Flawless Leadership: Former Fighter Pilot Boo Boucousis on Resilience, Debriefing, and Unlocking Your Full Potential

What if the biggest obstacle to reaching your potential isn't a lack of talent—but the pursuit of perfection?

In this episode of Books4Guys, Chris sits down with former Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot, leadership expert, keynote speaker, and author Boo Boucousis to discuss leadership, resilience, perfectionism, personal growth, and the lessons high-performing organizations can learn from fighter pilots. Drawing on decades of experience in military aviation and leadership consulting with Afterburner, Boo explains why the world's best leaders don't strive for perfection—they strive for flawlessness by focusing on what they can control and adapting intelligently to what they can't. 

Throughout the conversation, Boo introduces his philosophy of Flawless Leadership, explaining why perfectionism quietly fuels burnout, disengagement, and anxiety in today's workplace. He shares practical lessons from fighter pilot training, including the importance of intentional practice, mission planning, and one of the military's most valuable habits: the debrief. Rather than dwelling on mistakes, Boo explains how asking four simple questions after every challenge can accelerate learning, improve decision-making, and create continuous growth in business and life. 

Chris and Boo also discuss leadership development, ADHD, focus in a distracted world, time management, technology, parenting, coaching, confidence, and why becoming just one percent better each day often leads to extraordinary long-term results. Whether you're leading a company, building a business, coaching a team, or simply trying to become a better version of yourself, this conversation is filled with practical strategies that will change the way you approach challenges, goals, and personal growth. 

Key Discussion Topics

•  Why perfectionism leads to burnout and how flawlessness creates freedom 
•  Lessons from Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot training 
•  The four-step debrief process for continuous improvement 
•  Leadership principles used by elite military teams and Fortune 500 companies 
•  Building confidence through intentional practice 
•  ADHD, focus, and thriving in a distracted world 
•  Time management and investing energy where it matters most 
•  Coaching, mentorship, and developing high-performing teams 
•  Why small daily improvements compound into extraordinary results 
•  Books that shaped Boo's leadership philosophy, including autobiographies by Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf 

Executive Development Partner: https://www.standardpursuit.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Before we jump into today's episode, I want to thank our executive development partner, Standard Pursuit. Founded by Hunter Didrickson, Standard Pursuit is a coaching community built for founders, entrepreneurs, and high performers who are ready to step into the next version of themselves. Through one-on-one coaching and the Standard Training Club, Hunter helps people strengthen both their physical and mental operating systems so they can think more clearly, lead more effectively, and perform at a higher level. One of the things I appreciate most about what Hunter is building is that he understands success isn't just about business. It's about health, mindset, discipline, leadership, and becoming the type of person capable of achieving the goals you set for yourself. If you're looking to sharpen your performance, improve your habits, and operate at a higher level both personally and professionally, I encourage you to check out StandardPursuit at standardpursuit.com. Now let's get to today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

How long have you been in Utah? 18 months, and then before that, a year and a half in Miami. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, because I saw where Afterburner was in Florida, and then I saw where you were in Utah. So I was like, how long has Boo been in Utah?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, yeah. Well, mate, it was a I didn't I didn't love living in Miami. Um, so we came here for a holiday, flew my kids out from Australia, and then when we're here, we're like, this is this place is amazing. Like it's got everything. Yeah. Where are you calling in from? Yeah, so I'm in Nashville. Okay. Oh, that was the other that we were gonna move to Nashville. Okay. Small small world. Yes, we we drove Miami, Nashville. We spent two weeks in Nashville, loved it, absolutely loved it. Yeah, and then we got to Park City and we're like, oh, yeah, this is great too. And it we don't have to drive all the way back now, so let's just stay here.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, small world. No, met my wife here, and so we're here now. And uh no, I was I was in Arizona a few days ago. We were I go on a golf trip. We were actually talking about Utah maybe being a destination next year. So uh maybe I'll end up even closer to you. But no, boo, man, this has been exciting. I wish I'd have pushed record as we just kicked off because it was pretty cool. You were letting me know you were you heard about Books for Guys recently in another group that you were talking and working with, and so it's really cool to hear uh the Books for Guys' name, you know, getting thrown around out there in a positive way. And very excited to talk with you because your story, man, it's very interesting. When I got introduced to you uh through email, I started looking it up and I was like, okay, so Boo was a fighter pilot in Australia, then went to Afghanistan after being medically discharged, spent some time there, did some cool things, went back to Australia. Um, then some more growth happened, and now you've been with Afterburner. You've got a couple books out, one you co-authored, obviously Afterburner, and then you got another one coming out later this year. Um, you know, and I just kind of gave a high-level summary there. But man, I would love for you to just take over for a few minutes and just share, share your story because it is interesting, and especially, you know, through Afterburner, what you guys do with companies. And I saw the New York Giants thing. I'm a big football fan, so I was like, dang, this is really, really interesting how you take that fighter jet approach and incorporate it into business and helping leaders um, you know, be more successful and what they're trying to do. But man, I in your words, tell your story a little bit and just kind of where that's led to now.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, look, I I truly am, you know, on a mission, not of my own doing. And if you look at how my career has unfolded, you couldn't really plan it. I mean, my whole purpose in life now is to build a movement of flawless leaders. And by a flawless leader, we define that as a leader who invests 100% in what they can control and adapts intelligently and calmly to what they cannot. And this whole uh word flawless, you humans being humans, we tend to conflate things and put everything in the same basket if it kind of sounds the same. And flawless and perfection are obviously are often used interchangeably, even by the field of psychology. But the reality is they're two very different words. Perfection has its origins in Latin, it's a scholastic term and it's a theoretical term, and it and it kind of means whole in all parts, which means both what you can and what you can't control. And and anything that incorporates what you can't control into 100% is really not doable. But unfortunately, the way a human's internal narrative works is we we tend to work in black and white and absolutes. Uh, and as a result, we suffer from uh undiagnosed perfectionism. Uh, and there was a study that was completed a few years ago, which is the thesis of my new book, Flawless Leadership, which demonstrated that 86% of leaders don't label it perfectionism, but when they unpack it, it's like, yeah, I'm trying to be perfect all the time. And the problem with with trying to be perfect is the way we see perfection is through control. Uh and the the that leaders need to control everything to make it perfect, which is which is impossible, right? And and sadly, all of that control means that you become overwhelmed. And then the more overwhelmed you become, the less effective you are, the more perfection disappears off into the distance. So it's like a reinforcing cycle that I call the perfection death spiral, because at the bottom is is burnout and and really disengagement, which are two of the biggest problems leaders are dealing with right now. Burnout's never been higher and engagement's never been lower. Uh, so we can free ourselves of this. And the pathway to freedom is this concept of flawlessness, which is the pursuit of perfection and acknowledging that it's never going to happen. You know, and Vince Lombardi famously quoted, you know, gentlemen will will never be perfect, but through the pursuit of perfection, we catch excellence. Uh and the origin of the word flawless is actually Nordic. It's from the Vikings. And it it talks about a rock being unbroken, that is a that is a flawless rock. And and I kind of like that, a bit like a diamond. A diamond can be flawless, it can be have no occlusions, perfect clarity. But the minute we give it to a jeweler, it can become imperfect because the diamond can't control that. So this is something that, you know, I never knew it at the time, but this is the program that the Air Force instills into the fighter pilot. It it instills excellence, and there's never an expectation that you're going to be perfect. And that release of I have to be perfect is very powerful. Uh, and you know, it's all it's been a very subconscious thing for many years. I mean, I'm 52 this year. And it's only in the last few years, as I deconstruct the pathway to becoming a fighter pilot and then being a fighter pilot, and then being a leader in the world of fighter pilots, and testing that against hundreds of studies done around the world, that you realize, you know what, they they built this system to unprogram survival thinking, which is what humans run on. And they engineered a way of thinking that's actually uh designed to thrive and to be super effective no matter what the circumstances are. So as you look at the psychology of a fighter pilot, you look at the mindset piece. You know, when we when we hear this word mindset, we always think it's a mental thing. But in the world of the fighter pilot, it's actually a mental thing supported by action. Like you, you, you, you, you can be intentional about what the future looks like. You can you can uh you know look at the front of the jigsaw puzzle box and say, that's what I want to be. But when you tip the jigsaw out, it's like, oh my gosh, how do how do I put the 1,000 parts of life together to fulfill the big picture? So if you think of, you know, I was five years old when I dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. Took me 17 years, 22. I flew a f uh an F-18 Hornet for the first time solo. Then I was a fighter pilot for after training, maybe nine years. And at no point are you ever on top of it. At no point do you fly a mission and nail it. And then you don't know all the knowledge you need to know because it's just shy of infinite. Like there are so many you the thing about operating at speed in an aeroplane is every degree and every one knot of speed when you have 30 aeroplanes in the air is a multiple of 30 and it changes the picture second by second. So you if we've and we don't look at life as understanding that there is a consequence of my decisions and actions. Whereas as a fighter pilot, you're like, what does this tiny correction mean? How's everything going to change? And that's how you start to live your entire life. You're you're you're very you're not risk averse, but you're really good at risk management and saying, well, I've only got so many hours in the day, I've only got so much energy. So do I invest in this? Do I invest in that? Um and you create a a way of looking at the world, which is unless I can clearly uh articulate the impact of my actions, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do anything, I'm not gonna waste the the seconds of the day in work that doesn't deliver something. So that's kind of the whole premise of the book. First of all, the you know, it's releasing yourself from perfection, and then how do you invest a hundred percent in what you can control? Uh and really that's just you. That's that's you uh being the best version of yourself. And often we want to be the best version of ourselves, but our you know, our past, our narrative, you know, our our biases shape our beliefs, and then we behave in a way in what we believe in. So the the true driver of change is really getting into that autopilot, which is again what what they do as a fighter pilot. They they have to create these people that just have this self-belief that's off the charts, that that that is just like I can crush any situation that I'll put in front of.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

No, that's interesting. And I'm I one of my questions as you're saying that, because I'm thinking about this, there it seems like there's a very fine line. Because we we I I've heard this before, like you control what you can control. You know, I played sports, control what you can control, what you can't control, it just happens, it's how you respond to it. So, you know, you're you're however that works. But how do you, as a person and specifically a fighter pilot or a leader, how do you you can know that, but you're also trying to still be the very best? How how do you find that line of when you realize you're maybe going a little bit too far towards the perfectionist part again and you need to self-correct and go, I need to let things go a little bit more? How do you work with people to, I guess, understand where they're at and see where they're maybe missing the mark a little bit and how do they self-correct in in the moment like that?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yeah, I think what it comes down to, and I learned this, you know, I was diagnosed with ADHD about three or four years ago, I can't remember exactly. Uh, my son was struggling at school, and part of the ADHD assessment for him was his parents had to be assessed. And I was like, yep, I kind of knew I probably had it anyway, but you know, I scored 99.6% on the self-assessed scale, which is like off the charts. So I can imagine sliding doors. If I wasn't a fire pilot, I'd probably be overdosed somewhere in San Francisco by now. Uh, you know, so lucky sliding doors, because the system gave me what I think everyone needs. So ADHD amplifies what we all are kind of becoming in the digital world, which is unless you're really interested in something, you're not going to focus on it. And if there's a distraction, you're going to prioritize it because it's new, it's shiny, right? So when we talk about what you can control, time is one thing that in part you can control and in part you can't. So what you can control in time is I I call it like sequencing, like missionization. So let's say you want to be Tiger Woods, right? And you're 10 years old, and you know that if I'm I want to be Tiger Woods on a passionate, I'm practicing, then I'm gonna get there. But not every kid gets there, obviously. So I think there's a couple of things that that are missing. The first is this idea of uh I'm not there yet, which means that within this massive aspiration, I'm gonna have days, a lot of more, more of these days than the other days, which is winning, where I'm I'm gonna shank the ball, I'm gonna hook, I'm gonna slice. Things are gonna happen that I I I don't want to have have happen. So the immediate trigger then is, oh, okay, I just haven't nailed that shot yet. So be comfortable in where you are in the journey right now. Uh, then there's the 10,000 hours of practice. Uh, where there's a nuance to that word is it's 10,000 hours of intentional practice, which can mean doesn't necessarily mean 10,000 hours of of of hitting a ball. It could be 10 out, 10,000, it can be hours of visualization, it can be hours of memorization. So as a fighter pilot, you have to memorize about 300 checklist items, right? From one to 300 takes about six weeks to do it. Um, and it when you look at it, you're like, how could I possibly learn these 300 things from one to 300 and do it every single day? But you're just not there yet. You just practice and practice and practice. But there's a lot of intentionality around that because by doing that really well, what we understand as fighter pilots is we value cognitive bandwidth. So when it comes to learning, there's only so much you can learn in a day before the brain just fades out or or gets overflowed or your memory just gets overridden. So if there's a limited amount in what you can memorize each day, let's make sure we memorize the most important things we possibly can. So you can control that, right? So you can control the hours of the day that you invest your time in. What you can't control is the weeks and months when not yet turns into I'm there. That's the unknown. And what you learn with ADHD, and there's a great book by a guy called Johan Hari called Stolen Focus, is this constant engagement in technology and engaging what we call the task positive network of the brain, we have lost the ability to understand time. We can make time go very quickly because we can do scroll for two hours and it feels like 10 minutes. Back when we were bored and we didn't have that opportunity, we were far more thoughtful and considered, and we did a much deeper level of learning, which is cognitive engagement rather than passive consumption. Uh, so you can control not being on your phone. You can control the value of every second of your day. You you can do scroll on your phone, but do it with intention. Create a time in the day which is just not about learning. Uh, but on the flip side, when I say missionization, you should be able to create three objectives per day, like three, I'm going to achieve this today. And if you just give yourself 60 to 90 minute blocks with no interruption, on the balance, you will get them done. I I do it every day. So I know you can do it. Uh and what happens when you start this is you're way too optimistic. You know, the story, someone wants to run a marathon, they go out on their first day, they run 10 kilometers. I'm so unfit, I'm healthy, I can't run a marathon. Because they did they didn't control what they could control, which is the size of the expectation based on where you are in the journey. Um so you learn all these things when it comes to fighting a jet and being in air combat, but as I reflect back on it, it it works in everything. Replace fighter jet with life or skill set. Um the pilot is in control of that because that's, you know, you are in control of your life. You can you are in control of how you respond to things and what you invest your time in. And then from there, you got to take that life and that skill set and navigate the battle space uh and understand that the more you kind of write to memory what you can control, the easier it is to think on your feet when you're in battle.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah. I love what you I'm I got three examples I was just thinking of right when you said like the I'm not there yet. And I love that because saying that it can it keeps you on the journey and trying to get to where you're going to, but it also frees you from the I haven't been able to do it. And I was specifically thinking of three things. One was work. Um, you know, as I was learning, I've been in the recruiting space a little over 10 years now and learning sales. And I had leaders, thankfully, great leaders pouring into me. And they kind of used that a lot. Hey man, you you're on your path. You're just not there yet. Keep going, keep going. And then I remember getting to those points where I was there and looking back and being like, man, I can't wait to share this with someone else who's in that spot and can kind of share my knowledge on what that journey looks like. And then I actually used it this past weekend. I told you I was golfing. I have a friend who's better than me. Um, I'm bigger than him. I should outdrive him, but I haven't been able to. But last year, I was like, next year I'm gonna outdrive you. It's I'm gonna do it. And then I did it this year, but it was last year was the mission of like, I'm not there yet, but I'm gonna do it. And I practiced and accomplished it. And then I was thinking personal life, my wife. We have financial goals or things we want to accomplish, and we're constantly keeping each other in check by saying, like, we're gonna get there. We're just not there yet. We're gonna get there, we're just not there yet. So the switch isn't disappointment because we're not there. It's almost more exciting because we know we can get there. We're working on it, we've we're taking the proper steps. But that just resonated really big with me because I've heard it and started using it. And I don't even know who taught me that or where I got it from, but the but the I'm not there yet, but I'm gonna get there thought is something I practice a lot. And I'm glad I do because it probably, if I didn't think that way, maybe it would make me a little more, I don't know, like sad that I'm not where I want to be. Or, you know, a lot of people they expect things to happen so fast, like you said, and it's there's this journey you got to go through for a everything you do, life, profession, anything.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, and it's you know, you're you're lucky in that you kind of think that way. A lot of people don't, you know, and it just the fact that you just said, wow, I've got all this knowledge, I can't wait to share it. That is not that is not how most leaders think. And again, you look at the statistics, like 73% of people don't trust their leaders. They think their leaders are in it for themselves. So you you're unique, mate, in in the way you see the world. The the circles that I mix in that where I'm implementing these programs, is it's like, oh wow, that's a that's that's this great, great idea. I've never even thought of that before. Um, and that's a great that that's a symptom for just being too caught up in the busyness of life that you're just not even or you've given up. You know, I think um it's Brene Brown, I'm gonna paraphrase her here, but she says, you know, disappointment lives in an unmet expectation. And there's kind of two things you can do when it comes to not meeting an expectation uh do the work and meet it or lower it. Uh and so much in life is lowering expectation. Uh it doesn't sound very high performance, but if you said to if the Air Force said, Okay, here we go, we've got 19, 20, 21-year-old kids coming off the street, no skills, nothing. Our expectation is for them to be a fighter pilot and that you've got one week, let's go. You it would you would just have a whole bunch of demotivated, horrible fighter pilots. But the system says, okay, it takes six years to become a really great fighter pilot. And we're gonna build a system where every single day of that six years is a little bit more than the day before. And we're gonna institutionalize that. And that just doesn't exist in anywhere in the world, right? You know, which is why everyone relies on talent. Um because talented people, you know, they're they're gifted in certain things and they find their niche and they're great. But at the same time, you don't have to be talented, right? If you're uh growth-minded and you spend every day, and in the world of fighter pilots, we call this the debrief, but the debrief in the world of the fighter pilots actually becomes an entire cognitive model for the person. You just look at everything. And in a debrief, you're just asking four questions. What's the expectation? What's reality? Why is there a gap between the two? And what's an action I can take in the next 24 hours to close the gap? Which is a really great way to chunk down uh ambition because ambition is big, actions are small, and bringing the two together is quite difficult for a human being to do because as we said before, we don't understand. Yeah, we just think it's called the optimism bias. We think everything is easier than it actually is. It's it's it's I guess how we do dumb stuff like go and hunt saber-tooth tigers and mammoths back in the day, jump out of aeroplanes. I don't know, but there's a yeah, there's a certain amount of evolution that needs that. But when you're running teams and you want the optimum performance in leadership, yeah, it's not a great model to rely on. It just leaves your results to chance rather than kind of guaranteeing them.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yeah. I'm glad you brought up debrief because I was going to ask you about that because I saw like the four-step process that you have when you're working with with these companies and organizations, and I specifically looked at it in your Afterburner Advantage book. And what is the challenge? Because these organizations you all work with, large enterprise companies, they've got to, they've got to move fast. There's there's shareholder value they've got to exceed or meet. And so a lot of times they're probably just running 100 miles an hour, you know, just trying to get things done. How do you get buy in from these leaders to implement maybe a time where they they pause, look at everything, see what needs to be changed, but also take that time as they do things to debrief instead of just moving on to the next thing and trying to correct on the go? How do you, and I and I'm sure you're explaining the importance to them of why they to do this, but but what I guess what are the the big challenges you all face and see in organizations and and again you've got sports pro you know sports uh leagues and and companies but what what's the big problems you see and and are able to help them uncover as they become better performers?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

I think importantly what people perceive as speed when you're not a fighter pilot is not speed. It's it's actually yeah it what you're sensing is this perception that there's not enough time. Yeah uh which is a situation you're creating. So the the fact that we don't have enough hours in the day is an own goal. It's it's self-induced. Uh and it's self-induced because we're reactive. And if you're a reactive person, there's plenty of things to react to every day. So therefore as you get to the end of the day you just feel like all I've done all day is just put out fires, which is language we hear all the time. So that means people are busy. Busy people don't have time to debrief. But the reason they are busy is because they're not debriefing. That's that's the point. So when we come into organizations that's the first one and the second one is oh we just don't have a culture that could do this. We couldn't sit in a room and admit to our mistakes right it's just not we we we just wouldn't do that. It's just too uncomfortable. So there's a few solutions to that the first is just commit to debriefing. So if you have a meeting in theory it's a debrief because most meetings are like where are we at? That's what most meetings are and leaders mostly use meetings as a security blanket. I mean fear is the overriding driver for leadership today. It's fear of missing something fear of missing a target fear of making a bad decision fear of looking like an idiot fear of being a loser. So if we just meet a lot then I feel more comfortable because I'm busy doing stuff. And there's this great study that was done in 2016 called Just Think. And in the study they put people in a white room in a white chair by themselves for six to 15 minutes and they said hey how did you enjoy that and it was not a great experience. So the study moved the environment and said you know what let's do it at home on the couch and they did it again. And people just had to sit there for six minutes or 15 minutes or in somewhere in between and they thought everyone would enjoy that more because you're just at home on the couch, right? And it was kind of the same didn't really enjoy it. And then one of the gentlemen on the on the study put his hand up and said look I cheated I turned on the television and that gave them another idea and they went back to the white room and this time they put a electrical wires on their ankles and a button on a table and they said how much would you pay for us not to shock you whilst you're sitting in the room and they're like I'll pay you five bucks don't shock me anyway turns out that during the study 67% of men and 23% of women hit the button and gave themselves an electric shock on their own. And 20% hit it twice. And one of the deductions that came out of the study is you know humans need stimulus and they would rather be busy even if it's doing the wrong thing than just be left with their own thoughts for six minutes. So this is this is the reactive mindset that's sort of programmed into a human and it's unprogrammed as a fighter pilot because everything that happens if you react to everything in combat you're going to die because there's just too much to react to so you've got to have a there's got to be a stimulus a pause a breath a process and then an action that comes afterwards. So so debriefing is that pause. So debriefing is the piece where we go, hey, let's take a breath. Let's ask ourselves where we're going. So right out the gate that's not how people review that's not how the New York Giants did it. That's not how the Broncos did it. That's not how the professional sporting teams I worked with in Australia did it. They just reviewed the mistakes and said do it differently next time. So it was a coach outside in hand of God whereas in a debrief it's inside out. It's the pilot self-diagnosing. And why that's important is because the pilot can link to what good looks like like this is what good looks like for me when I do the play correctly then we can say but it didn't happen today. For some reason and at this point I don't know what it was, I didn't get the result that I that I expected. But I know the ambition. So I know I know the not there yet destination I'm just at the not there yet phase of time. So the C it's called AUCA objective result cause action. So the C is what's the cause of this gap? If a human being engages in their own problem solving the probability of it being a memory is seven times higher than being told something, right? So if you troubleshoot, and the reason we do this as a team is because in a formation there might be a very young fighter pilot and they're like uh I don't know. And then there's going to be like a top gun instructor who kind of knows everything, uh, or a squadron commander or a flight commander there's going to be experience in the room. But if the pilot can't self-diagnose then the peer will come in and say look what was going through your mind what were the cues leading up to that moment where something went wrong and they deconstruct what we call deconstruct the timeline. So all the the thoughts and decisions and actions that led up to that. And then rather than say so do this next time you ask, so what would you do next time? And they will tell you and that's the action. So the point of a debrief is the action part. The point of corporate debriefs and professional sporting teams is is the is the looking back and saying you did this wrong. And and coaches fall into this trap where a lot of coaches feel like I've got to have all the answers. I'm the coach of an NFL team. And if I don't have all the answers I'm not a good coach. But the complete opposite is true. And with the Giants with the Broncos when we did debriefing we kicked the coaches out of the room. They weren't even in there during the debriefs. So the players did it first then the coaches came back in and they they tied the ribbon around the unknowns. Equally there was a lot of time invested in the offensive team the defensive team and the special teams but most of the issues were the on the gaps in between. So they started to debrief you know within their stovepipes but then also together because obviously when a defensive uh when a defensive formation was talking about what they were seeing that gave the offensive formation oh that's what I can observe in other teams. So you had this kind of uh peer group accountability learning rather than directive learning. And you know the the the New York Giants they they to this day were the worst performing team to ever win a Super Bowl and that was the very first NFL team we ever worked with at Afterburner. It wasn't me it was the team. And what's great about Afterburner is I can put any one of my 24 pilots into any organization anywhere in the world and they will still achieve that level of result because it's the DNA of how they think that that's the key here. So if you translate that into life and if you think of life as a journey on a journey where tomorrow should be a little bit better than it was today. And debriefing unlocks that and even when you have a stumble and tomorrow wasn't that good well you've still unlocked a learning point because there's always a reason you know in in football it was like oh it's football it's what happens it's football and it's like no it's not football. It's it's the player that dropped the ball the quarterback that threw the pick. Like everything that's happening here is a human root cause to it and then it starts to remove those excuses. You know it's like we expect there to be a certain error count on every game. And it's like okay so are we subconsciously telling the players go out there and make seven mistakes because that's okay? Or are we saying we want the minimum amount of mistakes and when it gets to seven we're going to have a really big debrief because that's that's not the number we want to get to uh and it's it's fascinating psychology. It's the it's I call it the egg egg and spoon race theory. Like if you or if you run with the egg and spoon and you don't look at the egg you're more six likely to get to the other end. But when you watch the egg you you start to micromanage it and it'll it'll fall off. So it's it's a little bit like that in in life as well it's like you can only do you can only focus on one thing at a time the brain can't do two things. So if if you're learning how to play golf there's probably 200 things you're not doing right right now. So you've just got to go through this I was on a podcast the other day with a um baseball coach uh and even he was sort of saying you know what I'm yeah I'm I'm teaching 12 year old kids how to play and I'm giving them three four things at a time to work on and I'm wondering why they're not you know developing and that's that's what you do as a fighter pilot. You're like nail this skill first got it locked in boom let's go on to the next skill got it locked in less even the first mission you fly is just literally pull back go up push forward go down left bank right bank fast and slow. I mean that's it that's that is how you start your journey as a fighter pilot. At the end of it, you know you're doing crazy stuff. You're flying with 48 other airplanes you're dropping bombs you're shooting stuff I mean it's just next level but yeah so I you know I I I I just feel like my whole purpose in life is to just help people understand that the potential within and that not realizing it is a self is a self-limiter. Like you're you're you are the handbrake, right? And and that once you start this reflective practice, I just call it reflecting with intention, intentional reflection so rather than just generally looking back and being hard on yourself, just dial it in to a small thing on a 24 hour basis that can just build these incremental goals. I mean by the time you fly your last by the time you get your fighter pilot qualification, that last mission, it's literally just the the tiniest step it's it's almost like a like a um what's the word? I can't remember it's a letdown a little bit. It's like oh is that the first time I flew solo in an F-18 Hornet, you know, 17 years and I flew it and I landed I'm like oh that's it that's my you know so so we have all these massive life dreams and ambitions and if you think of it as that's the only time I'm going to be happy is when I achieve the big goal. You know, the Air Force was awesome because I got to fly 400 missions and win or almost lose and lose one on the way and still get there. So you just you get every day to have a win. And that's just what we don't do very well as as humanity. We just we don't find joy because we can't create the small win each and every day.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah. Well for lack of a better term this is freaking awesome boo because I'm sitting here thinking I you know I played college football and I remember watching film and breaking things down and and debriefing and uh and it just seems like you do have to be intentional about it. And I was thinking it's probably it's probably tougher than ever for people or maybe there's more people now who aren't as intentional about it because you you talked about earlier you're like you can do stroll and you know and people just they get depressed and they don't know why but they're also not taking the time to debrief and look back and see like why they're depressed. It's more just kind of like blaming things and just you know so I think these conversations need to happen more like what you're doing and and your inspiration to help people discover what that what needs to be discovered man that's so important because there's there's never been more people who need help with this you know and you do it at a high level with companies organizations but but just just someone like myself who who would watch this conversation I would hope it would click and something would switch to where I look back and go like okay what am I doing um because with you you used the example of fighter pilot if you if you kind of overthink or you know you're you're gonna die potentially and and we don't have that as humans most most days with our decisions of it's life or death. But in a way it could be because if I don't if I'm not intentional about not scrolling and instead of doing that reading a book maybe I'm costing myself hundreds of thousands of dollars because I'm not improving my knowledge to be better at work or I'm not going to take the time to build a business you know and you're just you're losing all of these things and there's probably so many bad effects it can have on you by not being intentional and debriefing and figuring out how to maximize your life and to accomplish these things. And so you know we can I and I'm just sitting here thinking I was like wow there's probably so many people not living up to their potential and accomplishing great things just because of other factors and not debriefing and looking at you know how can they improve. So I just that was a thought going through my head as you were talking I was just like man this is so good.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yeah it's you know that's why I wrote the book the the next book's more you know the the other books were kind of textbooky this is a bit more story because I think you know for me I'm like how you know I get on stage and at keynotes as 200 people as the other day 3,000 people and you just know in one hour you're some people are going to go and do some work afterwards but most people aren't. So I wanted to just write a book that was really easy to read you know like like it's it's literally written for a 12 year old but it's written for CEOs because the concepts are so simple what it needs to do is break through the noise of of what life is in in the digital world. The book for me was like is this is this a way that I can re can connect with kind of individuals for for them I don't care I got not I got no skin in the game for a personal win here. I I I didn't write the book for me. You know I I just have seen people do it outside the Air Force I've I have watched companies grow 400% in a year when they really dial into this I get people who reach out to me eight years after I've spoken to them I've had someone tell me you know I was in the music industry I was on I was lying on my couch in my mom's house for three years I'd given up and I saw your keynote and now I'm running managing six bands and I've got my mojo back and it's like and I just did that debriefing stuff. Yeah you know so I'm I just watch it in action and I read a lot of books and I consume a lot and there's there's a lot of this is the problem and this is what you do out there in the world a little bit like this you need to 100% control everything in your life you control what you can control. But there's not a lot of here's how. And if there is here's how, it's like 10 steps here, 20 steps there, do this, journal. It's like your entire life is just given over to personal development and self-awareness, which in itself instills anxiety because when you start to become self-aware, the 11 million bit per second computer can really play tricks with you. So what I love about debriefing or what I love about the Orca mindset, because it's a mindset, is it's just four steps. That's it. It's the future connected to today, reflecting on the past and then driving action back into the future. So it covers the the the thing that we can't do very well, which is manage time. And it introduces a discipline or don't even call it a discipline just a good habit that allows you to finally optimize the hours in your day and to finally do things that on a daily basis surprise you with how well it went. And then what happens? You become confident you start to build your self-worth I am a worthy person because I get things done and people respect that you become more capable but most importantly you free up the bandwidth to be better at home. You you have more time to be a better dad a better mom you know a better brother a better a better son because right now the time where we're meant to be human and connected we have nothing left in the tank because technology sucked that out of us during the day and just fed us all that cheap dopamine. We don't get the dopamine hit from our bad fathers telling us we did a good job or or the dopamine hit from playing soccer in the backyard with your son for 45 minutes just tedious what feels like a tedious 45 minutes only to see him kick a goal that he's never kicked before you know so you know I I would love for to give people that time back in their life and to and to be reconnected as the universe is and in the world is taking us the other way.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

What what you your mission is like I said I think it's very much needed and it's incredible. And I I love having these conversations because it it inspires me to continue chipping away and de and debriefing and figuring out how I can be the best person for my wife and for my family and for my business and for my friends. And so I'm I'm constantly I feel like I'm thinking about that but now with with the term debrief I think it's something I'm gonna be more intentional about each day on just kind of maybe before I fall asleep even just thinking about okay how did today go?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

What do I want tomorrow to Yeah and it's you know I I I know people that journal and journaling's great but just if you just bring Aukra into it it's it's a little bit more intentional about the journaling because it's still it's good you know there's there's good psychology to get thoughts from your head and onto paper where all they're a bit more obvious you know but if you start to put action into it I mean if you think of most arguments that happen in a relationship are based on what someone's doing like you did this, you hurt me very rarely do we say, oh, okay, well what does good look like? But that's what the debrief does it it elevates what good looks like. It there's there's frustration there's emotional response in the world I'm feeling uh out of kilter. So the first thing I ask myself is what am I trying to achieve here? What does good look like? And in a relationship even if you just do that once a week with your husband or your wife, even your kids, it's like that that whole story I hate school I don't like schoolwork. Well we're caught in the doing we're not we're not lifting it to the aspiration. And it's like hey okay look let's let's not have a conversation about schoolwork or do your homework. You know what do you want to be in life? Like what does what gets you excited? We're we're you what what do what do you want to do with a I don't know I don't know well look let's give let's do the schoolwork because that's going to give you options right take a year off after school there's no there's no rush and let's let's take the 68% you're getting now and let's let's make that 70. Let's not make it 98. Yeah let's just make it 70 let's just get 2% more and that recurring mistake that you keep making in your math homework let's just dial that in this week let's just do that one thing because that one thing when you conquer it releases dopamine, oxytocin serotonin and endorphins which means all the other stuff gets easier as well. But it's the thing debriefing releases you from being bogged down in the negativity. It it it releases you from the burden of failure which releases cortisol and does the opposite it hards your energy and hards your brain power it's just it's it's a very in in psychology they call it cognitive behavioral therapy. It's it's effectively saying use your cognition your brain as therapy to modify the way you behave uh and that's kind of what debriefing does.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

No, that's perfect. Boo, I've got one last question for you and you I ask everyone this who comes on the podcast just from a books for guys standpoint. And you mentioned earlier you read a lot and so I'm curious to know um what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally or professionally and what's a book that you love to recommend to other people?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Look I think the probably there were two books that I read as a teenager before I joined the Air Force. And they were uh Norman Schwartzcock's biography and Colin Powell's Colin Powell's autobiography and they're big thick books but what what I took away from that was these two incredibly accomplished human beings you know one dude won the Gulf War and the other one was the Joint Chiefs at the time and then became you know a politician but when you read the books they were deeply human they they made mistakes they you know Colin Powell uh refurbished Volvos for goodness sake and I think for me that carried through my whole career is I never felt intimidated by authority because people can be right it's that whole not there yet and I would know that under all of these incredible leaders that I admired and they were my mentors they're all human you know everyone who takes a dump um and and that to me that those were the two most powerful books I really struggle with self-help books because you know the challenge with a lot of them is they're a silo that and they have to be to be able to be sold. You've got to silo your content right but success in life is about integration it's success in business is integration. You want to be a good business leader on a CEO you've got to be really good at integrating because there's a whole bunch of silos that need to be pulled together. And what I love about a fighter pilot as well is you're always trained right from the get-go to be an integrator which means that whenever you fly a mission we're all in service to the mission objective not to the hierarchy of the of the squadron and the organization and that as well you know I I know I think a lot of people long answer to a short question here sorry mate um you know for example a mentor people are afraid to ask someone to mentor them uh but again everyone's human and most people want to help it's just no one asks uh so I think those two books kind of gave me some insight into the humanity of of leadership. I don't think there's many books like that anymore because I don't think there's many leaders like that anymore. But that to me is is is really important and in and in flawless leadership one of the pillars of it is human-centric leadership and connection and having the time to do that.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Well hopefully what you guys are doing can help help spark more of those those leaders out there because they are needed. And and again Boo I mean I'm I've I'm personally taking so much away from this conversation I'm I mean I'm amped up I'm jacked up this is this has been one of my favorite conversations I have just because I love your positivity and clarity and purpose and in what you're trying to do and and what you have done already and I can only imagine just how many more people you'll be able to affect in a positive way with the work that you're doing and and just the way you speak of things and and how you want to help. You have the desire to help I you can hear it in your voice of just wanting to help people with with really not wanting anything in return. You just want to see people succeed and that's what I that's my favorite people to be around. I there's nothing better than seeing someone like I said earlier the light bulb clicks or you're able to help somebody we all want to help. It's you know what I take away is don't be afraid to ask for help and then don't don't be afraid to send the elevator back down to help others get to where you're at too when they reach out because that's a it's a really important thing. But Boo man this has been great. I'm so proud to spotlight your book on our website I know you've got another one coming out we're gonna we're gonna get that one spotlighted too I can't wait for that to drop and I'm so glad you brought that up but man thank you so much for taking the time to do this and and just keep doing what you're doing because because guys like me and I know people who are watch or listen to this, they're gonna take something from it, be inspired from it and hopefully you know make some changes do more debrief and improve you know all areas of life. So I really appreciate you coming on and and talking about that today.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Chris and look you know I equally I I find what you're doing very inspiring. I mean what you're doing with Book for Guys is so many people just wouldn't do it. You know it's it's it's not a hey I can scale this up and become a billionaire kind of uh commitment. You know it's a it's a genuine commitment to helping people be better. Uh and it must be a passion project it must consume an awful lot of time. So it's you know like minded I'm I'm so honored to be on the show and to uh to help you in any way I think what you guys what you're doing is phenomenal it's it's very very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah well we appreciate the kind words and and we'll keep chipping away at it and then doing what we can from our side but no appreciate it boo this was great.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Thanks mate so what's the next goal? I mean you got to do it.