now figuring out, okay, you have all this great stuff, so how do you package it in a way so that you know to the buyer goes, Oh, yeah, this, but you've already spoken plenty. Honestly, just of, oh, sure, I'll come in and share the story. And you crush because of who you are in your story, and he's a hunk. It never hurts to be to look like this guy and to get on stage. Do you get up there with the sunglasses and the and the pilot's jacket and everything?

SPEAKER_01 48:53

To basically try to buy it uh fit into every cliche you could possibly buy. Yeah, there you go. I think I I do wear the jacket. Um I do wear the jacket because um it's a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

It's ex it's kind of expected too, yeah, right? And people want to touch it after.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

It's like when you go see Leonard Skinner, right? Play some Freebird. You gotta give people what they want, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Do you uh do you take the jacket off halfway through dramatically, kind of like now I'm here for business, drape it over a chair.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

I don't, but I do, I do, I will, I'll say this. There is a story I tell um where I take my name tag off dramatically. Oh you have to come see it if you want to. Oh, you gotta know that.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

You've got to hire him because you don't speak at public events when they can buy tickets yet. Yes, somebody he'll be at the sprint center right now. If you're lucky enough for your work to bring Jesse in, boom. That's amazing. Well, awesome. Uh, any any final thoughts about embracing the possibility mindset before we let you go?

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Yeah, uh find a good mentor. Hopefully, you know, it could be some family, it could be some friends. Surround yourself with people that will hold you accountable. So don't shy away from criticism or people that are that are willing to um, you know, give you that little nudge you need sometimes. If you if you avoid that and that discomfort, because it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to be pushed sometimes. Yeah. But you gotta want that, you gotta crave that because that's part of the possibility mindset and getting better and expanding your horizons is you've got to seek some discomfort sometimes. So surround yourself with people that are willing to do that for you and just grit determination. Like when you get up in the morning, ask yourself, is this really what I want to spend my time doing? And Lord knows I've done a bunch of things too that I thought I wanted to do, and I after a little while I thought, actually, this is probably not what I want to do. And so, you know, having some self-realization too to kind of filter out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah, you know, but uh yeah, great wisdom, man. Commander Jesse Reed, U.S. Navy retired, thank you for your service. Thank you for your time, and let's do it again. Yes, all right, hey, buddy. Yeah, thank you again to Etc. Right, our sponsors today, uh manager Shannon, Sonia, Michael, and team, your awesome breakfast. Breakfast was fantastic as usual. And everybody, thanks for joining us. And remember, never stop asking the question: what else is possible? That was fun, man.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

That was fun.