The Race You Didn't Choose: Lessons from a Major General with Bob Dees

Leadership doesn’t wait for perfect timing - and the race you’re running may not be the one you would’ve chosen.

In this episode, Whitney Sewell sits down with retired U.S. Army Major General Bob Dees to talk about leading under pressure when the stakes are high.

From commanding at the Korean DMZ to rebuilding trust after crisis, Bob shares how faith, discipline, and clarity shaped his leadership in the most demanding environments.

This conversation goes beyond military leadership - it’s about leading your family, staying grounded in your calling, and showing up with integrity when pressure hits at home.

If you’re carrying weight you didn’t ask for, this episode will challenge and steady you.

Watch on YouTube:
 https://www.youtube.com/@TheWhitneySewell

Instagram:
 https://www.instagram.com/whitneysewell

Download Whitney’s Personal Operating System:
 https://courageousmen.com/personal-operating-system

Learn more:
 https://www.whitneysewell.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Doing the right thing doesn't always result in the right outcome. If you know what is right, then the next step is to do what is right. I thought I was doing my wife service by not sharing all the details with her or not burdening her with uh things that were going on in my world. I recognized I was depriving her of the opportunity to lend wisdom, to support, to be a life partner and a battle buddy. A successful marriage is the union of two great forgivers. Isolation is our enemy. Community is the antidote to isolation.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to the Courageous Men Podcast, where we help Christian men follow God faithfully, love their families well, and build a legacy that lasts. And now your host, Whitney Stewart.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Welcome to the Courageous Men Podcast. Today's conversation is for every man who feels the weight of responsibility he didn't ask for, but knows he's called to carry it faithfully. I'm honored to be joined by Bob Dees. Bob is a retired U.S. Army major general with 31 years of leadership experience, an author, faith-driven leader, and a man who has walked with God through some of the highest pressure environments imaginable. He's also been married for 52 years and is a father and grandfather. You're going to hear about some of those specific high-pressure environments today. And I hope you are listening close. We're going to talk about the race you didn't choose and what endurance really looks like for the Christian man. Bob, it's an honor to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Whitney, uh, likewise, it's to be here. And uh I look forward to sharing with you and your uh courageous men. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Well, man, I am excited about this interview and the time with you. Um, and uh, you know, I know that you have led in some of the highest pressure environments imaginable and really where decisions affected lives, families, even nations. Um, but you know, what makes this conversation today just especially meaningful is how your faith wasn't something you just set aside over there when you were under a lot of pressure. Uh, and it and it's what guided you. And I just I love that uh about you and I want to learn from you. I know the men that are listening want to learn from you in that way. We want to be able to lead like that when we're under pressure. You know, I was reading actually in John this morning, I've been going through John, and he tells the disciples, trouble's coming, right? Trouble is coming. Uh and I know he is their their peace, you know, and he's encouraging them to abide in him. But, you know, it sounds like, you know, you were prepared in ways that I'm wanting to learn about, you know, for times like that. And so I thought before we get into some of the really the high pressure things, very pieces of your career that you've been in that I want to jump into, I want to back up a little bit and hear about and how were you prepared for that? Give us a little insight into your faith journey. Uh and you know, so when that these high pressure stakes, you know, these high pressure moments that came for you, man, you were prepared. You didn't set your your faith aside. You were ready. Give us some some color on the background of of your faith journey.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Oh, you bet. Well, um, I went to high school in Houston, Texas, and uh through a series of events, I ended up at a place called West Point. We say a small industrial school up on the Hudson River in New York. So when I got there, they took away my Pontiac, how dare they? They took away my hair. They called me a plebe, and I was the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. And frankly, when I I recognized if I dug down real deep to get some, I might come up empty-handed. And that was a uh a spiritual uh teachable moment. And uh during that same time, uh there was a math instructor who had gone to the same high school I'd gone to in Houston, Texas, 10 years earlier. And he'd gone through West Point and graduated, went out to some of the service in the field, and then he came back as a professor. So he noticed that this young boy named Bob Dees from Houston, Texas, Bellar High School, was on the roster, and he immediately wrapped his arms around me. And frankly, he and his wife mentored me, and now my wife of 52 years, um, for four years at West Point. And uh basically he put me through spiritual boot camp, equivalent to all the other rigor at West Point. I mean, we would study New Testament survey Sunday mornings, six o'clock, Old Testament survey, all these different things. And uh, and I I won't uh wind out further on that, but they they're to us now. So that that notion of uh teachable moment was important for me. I came to Christ at an early age, I think 11 years old, mama, grandmother, Sunday school, all that. But I wanted as a teen, and then this teachable moment at West Point. Moving forward, uh, a couple of other things you say, how how can one be prepared for? Well, I I think the scripture that Christ talks about is uh if you're faithful in little, you also be faithful in much. And I found in my uh career, professional and personal lives, I I discovered that uh I had these teachable moments along the way. For instance, uh I as a young officer, they have a prop blap prop blast in an airborne outfit. And as for your sixth parachute jump, after you do your sixth jump with your new unit, uh the battalion commander and all the officers around in the officers club, they put you on top of a table, pretending like you're in an airplane, and you shuffle down the table and then you jump off to a parachute landing fall. And then they have this thing called the grog bowl. It's a big uh it's a helmet with parachute handles on both sides and all this crazy alcohol and this stuff and all these symbolic uh, you know, ingredients. And you're supposed to drink it and then uh hand it back to the battalion commander and salute. So for some reason, I you know, I I don't uh have an aversion to alcohol just in principle, but for that moment in time, when uh my time came, I jumped off, I did a great parachute landing fall. Uh the battalion commander hands me the grog bowl. I say, airborne, sir, and I hand it right back to him. I don't drink it, and then I run out airborne, airborne like that, you know, with all the other good old good lieutenants. You could hear people gasp. But uh the interesting point is that uh the battalion commander never said anything, but soon thereafter he started to uh uh trust me more with responsibility than some of the others. And I think he noted at a young age I was willing to swim upstream against peer pressure and against what everybody else was doing. And uh we can when we get back to parenting and other things, this whole notion of resisting peer pressure, I think is an important principle we can talk about. So he who is faithful and little is faithful in much. And then, you know, Paul Turnier said, uh we fall the way we lean. So I I uh I think by very virtue of mentors in my life, by virtue of focusing on the Lord, uh generally I began to lean in the right direction, uh in a in a biblical sense, in a in a personal, in a morality sense, and as I leaned in the right direction, that paid dividends when the big stage came. Because I was faithful in little things along the way, didn't know it, but God was was putting that uh those qualities in my life that then when, for instance, I had to evacuate a Korean town under threat of a terrorist incident uh at uh 3 a.m. in the morning, the Koreans were madder than hornets. And and so I uh they they the next morning had a had a resolution on the floor of the Korean Congress to move me off of the Korean peninsula because they were so upset they got their legislators involved in all this. But I had learned lessons about how to deal with that in earlier incidents and crisis moments in my career. So I was able to sort of understand how to navigate that to a successful outcome. And so that's that would be a principle I'd pass along. There's a whole bunch of stories along the way I won't bore you with now. Uh and then the final point I mentioned mentoring the person at West Point. Well, mentoring through my entire career uh has been amazing. There have been people that have invested me in me, and uh these people that invested in me are people of character, principle, uh biblical truth, and over time that sort of shapes who you are. And as a result, uh sometimes I just by virtue of God in me, not me, but God in me, I had the right stuff at the right time for those high pressure moments. That's incredible. I I hope that answers your question a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Uh yes. Uh so yeah, you're you're you came to the Lord young, right? At 11. Uh, but it sounds like you know, this this man uh at West Point who really took you under his wing pretty quickly, it seems, uh it really uh maybe you can elaborate a little bit on uh what were a couple of things that he did to did he have to pursue you? Uh or was it you pursuing him in mentorship? What did that look like early on to just to start that relationship? So that I know there's you know, men that are listening that could be mentoring other guys, you know, your young men around them that maybe they hadn't even realized, right? And and vice versa, you know, and young men who could be seeking mentorship from older men. What what did that look like for you?

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Right. Well, interesting. Uh we didn't call it mentorship in those days, and I'm not sure that's even the the best way to term it these days. It was somebody uh wrapping their arm around this young plebe, uh feeding me enchilada dinners, boy from Texas, enchilada dinners. That was a pretty attractive. And I would go up to their house whenever possible, and and they would do that. And then in the course of it, in course of this relational growth, uh, we would study the Bible, and then uh I would bring some of my friends in, and so the group would grow, and it was more of an organic thing. It it wasn't like, you know, you'll these days, because it's been popular in the leadership literature, oh, I need to find a mentor. And a mentor's gonna do X, Y, and Z and all this. Uh I what I found both when I was mentored and when I mentor others, I generally don't refer to it as uh mentoring formally. It's just uh a walk of a friendship, a walk of uh an older guy, sometimes with a younger guy, and uh doing life together, uh meeting needs, serving great causes. All of those are bonding experiences that result in uh a mentoring relationship, uh, but sometimes you don't even know what's happening until you look in the review mirror.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Yeah. Oh, that's great. I love it when it happens like that. Uh, you know, one thing you mentioned uh also that I wanted to highlight was you talked about uh swimming upstream against peer pressure, the importance of that. Uh, but also you said, you know, that this commander, whoever it was you mentioned that was uh in charge of that at that time, he he trusted you more after that. Like you did something different than everybody else did. Uh, but he he he trusted you more uh after that point, um, which I I think is a pretty incredible just something to realize, right? It could have been seen as the opposite.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Right. And sometimes that happens. I think doing the right thing doesn't always result in the right outcome. If for you and your heart uh you you think you uh you you know what is right, then the next step is to do what is right. And so know what's right and then do what's right. And sometimes we simply don't know, but once we do know, then we need to to to do it. And and so in in that case, uh I was uh fortunate, um grateful. The battalion commander saw through just the aspect of peer pressure, and the guy didn't obey my the this this protocol. He he saw something greater. And uh, you know, the commanders that are really wired into to what's going on are usually intuitive about you know that person. Uh we as we get along, I can tell all sorts of stories about grace received, grace given. You know, there are a lot of times in my uh where people extended grace to me, and then later on, when I was at a much higher level, I just felt like it was appropriate. I would extend grace to them. And oftentimes those people, just with a little ounce of grace, would go off and do great things.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Uh we could do a whole show just on that right there. That's that's oh man. Well, uh Bobby, I know you've said that.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

By the way, just so you know, uh uh I've written uh a resilience trilogy, and the book, uh Resilient Warriors and Resilient Leaders uh have a lot of they're they're packed with stories, they're packed with principles, they're packed with some of the things we're talking about. So just uh FYI at resiliencegodstyle.com. I'm not trying to sell anything. That's great. I appreciate information that might be useful.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

We'll put it in the show notes for sure, Bob. I'm glad you mentioned it. I think you've said, you know, leadership often shows up without warning. And and I was thinking, you know, could you take us back maybe to the moment when you were asked on short nose to take command of the Army forces along the Korean DMZ?

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Oh, you bet. Well, I was uh mining my own business, uh having a good time under the first Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, jumping out of airplanes. Uh and uh just the day before I talked to my personnel officer in the Pentagon and they said, okay, you're gonna be there for another six months or so. And I said, Great, you know, the life's good. And the next day I got a phone call. It is at noontime. I was at home with my wife, getting ready to eat lunch, and it says, stand by for the chief of staff of the army. So that's the big man. And he said, Bob, we've got a situation in Korea. You got to get there in uh nine days, and you need to have your wife with you because it's a coalition environment. They would expect the wife to be there. And oh, by the way, the person that you're uh relieving, uh they've had a serious issue with alcohol. Um, they went into a coma and a few other things. It was a very serious, I won't dive into all the details at this point, but it was very serious. And he said, so you got to go there as fast as you can. We want to uh replace him without making a big international incident of this. Because the command was the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea, which controlled uh at that time the forces on the demilitarized zone, and also the counterfire task force, which is includes some Korean elements as well as uh U.S. elements. So at one point about 30,000 people. So it was a big deal. They usually give you a uh a year to prepare for that, go to all these charm schools to uh learn how to do certain things at that level. And so, nine days notice, uh, I looked at my wife and and just sort of to myself, I said, I can't do this. And then I I dropped uh to my uh knees, and God recalled uh for me a chaplain, a chaplain that had been at um the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and he he presented a sermon on uh Remember Nehemiah. And so at the time when I had this thing happen, I remembered Nehemiah. And as it turned out, it wasn't just an inspirational uh uh time, it was a an operational blueprint for me. You know, it said uh he did a reconnaissance and held things in his heart. He said it held one hand on the weapon, one hand on the work, uh to recognize the threats that existed. And then it said he encountered opposition. And so that whole blueprint in Nehemiah, when he went back to rebuild the wall, was so similar to what I was doing to rebuild the physical and moral walls of the division. It had this moral crisis with the commander, it also had a hundred-year flood in Korea. Uh a monsoonal boundary settled over the division area, 72 inches of rain uh in uh in three days. Okay, so that now you're talking Nicaraguan type of flooding. It's not uh, you know, the Mississippi River raises, it's it's just like ravaging. And a lot of funny stories and serious stories out of that, again, won't dive into that right now. That was the moment in time that God said, okay, the chief staff of the army said, okay, you got to go deal with this challenge, and you got a short time to do it. And I, uh frankly, out of desperation or not knowing what to do, and I'm grateful it happened this way, I just turned to the Lord and said, Lord, I can't do this. Help me out. And that biblical character of Nehemiah became a wonderful guideline.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Just had to turn to the Lord, right? Like you said, yeah, that's right. I can't do it. I need you to show up. Uh uh yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Uh and then it it continued on. Some people say, What's your best assignment? What's your worst assignment? Okay, best assignment. Our worst assignment was Korea. Uh it's difficult terrain, difficult conditions. There's a lot of threat there, uh, frankly, because of the uh difficult operational environment. We lost uh uh 19 soldiers in the first six months. We had one armored personnel carrier go off the Mjun River Bridge, uh nine fall 90 feet into the Mjun River, which is right on the border with North Korea. So, you know, there's all sorts of stuff like that. Like, how does this happen? Well, you just deal with it and you navigate it and you uh you hold to the premise that you honor the fallen and you lead the living. And then gratefully, after uh that season, when when frankly I was regaining command and control of that division, reinstituting far greater safety measures and realistic training and all that. Uh, once that happened, we didn't get any serious scratches on soldiers uh engaged in very realistic training for like the next uh year and a half. Uh so uh God uh was grateful. And so they say, What's the worst assignment? Korea. What's the best assignment? We say it was Korea. And the primary reason the Korean people are wonderful and all that, but the primary reason is that God showed up.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Wow. I have to ask as well. You know, you said uh they they said your wife had to come along as well. I mean, that's my goodness. Tell me about how you led her in that. Uh was she ready to go? I mean, to an assignment like that, you know, how how did you lead her in that? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Well, God blessed her. She's uh she's a pretty amazing lady. She uh overall, she moved us 21 times in 31 years in the military. This move was probably the most exciting because they said uh come to Korea. Uh don't you you know you you gotta come right now. We we didn't take anything with us uh uh other than a suitcase. She came to Korea, participated in the uh change of command ceremony with all the international representatives and all that. And then she went right back home and she started packing up our household goods. And then she she came over, and when she came over, uh part of the story we don't tell very often, she was diagnosed with uh something of an unspecified origin. They think it might have been close to Legionnaire disease. And she I had a house up on the demilitarized zone. I had another house at our division headquarters north in Weijambu, Korea, and then she had a house that I every now and then got to go to that was in Seoul, Korea. So she was in the Seoul House, and uh after about uh seven days there, this whatever it was started taking her down. And uh we we knew an army chaplain and nurse that were there. Those are the only people we knew in Korea. I'd never been assigned to Korea, and she called this nurse, and she was my wife was blue and was getting worse and could barely talk, and uh called the nurse. The nurse dashed over with her husband, and then they were able to get her to the emergency room. She was in intensive care for uh over a week. And uh, I don't know if you know in Korea, every Christian church has a red cross on the top of it, a little red cross. Oh, and so there, you know, there's hundreds of churches. So I was up and dealing with crisis up on the demilitarized zone, and I would fly back in my helicopter every night to visit her in intensive care, not knowing if she would be alive the next day. And I can't tell you how encouraging it was to be flying over all those churches with the red crosses. That's all I could see out the helicopter. You know, it's dark and all that. I could just see those red crosses going down to soil to visit her, coming back. And uh it was really God's way to fortify me uh during that. And uh, because you know, if you talk about one hand on the weapon, one hand on the work, you know, one hand on your wife, and one hand on the the mission. Uh it was a little challenging time. Gratefully, God preserved her. She had a wonderful time and in in lots of ways in Korea, uh, leading people, mentoring people, and then learning more about the Korean culture.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

I'm just thinking about it gives me chills thinking about that, Bob. Just that situation. Uh, I mean, just having to go alone, much less, you know, the situation you were just describing, not knowing if your wife is going to survive every day. Oh my goodness. Um, well, uh, well, you know, I want to I want you to be able to speak to as well, you know, just for the men listening who feel like they're running, say, a race they didn't choose, uh, and whether it's in work or marriage or leadership, you know, what would you have them to understand about God's role in those assignments similar to this?

SPEAKER_03 21:48

I think calling is really critical, if I get your question right. In resilience, when I started writing the resilience books and I established something called the resilience life cycle. Uh I was just listening to the Lord and the I didn't have any preconceived notion. But as I listened and went from phase to phase in this life cycle of before the storm, during the storm, after the storm, uh the this notion of calling popped up preeminent in every case. And the calling was um ahead of time is know your calling. It's important to know why we're draining the swamp or why we're doing what we're doing. And if you're in business, if you're in ministry, if you're whatever you're doing, uh if you're in politics, whatever you're doing, you you gotta sort of know why you're doing what you're doing and truly have negotiated with God, understood from God what that call is and and what that looks like. And then when you get into a crisis or you get into the tough stuff related to that, uh the next thing is to remember your call. Because uh remembering your call, you know, it's sort of like with altitude comes perspective, with height comes perspective. And so when you remember your call, you gain altitude and you can look at things differently. There was a soldier that uh had to do something really tough in Afghanistan. He called me and uh I talked to him and I said, uh, you're standing on the edge of evil, and this is what evil does. And so you need to remember your call. You are here as a U.S. Army soldier. You're here. Just yesterday you were passing out soccer balls to Afghanistan children and helping and all this. And so this is tough, but you need to remember your call. And I know the chaplain's in route, and we're all going to get through this together. And when I said remember your call, it's almost like you could hear him on the phone stiffen his backbone. So that's very powerful. And then thirdly, after the fact, after you go through a trauma or you're recovering from a bad incident or whatever, or you're transitioning to a new uh job, it's very important to revalidate your call. And as you revalidate your call, I recommend pulling a board of directors, a small group of people that know you, maybe your pastor, maybe your boss, certainly your wife, uh, maybe your brother or sister, people that know you from different points of the compass and that can advise you on how to navigate that trauma or that transition. And I recommend that for a short duration. This is not a lifetime of neediness in this way, but that's uh it's a short time of focus on uh you hearing from the Lord and figuring out what that next chapter looks like. So that's about calling. And then uh just uh to quote uh from the military side, uh Robert E. Lee said of Stonewall Jackson, it says, He advances to my purpose as the needle of the north on a compass. And so the the point is without variation, Robert or uh Stonewall Jackson would accomplish the commander's intent. And in a different sense, all of us as men, we ought to seek to accomplish our commander's intent, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we we gotta know what that purpose is, and then we gotta move out and draw fire, and we've got to stay on azimuth, being open to correction along the way. If that makes sense. It does.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

That's very well said. Uh even the open to correction along the way. I like the thought too of having a board of advisors, uh, and in that season, I think it's so wise. And you even mentioned, you know, having other men or advisors from uh other, you said points of the compass, uh, right? And uh that's so good. What about you know, uh through situations even similar to that? Uh, you know, it's important when you're coming in and there's uh somebody in a high, high stress situation, they're speaking to you, asking, you know, for your guidance, your wisdom, that you're calm, right? You're you're leading uh just with a calm, calmness about you, maybe instead of a uh a frantic or urgency, right? Uh, you know, how have you you learned to do that, right? Approach those situations where, hey, yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, you're you're stepping into the room. I know you've done this thousands of times, right? You've stepped in the room. Well, I I did this with state police. Uh, it's a similar situation. You walk in and it's like everybody's eyes are on you. They expect you to have the answers, they expect you to know what to do. They're just waiting for you to tell them, you know, what what needs to happen. And how you respond in that moment matters so much, right? That that you're able to have leadership in that moment and be calm. And uh, but to you know, tell us how did you learn to do that? What you know, just that calmness over urgency in moments like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Yeah, well, I I think I think uh some of it is just experience, obviously, uh like you had with the police and so forth. Experience. There's the expression um when you're coaching a high school football team and uh some people haven't scored their first touchdown, you know, you sort of counsel them, you say, okay, act like you've been there before, and don't don't act like an idiot because you scored your first touchdown. So this notion of act like you've been there before. In fact, if you really reflect properly with the Lord, you probably have been there before because God gives us all these past life experiences that prepare us, that give us this sense of calm, this sense of perspective that we need to have. There was an example uh a gentleman wrote up in a book about uh when that armored personnel carrier drove off of the MGen River Bridge. Uh, I flew up there in my helicopter, landed on one end of the bridge, dark night, and then uh he was on the other end of the bridge with his staff. They were working, but when the commander, when I landed, then they were walking across the bridge to meet me, to brief me on the situation. And so as they came over, I could tell that they were all sort of slumped over and trudging along, and we finally met. And uh I said, okay, tell me what's going on. And then I said, Okay, now I'd like for you to put your head up and stand tall because you're the commander of this outfit, and you have to lead the living and honor the fallen. You got some soldiers that may drown. We don't know. We're trying to get them. You need to let me know what uh how I can help you, but you need to do an about face and go lead your folks. I wasn't ugly about it, but I was stern because uh he needed that word of uh direction, uh calm, uh reinforced that uh he could do this. And uh so he turned around and uh and they they did a great job. We lost the soldiers, but they did a great job navigating this crisis in their world. I guess, you know, like I said, it's just experience. There's a verse that I've been going on of recent, and the whole notion of discipline. You know, I found discipline pretty interesting. You know, I'm obviously Airborne Ranger, all this, I've been exposed to a lot of discipline. But uh, as I grow older, I had a birthday yesterday, uh, and as I grow older, you know, it's important to be disciplined in your later years also. And so I've been dwelling on discipline. And the interesting part of this is that in Hebrews 12, 7, it says, it is for discipline that you endure. So I find that interesting, this notion of you endure pain, you endure suffering, you endure these difficult scenarios, because each one of those builds discipline. And discipline not only with respect to getting up uh at the right time of the morning or making your bed or whatever, but discipline in terms of your thought process, discipline in terms of your messaging, so that when you're in a crisis like this, you message appropriately and prudently, and not you don't put more spin on the ball, you put less spin on the ball. And so all of those things, I think, you know, these are all mutually reinforcing. As we focus on discipline in our lives, as we focus on growth as a leader, what did we learn? And we integrate that into future whatever, then then that's the way that we can be the voice of calm. That's the way we can steal the waters, not like Jesus, but nevertheless, those qualities help us to lead others, either in extremist or day by day on the shop floor, or you know, wherever it is that that your courageous men happen to work.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

That's good. Wow. I I wanna uh with the few minutes we have here uh left, Bob, I want to be able to transition to more of a family uh conversation as far as you know, you you mentioned you've been married 52 years. Uh, I mean, what an accomplishment um for your wife, maybe I should say. All right. But you're right. We should have our own, I'm sure. Uh, but wow, uh, it's that's amazing. I I I love that you all have been married that long and in all the experiences. So at 21 moves, I think you said, and you know, for uh 52 years while carrying just immense just leadership responsibility right all over the world. How did you maybe learn to lead at home without letting really the weight of all these other responsibilities, you know, spill over right into the into your home life as a husband, father?

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Uh a couple of things. Uh that's a broad question, obviously. The first thing I would say as a as a young professional, and then in my case in the military, I thought I was doing my wife service by not sharing all the details with her or not burdening her with uh things that were going on in my world. And then somewhere there was a eureka, and I recognized that I was cutting her out of uh a very significant part of my life. And I was depriving her of the opportunity to lend wisdom, to support, to be a life partner and a battle buddy. And so along the way, I learned not to share less, but to share more with my wife. And I learned what uh a significant resource she was, and I learned how um it was only fair to her to include her in the totality of things. So that would be the first point. Related to longevity in marriage, uh, a successful marriage is the union of two great forgivers. So you've probably heard that before, but that's that's awfully important, is uh, you know, conflict resolution, how to fight fear, all those uh qualities that that you know uh that lead to a successful relationship and marriage. Uh another one is uh Kathleen and I used to teach parents of teen seminars. So, you know, uh we did this when we had teens. We taught younger classes when we had younger children. So what's the point? Uh we would tell people in our class, parenting of teens, that uh God has plenty of time with our teens, but he's running out of time with us. And so this this whole uh adventure called parenting is to help us also with our growth. And we need to recognize that as a growth process. We're not going to be perfect in it, but we need to be growing and learning in it. And so that's uh, I think anytime we teach something, I mean, we all know this, when you teach something, you learn to to really um embrace it yourself. And then finally, uh, I'd say uh intentional parenting. We had a fellow at Bowler Farm National Center for Healthy Veterans, and uh he came in, he was a very successful businessman in a major city. He was a college graduate. His wife was a college graduate, she was Dean of Students uh at a certain college. They came in, and when they came in, I said, Well, to be in our program, I said, Why are we here? And he had had significant trauma as a Marine in one of his assignments. So I said, Why are we here? And he said, I tried to outrun my trauma with my job, and I found out it doesn't work. And so I turned to the young 13-year-old and I said, Why are we here? And she said, We just want our daddy back. And so when we got to through the normal coursework and we got to the third uh phase, which is an internship of three months, I said, You don't need uh an internship in business. You've maxed that. You're gonna be a hero in business again. But you need an internship and family. And so I want you to develop an intentional family uh business plan. And it was very creative. He did it. They executed it. It really helped that family reunite uh along with some equine therapy and counseling and other things. And so now they're doing very well today. But that was somebody that uh really tried to deal with it themselves. And uh and and we found that uh in the in the family, you gotta deal with some of these relational issues and then try to knit the family back together. Regrettably, many we we we get more families that are fractured than that, than are intact. Uh that's just a reality in uh America today. Before we end, I wanted to provide one biblical challenge to the men online, but please go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yeah. Yeah, I I want you to say that it's one of the last questions I always ask. I'm looking forward to that. I was gonna ask you though, when you think about a legacy, Bob, you know, what do you hope that your wife, children, grandchildren say about how you ran your race?

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Well, um, I'd say again, when you say run your race, that immediately takes me into Hebrews 12. Run with endurance the race that is set before you. I think that would be the legacy uh that I would like them to uh appreciate is that I was able to run with endurance this calling, this race that got it set before me, and try to maintain a focus on that. And then it talks about uh avoiding obstacles and all those things. But uh the real thing is run with endurance the race set before you. And then I I guess when I was a a father, another turning point was when I appreciated seeing my young son hit home runs instead of me hitting home runs. And so over time we learn to loosen our grip on in on that uh achievement that we seek for ourselves, and and that becomes subservient to helping others achieve greatness or whatever. So that would be a legacy too, helping others succeed.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Wow. Okay. If you could issue that challenge, you one challenge to men listening, maybe something practical. What would that be?

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Yeah, well, uh in uh in Psalms, uh it says Psalm 7872, it says David shepherded them, he led them, David shepherded them according to the skill of his hands, which is competency, and the uh character of his heart, which which is and the integrity of his heart, which is character. So selfless service over time from a platform of character and competence. And then I would simply add, Whitney, that uh uh how are character and competence related? You have uh character, which is your deeply held core values, but then the competencies have to be executed in a nitty-gritty world. And what's the bridge between those two? And it would be this thing called wisdom. So we we need to seek wisdom as young, as courageous men. We need to develop our character, we need to develop our competencies. And with these ingredients, we selflessly serve over time the aspect of resilience. If we all can do that as leaders, leaders of families, leaders of businesses, leaders of teams, leaders of whatever, uh, we're probably doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

I'm so grateful to have had you on the show. There is, oh my goodness, so many, so many lessons uh from just the few minutes here with you. I'm very grateful. Uh, you are serving us and serving many that are listening as well, just by your example uh and and the way you have served the Lord and served so many others. Um just your walk with the Lord uh is encouraging. And just want to thank you again for that. Uh and I wanted to I wanted to give you the opportunity again, though, to share where the listeners can learn more about you or about the farm, uh even the books that you mentioned as well, where they can get those.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Sure. Well, great. Thank you for asking, Wendy, and thank you for doing this, and thanks to all the courageous men listening. Two websites. One is resiliencegodstyle.com. That's all about resilience. There's a blog on there you may find pretty meaty and relevant uh in the books and all that stuff. The second website is healthyveterans.org. That's the the website for the National Center for Healthy Veterans here in Alta Vista, Virginia. We also have spin-offs of that one in Somerset, Kentucky, Bluegrass Veterans Ranch. So we're we're working, it's a holistic integration of proven best practices, powerful environment of faith, and we're seeing good results. And uh so send us your referrals because uh uh the you you will once you become familiar with us, you'll know who to refer to us and uh find people that are under bridges, coming out of jail, maybe very successful, but uh traumatized by their military service. Send them our way and we'll we'll help them and we'll put them back out on the track to do good things for America. Wow. Thank you so much, Bob. Thank you, Whitney. Appreciate it.