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Words from the Wise
Join Words from the Wise with Gary Wise, a retired Navy Command Master Chief, for authentic leadership insights forged in real-world experience. Through engaging discussions and actionable strategies, Gary empowers you to master emotional intelligence, build resilient teams, and unlock your full potential. Tune in for practical advice on delegation, conflict management, and inspiring others, drawn from his over 28 years of service and ongoing leader mentorship headquartered now in Ocala, Florida.
Words from the Wise
Sailors, Mission, Patriotism: A Master Chief's Leadership Journey
Every leader faces moments that define their legacy. For retired US Navy Command Master Chief Gary Wise, that moment came when sailors' personal belongings—including passports, wallets, and phones—were thrown into dumpsters during a critical day of inspections aboard the USS Ashland (LSD-48) in Sasebo, Japan back in 2017.
The day had already been extraordinarily demanding. The ship was simultaneously undergoing a prestigious supply inspection (the NEY Award), conducting an engineering Light Off Assessment, and needing to vacate the temporary living quarters (berthing barge) where the crew had been staying during ship repairs. When the new Executive Officer, who'd only been aboard a week, interpreted "close of business" literally and began disposing of sailors' belongings that hadn't been moved, Master Chief Wise faced a defining leadership challenge.
Rather than simply accepting authority or creating further conflict, he assembled his Chief's Mess and led them on a dumpster-diving mission to recover everything. This powerful demonstration of putting people first exemplifies Master Chief Wise's evolved leadership philosophy: "Sailors, Mission, Patriotism." The incident required difficult conversations up and down the chain of command while maintaining team cohesion during a pivotal operational period.
This story serves as a template for authentic leadership across any organization. Master Chief Wise reveals his systematic approach to organizational assessment: gathering data, conducting individual interviews, identifying trends through focus groups, and implementing finite improvement plans. He shares how these principles have transferred from naval vessels to his current role developing high school JROTC students into future leaders.
At its core, this episode demonstrates that effective leadership isn't about position or authority—it's about having the courage to speak truth when it matters and taking action that aligns with your core values. As retired Command Master Chief Wise puts it: "If we're all on the same team and we all want the best result, we have got to be able to have candid conversations about things that really matter."
Ready to develop your own authentic leadership style? Connect with Wise Leadership Solutions, Gary's upcoming leadership development event "Ocala Inspired" or reach out to learn how his approach can transform your organization's leadership culture.
And I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. Don't care for the critics. My words are life physics. I force it, they can't stop, they just don't get it. I think they forget I'm not done till I'm on top. I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. I believe, I believe we can write a story. Let me tell you guys the story of the time that all of my, a lot of my sailors personal items got thrown in the trash can, and it was a. It was a problem, right, it was a big problem. I laugh about it now because we had to come through it. And I will tell you it was one of the most challenging times of my career, when I had to really not be afraid to step up and do the right thing. And, of course, it was all out of control. Let me take you back.
Gary Wise:So at the time I was the command master chief of the USS Ashland Sasebo, japan. We were four deployed. Our job at this time was we were coming out of the shipyard. We had been tied up next to a birthing barge. A berthing barge is where the sailors will sleep, because the ship will not have hotel services, there will not be flushing water for the commodes, there will not be drinking water for the water fountains, there will not be hot water to run for the showers on the ship. The ship is essentially shut down for repairs. We're working on this ship all day, every day, to make the ship better. Us, the contractors, the Japanese ship repair force, all of us are working together.
Gary Wise:So the Navy brings this birthing barge alongside and you know, typically when you're in the yards you lose a lot of your camaraderie, you lose a lot of your ships I would say identity during this period of time, because everyone is just so just disaggregated. My chief's mess, we discussed this before we went to the yards and because one of the things that people do typically is they look at giving the sailors back their bas money and then the sailors can leave the ship during lunchtime and go ashore and they can walk down to the galleon base or they can go over to the food core or to the mini mart or to wherever they want to go get, go eat. My chief's mess and I discussed it and we decided that we would recommend against doing that because what we wanted to do is feed everybody on the birthing barge. We wanted to retain our crew identity because when sailors leave the ship during lunch they go to these other areas and they start to mess with other sailors from other ships and you possibly get cross pollination and they might get exposure to some ideas or just some things that you don't want at your command. We wanted to keep our crew in a tight knit group because we were I'd been on the ship now about a year aboard Ashland and we were really starting to do really, really good and as we were going into the yard period we knew we had about a four-month yard period and coming out of the yard period we were going, we had the opportunity for a very big inspection called the Edward F May Inspection.
Gary Wise:This is a supply inspection. So our supply department I did a video previously about how important supply is on board the ship to the ship company and to really to everybody on the boat If the MESDAX and the supply department does a good job, it will positively affect the morale for the whole crew period and our supply team was doing such a good job that we had become a candidate for the Edward F May Supply Award. Well, looking at the calendar, that May Award was going to run the last week we were coming out of the yards and it was going to be on top of our light off assessment, which is where our engineering department, after having the whole engineering plant, which is a diesel plant, having that whole plant tore up for the yard period, we just got to put everything back together and then show the afloat training group that they were prepared to start the engines up and get ready to go to sea group that they were prepared to start the engines up and get ready to go to sea. And light off assessment is notoriously one of the most challenging inspections for Navy surface ships, because if you don't do good, you don't get to move forward to the next thing. And so my captain I remember the CO called me up to his stateroom and he's like Master Chief, I don't think we should take this nay award on, because that same week we've got to move off the birther barge, we've got light off assessment. Do we really want to have the nay award? I went back down, talked to the chief's mess and the chiefs were like let's do it, like let's screw it, let's do it. We can prepare for this. We've got four months. We'll work together as a team, we'll deconflict. At worst case scenario, we don't get the nay award right. And so our mantra became the captain first. The captain took our recommendation and he said okay, let's do it.
Gary Wise:And our drumbeat for the next four months of the yard period is was we want to do good at LOA, which means we wanted to pass LOA? And that was our goal for every inspection on board this ship. We wanted to have no redos. We did not care about getting five gold stars. It was not our priority to ace the thing. And I will tell you, because my past experience as an afloat training group assessor, I knew there was no such thing as acing the test. We're going to find things right, they're going to find things. The best thing you can do is not have any surprises. So, as they find things, you could say, yes, we know about that and here's our documentation, or no, we did not know about that because that's a new occurrence, because of something that happened recently about it's easily addressable or whatever it is, and the goal is to pass the event. That was always our strategy. Right, we did not want to lose our minds about getting a perfect score, we just wanted to pass. That was our chief's message job. So for LOA, our goal was to do good at LOA. That was our goal. But then we said, and we want to win the freaking nay. Right, we didn't use the word freaking, but we said that was our mantra for the next whole yard period. We're going to do good at LOA, we're going to win the freaking nay. Do good at LOA, win the freaking nay. That was our drum LOA. We're going to win the freaking night, the good LOA. Win the freaking night. That was our drumbeat. So, coming through the yard period and we're getting to the end and we're down to that last week.
Gary Wise:And what happens on surface ships in particular, especially this variant which is the LSD platform, right, which is the amphibious gators, the XOs and COs fleet up, what that means is the person who's the executive officer will do typically 18 months. Then they'll go on hiatus for three months and then they'll come back and they will do 18 months as the commanding officer. And in between that hiatus, the new inbound XO will come on board and serve with the outgoing CO for the three months, right? And so at this time it's important to know that I'm currently going through the hiatus of one of my XOs which means my outgoing XO is currently on hiatus. I have a new XO who's been there maybe a week, and then, of course, I got my CEO, who I've had now for about a year, and we've we've got, we've been together now for quite a while. It's where we've got a pretty good relationship, pretty good rapport, and we're talking about really everything you know, okay, everything you know Okay, excuse me.
Gary Wise:So on this week, it's a big deal. We have got on this on this day, on this day right, I mean, it's like Wednesday, it's Wednesday on this, on this day, we have got to move off the birthing barge, okay, so the whole crew has got to be off the birthing barge. On a Wednesday, we have got to execute the NAY award inspection, right, execute the NAY award inspection, which is a one day inspection, and we, of course, we have the light off assessment team on board working with our engineers. Now, our engineers, for about the past week leading up to this, have been working just around the clock. I mean, they've been pretty much three-section duty working around the clock, so they have not had a lot of free time. In the engineering department, I have a top snipe, he's a master chief and I have a supply department LCPO. He's a senior chief master chief and I have a supply department LCPO. He's a senior chief right. And then my senior enlisted watch bill coordinator is also a senior chief and these three people matter a lot in this story in particular.
Gary Wise:So the day comes for the actual the Nate and we're doing LOA and we got to get up the birthing barge. So that morning the captain and I and the XO are talking and the captain basically says master chief, xo, you know the three things. We got to get up the birthing barge. So that morning the captain and I and the XO are talking and the captain basically says Mass Chief, xo, you know the three things we got going on today. I'm ready for the inbreed for 8 o'clock for the NAIA Award. Do we have any concerns? I tell him I said no, sir. Matter of fact, crew members.
Gary Wise:The night before and up leading up to the NAIA Award, we had crew members volunteering time to help beautify our mess decks and our wardroom and our chief's mess. We actually had not even served a meal on our mess decks for the previous four months because all of our meals have been on the Berthambarts on the birthing barge. So that morning or that day, lunch was going to be the first meal we served on board the ship since going into the yards. So there was no breakfast. Breakfast was on the birthing barge, but our lunch was going to be the first meal actually on board the ship and we were in briefing the NAID team at eight o'clock in the morning. Right, so that was, that was one, so the. But we finished up the Mastex the night before and my senior chief had everything all ready to go. It looked great in there and he was ready to unwrap it and show the crew a whole new Mastex and to show this inspection team. And then of course, we had to move all the food over and we had to make sure everything was ready to go to cook lunch, which they were already cooking at this point for that day.
Gary Wise:The LOA had started the night before and so they were essentially on their second day of LOA and so we were running a full on engineering inspection day of LOA, and so we were running a full on engineering inspection. And then of course we had to get off of the birthing barge because the fleet activity Sasebo team was coming to get the birthing barge on Thursday to take the birthing barge to go somewhere else. So we had to get off the birthing barge on Wednesday before we went home, right? And so the captain says it's a big day, I understood, sir, but working toward this day for a long time. And so the captain says it's a big day, understood sir, but working toward this day for a long time. And I think we're tracking. I remember telling him I think we're tracking.
Gary Wise:Well, for the mastects and for the name, eight o'clock is going to be our embryo for that. We'll come get you, we'll take you down there for that. Light off assessments going well, I think they're doing good, they're holding their own. I'll check in on that later on today and we'll get off the berth and march. And so the new XO has been there again relatively short period of time. Peace is understood.
Gary Wise:We go up and we go until submitting the XO, leave the captain, we go up to officer's call where you have all of the department heads and you have all of the senior enlist leaders for each department there. And of course, course engineering is not there because they're busy already with LOA. Supply is not there because they're busy without with the nay right. And EXO basically puts out to everybody all right, everybody got a lot going on. We got to get the Mastex ready to go for the nay. Everybody's supporting that. Make sure you guys stay out of the Mastex or whatever it is, until the inspection is done and support supply and support engineering, whatever they need. They've got the lead. And oh, by the way, we've got to be off the berth and barge by close of business today. That's what he puts out.
Gary Wise:Now, close of business to a lot of people can mean different things. To me, close of business is when we're done. That's what it means to me. That's what it means to my chief's mess. Closed business is when we're done, okay, but it can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. That little communication is going to matter later on in the day. So I go back, leave department head muster, whatever you want to call it, khaki, call Everyone, takes off. Me and the XO head down to make sure supply is ready.
Gary Wise:Everyone's falling into the wardroom for the in-brief, for the nay. Go up, we get the captain, bring him down. In-brief goes well and away, everything goes. And literally, as we're doing the nay in-brief, I had walked from my. We had a cut through between the chief's mess and the wardroom through this little scullery. Right, I'm cutting through the scullery from the chief's mess to the wardroom and one of my machinist mate chief my A-gang chief is in the scullery wrenching on something Like what are you doing? He's like man, we're still tightening up all the pipes for all this water work. So we were literally tightening up piping, still in the galleys the morning of the nay in brief, coming out of the yard period to do this nay thing. Right, I mean, we were by the skin of our teeth but boy, you couldn't do it any closer because it's just how it works, ok. So we go do the in brief. Everyone looks happy, everyone, it works Okay. So we go do the in-brief. Everyone looks happy, everyone looks great. Go.
Gary Wise:And from that point going forward, I just monitor the day. I make sure that everyone's getting out of the birthing barge that can. But I recognize that my engineers are not off the birthing barge and that I have other suppliers not off the birthing barge and people that have been focusing on the NAY and focusing on LOA are not off the birthing barge and people that have been focusing on the NAE and focusing on LOA are not off the birthing barge. So I touched bases with my senior chiefs and I touched bases with my other master chiefs. I said, guys, we've got to get off the birthing barge today. They're coming to take that barge tomorrow. And they all said we will be off the barge today, we promise, but that's not our priority right now. Understood Check, got it, roger, that that's not the priority right now. But I need you off the berth and barge.
Gary Wise:The day goes on. Lunch goes phenomenally well right on. Our new Mestex Looks great, food is delicious, everyone's excited, everyone's happy. Berth and barge is looking pretty good.
Gary Wise:It's around 2.30, 2.33 o'clock and I have a first-class petty officer who's not happy with an evaluation that he got I think it was a transfer eval, I don't remember what it was, but he was not happy with his evaluation. And so he comes to see me and he wants to talk about his eval and I'm actually actually I think it's around dinner time, it's later in the day and, mind you, I have no plans to go anywhere Like this is a big day. I mean, honestly, I might even sleep on the ship that night. I mean living over in Japan. One of the good things about that was. My house is about a 10-minute walk from the ship, but it was not uncommon for us to work till 6, 7, 8 o'clock at night. It just wasn't. That's how things goes. This is a busy day, this is a big day, and so I'm. I'm content with being on the ship as things play out, and I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to pressurize anything extraordinary, because my sailors, my team, have been working towards this day for a long time. The best thing I can do as a leader in this space is to allow them to do their work Right.
Gary Wise:So this first class penny officer is mad about his evaluation, wants to talk to me and we're having a very direct conversation, and it's later in the evening, it might even be afternoon. I just I don't even remember what time it is. I just remember, as I'm talking with this first class, uh, my senior chief watch bill coordinator comes by my office and my door is open. Typically, my door is closed. I'm having a closed door conversation, but it's open. So he walks up and he looks in my door and I can see he's like CMC, do you got you got a minute? And I'm like hey, senior, I appreciate you, brother, but not right now. Let me finish this conversation and then I'll come find you. He's like all right, and I can tell that he's anxious about something right. He leaves and probably like 30 minutes later because this first class is really upset about his email.
Gary Wise:About a half an hour later my top snipe comes up and he's like Mass Chief, this is way, way, bad, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way bad. I was like what's good? Now he doesn't do that typically, just so you know. That's a big indicator for me that there is something way, way bad going on, because he's in the middle of LOA. If he's stopping what he's doing for LOA, which is essentially running the largest department on the ship they're one of the biggest inspections of our ship's training cycle to come up to my office and tell me something way, way bad is happening, it's probably bad. I said what's going on? What is it? He said first class, we're done, we're done, we're done.
Gary Wise:I got to hear what Masters got to say. He says they're on the birthing barge right now throwing everybody's stuff in the trash can. And I said what do you mean? He says the XO is walking through the birthing barge with all the department heads and they are bagging up all the sailors, items, everything, and they're they have a. There's a line of essentially a conga line of sailors passing all these bags to the dumpsters on the pier. And I said what he said yeah, okay, I will look into it. He says, all right, thanks.
Gary Wise:So I get up, I go down to the birthing barge. As I'm walking down to the boat deck to go to the birthing barge, I see the trail of sailors going down to the dumpsters and they're laughing and they're like master chief, we're throwing everyone's stuff away. And I was just like oh, my God, okay, and they were all laughing just because of the sheer. I mean it's crazy to think about doing this. But this is what's happening, right. I mean just stuff's going and this is all kinds of crap. I mean blankets and sheets and just all kinds of things that we had not quite done yet because we were focusing on other things. It was going to get done, but we were happy to do it later on that day, or even we were going to get it done. It would have gotten done.
Gary Wise:But xo, I get down there and I see the xo and he's got a trail of apartments with him and uh, he's walking birthing to birthing and as he's walking, birthing to birthing, he's as he's walking birthing to birthing, he's just telling them all to bag everything up and throw it all away. I walk in and I'm a short guy, you can't tell. I'm not very tall and my XO at the time was very tall. And I walk in and he's like hey, mass Chief, how you doing? I said, hey, sir, how are you? He's like oh, cmc, I told everybody I wanted to be off here by closing business. That's what I meant. So they're going to learn that when I say something, this is what we get. We get off. I said, well, sir, I appreciate that. But um, we've got a lot going on today and right now we're we're going to get off here later, um, but okay, he's like well, we're going to do it right now, do it like this, and then we'll just go from there. I said, okay, all right, so again he's there with all his department heads. Of course, he's not been on the ship very long. At this point we don't have really. So neither here nor there. This is what's happened.
Gary Wise:So I go up back up on the board of the ship and I go to the quarter deck and I say, please pass the word to assemble all chief petty officers on the boat deck with the command master chief. And so they do, and all the chiefs come running because they all know this is not good, they all know this is crazy and typically our chiefs mess, we run things on the ship. But of course, course, we've got a new XO and this is a little bit of a new dynamic, right, and we had our plans and we were comfortable. But he was not, and that that's the moral of the story for me. Right, he was not quite comfortable that we were going to meet the expectation and this is what he did to ensure we got there. But my chief's mess came up and like, what are we going to do? And I said, well, we're going to go down and get in the dumpster, we're going to pull all that trash out and we're going to go through it all and we're going to make sure that we get all the sailors personal items back. Right, we're going to get all of them. And we did that.
Gary Wise:I remember going down there, all my chief's mess, I jumped in the dumpster, I'm chucking bags out, we're busting all the bags open and we got rid of all the crap that we didn't need. But we made sure we got back all the passports and driver's licenses and civilian clothes and cause there was all that stuff in there. I mean there was sailors passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, cell phones, all that Right. And luckily we were the only ship on the pier and we were the only. We knew where all the trash bags were at and none of it was really trash, it was really just people's stuff. And so then once we got it all out of the bags, we bagged it all back up again, we took it back on board the ship and we put it on the boat deck and we had it all on the boat deck. And that took us probably about an hour and a half to two hours, me and the chiefs.
Gary Wise:Now, of course, by this time of the day the NAIA award is done. So the supply chiefs are helping us, the engineer chiefs are still doing LOA, but the majority of this stuff is their sailor stuff and so they're definitely tracking it and they're appreciating what we're doing. And you know all of us all of us took a little bit of ownership and that we felt like that some of this stuff should have already been off the ship, but we also were going to do this later on this night. Right, we were going to it was it would have gotten done either way. But hey, this is how things go right.
Gary Wise:So, uh, we put all this stuff on the boat deck and I go down to, uh, the mestex on the birthing barge. So I'm looking now for the xo when I get down to the birthing barge on the mestex. All my crew is down there, right, and it's probably. I mean, it's dark outside, so it's probably. You know, if you've been to Japan, you know it gets dark relatively early this time of year, so it's probably about seven o'clock at night right now. Of course, we've had a big busy day, right, ney award day. Ney day happened today. We are now off the birthing barge.
Gary Wise:So that happened today, and now we are still doing LOA, right, I go down to the Mestex and I get down there and the XO is just down there letting the crew have it. He's just giving them all basically an understanding of when he puts something out. It's going to happen. Now, mind you, none of the chiefs were there. We were all out taking care of the sailors' personal effects, and our sailors don't know where their stuff is at at this time. But all the department heads are still down there, minus the chief engineer.
Gary Wise:So I go down there and as I'm walking up, the XO says hey, master Chief, do you have anything you'd like to say? I said, sir, I do, but if I could talk to you, off to the side for a minute before I speak. He says okay, a very, very tall, very serious gentleman. He was one of my best friends now in the world, just so you know, but this was the beginning of our relationship. He says okay, and so I take him off to the side.
Gary Wise:I said XO, sir, I'm about to tell these sailors that we went into the dumpster and got all their personal effects and that all their personal effects are in the vehicle turning area and they have 48 hours to go collect all their personal effects and get it off the vehicle turning area and then anything that's left there in the next 48 hours will get thrown away again. He was like I could just see from his eyes he's, he's not, he's not happy. But I also can see that he's all right, mash, see, do what you got to do. So I go out there and I tell him. I say I'm going to let them go too. I'm going to let them all go. They've had a hard day, busy day. We're going to call it here, right.
Gary Wise:He says all right, so I go out there, tell them all hey, your gear is in the VTA, this is where it's at. Go get it and don't leave it there for the next 48 hours. And thank you very much. And let me know, and your chain of command know, if you're missing anything significant so we can figure out how to best properly address that, for example, if you lost your wallet or you lost a cell phone or whatever it was. And just so everyone knows the story, we got it all. I never got any reports that anybody was missing anything significant.
Gary Wise:And so then, after everyone leaves, I sit the new XO down and I say sir, I love you, just for the sheer fact you're my xo. Right, you're my xo. I'm your command master, chief. My job is to take care of you, to love you and to work with you. Um, but you got to. We have got to, uh, make sure that we're on the same page. And my chief's mess would 100% would have taken care of this birthing march. Now I can appreciate that you did not meet your timeline of 5 o'clock or 4 o'clock or whatever that was. But we've just got to understand that this is not a good way to set a tone, especially on such an important day as today. Man, when we've had such a pivotal day. We're about to freaking. We put our best foot forward on the day. We're doing really good at LOA.
Gary Wise:Getting off the birthing barge is going to happen, but that's like a variable, that's, it's stationary, that's on us. A hundred percent. We can walk that damn thing at 2200 a night. 100, we can walk that damn thing at 2200 at night. Who cares, we'll get it done right. And uh, he just all right, mass chief, you know.
Gary Wise:So we go to see the captain and it's, I mean it's, it's, it's, it's night, it's probably 7, 30 at night, almost eight o'clock. We get there, go see the captain and we sit down. It's me xo. The ceo and the, the CEO has been doing the best he can do to stay out of everyone's way while all this stuff is happening. Right, I know, by the way, he's going through the tail end of his command tour and so it's very, very. It's hard to explain. It's like ending college or ending high school or ending a significant chapter in your life where you got to be in this significant position of leadership of of an entire command, of an entire crew, all these things, and you're, you're like wrapping it up and only you really know how far it's come, because I haven't been there since the beginning of his time and he had done an xo tour and now a co tour, but it was pretty pinnacle feeling, I'm pretty sure, because we were doing very well, the crew was doing very well. You can just feel it on the deck plates that we were doing good. Um, but of course he didn't. He didn't know everything that happened that day. So we go up there, we sit down and the x sir, we're off. The Berth and Barge, the NAEA award, went well today and LOA looks like it's going good. I think we're going to be okay with LOA as well.
Gary Wise:And I'm just sitting there being quiet, you know being quiet and the captain's like, okay, all right, and the XO says, all right, captain, if you got anything else for me, that's going to be it. And typically I speak and then we then we discuss taking off, Right, but XO just went ahead and said, all right, I'm gonna go ahead and leave and the captain's like, OK, looks at me, goes, master Chief, and I was like oh hell, no, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to talk about this. I was like because he needs to know what's just happened in case, god forbid, something comes sideways out of this and we lose some sailor's gear or something significant goes missing. Whatever he needs to know, right. And the exo sits back and just kind of takes a sigh. I was like and I told the captain everything and I remember the captain he was, he was upset. He was, uh, he's like you did what to my Sailors, xo, right, and I and I just it was an interesting day, to say the least.
Gary Wise:People always ask me what was one of my most stressful, hardest times as being a CMC and I will tell you it was always in between those transition periods of the XOCO turnovers and getting somebody new in one of those leadership positions that is so significant, and having to learn how to work together right, and having to learn how to work together to understand how we're going to best make this team work, how we're going to best make this team work. Now. I give you all this story because that was a hard leadership day for me because, as great as everything was when I had to go down there and have these tough conversations with the XO, my new XO, who was going to be there for the next, you know, 18 months as the XO and then be the follow on CO for this command, and my buddy, who was the XO, was coming back as CO wasn't there, and then my outgoing CO was somebody else that I cared about, and then, of course, all my chief's mass and all my sailors. There was just a lot going on and I had to be able to speak to all these variants of people and give them the authentic truth as to what I thought about, what was happening, what we were going to do about it, without throwing anybody under the bus. I'm not going to say this guy's wrong, this guy's right, this guy's perfect, this guy's not because we're all a freaking team, but I also got to do my best to make sure that we come through this and do right by the sailors, who are the ones putting in the majority of the work, and then also try to learn our lessons right and to teach people how to best communicate and or show trust, and for me it's probably one of the most important events in my leadership journey.
Gary Wise:As I look back on it and you know what's funny is I've got a lot of those kinds of stories because it's kind of always been my mantra to be an authentic leader I'm not afraid of stepping up and telling someone what they need to hear, and I don't think any true leader should be afraid of that. You can be nervous about the conflict, you can be concerned about what conflict, you can be concerned about what's possibly going to come afterwards, but at the end of the day, if we're all on the same team and we all want to see the team get the best end result, we have got to be able to have candid conversations about things that really matter and that have varying perspectives period. And I have varying perspectives period and I learned this from my dad. My dad was super authentic. He had no problem telling me his truths. He would tell me when he was tired. He would tell me when he was sad. He would tell me when he was happy. He had no problem telling me his fears about what he was doing in life. What were his frustrations, what were his hopes, what are the areas that he wished he had found greater success, and I learned that coming up that if you don't have this code of integrity or this willingness to be honest, how can I trust you Right?
Gary Wise:And that, to me, is one of the most important, important things. And I will tell you, as a sailor, there are two things that we value more than anything, and that is not stealing and not lying. Those two if you are a thief or you're a liar, you're not gonna have a very good time on board our ships, because we all live in close quarters, we're all staying very near each other, and nothing is worse than a liar or a thief. It's just how it is. And I will tell you that standing on those principles is something a leader must be able to do If you're not able to clearly communicate, to be honest with your people.
Gary Wise:I remember telling my chief's messes we're in the garbage can, going through all the trash that we've got to take some ownership on this too, because theoretically, there's way too much crap in these trash cans. People, right now I understand that we didn't want to, that we were willing to work all night to get the job done, to meet the deadline, and I appreciate that we would have gotten it done or have the duty section get it done or whatever. But we have to take some of that ownership right. When the XO probably walked that birthing barge and saw all that crap, he just probably thought I don't want to be here until midnight tonight. So let's get it done now so we can go home earlier. And I can't fault, I can't, I can't fault him for that Right. I mean, maybe we didn't have to put it in the dumpster and we could have just put it all in the ship or whatever Right. Point was well taken, point was well made Right. And I think for all of us that was that was also a turning point.
Gary Wise:You know, when I uh coming up through the navy, the mantra that I believed into, especially as a damage control man, was 100 ship, shipmate, self. And that is our mantra. Because in a casualty situation, the first thing I'm going to do is to make sure that my ship is sound, that there's no flooding, there's no fire, there's nothing that's going to cause the ship to sink, because if the ship's sinking, then we're going to have big, big problems. So that's number one take care of the ship. The next thing was to take care of my shipmate and to make sure that my teammates were all okay, that they were injured. I was going to treat them as long as the environment was safe to take care of them. I was going to check on them to make sure that they were okay. They were willing to continue the fight, that they had what they needed to continue to move forward, that we were all aligned on whatever mission we're working on, to make sure that we're all together.
Gary Wise:And the third priority was yourself. Right, you're going to make sure that you're not broken somewhere. You're not broken somewhere, you're not bleeding somewhere that you have. You know your eyes are working, your ears are working, your mouth is working. I mean this is again this checklist of things that I'm thinking of after a major hit or a major catastrophe or a major casualty on board the ship. This was our checklist and this was our mantra right, mantra right Ship shipmate self. Listen, this was our mantra right, mantra right Ship shipmate self. So, and again, that was my main plan as a damage controlman. That was my main code of leadership. It was ship shipmate self.
Gary Wise:So when I became a command master chief, what people don't always know about that is that you have to give up essentially your rating that you have been with or your job field you've been with for your entire career. So for 16 years I was essentially an engineer or a person who rose up through the ranks of damage control to become a master chief damage control, and so I achieved the pinnacle in that job community and then, when I converted over to the command master chief program, I was essentially letting that go and as I was thinking about, okay, what is my leadership philosophy going to be now? Am I still going to be a ship shipmate self kind of a guy which is a good place for all sailors to operate from? And I thought you know, if the chiefs on the ship were all ship shipmates self, then what if I reverse that order so that I can help to help them to best shore up any of their weakness with their weak areas, because we get so focused on the ship, we get so focused on taking care of other people that we're not always worried about ourselves. So I reversed it to being sailors were my first priority and my sailors were going to be the officers. They were going to be myself, they were going to be my chiefs. They were going to anybody. Any sailor within my organization was my first priority, holistically. Are they getting food, are they getting water? Is their family okay, do they have safe places to sleep, to eat, all these things? And I was going to care for all of them, regardless of pay grade, because I remember thinking as a senior chief, it almost felt like nobody cared about about us. We just were. Everyone expected us to just be okay and take care of ourselves, but very rarely were you getting people to just are you okay or because we're.
Gary Wise:There's a lot of hours. Maybe department heads, especially first tour department heads that's one of the most stressful tours in a career period. They are under a lot of pressure and they put themselves under a lot of pressure. Carpetheads that's one of the most stressful tours in a sailor's career period. They are under a lot of pressure and they put themselves under a lot of pressure, especially the surface warfare types, and so you have to really watch them and check on them and make sure they don't do something that's going to cause themselves to possibly not be able to continue on with the mission.
Gary Wise:Because, again, the team that you got, I promise y'all, is better than any other team you might get. I promise you, the one that you got is where you should focus your energy On training and developing and preparing and inspiring them, not just to think and I fire people, trust you and me. I'll fire the hell out of some people, but when I fire them I have no expectation of a relief. I've learned that back in my old days is running year or nine when I would fire people and my chief would say, well, you fire them, you're not going to get anybody else to take the spot, okay. So then, if I ever get a relief, it's a surprise and we we we calculate them into the conversation. Right, but when we fire somebody else any other time, you just are unfortunately not in the position you need to be in for the team. So we're going to move you somewhere else so that you can have a better opportunity to recover and to grow, because I don't believe in just firing somebody, at least in my organizations. I don't believe in just firing somebody and giving them nowhere else to recover, right, you just you've got to move them and then give them somewhere else to recover and move on.
Gary Wise:So my first leadership priority is going to be the sailors Now. The second priority for me is going to be the was the mission right. Now, you know ship shipmate self. Well, for me it was sailors mission, you know, and the mission for the ship that ship that I was on in particular was to embark United States Marines. We're going to embark these United States Marines and we're going to make them feel comfortable, we're going to make them feel like welcome and we're going to treat them like they are the mission right. Because I've taken Marines to places like Iraq and to overseas and I've brought back less Marines every time and this is what I would tell my sailors and this is what I would tell the Marines when we would embark them. So I wanted them to understand you are the mission, you are the cargo, you are the most important part of what we're doing on board this ship. And so I do not want you to feel like you're just coming on board our ship or this ship and you're not a part of the crew, because you are. I want you to feel like you are a part, we're symbiotic to each other and that we have got to work together and I would use that language with the sergeant majors, with the first sergeants, with all of the staff NCOs, with all of the Marines, all the Marine Corps leaders.
Gary Wise:That was the energy I wanted to take when I was on the aircraft carrier. I didn't even know it back then, but I was doing the same thing with the air wing. Right, we had to give them all their gas masks and all the damage control gear and I would tell the sailors on my division like, look, this aircraft carrier is no good without that dang air wing. We are a team and so we have got to welcome them on board. And I know how I can feel sometimes when you're on the ship and you know, as an engineer, you know there's two kinds of people on ships engineers and there's writers. But you know what, when you, when you see any, any, anything those awesome ships do, I promise you it takes the entire crew.
Gary Wise:So, again, my job as the CMC was to help everyone be in love with the mission, everyone to feel passionate about the mission and to understand how their role on the team directly affected mission accomplishment Everybody. And if you're not doing something that affects mission accomplishment, then you're not. We need to. We need to get you better alive. That was my target, right Then.
Gary Wise:My last one for me was patriotism, right. Pride in our country, pride in our flag, pride in why we are all doing the thing that we're doing here, which is serving our nation, on board this ship, because it's a lot, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of time, it's a lot of stress, it's a lot of pressure, and you don't know any given day when it's going to go sideways on you, whether it's a ship having a fire in port or whether it's a missiles inbound and you're bracing for shock. You just don't know. And so I wanted my sailors to have a connection to love of country and to feel like they were patriotic and to recognize them for being patriots, whether they knew it or not. I want they were. Just it's implied by the fact that you're in the uniform or you're doing the thing. If you're aligned with the mission, you're patriotic. And then giving that energy to them of this is America.
Gary Wise:I remember we were doing a FONOP, which is a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea one time and we were going near some of those manmade islands that China had built in the South China Sea right, and it was our job to do a freedom of navigation operation and the captain was like Mass Chief, we should fly the biggest American flag that we got and I was just like hell yeah, let's do that right Now. Eventually we got talked to about that because maybe it was a little too much, but again, those are the little things that we wanted to do to show passion for being Americans and pride in our country. Now there is a balance between being braggadocious or being too crazy, but I wanted the sailors to be proud of their country. I wanted the sailors and the Marines on board my ship to be proud to be Americans and to identify with that energy ship, to be proud to be Americans and to identify with that energy. And not only were you an American, but you're an American wearing the uniform of a fighting person right On ships. Our uniform for fighting is coveralls or protective garments or whatever it may be right. And our mission was to move these Marines to wherever the government said and then get them ashore so they can go out and do their thing. And then we kept the ship whole so we could take them home.
Gary Wise:And very, very important. And I think that as you as a leader, you've got to understand what are your priorities and what are your mantras and arguably to this day, I still leverage this sailors mission patriotism Now it's more along the lines of my cadets. Now our mission at the battalion right. And my mission at the battalion is very simple I want to grow future Americans that want to contribute to our society and they want to graduate high school and have real plans for life after high school. Simple, simple, right.
Gary Wise:But the first part the cadets same thing as before. I want them to be okay, healthy, simple, right. But the first part the cadets same thing as before. I want them to be okay, healthy, happy, whole and doing good in all their classes right and doing good with their parents. And then the third one is and to teach them to be patriotic. I want them to be proud to be Americans, proud to be a part of our community, proud to be a part of the high school, proud to be a part of all these different things. And then between these three areas we can grow future citizens. They're going to do great things and be strong leaders, right.
Gary Wise:And what I love about it is just the mission doesn't stop when I take over new leadership positions. I have a very simple strategy and God, I've been taking over leadership positions for so long. I mean when I got to the USS Ogden in 2003,. That's arguably my first real kit no kidding leadership job. But when I took that over as the DCPO work center supervisor, then the LPO, then the LCPO, when I went to a float training group San Diego and ended up becoming the carrier team leader for the damage control team and leading this team of 10 subject matter experts on board an aircraft carrier to assess all the damage control and all their training, everything about them. That was a huge team that I had to take care of and lead. Then I went from there to the George Washington. I led the damage control organization on board that ship. I mean I had a thousand watchstanders that worked for me from the G-Dub to Norfolk at the Surface Warfare Officer School where I was teaching the senior enlisted damage control school. I was teaching all the damage control officers for all the ships on the East Coast. These were all just chiefs and officers or senior enlisted first class petty officers and even international students.
Gary Wise:From there I went to the Ashland and I was the command master chief From there to Seventh Fleet staff working for Vice Admiral Sawyer and helping re-embark the Seventh Fleet staff from being ashore for three, four years before I got there to being back on board a ship that a lot of them had never even been on before and getting them back embarked on board the Blue Ridge and working with the Blue Ridge to figure out, well, we are the mission. It was almost the reverse of my time on Ashland. On Ashland I was embarking Marines Reverse. Now I was getting embarked as 7th Fleet staff and working with the ship's crew to understand that we were the mission. But how could we best work together as symbiotic? And then Naval Base Guam as the command master chief through all those years and then finally here at the schoolhouse at Vanguard High School. I've always used very similar processes when I get there. I was actually talking to my mom about this last night because she's taken over a new role as a leader. I was actually talking to my mom about this last night because she's taken over a new role as a leader. She's gotten herself into upper management now and I was kind of giving her the steps that I take and that's what I'm going to share with you right now.
Gary Wise:The first part about what I do, and I do this as well for my leadership consulting business. So if you ever come talk to me, hey, gary, we would like for you to come do an assessment of our management, our leadership, of our team and then give us a recommendation. This is exactly what I'm going to do. So, number one, I'm going to come in and I'm going to assess it. I'm going to ask for all your data, right, we're going to look at everything that's pertinent to your organization and it's going to step one, anything that's relevant to your people, okay. So I'm going to ask you for those metrics, that data.
Gary Wise:Anything worth doing in this life is worth tracking. If you guys didn't know that, now you know. Anything worth doing in this life is worth tracking. If you're not tracking the metric, then do you really care? That's just my opinion, right? You have got to know where you've been so you can project where you're going right. So if you call me up and say, hey, gary, I feel like I'm having management problems, leadership problems, I feel like my team could use some training or some guidance, I'm going to always agree with you, because I think training is the number one thing you can do to develop your people is to train them. I promise you, everybody needs training and in order for your team to be a good team, they need training, okay, but what I want to do is make sure you're getting relevant training to your team's challenges.
Gary Wise:Anybody can just pistol whip and come up with some random things and throw a bunch of things out in the air and they all might be somewhat relevant, but instead I would like to find out what your team is actually looking for. What are they needing? So we would number one, we'd pull all the data. I'd sit down with you, we would look, we would brainstorm real quick. Here's all the metrics we'd be looking at. You know, onboardings, off boardings, people that quit, just, we would get all the data's right For me.
Gary Wise:I would look at, like promotions. I would look at evaluations, I would look at surveys. I would look at, I would listen to different people, I would have interviews with people. So, for example, for me, when I go to a ship, I would sit down with all the chiefs, one-on-one within the first two weeks. All of them right, just book them, sit down, talk to them. I would talk to the first-class petty officers. I would talk to the JOs, the officers, the department heads, and I would just be receiving all the information, receiving all the information. Then what I would do is I would look for trends. Right, I look for trends. Do I have things that are popping up? Multiple areas.
Gary Wise:We like to use focus groups. I like to use focus groups, which is go into a focus group, let everybody know, hey, this is non-attributional, which means no one's going to be in trouble for what we talk about in here. And then I'll start throwing grenades off in the room and we'll see how the conversation goes. And typically the conversation will go well because I'm the one throwing the grenades. But now I'm getting the feedback from everybody as to what they think. And I'm doing that to validate, typically, what I found during all the data assessment or through the individual conversations. And once I have that validation, that's what I can start coming up with my recommendations to you as to what we would do about it. Right, and once I give you the recommendations here's the most important thing about the recommendations when I would do this on the ships, on the carriers again, we would go on board. We'd assess the whole carrier's damage control organization, everything, the training, the qualifications, the drills, the material, everything. Then we would run a bunch of drills, we'd run a bunch of training groups, we'd see how it all would go and if they didn't pass, then we would give them a recommendation as to what they would do going forward.
Gary Wise:This is where I learned that recommendations cannot be enduring. Too many people are trying to get government contracts, get contracts that last for freaking eight months, 10 months a year, two years, whatever it is. That's not my strategy. My strategy is to get you out of. Get us done as soon as possible.
Gary Wise:Right, for two reasons. Number one, because I know you've got a job to do. I know you've got a job to do. I know you've got business to take care of and you don't need this enduring churn of your people always going through freaking therapy as they're trying to get past it and move on with life. We need to figure out the issues, we need to communicate, we need to lay it all to bed and we need to get everybody moving forward. Okay, and secondly, got freaking busy. I don't got time to be doing that. For a year. I'm going to help you with your organization and your team. Plus I got to take care of my own family, my own things in life. Plus I'm running my own team with 185 people that are all doing great things 11 months out of the year.
Gary Wise:So we need a finite plan and that's what I would give you. I would say look, sir, ma'am, here's who we are CEO somebody. Here's my recommendation for a 30-day get well plan and we're going to be aggressive about this, but by the end of that 30 days, we're going to have taught people how to recognize the problems that we've already identified. We're going to communicate through all of them and resolve them. We're going to communicate through all of them and resolve them. We're going to teach them all how to communicate with each other by using common training and words and communication things. And then we're going to find, we're going to identify ways to go forward.
Gary Wise:And then people say but Gary, then how are they going to keep paying you money afterwards? Well, if I was doing it for the money, this would not be the place I'd be. That's just number one, right? That's just number one. So I'm not doing it for the money, I'm just doing it because I love working with people. I love helping people, I love fixing organizations that are struggling with their management or their leadership, and that's my gift. So this is almost essentially my give back. That's why I love working with the kids so much. This is why I'm offering my services at super discounted prices because I'm just enjoying helping, right.
Gary Wise:But number two I will also let you know that it never hurts to get yourself reassessed every six months to two years. To get yourself reassessed every six months to two years and maybe, if you liked work with me that one time, you'll contact me again in the future. Hey, great, and if you don't, no harm, no foul. That's how it goes, right and life goes on. So I just I tell all of you this because I think you have to have a strategy. I think having outside eyes is it's God, it's so important, you know, it's so important.
Gary Wise:When I was on the ship, or when I was at the, when I was a CMC on the ship, I always did my best to try to listen to the people that had the outside perspective, that did not get stuck in the middle of it and start falling in love with the problem. Right, because we can have this thing where we fall in love with the problem and we completely lose the sight picture for what's going wrong, right, and then. So having some outside perspective is a great learning opportunity for you and for your teams, right, and I will tell you when I got to the ROTC battalion, it was the exact same thing. I got there, two instructors had left. It was me and the commander and the master sergeant who left on me four months later. So now it's just me. I've got all these kids looking to me to help lead them through this chaos and they get really attached to us as their instructors. So when the master sergeant just left on them, plus the two previous instructors that left the year before, they were really hurt. So I had to not only rebuild that trust, I had to not only get to know all of them, but I had to forecast the vision as to where we were going to go and why it was in their best interest to want to be involved, up with this organization. How did I do it? Y'all I'm telling you. I assessed the organization, I trained everybody up, made sure that we all know what we were doing. I got us through in a finite period of time. I got them operating so they were working as different teams, as different groups and different parts of the organization. And then I reassess and we keep on going. But now here we are.
Gary Wise:This next school year will be my, my seniors that are coming up, or my freshman, my first year, my first year as an rotc instructor. Uh, we were last place in every competition we ever took part in. We barely had enough people to compete. Second year we qualified for state right, which was surprising for us, but we were still last place. We were last place, still in a lot, but it was not where I wanted to be. But last year, last school year, my third year, oh man, it came together. So, at least for the drill team that I take care of, we were out of 20 teams. We were typically ranging between right around 10th place, so middle of the pack, and we didn't just qualify for state, but we knew we were going to qualify for state. And my first year we did like two drill comps. Last year we did three drill comps. This next year we're going to do six drill competitions and I'm doing that because my seniors really want to and they only get one senior year.
Gary Wise:The CO, the XO, the master chief of the battalion, the ops officer, the chief staff officer, all these kids who put in so many hours for this team I mean we were at the basic leadership training camp last week at Camp Landing. Tomorrow we're at a drill camp down at Crystal River. These kids are putting hours on their summer vacation to improve this team, plus communicating offline, plus planning for the upcoming year. They only get one year to be in command or to have this year. So I've got to make sure I give them the energy to best support them, while also helping them to remember they've got to do their school, they've got to enjoy their high school experience, and man, it's. It's a tough time period because as soon as the drill season is over, then they start to really get sad because then it becomes the end of their high school experience, right? But this is also exciting because they're moving on to the rest of their lives.
Gary Wise:Truth be told, this is what every leader should want for their teams to see them develop, to see them improve, to see them grow, to see them peak and to see them begin to transition. Whether that's within your organization or not really shouldn't matter, because if you're constantly feeding into the people, there will be more people or they will. Well, my favorite leaders mine are the ones that manage to lead other leaders and then the other leaders choose to follow that first person. We all know we can lead. We all know we can do it, but I'm going to choose to follow this person into the fire, into the fight, through this thing called life right. That's very, very important. So right now I've got a team full of leaders in my senior class. They're all. Any one of them could be in charge and be okay, and that's a great place for us to be.
Gary Wise:And this is my goal for helping you guys, as we're talking about leadership development, organizational leadership, management and improving things, especially in Ocala. I don't mind doing things virtually. I love working technology. I don't mind helping people anywhere out in the world. If you contact me, I'll definitely love to work with you, but I really, really, really want to serve my community because it's going to make everything better for my students, who are my first priority. Right Again, my students, my cadets, my family are my first priority. So the better I can make my community, the better they're going to have a good place to grow up and to experience life Right, and so that way it will then feed into my next part, which is my mission, which is to grow these young Americans into being quality leaders that can graduate high school, have real plans for life after high school and can achieve their goals and have realistic goals and do things that they never thought were possible and then, hopefully, through all of that, they can be proud to be not only Americans. They can be proud believers. They can have faith. You have to believe in something you got to believe in something you know, got to believe in something you know.
Gary Wise:I really appreciate the time to share this with you all today. You know I really appreciate the time to share this with you all today. It's one of my favorite. I'm really enjoying this, feeding this, giving energy to the world. I love training. I love working with people. I've got, I've had, so many experiences in life that I feel like it's my job to share that with the people, and I'm trying to also get the network of in Ocala in Gainesville in North Central Florida to know who I am and what value I can bring to their team. And then for my sailors or my cadets or anybody that watches these videos, I just want them to hear that I'm saying the same messages consistently. I said the same things when I was in the military and I'm saying it in the ROTC world and I will continue to say this because I know these strategies work right. This is my gift. This is what I've been called to do is to work with people and helping their organizations to best develop the teams that they need them to be to best satisfy the goals of the leader, right? So I really do thank everybody for everything. Goals of the leader. So I really do thank everybody for everything.
Gary Wise:If you could, hey, if you like this video, definitely please subscribe to the YouTube channel. Like the video, that'd be great. Let's me know if it's a good thing or not. Share the video. Share it with people that you know. That would really be helpful as we continue to grow. I don't know, ultimately, where this is going to go. Like I said, I'm not really doing this for the money. For me, money is not my prime motivator. I love working with people. I love to see people improve. I'm not naive. I care about paying the bills, right. But hey, if I could figure out a way someday to leverage this content to make some money back to at least pay for being able to do that, that's a win, right. And if I can make more money to be able to then donate more money to the causes that I think are important, that's a win. And so you know, I'll continue to keep growing and keep doing things.
Gary Wise:Ocala Inspired is a leadership development event that I'm putting on here in Ocala. It's July 25th. It's at the Ocala Community Center. It is a in-person leadership development opportunity and the idea behind this and I used to do this when I was in the service as well it's to give people that are interested in the same things that I am, which is improving the world for everybody through leadership, through communication, through networking, through personal development, to give them all the place to go to have these kinds of conversations.
Gary Wise:And the team that we've got coming to speak to y'all is freaking amazing. Right, we've got Coach Hart, who's currently the head football coach at Trinity Catholic. Former NFL player, owns his own gym. He's out there doing great things. He's going to talk about stress management. We've got Pastor Mark Cummins, who's my pastor. This is who I go to to listen to him lead me through this journey of faith, right, and Mark also has his own leadership development organization and brand that he brings. He's going to be talking about high road learning. Right, I've got Mr Elgin Kerlock, who's another one of my mentors here in Ocala, florida, and Elgin is a very successful leader and businessman with Review Business Strategies. He's going to be talking about how to take the data and to make better decisions going forward.
Gary Wise:Got Lee Byers coming from seventh level leadership solutions. She's going to be talking about positive intelligence and how to best leverage Remember negativity positivity. You have got to be able to leverage positive in the mindset of your people so they can not be so obsessed on the negative. And then the reverse of that is I've got Ms Consuela Shaw coming and she's going to be talking about emotional intelligence and how to best manage so you don't get pulled down by the negative stuff. And then, finally, you've got Mr Miles McConnick from Veterans Helping Veterans. He's an Army veteran. He's going to be talking about how to manage yourself in a digital world.
Gary Wise:And then, all you know, you got me. I am going to be the person who's choreographing, who's coordinating it because, honestly, this is my platform. I don't need to stand up in front of you all and talk. I'm always willing to do it. I'm supposed to talk about hybrid learning environments, but this right here for me is a hybrid learning environment. But I care more that you get to hear what their messages are and that you can understand what they're trying to give to you and you can best receive some of that information.
Gary Wise:It's going to be on July 25th, 9.30 until one o'clock, right, the venue. We were gonna serve lunch there. The venue came back to us and said that we could not serve actual like meals. So we will have food there. There will be like coffee and some snacks, but there's not gonna be an exaggerated amount of food. And the idea is we'll get there, everyone will get there at 9.30. We'll go through all the speakers, we'll probably do a panel at the end and then we'll socialize, right, and if you're wanting to stick around and talk, we'll talk. And everybody wants to get out of there and go get some food, we're done, and then we'll go ahead and we'll plan for something else in the future to get these groups together, because I believe that when leaders come together to talk about opportunities, what we're all going to find, at a minimum, is community right. And so if you have not yet registered, please go to wiseleadershipsolutionscom, go to Ocala Inspired. You know I'm dropping the registration just at $35. So if anybody's already paid the 50, we're going to give you back some money on the backside money that's coming in, just so you know, after all of our bills are paid. We're going to donate the leftover funds to either church or hope, or to church or hope uh, here in Ocala, and I'm looking at cut different as well for our nonprofit donation. So those are the two areas that I'm planning to donate the leftover funds once we pay all of our bills. Please register, please come out, hit me up offline if you want to get involved.
Gary Wise:Thank you all very much for your time. You know I love doing this stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing wherever this road goes. I've only got another month or so till the school year starts and I deploy again. This is what school year is for me it's a deployment, and so I'm looking forward to enjoying this next month. I've got some really exciting interviews coming up for my podcast Some of my former shipmates and teammates. That'll be a lot of fun and we'll get some good content out there. So thank you all very much for listening to the sound of my voice. Y'all have a great day out there and I'll talk to you later. I was born for this. I know I was born for this. I believe. I believe we can write a story.
